Workforce - November/December 2016

workforce.com

November/December 2016

BOOMER BUST

Is ageism the last acceptable ‘ism’ in the workplace?

BLACK BELT, BRIGHT FUTURE

Deborah DiSanzo is focusing data to improve health care

2016 OPTIMAS AWARDS Spinning a New Culture at AbbVie

2016

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From Our Editors

READER FEEDBACK Stephen G. Largy offered his thoughts on the online story titled, “Banking on Diversity to Fill the Talent Pipeline”:

In a business world chockfull of data, numbers take center stage.That’s increasingly true in HR, too, where numbers take many shapes: revenue per employee, time to fill jobs and cost of attrition to name a few.

Here’s another important number: 21.That’s how many companies we’re recognizing this month as winners of the 2016 Workforce Optimas Awards.

Since 1991, the Optimas have recognized the best and brightest in human resources.

In this issue, you’ll see how this year’s award winners are driving results. More importantly, you’ll see the story behind the numbers.

Take biopharmaceutical company AbbVie for example. Here are the numbers on this year’s General Excellence award winner: three years into a spinoff from a 125-year-old parent company, 28,000 employees in 175 countries, 2015 revenue of $22 billion.

In HR,AbbVie delivered a robust employee engagement rate of 81 percent and remarkable 96 percent retention of top talent.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading how AbbVie delivered those numbers along with all the inspiring stories of this year’s Optimas winners.

— Mike Prokopeak, Editorial in Chief 4

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

A very good article with a very good approach to diversity hiring. It sounds as though U.S. Bank and Wallin Education Partners will end up with good candidates.

However, it is also important to note that they will end up with “good candidates” because of a well thought out, well implemented program of mentor-like support for education; and good hiring practices.The 10 annual Wallin Scholars mentioned are very likely well researched, well, interviewed, and well vetted.

In other words,“ ... the cream of the crop.”

The one major disservice in this article is the suggestion that a degree will guarantee an additional $1million in earnings over your lifetime. Assuming that a graduate finishes a four-year college/university at 22 years of age and works until they are 65 — these assumptions maximizing the number of years in the workplace — the calculations suggest an average $23,000 per year over the course of your work life.That might be possible for the cream of the crop, the top 5 percent, however, I seriously question those numbers when employers are regularly reporting that a BA is today’s high school diploma. Granted, it’s an arguable point; however, the statement related to the extra $1million earnings potential are the kind of statements that spawn unreasonable or uninformed expectations in today’s graduates.

Workforce.com/BankOnDiversity

Luke Bradley responded to Kris Dunn’s September/October column titled, “Blame the User, not the Technology”: I have personally used several of the larger, mainstream HRIS and ATS systems and I can attest that, for the most part, both — especially the latter — are big old piles of dog ****.Too strong? OK, how about a pig wearing lipstick?

My biggest beef with recruiters and other HR professionals who use HR technology is that they are either too ignorant of IT or too reticent for whatever reason to push back with their own IT departments who themselves are painfully ignorant of what their HR customers want and need, and far too likely to side with HR IT vendors when disputes or questions arise. In short, HR technology is an IT- and vendor-centric mess.

Blame the user? Spoken like someone who obviously is not a user of HR technology.

Blame the technology? Well, that would be equally absurd, as technology is just a thing and has no inherent power to do anything for which it might be blamed. Blame the technology developers, adopters (corporate IT departments), and vendors? Damned right, but blaming the users is a deplorable and laughable conclusion for anyone to reach Workforce.com/BlameTheUser

glcsprince responded to Susana Rinderle’s blog post titled, “The Problem With You vs.

Them”: This is one of those feel-good articles that can have little to do with reality. Inclusiveness is the new buzzword now being used in connection with diversity. Just what are the definitions of inclusiveness and diversity?

Who is going to define the parameters of what behavior should be included as inclusive or diverse? Should we accept the behavior of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, etc. in order to be inclusive or diverse? Of course not! The reality is that the definitions of inclusiveness and diversity are continually changing based on society’s and individuals’ changing morals and principles.These terms are used in the same manner that the term “fair” is used.

There are objective and measurable ways to determine an employee’s worth to an organization. It is important to have processes in place to clearly communicate how performance is measured and acceptable performance is defined.

Nonperforming employees should receive the appropriate warnings and should be terminated if they do not meet minimum expectations. Efficiency, creativity and productivity are measurable. Key performance ratios can be defined and used in almost every situation to objectively measure employees’ contribution to the organization.We need to demote the importance of these terms (inclusiveness, diversity, fairness, social injustice, etc.) in the scheme of running a business. Again, there are plenty of logical, consistent and measurable ways to determine an employee’s worth to an organization.

Workforce.com/YouvsThem We welcome your comments on these stories and others on our website.

Be sure to follow us and give us a shout on Twitter at @Workforcenews, too.

Hope to hear from you! november/december

2016

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A PUBLICATION OF November/December 2016 | Volume 95, Issue 10 PRESIDENT John R. Taggart jrtag@workforce.com

EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR EVENTS MARKETING MANAGER Anna Jo Beck Anthony Zepeda abeck@workforce.com azepeda@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, CFO, COO EDITORIAL INTERNS WEBCAST COORDINATOR Alice Keefe Kevin A. Simpson Alec O’Dell akeefe@workforce.com ksimpson@workforce.com aodell@workforce.com Nidhi Madhavan VICE PRESIDENT, nmadhavan@workforce.com EVENTS GRAPHIC GROUP PUBLISHER DESIGNER Clifford Capone VICE PRESIDENT, Tonya Harris ccapone@workforce.com RESEARCH AND lharris@workforce.com ADVISORY SERVICES VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS MANAGER EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Kimmel Vince Czarnowski skimmel@workforce.com Mike Prokopeak vince@workforce.com mikep@workforce.com RESEARCH MANAGER REGIONAL SALES Tim Harnett EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MANAGERS tharnett@workforce.com Rick Bell Derek Graham rbell@workforce.com RESEARCH ANALYST dgraham@workforce.com Grey Litaker GROUP EDITOR/ Daniella Weinberg clitaker@workforce.com ASSOCIATE EDITORIAL dweinberg@workforce.com DIRECTOR RESEARCH ASSISTANT ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Kellye Whitney Kristen Britt Brian Lorenz kwhitney@workforce.com kbirtt@workforce.com blorenz@workforce.com MANAGING EDITOR RESEARCH GRAPHIC DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS James Tehrani DESIGNER DEVELOPMENT, EVENTS jtehrani@workforce.com Theresa Stoodley Kevin Fields CONTRIBUTING EDITOR tstoodley@workforce.com kfields@workforce.com Frank Kalman MEDIA & PRODUCTION AUDIENCE fkalman@workforce.com MANAGER DEVELOPMENT Ashley Flora ASSOCIATE EDITOR DIRECTOR aflora@workforce.com Andie Burjek Cindy Cardinal aburjek@workforce.com ccardinal@workforce.com PRODUCTION COORDINATOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR DIGITAL MANAGER Nina Howard Lauren Dixon Lauren Lynch nhoward@workforce.com ldixon@workforce.com llynch@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS ASSOCIATE EDITOR DIGITAL COORDINATOR Trey Smith Bravetta Hassell Mannat Mahtani tsmith@workforce.com bhassell@workforce.com mmahtani@workforce.com EVENT CONTENT COPY EDITOR LIST MANAGER MANAGER Christopher Magnus Mike Rovello Ashley Collins cmagnus@workforce.com acollins@workforce.com hcmlistrentals@infogroup.com

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER Melanie Lee mlee@workforce.com LEAD GENERATION ADMINISTRATOR Nick Safir nsafir@workforce.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jennifer Benz Robert S. Cooper Marty Denis Kris Dunn Sarah Fister Gale Jon Hyman Mark T. Kobata Rita Pyrillis

WORKFORCE EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Arie Ball, Vice President, Sourcing and Talent Acquisition, Sodexo Angela Bailey, Associate Director and Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Kris Dunn, Chief Human Resources Officer, Kinetix, and Founder, Fistful of Talent and HR Capitalist Curtis Gray, Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Administration, BAE Systems Jil Greene, Vice President, Human Resources and Community Relations, Harrah’s New Orleans Ted Hoff, Human Resources Vice President, Global Sales and Sales Incentives, IBM Tracy Kofski, Vice President, Compensation and Benefits, General Mills Jon Hyman, Partner, Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis Jim McDermid, Vice President, Human Resources, Cardiac and Vascular Group, Medtronic Randall Moon, Vice President, International HR, Benefits and HRIS, Lowe’s Cos. Dan Satterthwaite, Head of Human Resources, DreamWorks Dave Ulrich, Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Workforce (ISSN 2331-2793) is published bi-monthly by MediaTec Publishing Inc., 111 E. Wacker Dr., Suite 1200, Chicago IL 60601. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workforce, P.O. Box 8712 Lowell, MA 01853. Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals within the US and Canada.

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FREE LIVE

ONLINE EVENTS

CONTENTS

ON THE COVER 2016 OPTIMAS AWARDS

Workforce announces the Optimas Gold and Silver winners in this, the 26th anniversary of the Optimas Awards.

COVER PHOTO BY JEFF MILLIES

36

2016

SPECIAL REPORT 52 RELOCATION

There’s innovation with planning mobility assignments but firms struggle to prove their value.

8

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FEATURES 26 BOOMER BUST

Age bias appears to be the last acceptable workplace ‘ism’ as older workers struggle to stay relevant among millennials.

PROFILE 30 A BLACK BELT IN LIFE SAVING

IBM Watson Health’s Deborah DiSanzo takes on health care issues with one vision and an immense amount of data. november/december

2016

PHOTOS BY FRED LEVY

26

ON THE WEB SPEAK UP!

The Workforce online community provides you with virtual meeting places to chat about issues and trends affecting you and your workplace.

LIKE US: facebook.com/workforce.magazine

FOLLOW US: twitter.com/workforcenews

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JOIN THE GROUP: workforce.com/LinkedIn

WATCH US: workforce.com/youtube

TRENDING

COLUMNS 4

YOUR FORCE

The numbers for AbbVie tell a story of General Excellence.

14 WORK IN PROGRESS

What does Glassdoor’s new tool offer HR?

20 BENEFITS BEAT

Changing health care experiences.

24 THE PRACTICAL EMPLOYER

Prescribed drugs blur drug test policies.

58 THE LAST WORD

Wearable wellness is on me — and you

november/december

2016

FOR YOUR BENEFIT 16 SEEKING FIXED PHARMACY COSTS

Specialty drugs expected to push company pharmacy spending 7.3% in 2017.

17 TAKING THE PAIN OUT OF THE NECK There are best practices employers can use to limit musculoskeletal disorders.

17 A WEIGHTY CHALLENGE

Participation in workplace weight loss programs presents a challenge.

18 GENETIC TESTING GETS TOOTHY

One company’s genetic test aims to save big on medical by investing in dental.

10 GIRLS WHO CODE

Accenture attracts young women in India who want to code.

11 PEOPLE MOVES AND BY THE NUMBERS

Kelsey Martin to Bristlecone; holiday perks.

12 MISSION CRITICAL

Richard Spires has a deep background in cybersecurity.

LEGAL 22 SOCIAL MEDIA’S WILD FRONTIER Social media court rulings are often unpredictable.

23 LEGAL BRIEFINGS

Franchising; unfair tests.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

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TRENDING

Where Girls Go to Code In a time when women are eschewing engineering careers, Accenture is attracting them in droves.

By Sarah Fister Gale

I

for the technology industry, more than 5.1 million people worked in core technology jobs in the United States at the end of 2015, but just 25 percent of those jobs were held by women.

And the numbers appear to be dropping, not climbing.

“Despite being digital natives, girls’ interest in tech jobs decreases dramatically by the time they enter high school,” said Welcoming women to tech is key to the industry’s future.

Carolyn April, CompTIA’s senior direc- Code, a nonprofit group that hosts coding tor of industry research.The study shows camps and immersion programs to attract just 18 percent of girls entering high girls to tech career paths. Girls Who Code school report an interest in a tech career, and Accenture released research in Octodown from 27 percent in middle school. ber showing the number of U.S. women If recruiters want to hire women into in technology jobs will fall to a new low tech roles, they can’t wait until college to over the next 10 years, despite efforts to start looking for them,April said. close the gender gap in tech. The report, Boston-based CompTIA en- “Cracking the Gender Code,” identifies courages companies to begin strategies to drive girls’ interest in computengaging with girls as early as ing, and includes things like supporting high school and even middle tech-focused summer camps geared toschool by supporting tech cur- ward girls, and offering all undergraduates riculum development efforts, on-campus and summer immersion promeeting with girls associations, grams in computing/coding. and support summer camps and “Too often girls don’t pursue computer high school internship pro- science because they’ve never been exgrams. “We need to raise aware- posed to it, or they don’t see the impact it ness among younger girls that can make on the world,” said Girls Who these are great careers,” she said. Code founder and CEO Reshma Saujani.

Another popular option is “By actually embedding classrooms in toAccenture CHRO Ellen Shook, center, takes selfies with newly hired women techies in Bangalore, India. partnering with Girls Who day’s leading companies that create prod-

PEOPLE

moves

To be considered for People Moves, email a brief announcement and a high-resolution color photo to editors@workforce.com.

Include People Moves in the subject line.

10

ELIZABETH BERMAN Senior care company Hometeam named Elizabeth Schepp-Berman as chief people officer. Berman will oversee and expand the Hometeam HR department as well as shape hiring strategy for the company as it expands across the country.

Berman will report directly to CEO and founder Josh Bruno.

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

GREG CUNNINGHAM U.S. Bank has promoted Greg Cunningham to vice president of global inclusion and diversity.

Cunningham joined U.S. Bank in September 2015 as vice president of customer engagement. Cunningham will direct all of the bank’s diversity and inclusion activities.

KELSEY MARTIN Alternative consumer finance company Bristlecone named Kelsey Martin as chief people officer. Martin will foster and nurture Bristlecone’s ranch-style culture, oversee all HR processes, policies and procedures, and manage talent development. She will take on the role after serving two years as director of people and culture. november/december

2016

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ACCENTURE

n late September, Accenture’s Ellyn Shook welcomed 1,200 new female engineers to the company at an onboarding event at its offices in India.

“That day was one of the most memorable in my career,” the consulting giant’s chief human resources officer said. The welcome party was hardly unique for Accenture, which has enjoyed great success in attracting female tech candidates. In 2015, the company set a goal that 40 percent of new hires — most of which are engineering roles — would be women by the end of fiscal 2017, then exceeded that goal a year early. As of August 2016, 41.1 percent of the 90,000 new hires at Accenture were women.

This accomplishment is especially impressive considering the dearth of women entering tech fields. According to data from CompTIA, a nonprofit association

TRENDING

By the Numbers

ucts girls use every day, we show them, ‘Look, you can do this.

