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Twelve Beliefs Boost Productivity As reported in the September 1998 HR News, a Gallup study linked 12 employee beliefs with increased profitability, productivity and customer loyalty. Organizations supporting these 12 beliefs outperformed other firms. Most important, supervisors can instill these beliefs without a direct financial cost:
Practical Accommodations Under ADA Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) an employer must extend reasonable accommodation to employees who claim an ADA right. This legislative mandate has frightened many employers. They imagine horrific costs, lengthy legal battles and disgruntled workers. Here’s a pragmatic three-step strategy to prevent lawsuits, or minimize their financial impact. 1. Communicate: Begin by engaging the employee making the ADA claim in a conversation about the medical problem that is affecting the job performance. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Ask how the company can assist the employee in doing the job. Often the request is for a minor modification; a low cost solution from which everyone benefits. A successful remedy may be more, or less, than the employee asks. 2. Document: Keep detailed notes about this investigation; if litigation ensues, this documentation may support your accommodation. Your notations should demonstrate that you gave the employee’s claim due consideration and made efforts to remedy the situation. Establish through word and deed good faith towards the worker. 3. Gather information: A good place to start is the Job Accommodation Network at 800-ADA-WORK. (800-232-9675) Do not disclose employee information. Discuss the medical condition and accommodations without reference to name, location, etc. If the condition is well known, such as diabetes, epilepsy, stress or depression, you may want to call associations dedicated to this disease or problem. You may want to share this information with the employee. Remember, employees need to work in concert with their company to achieve a remedy. ADA is an interactive process. Just as management needs to listen to the employee, the disabled worker needs to cooperate with the company. Refusing any and all accommodations is not cooperating. A non-cooperating employee may sacrifice his or her reasonable accommodation rights. In instances in which this becomes troubling, Fauecast is available for consultation. We urge mutually beneficial solutions.
Quality Today By Chuck Truby Twenty-five years ago, the United States woke up to the fact that declining productivity and so-so quality had severely weakened its global competitiveness. Through the numerous quality improvement initiatives that followed, it became clear that the best developed and deployed quality movements, processes, systems, tools, methods, suppliers and products are only as constructive as the human resources behind them. So where is quality today as we approach the next millennium? The subject of quality received the attention it needed despite the many false starts, expectations of quick fixes and wasted hopes, time and money. Quality has finally moved from specifications, controls, inspections, tools, methods and prevention to a harmonized relationship with business strategies and plans. Today, quality is, first and above all, a given. The customer now expects it. The quality transition that has occurred over the last 25 years has served as a platform for learning, forcing us to know our businesses better and to know our customers and the people that work for us. We finally learned that the customer isn’t interested in quality tools or systems; customers only care about results. Today, quality is becoming more than just a deliverable in a product or service form. Quality is also important in the way we develop and delegate to people. If companies have not recognized this, they must now move in this direction to continue to attract and retain high performance people. To do so requires that the values, culture and behavior of the organization change and adjust. The program starts with the people in the organization. We must, however, be careful not to resort to a training scheme to align people’s behavior with the needs of the organization. Training is for skill enhancement. Positive behavioral change requires carefully planned scheduled human resource development and constant reinforcement to enhance initiative, leadership, empathy, time management, goal setting and interpersonal skills. In addition to realigning behavior, detailed knowledge of the company business, and especially its customer, is required so that delegation and the right decisions can be made throughout the entire organization. The combination of behavioral development and knowledge of the business represents a powerful approach to improving people performance and ultimate success for any organization. That is where quality is today, and probably, tomorrow. Chuck Truby, Ph.D., is president of his own facilitation firm and an associate of Fauecast.
Stress Is Expensive The December 1998 Business & Health reports the results of a study of 46,000 workers by the Health Enhancement Research Organization. In comparing the results of health risk assessments with medical bills over a six year period, workers who were overweight, smoked, had high blood pressure or didn’t exercise generated an extra 10% to 20% in annual medical costs. But risks like stress or depression made a bigger difference, generating anywhere from 46% to 70% in additional expenses.
Hiring the Right Attitudes Attitudes and beliefs are critical contributors to a company’s success. The best hiring procedures reflect this. Often organizations hire employees on the sole basis of skills. Fauecast urges two additional variables: motivation and congruence with the corporate culture and work group. These are variables that ask about attitudes. To the extent that the potential employee is congruent, or aligned with the firm’s goals and values, the likelihood of a successful assignment increases. Someone motivated to serve humanity will underperform in an environment rewarding winning. An employee keyed to associate with competence and achievement will chafe in a highly unionized, same pay for equal time situation. Look first for skills, then for motivation, and finally for organizational fit.
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