You can code this.This is a world that is open to you, and once you learn this skill set, the possibilities are endless.’ ” Accenture is one of 60 companies that partners with Girls Who Code to support their camps and research efforts. The company is also increasing its presence on engineeringfocused college campuses t h ro u g h sponsorships, participation in curriculum development, and hosting hackathons, innovation initiatives and other on-campus events. These long-term strategies help build relationships and brand awareness with female engineering students.

“You can’t just say, ‘We want to hire more women,’ ” Shook said. “We are trying to show these women that we are worthy of hiring the best talent.”

Hiring is just the first step. A report from the National Society of Women in IT shows 56 percent of women in tech leave their jobs m i d - c a re e r, which is incredibly costly for the companies that train them.

To reduce that attrition, companies need to think more strategically about what women need in the workplace to succeed — and what is standing in their way, Shook said. She points to a conversation she had with a new mom who after returning from maternity leave asked Shook if the company would pay to have her breast milk shipped home when she was working at client sites.

Shook agreed, but the request spurred her team to look

more closely at the true source of the problem: nursing moms being away from their children.

A month later, the company implemented a policy that new parents don’t have to work outside their home city for the first year of their child’s life.

“That program reduced attrition among new moms by 30 percent in the first year,” she said.

In a similar effort, the company created a development track for female engineers in India to pursue a certified technical architect degree, which is one of the most highly sought-after skill sets in the tech world. The certification allows engineers to “write their own ticket and to work where and when they want,” Shook said.

It gives them more power to achieve the work-life balance they need to support their families while staying actively engaged in their career. The key is looking for the root cause of the problem, then figuring out how to address it, Shook said. “You can’t make significant improvements without disrupting the way you do things.”

That level of change can be difficult to achieve, but for business leaders who want to build a diverse and engaged workforce and a strong female engineering staff, it needs to be done, April argued. “They need to think more creatively about how they are going to feed their talent pipelines with female candidates,” she said. “There are no quick fixes, but organizations that advocate for women will see a strong return on these investments down the road.”

“ONCE YOU LEARN THIS SKILL SET, THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.”

november/december

2016

compiled by Rick Bell

Ham, gift card or Jelly-of-the-Month Club membership?

The Expectations

22%

small-biz employers giving salary bonuses

employed Americans who expected to receive a holiday bonus

52%

Source: Bank of America Small Business Report, 2015

Source: Bankrate Money Pulse Survey, 2015

Santa or Grinch?

Employers and their office perks

44% Close the office during the holidays 40% Give gifts to employees 33% Flex hours or vacation time Source: Bank of America Small Business Report, 2015

Party Planners Companies spreading their holiday cheer.

serve alcohol

66%

90%

80%

sponsor a holiday celebration

impose alcohol safeguards

Source: Bloomberg BNA Year-End Holiday Practices Survey, 2015

How much per person?

The average per-employee spent on a party. Source: SurePayroll

Who’s hookin’ up? having sex 25% Americans fueled by the office holiday party.

Source: Tasty Catering

5 popular party themes A Christmas Story Masquerade Ball Nightmare Before Christmas Santa’s Workshop The Chocolate Factory Source: Harris Interactive, 2014

workforce.com | w Workƒorce orkforce.com 10| Workƒorce

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TRENDING

FROM THE WEB

CYBERSECURITY: IT’S MISSION CRITICAL FOR BUSINESS

By Rick Bell

Richard A. Spires, CEO, Learning Tree International

Richard A. Spires may now be the CEO of Learning Tree International, but his background in cybersecurity goes much deeper.

Having spent more than 30 years in IT, Spires was chief information officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as well as CIO for the Internal Revenue Service. He also served as the vice chairman of the Federal Government CIO Council and as the co-chairman of the Committee for National Security Systems. Workforce editorial director Rick Bell caught up with Spires via email.

Workforce: What role does HR play in cybersecurity?

Richard A. Spires: Effective cybersecurity requires the proper application of technology, process and people. Having a staff with the skills and experience in cybersecurity is the most critical aspect for success. Given the reported 2 million person worldwide shortage in cybersecurity personnel, it is a virtual war for talent. An HR organization that works with the CIO and CISO in both support for recruiting, but more importantly development programs to develop cybersecurity talent from within the organization, is critical for success.

WF: What questions should recruiters be asking of candidates in regards to cybersecurity?

Spires: I look for individuals that have the general traits necessary to develop their abilities to become very skilled cybersecurity professionals. In particular, I look for individuals that have strong analytical skills and the ability to understand and deal with complex systems. They don’t need to be computer engineers or scientists, but today’s IT environment is highly complex and most cybersecurity tools require significant in-depth knowledge and analysis of information to be effective. Individuals that enjoy problem solving in a complex environment thrive with this type of work.

WF: Where does cybersecurity start in an organization? In IT? The CEO’s office?

Spires: In today’s environment, cybersecurity has become one of the leading (if not leading) risks to many organizations. As such, cybersecurity risk awareness and management needs to start in the C-suite and the board room. This is now way beyond the IT organization, and business units of an organization need to be involved in understanding the risks and helping in determining and executing plans to mitigate those risks.

WF: Do you ever hear, “We make widgets. Why should we spend money to negate cyber-attacks?”

Spires: The good news is that I rarely hear this type of statement anymore. The publicity of major breaches at places like Target and Sony Pictures has sensitized everyone to the reality that no one is immune. All major organizations have significant IT systems today, even if the organization has only the need for back office systems (like HR and payroll). Even in these cases, the organization is holding sensitive information on their employees. The awareness is a good thing for organizations, although I believe that many organizations are still under-invested and have a weak cybersecurity posture.

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TECH TIME IN CHICAGO Workforce editors Andie Burjek and Rick Bell spent a lot of time at Chicago’s McCormick Place recently as Workday presented its Workday Rising conference, and the 19th annual HR Technology Conference and Expo rolled through town. Check out their blogs on both events.

Workforce.com/HRtech16 DIVERSE DISCUSSIONS White people shouldn’t take diversity discussions personally, blogs Kellye Whitney. After receiving a letter from a white man who attended a Latino employee resource group session, Whitney determines that’s often easier said than done. But when emotions take over, learning and empathy may fall by the wayside.

Workforce.com/WhiteMan 5 MINUTES OF MANAGEMENT The ever-popular video series hosted by Rick Bell and Frank Kalman, which is now on Workforce’s very own YouTube channel as well as Workforce.com, examines the bottle of juice that cost a company $277,000 and federal requirements to provide pay data based on gender and race. Rick and Frank also mull Wells Fargo’s shady sales tactics and take a quiz on rebranding.

Workforce.com/PriceyJuice november/december

2016

# hellowork That’s the great thing about work — life.

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Visit adp.com/benefits to see how we can provide a more human resource for your business.

ADP and the ADP logo are registered trademarks of ADP, LLC. ADPnAomore v e mhuman b e r /resource. d e c e misbaeservice r 2 0 mark 1 6 of ADP, LLC. Copyright © 2016 ADP, LLC.

Payroll |wBenefi | Love of Work o r k f otsr cAdministration e . c o m | Workƒorce 13

TRENDING

Wo r k i n P r o g r e s s

SEEING THROUGH GLASSDOOR’S NEW TOOL

By Kris Dunn

A

h yes, Glassdoor. As people like to say when they’re in My company’s business is recruiting, and our core posirelationship of questionable health, it’s complicated. tion has total compensation that’s 50 percent base and 50 Glassdoor launched a new tool late this year called percent commission. We have employees who earn a very Know Your Worth, which is designed to help employees good living working for us. So when I got the aforementiocalculate their market value, or earning potential, based ned email asking me to Know My Worth (I’ve reviewed my on characteristics of their current job, experience and the company on Glassdoor in the past), as an HR leader I wanlocal job market. ted to know what employees would see.

To use the new tool, an individual enters a few basic The good news is that Know Your Worth gladly accepted details, including their job title, employer, salary, other to- the commission target as part of an employee’s total comtal comp figures, location and years of relevant work ex- pensation potential.The bad news is it ignored the commisperience, and Glassdoor tells your employee whether sion when evaluating if that position was compensated fairly they are underpaid. by looking only at the base salary.

Most of you who read this space are HR or recruiting The tool provided no qualifier that the information wasn’t pros and leaders.That means a couple of things. First, you’ve being evaluated in its full context — total comp or total redealt with plenty of salary issues in your time. wards — even when it was provided.

You also probably have been solicited by Glassdoor to beFinally and perhaps ironically, during the mid-October come a customer, with the pitch being they can help man- Know Your Worth launch, Glassdoor sent HR and reage your company reputacruiting leaders a whitepation as a job board. per guide on leading more Becoming a new-age job effective salary conversaboard is where the rub tions with a focus on total comes in. To monetize, compensation.

Glassdoor has to have someYou know the conversaone pay for the service. tions — the ones caused by That’s you, the HR or reGlassdoor when they cruiting leader. emailed every employee Glassdoor needs to keep who has created a review on your employees coming to your company to question the site. The employee eyetheir compensation, then balls/attention are really the product. delivered only part of the picture.

For a long time that’s been employee reviews. But when And yes, those are the same reviews that were generated employees create reviews, they’re given the opportunity to using Glassdoor templates and communication tools many provide their salary. Glassdoor has been aggregating salary of you paid Glassdoor to provide when you became a cordata for a long time. porate customer of Glassdoor.Wow. How does Glassdoor really feel about HR and recruiting I’m on record for believing in Glassdoor, more specifically leaders? Let me walk you through a couple of components the fact that the review economy is a reality and HR/reto the Know Your Worth launch and let’s evaluate together. cruiting leaders have to acknowledge the presence and powRemember when Glassdoor told you that promoting er of Glassdoor and have a strategy to engage. company reputation/reviews to your employee base is imBut Glassdoor isn’t being a partner with tools like Know portant? We agreed with that and with or without Glass- Your Worth.They’re attempting to drive more eyeballs, build door’s help, began asking employees to consider writing re- a database and generally reach critical mass to do what’s reviews at our company. quired to maximize their primary objective — get a slice of Guess how Glassdoor thanked you for that partnership? your recruiting budget.

It just sent an invite to all reviewers (your employees) tellToo much of Glassdoor’s business is employee dissent.And ing them you might be underpaying them and they should in that regard, business seems to be good. fact check whether they should trust your company via Too bad your needs as an HR/recruiting leader aren’t on Know Your Worth.

Glassdoor’s radar as well.

When they click through, they’ll find a product that is incomplete, but that won’t stop Glassdoor from telling your Kris Dunn, the chief human resources officer at Kinetix, is a Workforce employees it gives you a 100 percent accurate read. contributing editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

TOO MUCH OF GLASSDOOR’S BUSINESS IS EMPLOYEE DISSENT. AND IN THAT REGARD, BUSINESS SEEMS TO BE GOOD.

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november/december

2016

I’M

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THAN MY JOB. I’M THE

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My SHRM membership helps me examine HR situations as more than black or white. Local meetings and online forums provide an outlet for feedback, so I know I’m approaching issues with honesty and compassion. Online tools like sample policies and documentation templates help me put forth the best guidelines for our organization.

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15

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

EpiPen Scandal Causes Companies to Scramble Specialty drugs are expected to push total corporate pharmacy spending by 7.3 percent in 2017.

By Rita Pyrillis

W

hen the manufacturer of the life saving EpiPen raised its to ask who is getting price to $600 in May reflecting a five-fold increase since those rebates?”

2009, a public outcry ensued with consumers and politicians acOverall pharmacy cusing the company of price gouging. spend is expected to Employers say the controversy offers a glimpse into the chal- increase by 7.3 perlenges they face in managing soaring drug costs. cent in 2017, with “It illustrates that employers, insurers and patients are really specialty drugs acdependent on the reasonableness and good behavior of drug counting for most of manufacturers in terms of pricing because our patent systems that increase, accordand rules for competition really give them a lot of leeway,” ing to a recent resaid Steven Wojcik, vice president or public policy at the Na- port by the NBGH. tional Business Group on Health. “It illustrates the issue that is Spending on speof great concern for employers — the growing expenditures cialty pharmaceutifor specialty drugs. It’s not sustainable for plans and it’s not cals is expected to affordable for individuals.” increase by 16.8 perMylan, the company that sells EpiPens, raised the price of the cent next year. In injectable drug to $600 — up from $100 in 2009. The device response, employers contains epinephrine, which is an inexpensive but potentially are getting more aglife-saving medication used to treat severe allergic reactions and gressive about mananaphylactic shock. aging specialty drug With practically no competitors, it’s difficult for insurance use. carriers, pharmacy benefits managers and employers to negoti“There is much more aggressive utilization management,” ate better prices with Mylan.

Wojcik said. “Employers are making sure that the medication is purchased by a specialty pharmacy rather than going through a physician’s office, they are adding specialty tiers to their drug formularies, coaching patients on adhering to their medications, making sure the drugs are administered properly, among other strategies.”

And pharmacy benefit managers, which act as the middleman between employers and pharmaceutical companies, are also revising their strategies around specialty drug costs.

In August, Express Scripts announced that it plans to guarantee —DAVID WHITRAP, EXPRESS SCRIPTS per-patient spending caps on all diabetes medications as part of its Diabetes Care Value Program, which will be implemented in “They’ve got people in a bind — the insurer, the PBM, the March 2017.The program is part of a larger effort to control speemployer and the patient,” Wojcik said. “They don’t have many cialty drug costs called Express Scripts SafeGuardRx.The program tools to negotiate.” was launched in 2015 to improve access to and negotiate discounts In an effort to mitigate the cost, the company began offering for costly specialty drugs that treat hepatitis C, cholesterol and savings cards to help consumers with their copayments and in cancer. This year, the pharmacy benefit managers also developed late August it announced the release of a generic version of the an inflation protection program that covers the cost of medicaEpiPen. tions if those costs rise above a capped amount.

Most drug manufacturers offer coupons and rebates, which “Each cap is client specific,” said David Whitrap, senior direccan help reduce costs in the short-term, but do little to help tor of corporate communications for Express Scripts. “If an ememployers manage costs over the long run,Wojcik said. ployer’s spending goes above the cap we will cover the price for Often, it’s unclear how much of the savings are passed on to all those medications.” employers and therefore trickle down to the employees, accordWhitrap said that Express Scripts is the first pharmacy benefit ing to Mercer consultant Raymond Brown, a leader in the managers to offer this kind of inflation protection but that othfirm’s pharmacy practice. ers will likely follow.

“Whoever is negotiating with the manufacturer is trying to ne“This is a new way of managing pharmacy benefit costs,” he gotiate a good price with rebates,” he said. “The issue is how do said. “It involves risk sharing and putting our money where our you keep the savings flowing to the plan sponsor? Employers have mouth is.”

“THIS IS A NEW WAY OF MANAGING PHARMACY BENEFIT COSTS. IT INVOLVES RISK SHARING AND PUTTING OUR MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTH IS.”

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2016

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Taking the Pain Out of the Neck, and Back, and …

Workplace Weight Loss: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Time for companies to get straight on musculoskeletal disorder best practices.

By Rita Pyrillis

By Andie Burjek ven work you enjoy can be a pain — for both employers and employees.

Musculoskeletal disorders, which are conditions related to movement of the body and characterized by pain, have been one of the leading disabling conditions of the past five years, said Terri Rhodes, CEO of the Disability Management Employer Coalition. Such disorders affect more than 50 percent of people 18 and older, according to Unum, and they account for almost 30 percent of workers’ compensation costs, the health insurer said.

Musculoskeletal disorders include neck pain, back pain, arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, among other ailments. One major cause related to the workplace is prolonged periods of sitting, said Rhodes.

“Twenty or 30 years ago, our work environment was more manufacturing, whereas today it’s more technology,” Rhodes added.“So we have more and more people sitting for long periods of time without really adjusting their body mechanics.”

A sit-stand workstation is one accommodation that addresses musculoskeletal disorders, she said. Also effective are proper lifting and back-safety programs. Companies also can adopt an ergonomics program, in which companies provide employees with workstations, tools and equipment meant to reduce physical stress on their bodies.

Employees can also learn the benefits of good posture, back support and how to use a keyboard in the least stressful way.

Organizations can get inspiration from internal workers’ compensation experts, who have been touting preventive programs for years, Rhodes said, adding that companies often don’t take advantage of their in-house expertise.

“The workers’ comp side of the house has been doing these kinds of preventative programs for a long time,” she said.

Wellness programs can also address musculoTerri Rhodes skeletal disorders, she added. Gym memberships, weight-loss programs and step-count competitions already push increased movement, and more specific to the disorders, companies with the resources to do so could offer onsite ergonomics or onsite physical therapy, she said.

Taking these measures can not only limit but potentially prevent future musculoskeletal disorders, but convincing the ambivalent younger generation, which can have a “mindset of invincibility,” is another story, said Rhodes.

“For a wellness program to work, employees have to really be interested in it,” she said. “And unfortunately many employees don’t get to that point until there’s been an injury or some kind of condition that requires them to think about their health.”

One way to make musculoskeletal disorder prevention more attractive to younger workers is to tie it to something they do care about, Rhodes said.There’s a general trend that young people are more anti-medical and care about controlling their own health. Employers could speak to younger workers about ways they could care for themselves, and it shouldn’t be the same way they speak to baby boomers.

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here is no shortage of workplace wellness programs that focus on weight loss, but getting employees to participate in them is a challenge for employers who struggle to overcome the shame and stigma associated with obesity, among other obstacles.

“Understanding that negative emotions — guilt shame, loneliness — create barriers to effective behavior change is the core of long-term weight-control success,” said Dr. Jeremy Nobel, medical director at the Northeast Business Group on Health. “We talk about ways to provide information, education and support so that those barriers can be overcome.”

In addition to creating awareness of the emotional issues triggered by body weight, a recent NEBGH report recommends that employers adopt personalized weight loss programs as opposed to the more common “one-size fits all” approach.

The report, titled “Tipping the Scales on Weight Control: New Strategies for Employers,” recommends creating programs that are tied to an employee’s body mass index. For example, a program for employees with a BMI of less than 30 would include nutrition, fitness and behavioral coaching, subsidized gym memberships and digital health programs, while employees with higher BMIs would also have access to medically supervised weight loss programs and drug therapies.

“A foundation of this approach is treating the person as a whole being and doing it thoughtfully,” Nobel said. “Personalization prevents stigma. It is about understanding people’s attitudes, beliefs, skills and their environment.”

The report highlights successful efforts at three companies, including insurance carrier Aetna, which offers a virtual personalized coach and voluntary genetic testing that identifies genetic markers for obesity. According to the report, threefourths of participants lost weight at an average of 10 pounds after one year and improved their levels of triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein. Aetna reported that participants generated monthly savings in health care costs of $122 per employee compared to the control group.

Employers looking to launch a weight loss intervention must take into account the individual needs of employees and make sure that their communications strategy reflects that.

“Don’t treat this population as a single homogenous group,” he said. w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

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FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Genetic Testing Gets Toothy Test as a Workplace Benefit Investing in dental care aims to save big on medical costs.

By Andie Burjek

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mway Corp. is joining a growing list ents legal hurdles that of large employers adopting genetic could limit wider use, said testing as a workplace benefit.

Seth Perretta, partner with Starting in January, the multilevel Groom Law in Washingmarketing giant will offer genetic test- ton, D.C. ing by Interleukin Genetics Inc., a Companies can’t reWaltham, Massachusetts, developer of quire employees to take a genetic tests for chronic inflammatory medical exam under the diseases such as heart disease, diabetes Americans with Disabiliand arthritis. Using a cheek swab, Inter- ties Act. Under the Geleukin’s ILUSTRA genetic risk test, netic Information Nonpreviously called PerioPredict, can de- discrimination Act, or Seth Perretta tect a person’s tolerance of inflamma- GINA, a federal law pro- Tom Boehr tion levels, said Interleukin CEO Mark tecting people from genetic discrimination this in their group health plan to encourage Carbeau. Proper dental care can lower in health care and employment, employers employees to expand their awareness of inflammation levels, which affect other can’t tie a financial incentive to the com- their personal health risks and the various areas of health, like risk of diabetes, pletion of a genetic testing program. resources available to them, said Tom Boehr, heart disease and stroke, he said.

“Offering genetic testing outside a manager of corporate wellness and em“Inflammatory burden systemically is major medical plan would be rife with ployee engagement at Amway, in an email. created by bacteria in your gums, so the legal risk for the employer,” said Perretta.

“The offering is another form of educanotion is if we clean up your mouth, we “It would almost certainly have to be tion that Amway is introducing to its emcan cool down a large source of chronic structured as part of the major med plan ployees in order to further empower them inflammation and that allows the body to or limited to folks enrolled in an em- to make health care choices that are in control and manage those other sources ployer-sponsored med plan. And it their best interest,” Boehr said. Genetic more effectively,” Carbeau said. would have to be fully voluntary.” testing is still new in the benefits space, but Amway joins the likes of Visa Inc. and Still, there’s value to it, Perretta added. Winkler believes that, like “many things in insurer Aetna Inc. to introduce genetic “But for some reason Congress has clearly our lives that are technology enabled, there testing for employees.Visa is offering ge- spoken that from a policy perspective, is probably an element of inevitability to netic testing for breast and ovarian cancer, they’d rather have the ailment manifest it- this. It’s just a question of, ‘Is it in the next while Aetna implemented a pilot pro- self prior to an employer getting involved.” year? The next five years? The next 20 gram testing employees at risk for heart There are also privacy concerns. It can years?’ ” he said. disease, stroke and diabetes. Companies feel like a step down the path of the emThe technology involved and the including venture capital firm Andrees- ployer getting too involved in the personal equipment used are becoming more effisen Horowitz and online survey compa- lives of its employees, said Jim Winkler, cient and less expensive. Ten years ago, ny SurveyMonkey also are using genetic Aon Hewitt’s health management practice the costs to isolate specific attributes of testing among their employee population. leader. Employees need to know that their DNA was in the tens of thousands of Genetic testing in the workplace pres- employers won’t have access to the data, dollars, and today it’s in the hundreds of and employers have to dollars, Winkler said. Possibly, as genetic communicate that effec- testing solutions become less expensive, tively, he said. consumers may become more interested, Interleukin’s program at which point employers wouldn’t even is a voluntary benefit that necessarily have to offer the benefit. is covered by GINA. InHe compared it to Fitbits and other terleukin explains to the wearable devices. Five years ago, the only employer the test’s pur- people who used them were the ones pose and how it would who got them from their employer. Now, be used, but only pro- they have a huge commercial market. vides the genetic infor“You could start to see this in the mation to the employee’s genetic testing space as well — over individual dentist. what period of time, I don’t know,” Amway chose to offer he said.

Mark Carbeau Jim Winkler 18

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FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Benefits Beat

CHANGING HEALTH CARE — AND PAYMENTS

By Jennifer Benz

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or any HR pro, feedback is golden. When it is connected to a program that saves significant health care costs, improves the quality of care, and gets an employee back to work sooner, it might even sound too good to be true.

And what if I added that the program was also part of changing the entire health care system for the better?

That’s the potential of payment reform, a set of initiatives — and new health care models — being created by employers, advocacy groups, and new companies to change the way we pay for care. We all know that our health care system needs revolutionary change. Fixing the way we pay for health services is key to that change.

Currently, the majority of health care falls into a fee-for-service model.

This means that doctors, nurses, hospitals and other facilities and providers are paid for each service they deliver — the volume, not the quality of the outcome resulting from that service.

Payment reform efforts promote the idea that our health care system should move away from paying for volume to paying for value. This means that providers will have a stake in the quality of care they provide — such as whether or not the patient gets and stays healthy — and share in the financial risk for providing that care.

Brian Klepper, who leads Health Value Direct, said, “When we vet a high-performance program, one of the key questions is whether the vendor has enough confidence that they’re willing to put a percentage of their fees at financial risk against the performance targets they claim they can achieve.”

It sounds complicated, but every employer can be part of this change. Catalyst for Payment Reform, an independent, nonprofit employer coalition, has been pushing for these changes since 2010. I was thrilled to join CPR’s advisory board and have seen the investment going into tools and resources, including online education courses for employers. The organization is giving every company, big or small, an avenue to engage with payment reform. Its new initiative, the Peterson-CPR Catalyst Lab, is bringing even more energy

and resources to the topic.

Another way that employers are already pushing payment reform forward is by pursuing a “centers of excellence” model for high-cost procedures, such as surgeries. In this model, employees are sent to high-quality providers who have agreed to a set price for providing the surgery or treatment, sometimes even including terms that protect the employer from the added costs of preventable complications.

The cost for services is much lower, and the outcomes for the patient are proving much better. This model often goes hand in hand with a very high-touch health care experience — a concierge who ensures the patient gets everything they need before, during, and after surgery. In many cases, it also means that patients are directed away from surgery altogether, to alternatives that will have a better chance of success.

Early adopters of this model are on the rise.

The Pacific Business Group on Health created the Employers Centers of Excellence Network, which sends employees to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, and Virginia Mason in Seattle, for procedures including joint replacements and spinal surgery. The PBGH has also launched the Purchaser Value Network to help educate the employee benefits industry and share best practices and advocacy opportunities.

Carrum Health has created a regional approach to the Centers of Excellence model and built a turnkey solution that makes this model accessible to employers of all sizes. (I’m on Carrum’s advisory board.) They are operating on the West Coast in partnership with health systems such as Stanford, Scripps and Providence.

Payment reform has the potential to create one of the most important win-win scenarios: improving our health care outcomes while lowering costs. I hope you’ll join me by getting your organization involved.

THIS PROGRAM APPEARED TO BE TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE BUT THAT WAS NOT THE CASE HERE. IT WAS EVERYTHING THEY SAID IT WAS GOING TO BE AND PROBABLY A LITTLE MORE.

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Jennifer Benz is CEO and founder of Benz Communications, a San Francisco-based employee benefits communications agency.

She was honored as one of Workforce’s Game Changers in 2013.

To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

november/december

2016

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w o r k f o r c e . c o m | WorkĆ’orce

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Legal Social Media: Still a Wild Frontier for Employers The law is still in its infancy and court rulings are unpredictable; employers should err on the side of respecting employees’ privacy regarding their social media accounts.

By Robert S. Cooper

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n employer’s gut reaction to potential inflammatory posts from an employee on social media may be to immediately terminate that individual’s employment.

But not so fast! The law on social media use and privacy is still developing, and these situations are still a balancing act for employers. The courts, legislatures and the National Labor Relations Board are slowly developing limits to an employer’s ability to access and regulate an employee’s social media communications, and we are still in a veritable “Wild West” with respect to social media issues.

Years before the current pervasive use of social media, Congress passed the Stored Communications Act, which was aimed at protecting the privacy of internet and other electronic communications.The act, which pertains to anyone, not merely employers, and provides criminal penalties for unlawful access to stored communications, where such is “without authorization.”

Other states, such as California, have passed their own versions of the SCA prohibiting unauthorized access to employee social media accounts.

Courts are also slowly developing guidelines in response to cases involving adverse employment actions taken by employers in reaction to an employee’s social media posts. The key issue from the case law is the employee’s expectation of privacy in their social media accounts and whether an employer’s access to the social media account could be said to have been “authorized” or at least involve no wrongdoing.

In a case involving employees from a Houston’s Restaurant 22

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chain, Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group, an employee maintained a personal chat group on MySpace during non-work hours that was accessible only by electronic invitation from the plaintiff and use of a personal password.The site included a statement that the group was private and should be used by Hillstone employees to “vent about any BS we deal with at work without any outside eyes spying on us.” The employee who started the site then exclaims, “Let the s—t talking begin.” The posts also included sexual remarks about management and customers of Houston’s.

An employee member of the chat group showed the communications to her manager, who then asked the employee for the password to the account. Believing she would be in trouble if she didn’t provide the password to her manager, she did so.

The posts were then circulated among management, who in turn fired the chat group founder and another employee, finding that the content contradicted Houston’s core values. The two employees sued and a jury found Hillstone liable for violation of the SCA, awarding them both compensatory and punitive damages. The jury expressly found that the employer’s access to the chat room page was unauthorized, since the employee who reluctantly turned over her password to the manager had not done so voluntarily. The result was upheld by the court although Hillstone had requested a new trial, because the employee who gave her password to a manager felt she would “get in trouble” if she did not provide the password. It was deemed as “unauthorized” access to the MySpace account by the employer and a violation of the SCA. But in another similar case, Ehling v. Monumouth-Ocean Hospinovember/december

2016

tal Service Corp., a court reached a different result.

There, a nurse (who was active in union matters) posted a note on her Facebook page after paramedics had saved the life of the suspect in a shooting at the Washington, D.C., holocaust museum. Her post stated: “I blame the DC paramedics. I want to say 2 things to the DC medics. 1. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? and 2.This was your opportunity to really make a difference! WTF!!!! And to the other guards … go to target practice.”

One of the nurse’s supervisors had friended her and saw the post and turned it over to a hospital manager. The hospital then sent letters regarding the nurse’s posting to the New Jersey board of Nursing and Department of Health stating that the hospital was concerned that the nurse’s Facebook posting showed a disregard for patient safety. The nurse then sued the hospital for invasion of privacy and damage to her reputation. But the court ruled in favor of the hospital, finding that the manager had not directly accessed the nurse’s account and was only shown the post by someone the nurse authorized to view it.

This second case more closely mirrors the facts regarding the demoted employee discussed above.

There, since the employer did nothing unauthorized to access the Facebook post, but instead was simply given the post by an employee who was authorized as a “friend” of the employee, there was no violation of the nurse’s right of privacy to her Facebook account. Given the vulgar and threatening nature of the post on Facebook, the company would be well justified in using the post to make any adverse employment action it felt was appropriate.

These cases show us that the law in the area of social media and the workplace is far from settled.

There are many other issues not touched upon here, including NLRB decisions limiting access to and use of employee’s social media where it is deemed related to union organizing, and questions about employers’ demand for social media access from prospective employees during the hiring process.

Suffice it to say, while the law is still in its infancy and court rulings are unpredictable, employers should err on the side of respecting employees’ privacy regarding their social media accounts.

Robert S. Cooper is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Group and a shareholder at Buchalter Nemer. He has more than 25 years of experience as a management-side labor and employment trial lawyer and commercial business litigator, including numerous jury and bench trials, binding arbitrations, administrative law matters and defense of class action lawsuits. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

november/december

2016

Legal Legal Briefings PENNSYLVANIA CLEANS UP FRANCHISING CASE While recognizing that franchising is a major part of the national economy, the 3rd Circuit nevertheless made it much more difficult to be a franchisor in Pennsylvania. In Williams v. Jani King of Philadelphia Inc., two franchisees of Jani King filed a class action lawsuit against the company claiming that they, and others similarly situated, should have been treated as employees. The plaintiffs moved for class certification, relying primarily on the franchise agreement. Plaintiffs argued that the degree of control that Jani King exercised over its franchisees through the franchise agreement and related franchise documents was sufficient to create an employer/employee relationship. The trial court granted class certification, and Jani King appealed. The Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit upheld the grant of class certification. Examining the franchise agreement and related documents, the Court of Appeals concluded that the documents could establish the ability to control how the franchisees performed their work, the most critical factor in determining whether or not someone is an employee. While recognizing that some degree of control was a normal part of the franchise relationship, the Court of Appeal upheld class treatment of the question.

IMPACT: Franchisors need to exercise some control over their franchisees to maintain the value of the franchise — bad performance by a franchisee can negatively impact the value of the franchise as a brand.

Franchisors must be aware, however, that exercising too much control over how the franchisees perform could transform the relationship from franchisor/franchisee to employer/employee.

CHICAGO FIRE DEPARTMENT PARAMEDIC TEST UNFAIR Five women sued the City of Chicago after being passed over for paramedic jobs because they failed a required physical fitness test. The women claimed the test was designed to weed out women applicants and unfairly impacted women in violation of Title VII. Approximately 47 percent of women who took the test with the plaintiffs in 2004 passed, compared with more than 95 percent of men. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held that the City could not prove the test was necessary to assess job performance for paramedics because it was based on a set of skill samples that don’t reflect what the paramedics actually do. The Court recognized that “in itself, there is nothing unfair about women characteristically obtaining lower physical skills scores than men. … But the law clearly requires that this difference in score must correlate with a difference in job performance.” Without that correlation, the test “risks cementing unfairness into Chicago’s job-application process.” Ernst v. City of Chicago, Case Nos. 14-3783 and 15-2030 (7th Cir. September 19, 2016).

IMPACT: While employers are not prohibited from administering physical tests for its job applicants, the test must actually measure job qualifications.

Mark T. Kobata and Marty Denis are partners at the law firm Barlow, Kobata and Denis, which has offices in Beverly Hills, California, and Chicago. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

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Legal

Prescribed Drugs Blur Policies Jon Hyman |

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The Practical Employer

here is no doubt that America is in the grips of a prescription drug crisis.You cannot turn on the news without seeing a story about the dangers of opioid addiction.

And prescription medications, including dangerous opioids, provide risk for employers. The ADA’s reasonable accommodation obligations for employee medical conditions extends to the medication prescribed to employees to treat those conditions. Thus, an employer can be liable for failing to accommodate an employee’s use of legally prescribed medications.

For example, the EEOC recently sued a Georgia medical center for disability discrimination after it fired a physician for revealing that he was treating chronic neurological and musculoskeletal problems with legally prescribed narcotics. The lawsuit alleged that the employee supplied a doctor’s note explaining that he was being treated for chronic pain with a prescribed narcotic, and further explaining that he was subject to urine tests and monitoring via the Georgia Board of Pharmacy to ensure compliance with his treatment plan.

The employer, however, allegedly assumed that the medication rendered him unable to meet his job requirements and failed to engage in the interactive process with this employee to determine whether he could perform the essential functions of his job with, or without, reasonable accommodation based on the medical certification.

How is an employer supposed to maintain a safe workplace and lawfully test for legally prescribed drugs that could impair an employee’s performance? Consider these four thoughts.

1. Blanket prohibitions are illegal. The ADA imposes on employers an obligation to make individualized inquiries about implications such as reasonable accommodations and direct threats. A blanket prohibition against on-the-job use of prescription medications violates this obligation.

2. Drug testing. Drug testing programs can include legally prescribed drugs. An employer cannot, however, have a blanket policy excluding from employment any employee testing positive for a prescribed drug. Instead, following a positive test, the employer should ask if the employee is taking any prescribed drugs that would explain the positive result.

3. Drug-free workplace policies. It is permissible to include prescription drugs in drug-free workplace policies. These policies can require employees to disclose prescription drugs that may adversely affect judgment, coordination, or the ability to perform job duties. After

disclosure, an employer must, on a case-by-case basis determine whether it can make a reasonable accommodation to enable the individual to remain employed.

4. Post-disclosure handling. After an employer learns that an employee is taking a prescription drug that may affect job performance, it should request a medical certification regarding the effect of the medication on the ability to safely perform essential job functions.

That certification will enable the employer to engage the employee in the interactive process and making the individualized determination of whether a reasonable accommodation is even possible.

What about marijuana? Currently, medically prescribed marijuana is lawful in 25 states plus the District of Columbia.

Does the ADA treat marijuana like any other legally prescribed drug, limiting an employer’s ability to terminate for marijuana use?

Thankfully for employers, every state and federal court that has examined this issue so far (and, granted, the sample size is small), the answer is no, employers have no duty to accommodate disabled employees’ lawful use of medical marijuana.

Why? Because even though the use might be lawful under state law, federal law still criminalizes it.The ADA does not protect an employee currently using illegal drugs as a qualified individual with a disability.

Moreover, the ADA does not consider testing for illegal drugs to be a protected medical examination.Thus, the ADA does not restrict how or when an employer tests for illegal drugs, or what employer chooses to do with the results.

As a result, every court that has examined the issue so far has concluded that an employer can enforce a drugfree-workplace or zero-tolerance policy against off-duty marijuana use.

The bottom line for legal drugs? The ADA is all about engaging in conversations and avoiding assumptions.When dealing with an employee’s medications, silence on an employer’s part equals liability.When an employee presents for duty with a prescription medication, ask, certify, verify and, if possible, accommodate.

If you cannot make a reasonable accommodation after engaging the employee, then, and only then, are you free to consider termination.

How is an employer supposed to maintain a safe workplace and lawfully test for legally prescribed drugs?

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Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

november/december

2016

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Boomer Bust “Our belief is that if we can continue to invest in employees irrespective of where they are with their career we will have a much stronger workforce.”

— Tony Cortese, SVP people services, Herman Miller furniture design 26

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Age bias appears to be the last acceptable workplace ‘ism’ as older workers struggle to stay relevant among the growing millennial workforce.

BY RITA PYRILLIS

A

my Hiles-Maynard knew that the odds were against her when she found herself job-hunting at age 62. So she pulled out all the stops.

In addition to updating her resumé, Hiles-Maynard overhauled her social media pages with professional headshots and upbeat posts worded to convey youthful exuberance. She dyed her salt-and-pepper hair, revamped her wardrobe and scoured websites for older women that offered tips on acing job interviews and turning back the clock with clever makeup techniques.

“I’ve learned that mascara for someone who is older should never be worn on the lower lashes,” said Hiles-Maynard, a former travel industry executive. “It casts a shadow and makes you look tired.”

She searched for role models of a certain age and found her fashion muse in actress Susan Sarandon, who according to one article, favors white tuxedo shirts. Hiles-Maynard bought one.

She even resorted to stalking the parking lots of prospective employers, studying what people wear to get a sense of the company culture.

“I sat in my car with my cellphone and took the occasional photo of someone who looked particularly nice and noted differences between people in entry-level positions and those in business suits,” she said. “It was a humbling experience.”

While her methods might seem extreme, her struggles to rebuild a career at an age when many people plan to retire are likely to be familiar to people over 45.

The number of older workers is on the rise. As their ranks grow they will play an important role in the

“It was clear that they were expecting someone younger. It seemed like they were thinking, ‘She can’t cut it.’ ” — Amy Hiles-Maynard november/december

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U.S. economy, according to the National Council on Aging. By 2019, more than 40 percent of Americans over 55 will be employed, making up more than one-fourth of the U.S. workforce, according to the not-for-profit advocacy group. In 2014, older workers made up 22 percent of the workforce, according to the council.

Today’s mature workers are generally healthier and more active than their predecessors and offer a wealth of experience and knowledge, yet they are far more likely to experience age-related job discrimination than their younger counterparts, according to a 2013 study by the AARP. In fact, age discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have increased dramatically in recent years. Between 1997 and 2007, 16,000 to 19,000 annual complaints were filed, compared to 20,000 to 25,000 filings per year since 2008, according to the EEOC. The notion of retirement is changing with workers staying on the job longer than ever before.While some companies believe older employees provide a competitive advantage, most cling to outdated stereotypes, according to Ruth Finkelstein, associate director of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University.

“We are comfortable making fun of old people and we do it routinely,” she said. “Ageism is alive and well.

We show old people as decrepit, ugly, forgetful, yet at the same time many of the most powerful people in the world are old. The pope is old, the presidential candidates (were) old, most members of Congress are old, and the Supreme Court justices are old. There is this really weird disconnect.”

The most common stereotypes of older workers are that they are expensive to employ and to insure, they are slow learners and they lag technologically, according to Finkelstein.

“The idea that older workers are more expensive to employers has been hard to prove,” she said. “Many don’t want to work full time so if there is more flexibility, such as job sharing or phased retirement, you get the benefit of their knowledge and experience without the determinant of higher cost. Also, when it comes to the idea that older workers are most expensive to insure, as rules around health insurance change, Medicare becomes the primary payer and the employer becomes the secondary payer.Then these workers become bargains.”

Ageism, or discrimination based on someone’s age and not objective performance criteria, is one of the last “isms” to be tolerated in the workforce and is far more socially condoned than sexism or racism, according to a recent report by the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation. In fact, about two-thirds of older employees say they have seen or experienced workplace discrimination and an overwhelming 92 percent say that it’s common, according a 2013 study by AARP. While the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects workers over age 40 from harassment 28

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Creating an AgeFriendly Workplace There are a number of things that employers can do to create a workplace that is friendly to older employees, according to Ruth Finkelstein, associate director of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University.

Every year the center and the New York Academy of Medicine select the winners of the Age Smart Employer Awards. The initiative, which is funded by the Sloan Foundation, recognizes employers for their age-friendly policies and practices. Past winners include clothing retailer Brooks Brothers, NYU Langone Medical Center and pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Here are recommendations for employers seeking to improve their efforts to recruit and retain older workers from the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College: • Identify opportunities for older adults to support organizational missions and/or business strategy.

• Explicitly state in job notices that mature workers are welcome.

• Educate managers and HR leaders to identify and address misconceptions about older workers.

• Create non-virtual, alternative pathways for job applicants.

• Partner with community-based and/or educational organizations to reach older adults.

• Provide technology training as part of the job applicant screening process to ensure access to a wide possible pool of talent.

• Use older adults as interns to try out the “job fit.”

—Rita Pyrillis

and discrimination in all aspects of employment, such as hiring, firing, training and promotions, such cases are extremely hard to prove, said Laurie McCann, a senior attorney with AARP. “Age discrimination is viewed by the courts and society more as an economic issue and we defer to the employer’s prerogative,” she said. “Even employees will say, ‘Well it’s their business and I understand why they want to save some money.’ But you wouldn’t say that if the employer said, ‘We want to save money so we’ll get rid of all of the women,’ but we tolerate it when it’s age.”

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are long-term unemployed, according to McCann. While the overall unemployment rate for older workers is slightly lower than the national average, nearly half of all those who have been out of a job for more than six months are over 50, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“You’re putting all these resumés out there and they’re going into a black hole,” said McCann. “You don’t know who got called for the interview or why, so it’s hard to prove that age was a factor.”

It didn’t take long for Hiles-Maynard to conclude that her age was working against her. Although she had decades of executive experience in the travel industry, nearly all her cover letters went unanswered. When she did get an interview, she said that the look on the interviewer’s face spoke volumes.

“I could tell that they were surprised,” said Hiles-Maynard, who was laid off from her job as vice president of marketing for a cruise ship line in 2013. “It was clear that they were expecting someone younger. It seemed like they were thinking, ‘She can’t cut it.’ ” After losing her job, Hiles-Maynard spent time in the vacation rental business with her husband and had a short stint at an advertising firm, but her goal was to return to the industry that she loves. She was starting to lose hope when earlier this year she read an article in Forbes magazine about an internship program for older women at a New

York advertising agency. The firm’s founders were inspired to create the program after watching the Robert De Niro film “The Intern.” In the movie, De Niro plays a retired executive who applies to a senior citizen internship program at a fashion startup.

Called an “enternship,” the program at Wunderlich Kaplan Communications is designed to help older women return to the workforce with updated skills, like using social media and personal branding, according to Gwen Wunderlich, cofounder and CEO. “You can’t say I’m too old, I don’t know this,” she said.

“You need to project confidence.”

The notion that older workers are resistant to change doesn’t fly at furniture design firm Herman Miller, according to Tony Cortese, senior vice president of people services. The Zeeland, Michigan-based company is frequently recognized for its efforts to attract and retain older workers.

“Our belief is that if we can continue to invest in employees irrespective of where they are with their career we will have a much stronger workforce,” said Cortese. About one-fourth of its 8,000 employees worldwide have been there for at least 20 years.

In addition to continued training for older workers, AGEISM continued on page 57

Workers 50+ may increase your revenue by 3% and reduce your turnover costs — all while bringing guidance, expertise and balance to your company.

Visit us at aarp.org/bizcase2016wf

s d r a w e ) r ( e h t p kers.

Rea r o w d e c n e i r e p of ex

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PROFILE

Deborah DiSanzo

A Black Belt in Life Saving IBM Watson Health’s Deborah DiSanzo takes on health care issues with one vision and an immense amount of data.

BY ANDIE BURJEK

D

eborah DiSanzo started studying Tang Soo late co-founder Bill Hewlett passed by her desk and asked, Do, a Korean form of martial arts, as a way to “What are you doing?” She gave him an answer about the support her then-6-year-old daughter and technology she was working on, and he asked again. demonstrate the importance of seeing things “Three times I tried to justify the importance of the through in the face of adversity. digital health work we were doing,” DiSanzo said, “Then I Now, a decade later and a second-degree black belt in finally blurted out, ‘We’re saving lives!’ and he said, ‘Very Tang Soo Do, DiSanzo uses focus to break boards. As a well, carry on.’ That was 30 years ago. So what I learned businesswoman preparing for her day, she uses focus to early on was, you need to think about the impact that meditate and clear her mind technology has on patients every morning. And as the and physicians.” general manager at IBM Technology is key in her Watson Health, she uses forole at IBM Watson Health, cus to save lives. She knows a the business unit launched in lot about health care techApril 2015 to support IBM nology, and its ultimate purand advance the quality of pose to save lives is what health on a global scale. drives virtually every deciDiSanzo, who has been the sion she makes.The end goal general manager since Sepis never far from her mind; tember 2015, leads 7,000 — DEBORAH DiSANZO, IBM WATSON HEALTH rather, it is first and foremost.

IBMers worldwide.Through “Martial arts teaches you the technological capabilities when to defend, when to go of Watson, DiSanzo hopes to on offense, when to block, when to punch,” said DiSanzo, solve the three global challenges surrounding health care: 56. “And the mental activity of it: One form has 62 moves expand access, improve quality and reduce the cost. in it. When you’re doing a form you’re pretty much doing For DiSanzo, the solution starts with data. Lots of it. And nothing else but focusing on that form. There’s a tremen- using that data in new ways to do something different. dous mindfulness to it. When you break boards, an energy has to be directed.”

New Things DiSanzo recounted a time early in her career when she DiSanzo’s curiosity about new things is obvious when was working at technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co.The talking to her.

“WHAT I LEARNED EARLY ON WAS, YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT THE IMPACT THAT TECHNOLOGY HAS ON PATIENTS AND PHYSICIANS.”

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Deborah DiSanzo

PHOTOS BY FRED LEVY

PROFILE

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PROFILE

Deborah DiSanzo

One notable “new thing” she helped orchestrate is the access to automated external defibrillators — devices that analyze heart rhythm for any problems and deliver an electrical shock to restore a normal heart rhythm — in public places. DiSanzo was at Hewlett-Packard when in 1998 it acquired a startup company called Heartstream. She then went on to run Heartstream, where she built the then-fledgling AED market.

Implementing a new product in the health care market was a challenge, but throughout the process she kept the impact of the technology in mind — the power of the AED to save lives.

“Before us there were not AEDs in public places,” DiSanzo said. “We put them in airplanes and airports and public places.We worked closely with the American Heart Association and saw this explosion of the AED. I’m really proud when I walk around and see any AED, knowing that I was with the company to first do that.”

Fast forward nearly two decades: Technology at IBM Watson Health also has the power to create something new in health care. They’re using data in new ways, DiSanzo said.

“What makes it so special is that there has always been a lot of data in health care, but it has been invisible. It has been locked up in databases,” she explained.“But what the Watson Health cloud aims to do is to provide a lot of data, to democratize data and make it available for IBM, our clients and our partners to use.”

The Watson technology, simply put, is a cognitive computing technology that can read and comprehend multiple sources of medical information: texts, electronic health re-

“I THOUGHT, THAT’S THE TYPE OF LEADER I WANT TO BE. I WANT THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR ME TO KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO SAVE AND IMPROVE SOMEBODY’S LIFE WITH HEALTH CARE.” — DEBORAH DiSANZO cords, medical imaging, handwritten doctors’ notes and more.What’s significant about this technology is that it can read unstructured data — that is, videos, medical journals and X-rays.

This kind of data has historically been invisible (in fact, 80 percent of health data is invisible to current systems), but Watson can make it visible. It reads, comprehends and then makes connections using both the structured and unstructured data and provides probabilities and treatment options.

For example, Watson for Oncology makes connections between what Watson reads on electronic health records 32

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with what Watson sees on an image with information written about cancer in textbooks. Using this, it creates a profile of the individual patient and provides options:What treatments have a high probability of working for this particular patient? This technology doesn’t exist anywhere else, DiSanzo said.

Watson Health uses the technology to do something that doesn’t exist anywhere else yet, she added: IBM Watson for Clinical Trial Matching. Watson for CTM reads through the patient’s electronic record and matches it against hundreds of thousands of clinical trials, accomplishing the hard work for the clinician. The technology matches a patient with dozens of trials they are eligible for.

The capabilities of this technology aim to address the global challenges of health care.

Technology like this, fueled by big data, improves the quality of care by helping doctors understand their patients in a shorter amount of time. Big data is also a necessary tool to accomplish value-based care — delivering the highest possible value at the lowest possible cost.

The Catalyst Factor All that data would not have a purpose if not for solid vision and leadership. Because certain technologies in health care that could make a difference don’t even exist yet, IBM Watson Health aims to be the catalyst in order to make that difference, DiSanzo said.

It all starts with a compelling vision, she added, in this case to save lives, do something good for the world, and lower the cost of health care globally.Then comes the strategy, how to use cognitive computing and data to accomplish this vision. And then she thinks, what can we do right now to be that catalyst?

“You carry that from the top of the organization to the bottom of the organization so that everyone can see where they fit in and know what their part is in saving lives,” she said.

Her team recognizes her ability to create the vision, as well.

From the first day she arrived at Watson Health, DiSanzo knew the key to the company’s success was to align the leadership team around a single vision and clear short-term objectives, according to Tia Silas, director of human resources at Watson Health.

Silas, who started with IBM the same time as DiSanzo, recounted something memorable and unconventional about her. Instead of using a conference room for a big meeting, DiSanzo invited everyone to her remote home in Massachusetts.

“We sat on her porch and wandered through her house for a full day with Post-it notes, pens and cups of coffee, drafting, brainstorming and crafting a vision that would unify us around a common cause,” Silas wrote in an email interview. “Deborah did not dictate this vision but rather facilitated a session that helped us all author this common charter.”

The inclusion of everybody and the clear idea of what their roles are in accomplishing the vision is key to DiSannovember/december

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PROFILE

Deborah DiSanzo

zo’s management style. She emulates servant-driven leaders who, rather than prioritizing themselves, focus on serving the needs of organizational members, developing employees to their full potential and building a sense of community within the organization. Everyone plays their part, and everyone is a valued member of the community.

She recalled attending a conference at a Waldorf Astoria hotel in the 1990s. She saw several speakers pass by, their entourage trailing behind and carrying their bags.

“And then I remember seeing this one CEO, and he walked by himself. I thought, that’s the type of leader I want to be,” DiSanzo said. “I don’t want to be so important that I have eight people following me with bags and papers and pencils. I want the people who work for me to know what it’s like to save and improve somebody’s life with health care.”

That CEO was Lew Platt, the iconic president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard (though she had worked at HP, Platt was not DiSanzo’s boss). At IBM Watson Health, DiSanzo’s colleagues recognize that same spirit in her.

“She is a servant leader so this means that while the demands are high, you are never alone in a challenge,” wrote Silas. “All of our accomplishments are fueled through combined muscle: Deborah and the team.”

Deborah DiSanzo emulates servant-driven leaders in her role at IBM Watson Health.

Female Leaders in Health Care IBM president and CEO Ginni Rometty inspires DiSanzo, who called her the driving force of transformation at IBM. Similarly, DiSanzo hopes to inspire other female leaders and entrepreneurs.

She’s involved in several organizations that empower female leaders and support female entrepreneurs in the health care sector. She sits on the board of Embrace Innovations, which creates portable infant warmers that keep premature infants warm for long journeys. The warmers are now used in 10 different countries, according to its website.

DiSanzo served as a mentor for Embrace Innovations’ CEO Jane Chen. She wants Chen to be successful because the product is impressive, life-saving technology and because Chen has a passion to save infants’ lives. The Watson Health leader supports women entrepreneurs when she believes in the power of their technology and believes they can help transform health care.

Health care is a people-driven business, and it’s the ideal business for a woman to play an important role, DiSanzo added. She’s happy to be working for IBM where there is strong mentorship and resources for women executives to advance.

Although men understand health care as well, “84 per34

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cent of health care workers and providers are women, and we very much need to mirror our clients if we’re going to understand how to help them save and improve lives and lower the cost of health care,” DiSanzo said.

Beyond this, there’s one very important factor needed to transform health care: partnership. One company won’t change the world, but a network of companies can. In order for IBM Watson Health to be successful, DiSanzo understands that it needs partners. Each one of the company’s ecosystem partners does something IBM Watson Health could not do alone.

The company partnered with Medtronic, one of the world’s largest medical device companies that makes insulin pumps and glucose monitors. Through the partnership, the companies are combining their expertise in diabetes treatment and cognitive computing.

DiSanzo uses these multiple partners, like Medtronic, to accomplish her singular vision to save lives.

“It’s important to have partners to do this together on top of the technology we have, on top of encouraging women to succeed,” DiSanzo said. “We need an ecosystem to accomplish this.”

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. To comment, Email editors@workforce.com.

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THE SCIENCE OF PERSONALITY

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Meshing the

Old and New, Tried and True This year’s winners combined proven methods and innovative initiatives to take honors in the 26th annual Workforce Optimas Awards.

T

he year’s 2016 Optimas Awards winners are impressive for a number of reasons. Particularly notable are their creative solutions to modern challenges in human resources.

Whether they used traditional methods, like open houses or mentorship programs, or modern methods, like HR technology and innovative software, these companies saw a challenge and came up with the best answer.

One company tackled retirement preparedness for a more financially secure workforce, a noteworthy showcase of the financial wellness benefits trend. Another company dealt with the Affordable Care Act so effectively that 100 percent of its clients did not file for an IRS extension in January of this year.

The Optimas Gold winner for Corporate Citizenship uniquely addressed child passenger safety in vehicles and created a program aimed to help children travel more safely. Companies in many categories saw employee engagement improve thanks to their efforts in key HR areas.

And for the first time in the Optimas Awards’ 26-year history, one company took honors in two separate categories.TCS won Gold in the Managing Change category while simultaneously winning Silver in Corporate Citizenship.

General Excellence winner AbbVie was particularly impressive with its performance across several categories. After splitting from pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories in 2013, AbbVie faced a huge challenge to invent itself and its company culture. Managing a massive culture shift is hard, but when it’s successful, it has an undeniable impact throughout the company.

Congratulations to all of the 2016 Optimas Awards winners, which have shown us how human resources can solve great business challenges and have a true impact on every employee in a company. — Andie Burjek

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AbbVie

Spinning Off a New Culture

Breaking up is hard to do, but by establishing an identity separate from what it had as part of a Abbott Labs, independent company AbbVie became an impactful organization in its own right.

PHOTOS BY JEFF MILLIES

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BY ANDIE BURJEK

hree years ago, global biopharmaceutical company AbbVie separated from parent company Abbott Laboratories, and its more than 125 years of history. With that, AbbVie faced a major challenge: After spinning off from the pharmaceutical giant, how could it both honor its heritage and create a culture totally unique to them? And how could it accomplish this transformation for 28,000 employees in over 170 countries?

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From left to right (standing): Andrew Brown, Tim Richmond, Michael Thomas, Malathy Dwaraknath, Mark Naidicz.

From left to right (sitting): Kristen Weirick, Rae Livingston, Angela Lane, Kimberly Scheck, Leanna Walther, Debora Jensen, Julie Simak.

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General Excellence

“There’s no guidebook or playbook for creating a culture, but we knew we needed to think strategically around what those behaviors would be and what it would look like if we had our desired culture,” said Tim Richmond, AbbVie’s senior vice president of human resources.

The first challenge was to define what the culture meant to newly independent AbbVie. “We’re not a diverse health care company like Abbott still is today. As a new biopharmaceutical company, we wanted to bring forth the best elements of our past and create those things that are important to our future,” said Richmond.

For example, from Abbott, AbbVie maintained the ability to deliver on business priorities and achieve goals it set for itself. Meanwhile, it created whole new frameworks called the Talent Philosophy and the Ways We Work to define and expand the new culture.

The Talent Philosophy is AbbVie’s transparent way to describe its philosophy for talent management within the company, said Richmond. It encompasses the areas of transparency, performance, accountability, behaviors and differentiation, and employees are encouraged to care about not only what they do but also how they do it.

The ultimate goal of the company culture is to instill in employees and leaders a passion and commitment to impact patients’ lives through medicine — particularly in the areas of oncology, immunology, virology and neurology, which are the therapeutic areas AbbVie focuses on.

Along with the Talent Philosophy, the top leaders de-

veloped the Ways We Work based on behavior expectations for all AbbVie employees. They’re a “clear, concise articulation of the working culture,” said Richmond, and they fall under five categories: • All for One AbbVie. • Decide Smart and Sure.

• Agile and Accountable.

• Clear and Courageous.

• Make Possibilities Real.

The five articulations are incorporated in AbbVie’s talent management and rewards processes, from recruitment and beyond. The company assesses candidates on these factors when bringing in new talent to the company.

Once they’ve been hired, AbbVie considers the same factors when conducting performance reviews and rewarding employee behavior. In this way, AbbVie ingrains its change management initiative in other Optimas categories like recruiting, training and benefits (rewards and recognition).

In order to create a “One AbbVie” — a whole, global company unified under the same culture and the same expectations — in three years, the company focused on instilling the Ways We Work across all levels, from new employees to the most senior leadership.

One way they accomplished this was through the AbbVie Way Journey Map, an exploratory way for employees to learn about the company’s heritage and culture, said Richmond.The map is a physical, interactive exercise, laid out in front of participants like a board game. They move pieces around a board and work as a team.

“It’s a really great way to create dialogue about culture the AbbVie way and what’s unique to us,” said Richmond.

Out of the 28,000 employees, more than 10,000 have participated in the map exercise, he added.

AbbVie also offers the Ways We Work workshop, which covers a broad range of skills that fall under particular ways we work. These skills include relationship building, managing conflict, effective decision-making, and driving efficiency and agility. Over 5,000 employees have attended since 2014, In order to create a global company unified under the same culture and expectations, the said Richmond.

AbbVie team instills the values of their programs to new hires and senior leadership alike.

Finally, AbbVie uses Ways

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General Excellence

AbbVie is the 2016 Optimas Award winner in the category of General Excellence.

We Work ambassadors in over 50 countries. These people take the work and ideas of the Culture Sharing Committee, AbbVie’s governance committee for culture, and bring it to life in a particular site or laboratory.Their role is to activate employees around the world and get them excited about the AbbVie culture and the ways they contribute to it.

AbbVie’s strategy to spread culture and cultural expectations quickly and effectively through Ways We Work programs has really engaged people, said Richmond.

“The nice thing is, everything I’ve described is embed-

score, up to 74 percent in 2016 from 60 percent in 2013.

Also, AbbVie saw improved retention throughout the company, retaining 96 percent of its top talent in 2015.

AbbVie has also gotten positive feedback from rehires, certain people who left the company before 2013 and came back after the culture change initiative, Richmond added.

“They’ve told us how amazing and different our culture is,” he said. “It’s one thing to be a spinoff, it’s another to be a totally different company aligned and focused on having that impact.”

Culture, as one of AbbVie’s top four business strategies, has effectively bled through other areas of the business, and it’s something that AbbVie leadership encourages constantly.

“I’m passionate about this, partly because of my role and responsibility as head of HR,” said Richmond. “But I also do it out of respect and admiraHR tion for this company’s commitment to something that can ultimately drive strong business performance and have a remarkable impact on patients’ lives.”

For its workplace initiative, which demonstrates excellence in the Optimas categories of managing change, vision, business impact, recruiting, training and benefits, AbbVie is the 2016 Optimas Award General Excellence winner.

“There’s no guidebook or playbook for creating a culture, but we needed to think strategically around what it would look like if we had our desired culture.”

— Tim Richmond, AbbVie SVP of ded in our leadership development programs, all of our rewards and recognition programs. It’s how we assess performance and talent and potential,” he said. “It’s the totality of all those things, hardwired into everything we do, that help us get to where we are today.”

In the three years it’s had to redefine culture and educate employees, AbbVie has seen impressive results. It boasts an employee engagement level of 81 percent, a 9 percent increase from 2013, according to the annual employee survey. It’s also seen a 14 percent increase in culture

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Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com

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Benefits

Devon Energy Corp.

Gold

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inancial wellness is a critical topic as many Americans are worried about retirement. The Devon Energy Corp. developed a program to assuage its employees’ fears during a time of economic challenges for the energy industry.

The Fortune 500 natural gas and petroleum producer launched the Devon Financial Wellness Program in May 2015, after the Devon human resources team realized how little employees were prepared for retirement. Twenty percent of Devon employees had taken out a loan against their 401(k) plan, and 45 percent of employees were not taking full advantage of the company’s 401(k) matching contribution benefit. In 2014, this amounted to $2 million left on the table.

For the initiative, Devon’s HR team worked with PwC’s

Employee Financial Wellness practice to tackle retirement planning and beyond. Devon identified other critical areas, such as cash and debt management.

The program integrated financial wellness into the company’s total wellness strategy.

The initiative began with a PwC Financial Fitness assessment, which gave employees a financial wellness score and a personalized report. Employees then scheduled an appointment with a financial adviser to develop a goal and a plan to achieve that goal. They could also access a financial fitness help line to ask confidential questions and discuss a range of financial concerns — from investing, to getting out of debt, to planning for unexpected situations.

In January 2016, Devon added the Retirement Readiness Assessment, which honed in on the original problem HR noticed in its employees. This focus on retirement combined with the more general financial wellness component has produced impressive results Some 60 percent of employees completed the assessment and 60 percent of those people also took advantage of the financial adviser. Notably, of the 45 percent of employees who were missing out on their 401(k) matching contributions, 77 percent were now taking advantage of it as of April.

For its efforts to educate employees on financial wellness and tackle wellness on a holistic level, Devon Energy Corp. is the 2016 Optimas Award Gold winner for Benefits.

—Andie Burjek

Retrofit Silver

R

etrofit’s No. 1 priority is a happy workforce.

The Chicago-based nutrition company uses competitive benefits packages, perks and surveys to maintain its culture of happiness.

The weekly pulse surveys are used to get feedback about benefits and perks in real time, and the company, which has 50 employees, can quickly react to that feedback on a rolling basis.

For example, in April 2016 Retrofit held a companywide brainstorming session and was able to implement certain changes in perks almost immediately, including summer hours, virtual meditation classes and sur pr ise happiness care packages for employees.

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M e a n w h i l e, i t s b e n e f i t s wo r k f o rc e management initiative also contributes to R e t ro f i t ’s ro bu s t b e n e f i t s l a n d s c a p e.

Employees have a flexible work schedule and unlimited vacation time. The company encourages physical wellness through meditation and healthy snack breaks, and financial wellness through a 401(k) match and a spot bonus program.

For its commitment to creating a culture of happiness through a robust benefits plan, Retrofit is the 2016 Optimas Award Silver winner for Benefits.

—Andie Burjek

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Business Impact

Four Winds Interactive Gold

F

or over a decade, Four Winds Interactive has worked its way into an industry leader for enterprise visual communications software. The visual leader in digital business, Four Winds engages customers and employees with the right information, on the right screen, all from a single platform.

But it wasn’t easy getting there.

Climbing turnover and troubling engagement scores among its employees caught the attention of senior managers. Discovering that 87 percent of engaged employees are less likely to leave an organization, engagement became a top priority for the executive, talent management and human resources teams.

The company created an engagement committee while forming focus groups to help employees get more involved in programs such as peer recognition, community engagement opportunities and wellness.The catch, however, was finding the right way to roll out the new initiatives.

Realizing that email was not the right vehicle for the job, Four Winds invested in its own internal Visual Communication Network, placing digital signs above every possible pod, every desk, in every major conference room — basically anywhere that employees congregated.

By simply looking up, employees were now aware of everything from calls to join company-sponsored yoga or cross-fit classes, to upcoming events and even information about fellow co-workers being recognized for a job well done.

In just one, year Four Winds slashed turnover in half, saving more than $2 million annually. Using roughly one sign per eight employees, the average cost per month split between departments was $3,700, which included the signs, hardware, software and services to set them up and create content.

Having kicked off the initiative in mid-2014, the program is still active today. The workplace at Four Winds depends on visual communication to keep people informed, motivated and engaged.The company has plans to improve upon it for as long as they are offering the same solutions to clients.

For its efforts to use its robust Visual Communications Network as an engagement tool, Four Winds Interactive is the 2016 Optimas Award Gold winner for Business Impact.

—Nicholaus Garcia

Paycor Silver

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aycor, a prominent provider of cloud-based onboarding, HR and timekeeping software translated the Affordable Care Act into intuitive, simpistic software that had direct integrations with clients’ benefit administrator. The company assembled a cross functional task force to rapidly develop a product that would help clients navigate complex legislation and unfamiliar processes.

Due to the scope, complexity and urgency surrounding the IRS deadlines, a multilevel effort was needed. Senior management teams had to be educated from across software developers and subject matter experts, to sales and client service associates to ensure thoughtful interaction with clients using the software.

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Paycor saw 100 percent of its clients filing with the IRS by its Jan. 31, 2016, deadline, meaning no extension to file was necessary. At the start of 2015, Paycor took this initiative from concept to sales, to live software launch in under a year.

For its efforts to use its Affordable Care Act software as a development tool, Paycor Inc. is the 2016 Optimas Award Silver winner for Business Impact.

—Nicholaus Garcia

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Corporate Citizenship

AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah Gold

A

mong the most unsafe places for a child may be the backseat of a car.A survey of 4,000 vehicles found 65 percent of car seats to be improperly fitted. Arguably more dangerous, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the majority of Americans have traveled with an infant or toddler who was not in a car seat.

Families wanting to keep their children safe on the road often face a lack of money and awareness. Regional auto club AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah saw these hurdles and formed a multifaceted community impact program to alter patterns of unsafe travel that endanger children.

Both funded and operated by the company,AAA NCNU’s Child Passenger Safety Program utilizes the talent of its employees and the resources of partner agencies to provide assistance to the AAA member base and the general public.

AAA NCNU donates a car seat or booster seat for every employee to charities and other community organizations, who distribute them to low-income families who might otherwise have to travel with their children in risky situations.

The company also trains employees to serve as certified car- or booster-seat technicians. Currently, almost 100 employees provide free inspections and educational assistance at 95 tristate branch locations.

In addition to these initiatives, AAA NCNU works with

Tata Consultancy Services Silver

T

echnology continues to drive the nation’s economy, but students still struggle to see themselves on the road to a STEM career.

The lack of college graduates entering careers in STEM — science, technology, engineering

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local law enforcement to operate the AAA School Safety Patrol Program. The program engages over 10,000 elementary school children to learn proper pedestrian practices and keep their school zones safe.

Over the past year, AAA NCNU doubled its investment in car safety to $175,000. As a result, technicians provided over 2,000 free seat inspections and local agencies distributed 2,850 donated car seats and booster seats to underserved families.

Additionally schools and agencies have already reached out to the company for future collaboration, a move the company says sets the program up for continued impact.

For its commitment to the safety of child passengers, AAA NCNU is the 2016 Optimas Award Gold winner for Corporate Citizenship.

—Nidhi Madhavan

and math — threatens the nation’s economic strength. To address this challenge, employees at Tata Consultancy Services left their computers and headed to schools across North America.

The global IT consulting firm launched goIT in 2009 to bring skilled IT professionals to mentor and teach middle and high school students. By 2015, TCS employees had shown more than 10,000 students that STEM careers can be rewarding and interesting.

TCS has also collaborated with important stakeholders across sectors to develop and implement initiatives that encourage STEM participation in the education system.

For its dedication to the next generation of IT professionals,TCS wins the Silver Optimas Award for Corporate Citizenship.

—Nidhi Madhavan

november/december

2016

Global Outlook

Dufry Management Ltd. Gold

W

ith operations in 63 countries, Dufry Management Ltd. has become a global travel retailer providing its customers with prestigious products from around the world. With shops located at airports, on cruise liners, at seaports and other tourist locations, Dufry relies on its professional sales and service experience to tailor its offerings to the local market.

Designed by Dufry’s Global Training and Development team collaborating with its Global Operations department, the company created a cultural change program, called Out In Front, to improve its sales and service performance and align organizational behaviors globally.

Beginning in 2012, the program was designed to equip each manager with the tools and techniques needed to manage people performance successfully in real time, on the shop floor. In doing so, Dufry wanted the program to help the company in achieving its

primary goals of doubling its sales within four years and creating a standardized customer sales and service best practice.

With business units positioned across many diverse cultures and locations, all operating to different sales and service standards, it was crucial that each operation would operate to global standards. Dufry’s mission was to make sure that both employees and customers felt aligned to one experience specific to the company, setting it apart from its competitors.

In its first year, Out In Front achieved its goal of moving managers away from a tasked base role into a people manager role increasing its Supervisor Performance Evaluation scores to 43 percent in year one, 38 percent in year two and 64 percent in year three.

Exceeding expectations, over a four-year period the new program has increased average ticket sales by 34 percent and sales and service standards by 37 percent.

For its efforts to use its training program, Out In Front, Dufry Management Ltd. is the 2016 Optimas Award Gold winner for Global Outlook.

—Nicholaus Garcia

Schneider Electric Silver

B

ased in Par is, Schneider Electr ic is focused on attracting, engaging and converting top candidates into great hires for the worldwide company. As it continues to rapidly expand its employee network, Schneider’s global recruiting team focused on retooling its workforce to meet business demands around the world while also keeping an eye on creating a diverse talent mix.

Schneider’s talent acquisition team recognizes and understands that greater gender balance in corporations can drive business results. In June 2014, the company

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2016

set a goal to have 30 percent of women in its talent pool. By January 2016, figures showed that Schneider’s overall female representation was at 40 percent. Over the past three years, recruitment of women has totaled over 23,000.

For its efforts in using its talent acquisition team to diversify its global workforce, Schneider Electric is the 2016 Optimas Award Silver winner for Global Outlook.

—Nicholaus Garcia

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45

Innovation

Intellect Design Arena Gold

E

very day, online conversations move further away from email servers and toward platforms like Facebook or Twitter.Yet in most workplaces, communication is still bogged down by flooded inboxes and floating attachments, which stifles productivity.

But India-based Intellect Design Arena, a digital technology specialist for banking and insurance companies, saw a way to adapt the social technologies changing the world to create a better workforce management tool for its employees.

True to its name, UnMail eliminated email communication at Intellect Design Arena in favor of social collaboration.The platform, developed entirely inhouse, provides a unified method of online communication that increases productivity and encourages engagement. Instead of emailing back and forth, teams carry out discussions within circles, or chat rooms, where employees can share their ideas and queries openly and receive faster feedback.

These circles extend past teams to include stakeholders, partners and customers as well. UnMail allows managers to audit workflows and make decisions in a transparent

HCL Technologies Silver

A

t HCL Technologies, an infor mation technology services fir m, employees operate across 500 points of presence in India as well as 30 other countries.With the world as their office, staying connected can be a challenge.

After finding that many employees struggled to conduct business and comply with company policy while traveling, HCL

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and nonintrusive manner. Project managers can add customers to their circles to witness workflows in real time, improving customer satisfaction.

The tool also makes tracking workflows and accessing documents easier by integrating all departments under one social platform.

Reception to the initial launch of UnMail in 2012 was so positive that Intellect eventually implemented it across its entire group of companies. The tool has decreased workflow and service times by 20 percent and streamlined employee onboarding.

UnMail also contributes to what Intellect calls “softened hierarchies,” in which employees feel more empowered to share their expertise and play a role in the decision-making process.

For carving out a role for social technologies in the workplace, Intellect Design Arena is the Gold 2016 Optimas Awards winner for Innovation.

—Nidhi Madhavan

engineered the Go Mobile program, a flight of mobile apps that enable business actions to be perfor med remotely.

Employees can submit reports, claim expenses and view company news from their fingertips using the apps HCL developed. Since the first apps launched in 2013, the initiative has helped cut costs, reduce cycle time and streamline decisionmaking, and the apps have an 86 percent approval rate from employees using them.

For har nessing mobile technology to empower employees, HCL Technologies is the Silver Optimas Awards winner for Innovation.

—Nidhi Madhavan

november/december

2016

Managing Change

Tata Consultancy Services Gold

T

ata Consultancy Services has a proven track record of developing leaders internally. Even today, 98 percent of the information technology firm’s current leaders are individuals who have been with the company since graduation.

But global CEO and Managing Director N. Chandra knew that the nature of IT consulting was growing more diverse. To better serve clients and stay competitive, TCS needed business leaders with the right experience in consulting and strategy to match those with technical expertise. In 2012, he created a way to funnel fresh talent straight from the source.

The TCS Accelerated Leadership Program recruits MBA students from top business schools for a two-year immersive,

hands-on experience at the company.The students — known as TALPers — work in several areas of the company while preparing to take on future leadership roles at TCS. The TALPers rotate between three to four different business units where they assess market dynamics, develop and implement strategy, respond to challenges and learn from current leaders.

Recognizing the need for global perspectives in the workforce, TCS also sends TALPers to its headquarters in India for six months.

The program model emphasizes 360-degree feedback, so TALPers receive structured assessment and guidance from designated coaches and mentors throughout the two-year duration. TCS also hosts a monthly meet the leaders forum that allows TALPers to share their ideas and challenges with senior leaders who can provide advice and inspiration.

For TCS, the program has been largely successful in bringing diverse skill sets to its workforce. Graduated TALPers have gone on to hold important leadership-track positions at the company.

Initially launched in North America, TALP has since expanded to include the United Kingdom, and the company hopes to bring the program back to India and the Asia Pacific region as it moves forward.

For creating a unique leadership pipeline that reflects an evolving industry, TCS is the Gold Optimas Awards winner for Managing Change.

—Nidhi Madhavan

Ceridian Silver

C

eridian had a numbers problem. About 18 months ago, the human capital management technology company had a 2.2 rating on employer rating site Glassdoor, and voluntary turnover had reached above 20 percent annualized.

This disengagement appeared linked to outdated performance management strategies.To fix these problems, Chief People Officer Lisa Sterling eliminated annual performance reviews altogether.

The new “people development” process instead implemented ongoing discussions using the very tool Ceridian is known for — Dayforce HCM. The application allowed Ceridian to

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2016

schedule manager-employee talks more frequently. The resulting conversations led to more valuable feedback and increased employee engagement.

Since the initiative began, Ceridian’s Glassdoor rating has doubled and voluntary turnover dropped under 10 percent for the year.

For rethinking and modernizing performance management to meet employee needs, Ceridian is the Silver 2016 Optimas Awards winner for Managing Change.

—Nidhi Madhavan

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47

Partnership

Dealertrack Inc. Gold

A

sk most any struggling businessperson if they’d swap their ailing organization for the unfettered growth that Dealertrack Inc. experienced in early 2012 and you’re likely to hear, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

For companies like the auto retail software maker, the reality of exponential expansion can be a big pain — growing pain, that is. Nice problem to have or slippery slide into oblivion, the Lake Success, New York-based company faced failure unless they devised a plan to recruit, train and retain good people.

In 2013, Dealertrack’s predecessor Dealer.com formalized a partnership with Champlain College Online to develop an organizationwide leadership pipeline through the school’s truED alliance.Though the 1,200-employee Dealertrack was among the first to join truED, it didn’t take long for other high-profile companies including Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Keurig Green Mountain, Burton Snowboards and W.B. Mason to sign on.

ATD SF East Bay-UC Berkeley Academic Partnership Silver

I

n the hypercompetitive San Francisco Bay Area, learning and development is not only crucial, it’s imperative for organizations to maintain sustained, ongoing success.

So who better then to develop critical training programs than a heavyweight industry association and a world-renowned institution of higher learning? ATD SF East Bay — the local chapter of the organization previously known as the American Society of Training and Development — teamed with UC Berkeley to create the powerhouse ATD SF East Bay-UC Berkeley Academic Partnership.

A program on intercultural leadership and

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Dealertrack management in large part were woefully unprepared to be good supervisors. Sure, they knew their coding, but their lack of managerial skills hampered Dealertrack’s future.

While the educational value is apparent, Dealertrack soon discovered they had a partner that went beyond mere transactional relationships. Champlain acted as a partner in workforce management strategy, consulting on closing skills gaps and searching for new ways to grow the company.

Several hundred Dealertrack employees have enrolled in the alliance to date, and that has paid dividends in several ways. After just a short time in the program, one staff member helped cut costs and improve efficiency after spotting redundant spending. Employees have taken on entirely new roles within the company after enrolling in the education program.

Recruitment and retention numbers have stabilized even in the face of a six-year growth spurt from 200 employees to 1,200.

Company leaders contend the partnership aided in the Dealertrack acquisition in 2013 as well as the $4 billion allcash blockbuster sale to Cox Enterprises in late 2015.

Such rapid growth and tumultuous changes in management are hard for any organization to cope with.

Because of its alliance with Champlain College, Dealertrack is the 2016 Gold Award winner in Partnership.

—Rick Bell

global success drew a wide array of attendees from across Northern California.

A n o t h e r program, titled “Better, Faster, Cheaper — Using Agile & Lean Training to Develop Training at the Speed of Business,” was hailed as one of the highest attended events in years. In just a year the partnership has seen attendance increase by 400 percent.

For developing innovative and timely executive-level training programs for Bay Area leaders and beyond, the ATD SF East Bay-UC Berkeley Academic Partnership takes the 2016 Workforce Optimas Silver Award in Partnership.

—Rick Bell

november/december

2016

Recruiting

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Gold

T

hree internship programs are helping U.S. military personnel understand the crucial contributions to national defense made by organizations like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

One, which dates back to 1996, is the Military Academic Research Associates program, in which 30 cadets, midshipmen and military academy faculty members participate annually for four to six weeks. In 2001, the ROTC Internship program began, with 10 to 14 cadets learning for 12 weeks during the summer.The most recent program, the Newly Commissioned Officer Program, began in 2015 with two second lieutenants learning for two to three months.This year, the program is expanding to include all academies.

To recruit for these internships, representatives from Lawrence Livermore, Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory visit the ROTC academies during the fall semester to provide information on the

opportunities at their labs. ROTC participants apply between October and February.

One notable accomplishment of this program is simply the education that interns receive. Through their time with Lawrence Livermore, they learn about the technology and processes that go into making products used in the line of duty. A soldier who served two tours in Iraq was in the Lawrence Livermore ROTC internship, where he and the Bay Area laboratory’s engineers developed ways to destroy or stop improvised explosive devices.

“Sometimes as a soldier, you don’t get to see the research and development that goes on behind the scenes before the final product,” he said on the Optimas application. “It’s comforting to know that so many scientists and engineers have put so much emphasis into ensuring the technology works. It’s probably the most important project there is for military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

With more than 400 cadets going through the internship programs, Lawrence Livermore created a strong following of supporters and a group that’s well informed for their positions as faculty members at the Air Force Academy, U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and the U.S. Naval Academy, which also increasingly request that Lawrence Livermore employees give educational technical talks.

For its military internship efforts, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory takes home the Gold 2016 Optimas Award for Recruiting.

—Lauren Dixon

WVU MedicineWVU Hospitals Silver

W

VU Medicine-WVU Hospitals faced unique challenges with staffing its new 10-story patient care tower scheduled to open in 2017. Nurses are in short supply in Morgantown,West Virginia, as there’s a national nursing shortage, a limited local talent market and lack of regional nursing schools. Facing these obstacles, the organization needed to hire 200 nurses for the new tower alone.

To fill these positions, recruiters traveled to more than 75 recruitment functions, held “show on the road” events in target cities outside of West Virginia and held open houses

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2016

at the hospital. A digital campaign reached new eyes, and a recruitment video showcased the new facility and offerings from the community.

New perks, such as recruitment bonuses and an expanded tuition assistance program, helped to attract and retain nurses. These efforts helped the group stay on track for its 2016 hiring goals. For its efforts to recruit nurses, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals takes home the Silver 2016 Optimas Award for Recruiting.

—Lauren Dixon

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49

Training

Siemens Healthineers Gold

N

early 10 years ago, Siemens Healthcare acquired three diagnostic companies, growing its stature in the health care industry as a leader in medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics and information technology. In addition to having a larger customer base to consider, the company had to also look at how it supported, maintained and trained its employees.

As it stood, the cards seemed stacked against Siemens’ learning organization, called Virtual Education Solutions. Its “train the trainer” model was failing — proving costly and ineffective. General skills and proficiencies were on the decline while compliance regulations were increasing, and the learning department’s ability to sufficiently support its clients’ changing training needs seemed untenable.

What’s more, a tremendous technological shift was afoot.

Among other things, smart devices were entering the mainstream, and new mobile technology was expanding how and where people could consume information.

To respond to these needs, in 2011 Virtual Education Solutions used its Healthcare Integrated Learning Solution to develop the Personalized Education Plan, a comprehensive, competencybased learning program for the virtual space. PEP offers more than 5,000 learning activities across a wide variety of professional topics, in multiple languages, all accessible through a web-based portal.

It has been accepted by over 60,000 consumers and more than 5,000 employees in the global diagnostic market. With the introduction of tablets and smartphones, however,Virtual Education Solutions would soon realize that to keep pace with the societal behaviors influenced by technology, it would have to go further in how it brought learning to customers.

In PEPConnect, launched in 2015, Virtual Education Solutions created a learning infrastructure flexible enough to meet the changing times and user needs.Through it, learners can access education and real-time performance support wherever they are on any device.The new tool has inspired a 70 percent return rate for additional information and is now available in seven languages for Siemens’ global customers, sales partners and every Siemens health care employee.

For its efforts in developing new, agile solutions to reach an expanded customer portfolio in a continuously shifting technological landscape, Siemens Healthineers is the 2016 Optimas Award Gold winner for Training.

—Bravetta Hassell

Life & Specialty Ventures Silver

W

hen results from Life & Specialty Ventures’ annual employee survey came in, a few problem areas quickly came to the fore: Employees were not satisfied with the company’s professional development efforts.

Workers also didn’t feel like their immediate supervisor provided them with timely and helpful feedback. And they didn’t see the Little Rock, Arkansas-based employee benefits provider supporting their learning and development.

To avert this harbinger of employee disengagement and turnover, in 2015 the organization’s learning department developed Pathway to Leadership, a 10-month development program designed for consistent and highperforming employees who are in nonmanagement roles. Pathway to Leadership develops the skills needed for employees to become future

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leaders at the company. As part of the program, participants develop management knowledge, skills and abilities, and receive structured mentoring.

In its inaugural year, when 22 participants completed the program, half of them were promoted to higher positions. Participants reported a high level of satisfaction with the program, and lately, organizationwide, Life & Specialty Ventures’ more than 500 employees have reported improved satisfaction with the company’s professional development activities.

For its work empowering and preparing highpotential employees with a clear path toward future leadership, Life & Specialty Ventures is the 2016 Optimas Award Silver winner for Training.

—Bravetta Hassell

november/december

2016

Vision

Southern Utah University Gold

E

mbracing the new may be difficult for institutions of higher education, but five years ago Southern Utah University slowly and successfully incorporated an employee wellness program.

The public university in Cedar City implemented its initiative, the Employee Engagement and Wellness Program, in 2011. It began when an annual biometric screening fair largely motivated the university’s workforce. The insurance provider that suggested the screening also suggested the concept of wellness as a way to decrease health care costs, and Renee Ballenger, the first-ever wellness coordinator at Southern Utah, hoped the university would actually see a return on investment in terms of health care costs.

“For the first four years of the program, I constantly — every semester — found myself grasping at straws to justify the existence and worthwhileness of the program,” wrote Ballenger in the Optimas application. “The barrier was that the administration only saw wellness to be that insurance provider’s promise.”

Although it took five years to see results, it has grown into a robust, holistic and constantly improving wellness

Gensler Silver

W

hen a business experiences significant growth but the talent pool does not, that’s problematic.

Gensler, a global architecture, design and planning firm, had this problem in its consulting practice.The talent could not sustain its growth and created the 24-month-long Design Strategist Development program with the help of Gensler’s global talent studio.

The program targets young professionals and develops Gensler’s next generation of strategic thinkers through on-the-job training and targeted learning. Full-time new hires have to

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2016

program. What started out as a simple biometric screening fair is now a more complex, holistic wellness program with components like a weight management program, an educational series on financial wellness and chronic disease prevention, and a “hearty and diverse” lunch-and-learn program.

The university moved wellness from the public relations to the human resources department two years ago, and that was key in increasing the program’s success, wrote Ballenger. Employee participation and wellness increased after the shift.

SUU has a vision for the future as well, including a bi-annual employee magazine, stress management education and a virtual wellness center for employees.

For its willingness to try wellness — typically a corporate trend — in the traditional environment of an academic institution, Southern Utah University is the 2016 Optimas Award Gold winner for Vision.

—Andie Burjek

apply and be accepted into the program.The first program runs from June 2015 to June 2017.

Because global clients were asking for greater consistency in the services it provided, the Design Strategist Development program also sought to build a sense of community and consistency in the new generation of thinkers.

Between 2014 and 2015, the Gensler consulting practice grew by 20 percent, and a third (34 percent) of those people were program participants.

“The program creates a foundation on which we can grow our practice in a strategic, accelerated and robust way,” said Andrew Garnar-Wortzel, a leader of Gensler’s firmwide consulting practice.

For its foresight to identify what’s lacking in the talent pool and how to eliminate that problem in the future, Gensler is the 2016 Optimas Award Silver winner for Vision.

—Andie Burjek

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51

SPECIAL REPORT

Relocation

Mobility Needs a Makeover

Companies are getting more innovative in the way they plan — and pay for — mobility assignments, but they still struggle to prove whether these assignments add real value to the business.

By Sarah Fister Gale

G

lobal relocation assignments can be a useful tool to prepare ployers fail to support them in the next phase of their career, high-performing workers for leadership roles, but there is a said Steve Nurney, leader in the global mobility practice for troubling gap in the way these assignments are tied to broader Mercer.With relocation assignments, there is generally a lot of talent management strategies. Only 10 percent of mobility pro- thought put into sending that person abroad to fill a specific fessionals say their role is strategically aligned with the wider role, but when the assignment is over, there is often no plan in talent agenda in their organization and actively engaged in work- place for what they will do next, he said. force planning and people effectiveness, according to a 2016 reThat means companies are making a significant investment location trends report from Brookfield Global Relocation Ser- in an employee — roughly 2.5 times their annual salary — vices.“That’s a surprisingly small number,” said Diane Douiyssi, that could ultimately pay off for another company.“It’s a comdirector of consulting services for Brookfield in Chicago.“A lot mon scene,” Nurney said. “People come back from their asof companies aspire to have great alignment between global mo- signment and there is no job waiting for them.” At the same bility and talent management, time they are also more attracbut it’s just not there.” tive to recruiters who are interThe disconnect between ested in leveraging their newly mobility and talent managedeveloped global leadership ment often results in poor skills for another employer. oversight of these assignments — candidates are chosen and MILLENNIALS COST LESS sent with little effort invested in TO MOVE monitoring their development Despite the lack of formal or determining whether the inprograms, companies do recogvestment being made in this nize the value of mobility to candidate is benefiting the develop future leaders and fill business. According to the recritical talent gaps in global op—DIANE DOUIYSSI, DIRECTOR OF CONSULTING erations, Nurney said. “A lot of port, while virtually every mobility professional (96 percent) companies have accepted the SERVICES FOR BROOKFIELD GLOBAL faces pressure to reduce costs, fact that to be a global compaRELOCATION SERVICES almost half (49 percent) say ny they need leaders with a they don’t consistently track global mindset,” he said. Global the total costs of international assignments, 39 percent don’t assignment help build those leadership skills in a way that local prepare cost estimates for all assignments, and only 26 percent management roles cannot.Though they are beginning to recrequire a cost benefit analysis, suggesting that mobility profes- ognize that every overseas assignment does not deliver the sionals are failing to deliver critical financial metrics that stake- same value — or warrant the same level of support. holders clearly want. Beyond managing costs, most companies Sending an executive overseas to deal with a company crisis also have few strategies in place to track the business impact of or to lead a mission-critical project is very different from findthese assignments. Nearly half (48 percent), for example, can’t ing a stretch assignment for a promising but as yet untested even say whether their international assignee attrition rate is up-and-comer — and their support packages should reflect greater than that of their overall employee population. that, Nurney said.The challenge is that for years most compaThat should be a big concern as repatriated employees are nies had a one-size-fits-all approach to mobility. That made often at a high risk of leaving — especially when their em- sense when most relocation assignments were limited to se-

‘A LOT OF COMPANIES ASPIRE TO HAVE GREAT ALIGNMENT BETWEEN GLOBAL MOBILITY AND TALENT MANAGEMENT, BUT IT’S JUST NOT THERE.’

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2016

HOT LIST Relocation Service Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Sarah Foster and Nicholaus Garcia; editors@workforce.com Number of client companies for the most recent four quarters

Employee-assisted moves in the most recent four quarters

317

22,000

79 percent

1,146

42,899

Would not disclose

400

69,344

85 percent

1,000

168,000

Would not disclose

CROWN WORLD MOBILITY crownworldmobility.com

685

67,014

Would not disclose

GRAEBEL RELOCATION graebel.com

241

33,225

100 percent

IMPACT GROUP impactgrouphr.com

443

3,572

N/A

1,800

180,000**

THEMIGROUP themigroup.com

250

20,000

80 percent full-service, 20 percent single-service

WEICHERT WORKFORCE MOBILITY, INC. weichertworkforcemobility.com

390

24,038

94 percent

XONEX RELOCATION xonex.com

116

9,948

98 percent

Company name & web address AIRES aires.com ATLAS VAN LINES atlasvanlines.com BROOKFIELD GLOBAL RELOCATION SERVICES brookfieldgrs.com CARTUS CORP. cartus.com

SIRVA WORLDWIDE RELOCATION & MOVING sirva.com

Percentage of customers that are full-service relocation clients

Would not disclose

**Corporate relocation and moving events exclusive of ancillary mobility events.

Source: Companies november/december

2016

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | WorkÆ’orce

53

SPECIAL REPORT

Relocation

nior leaders who demanded cushy salaries, extensive housing allowances, and lots of additional incentives to make it worth relocating their families.

But today’s businesses have a lot of reasons for relocating employees, and many of them have figured out that younger staff don’t need the same level of support as their older, more encumbered peers.Younger employees are more open to the adventure that comes with an overseas assignment, and are often willing to voluntarily go with few if any additional perks, according to George Bates, senior vice president of global marketing and sales for Graebel, a global relocation and

DATA BANK

move-management company.They are young and hungry and eager to learn about a new culture.” Inviting young highly skilled employees to voluntarily relocate for a challenging work assignment has been a growing trend among tech companies for the past few years, though other companies are beginning to follow suit, Bates said. It’s one of the many strategies mobility experts are using to cut the cost and complexity of relocation assignments, while adding value for employees.

“There is a pervasive assumption among this generation that if they want a strong career they need this kind of experience.”

Brookfield’s study shows that while overall only 11 percent of the employees taking relocation assignments are 20-29 years old, among companies that align mobility with talent management the number jumps to 22 percent, with most of that shift coming from the 40-49 year old group.“These companies are focused on driving younger people into global leadership roles,” Douiyssi said.

The shift to sending more young people to fill these gaps is driving another trend — offering a variety of relocation package options based on the needs and value of that employee to the company. Along with being willing to take less money, younger employees generally don’t have homes to sell, or kids in need of private school education, which makes relocating them easier and less expensive to manage. “They want these experiences and they can be packed and ready to go as soon they need to be.” In some cases companies are moving these employees onto local payrolls where they are paid locally competitive salaries versus continuing to receive a homebased compensation package. “Young people are often okay with this because they are less concerned about pensions and benefits,” Nurney said. In other cases, they are doing permanent relocations to minimize the compliance and tax implications of short-term assignments.

Being able to offer multiple mobility packages can help companies reduce the cost of relocation, but it requires more governance, planning and policy making, Nurney said. Companies need to determine who makes these decisions, what constitutes a development opportunity versus a strategic need, and how to align the business value of these assignments with financial packages. “There are more policies to write and programs to administer.”

BACK TO BIG DATA All of these challenges lead back to one overarching trend among companies trying to figure out whether their mobility programs are delivering business value — better analytics. Fully 59 percent of mobility professionals reported that senior executives are asking for more and better analytics. From basic metrics such as who is taking assignments and what these assignments cost the company, to more strategic measures including the long-term business value of developing and retaining these employees, and whether mobility is having the desired impact on diversity and inclusion targets, candidate development and recruiting.

But these metrics can be difficult to gather, especially when the relevant employee information is stored in multiple siloed

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2016

databases. Douiyssi noted that customers are increasingly turning to their service providers to help them find the answers.

“They are asking for deeper analytics, including dashboards and self-service tools to get basic information on their own,” she said.

Relocation service providers are responding by rolling out a series of analytics capabilities, mobile apps and self-service tools to give employers and employees better information to improve the mobility experience. For example, Brookfield’s analytics platform produces customizable reports to analyze program performance and mobility spend, and identify cost savings opportunities; SIRVA, a global relocation company offers a customizable mobile app that provides employees with relocation resources, financial tools and the opportunity to communicate with the company; and Graebel provides clients with a real-time dashboard to manage employee data, download reports and track employees.

But, as in most areas of HR, detailed predictive analytics are still out of reach for many companies. Even if they can access the data and publish reports, they still need analysts to ask the

right questions, and conduct deep dives of the data if they are going to derive anything more meaningful from than how many employees they sent on assignments last year. “Some larger companies have HR analysts in house, but most still need help understanding the information they have and how to access and analyze it,” Nurney said.

It’s unlikely that dashboards alone will fill this gap any time soon, which means companies need to start thinking more strategically about their mobility programs and how they can link these assignments to business results.

Nurney encourages mobility professionals to clearly define why mobility in general, and each assignment in particular, is important to the business, and how it ties to the strategic goals rather than just tactical needs. “HR and mobility leaders need to be able to communicate the business value of these investments,” he said. “Cost is a factor, but it is more about how these assignments add value to the business.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in the Chicago area. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

HOT LIST Rewards & Recognition Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Alice Keefe; editors@workforce.com Company name & web address

Annual revenue

Number of clients

Key clients

ACHIEVERS achievers.com

Would not disclose

250

Air Canada; American Express; Cox Automotive

ENGAGE2EXCEL engage2excel.com

Would not disclose

2,500

Emory Healthcare; Ford Motor Co.; UPS

GLOBOFORCE globoforce.com

Would not disclose

Would not disclose

Intuit; JetBlue; United Health Group

MARITZ MOTIVATION SOLUTIONS maritzmotivation.com

Would not disclose

150

Caesar’s Entertainment; General Motors Co.; Roche

MICHAEL C. FINA mcfrecognition.com

$100 million

850

BP; Comcast; McDonald’s

O.C. TANNER octanner.com

$460 million

4,000

Dow Chemical; Northern Trust; U.S. Bank

RIDEAU RECOGNITION SOLUTIONS rideau.com

$150 million

960

Boeing Corp.; Intel; RBC Financial Group

Notes: This Hot List was originally scheduled to publish in November. Ruane Communications declined to participate; AnyPerk did not respond to requests for information.

Source: Companies november/december

2016

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

55

AGESIM continued from page 29 Herman Miller also offers a phased retirement program that allows employees to gradually exit the workplace by reducing their hours.

“We recognized that we’re poised for a significant amount of potential retirements in the next decade,” Cortese said.

“Phased retirement gives us more time to think about how to transfer knowledge and it helps the employee be deliberate about their retirement planning, both economically and socially. There is a significant psychological change that comes with retirement.”

One of the more unique programs that the company offers is a mentorship program called “water carriers.”The concept is based on the idea that older workers carry institutional knowledge that must be passed on to the younger generation.

“When somebody has been somewhere for a long period of time they’ve probably

developed job skill expertise and know how to navigate the culture,” he said.

Employers who are not actively trying to retain and hire older workers are missing a golden opportunity to boost their bottom line, according to Kathleen Christensen, director of the Working Longer program at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in New York.

“If they are thinking of older workers at all, they are thinking only about graceful exits,” she said. “It’s a major missed opportunity for American businesses.

They are framing the question in terms of how will our older workers leave, rather that how can we harness the potential productivity of our older Americans.

That’s the real challenge.”

Rita Pyrillis is a writer based in the Chicago area. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

ADVERTISING SALES Clifford Capone Vice President, Group Publisher

(312) 967-3538 ccapone@workforce.com

Derek Graham

Regional Sales Manager (312) 967-3591

dgraham@workforce.com

AL, AR, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, ND, NE, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, WI, WV, District of Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan

Nick Safir Regional Sales Manager

510-834-0100, ext. 227 nsafir@workforce.com

AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY, British Columbia and Albertaa

Daniella Weinberg Regional Sales Manager

917-627-1125 dweinberg@workforce.com CT, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT, Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Europe

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Advertisers/URLs Page

Advertisers/URLs Page

AARP 29 aarp.org/bizcase2016wf ADP 13 adp.com/benefits CLO Symposium 56 closymposium.com HCM Advisory Group 3 resources.CLOmedia.com/learningelite Hogan 33, 35 hoganassessments.com HRCI 6 HRCI.org/PHR40 iCIMS 5 iCIMS.com International Coach Federation Inside Cover CredentialedCoachFinder.com

PXT Select 19 www.PXTSelect.com/CouldHaveKnown SilkRoad Back Cover silkroad.com/roadmap SHRM 15, 3rd Cover shrm.org/more shrmcertification.org/workforce Thomsons Online Benefits 25 www.thomsons.com UPMC WorkPartners 21 WorkPartners.com Workforce Webinars 7 events.clomedia.com/webinars

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november/december

2016

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w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

57

LAST WORD

Rick Bell

WEARABLE WELLNESS IS ON ME — AND YOU

I

recently joined the wearable device world.

It’s kind of like mom meets cheerleader, reminding me to eat well and drink lots of fluids, recording my steps, pinning badges on my virtual chest and acting downright giddy as it buzzes and flashes when I hit my pre-set goals. Rah, rah, Rick! Now eat your quinoa and give me another 10,000 steps, dear.

Best of all I wear it in the pool for my water workouts.

(I don’t swim; OK, I can swim but I do water aerobics, which I bet you think is only for old ladies and fat people.Yes, classes mostly consist of old ladies and fat people.

Good for us.)

IT’S ONGOING, CONTINUOUS FEEDBACK, A PERFORMANCE REVIEW FOR MY HEALTH. IT’S LIKE A BOSS ON MY WRIST; AND THE REAL-TIME BADGES AND RECOGNITION MAKE ME FEEL SO … MILLENNIAL. It also tracks my sleep, bluntly pointing out what I already knew: There are nights when I’m bothered by a brain that races like NASCAR on a Saturday in Talladega.

Not so much about war, famine or pestilence; stuff like, “Hey dummy, did you leave the beans on the stove?

That laundry isn’t washing itself, you know; you better update the freelance budget tomorrow; oh, and post that blog, finish your column and make an appointment for the dog groomer” — the truly critical stuff that keeps you awake at night.

So, no shock that my wearable blared that I was restless six times and woke up twice. Tell me something I don’t know.

All that said, so far so good with my new gadget. It’s ongoing, continuous feedback, a performance review for my health. It’s like a boss on my wrist; and the real-time badges and recognition make me feel so … millennial.

Strapping on a wearable struck me this past summer after our first-ever office step challenge. We used a phone app rather than wearable devices, which presented several technological challenges before the first step was taken. The app didn’t work on some of my colleagues’ phones, which was a buzzkill for them. I also quickly discovered the app sucked the juice out of my battery like a parched marathoner.

Charging my phone was nearly as challenging as the walking. I found phone plugs in the oddest of 58

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

places and a mostly charged phone helped propel me to victory with 1.3 million steps.

I’m proud of finishing first. But the motivation wasn’t an Amazon gift card for the winner; I kept finding new ways to add more steps. Instead of using the bathroom at the end of the hall, I’d do my business in the building next door. Different train stops added more steps and there were the occasionally ambitious 14,000-step strolls from work to my front door, which I likely never would have attempted if I wasn’t totally obsessed with crushing my competition.

I’m on record saying that wellness begins with the person, not the organization. After this challenge, I’ll step to a new attitude just a bit.

I still firmly believe that my personal health is on me.

Should I eat a banana or that second doughnut? Make a beeline for the bar after work for a couple of beers or hit the gym — and then the bar?

I credit our company’s social and development committee for hatching the challenge that provided my initial impetus to hoof a million steps-plus across Chicagoland. They provided the motivation and I took the ball and ran … errr, walked with it.

I also took that next step and now sport a wearable.

Call it post-challenge momentum.

In years past I would cynically posit that merely buying your employees a wearable and holding a step challenge won’t yield an office full of health fanatics. I likely would contend that your employees already give you a full week’s work. What’s to make them sacrifice literal blood, sweat and tears for you? What’s in it for them?

I will still argue that finding what punches your employees’ motivational buttons is elusive. You’ve heard it before and it is so true: Wellness is not one size fits all.

My health regimen and personal motivation simply is not the same as my coworkers.

Still, the step challenge was my first-ever foray into an organized workplace wellness program. I get the sense the program was more about team building than an effort to cut our corporate health spend.

Whatever the reason, it worked — at least for me. I’m eager to start the next leg of the workplace wellness challenge. Nutrition is important, as is sleep for those of us whose brains won’t shut down. Financial wellness is not just a buzzword, either.

Bring it on; the boss that lights up and vibrates is wrapped around my wrist. I might even learn to appreciate the badges, too.

Rick Bell is Workforce’s managing editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

november/december

2016

“I am ready. Because I am SHRM-certified.”

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Join the more than 96,000 professionals who’ve earned their SHRM Certification, and demonstrate that you are the future of HR.

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Exam applications now being accepted!

WINTER EXAM WINDOW: Dec. 1, 2016 - Feb. 15, 2017 APPLICATION DEADLINE: Oct. 21 LATE APPLICATION DEADLINE: Nov. 11

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Today’s workplace demands that HR professionals deliver innovative thinking and measurable business results. The SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP credentials use nine critical competencies including leadership, business acumen and communication to test not only what you know, but how you can apply that knowledge on the job.