Past Blogs, December 2007

December 28, 2007 -- By Anne Nolan, operations, customer support and contributing editor

Susan asked me to tend her blog while she's away; we meant for me to post sooner than this, but my family had a somewhat more eventful trip home this holiday than we'd anticipated. Fortunately, everything all worked out – the finger that my six-year-old crunched in a door while chasing around with his sisters wasn't broken after all. After the drama and the x-rays were all done, we rolled out of the parking lot of my hometown hospital, Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and we happened to notice that they've still got a reserved parking spot for their wonderful Bearly Sick childcare service for mildly ill children from ages six weeks to fourteen years. It's in a suite of rooms right next to the pediatrics department of the hospital. When the children check in, the nurses ask who's been exposed to what, and they keep kids in separate rooms if necessary so contagious kids don't infect others.

My oldest, who's now ten, remembers Bearly Sick fondly from when we lived in eastern Iowa in 2000-2001. When she contracted a mild case of chicken pox, her regular daycare wouldn't let her return for a week, but the wonderful nurses at Bearly Sick stepped into the breach. They read her stories, fed her lunch and snacks, and administered her medication. She did art projects, solved puzzles, and napped on a cot when she needed to.

The service is a godsend for parents who can't spare a week off from work for a mild illness and who don't have a grandparent nearby to rely on. It provides such peace of mind to know that your child is in the care of nurses who have all the resources of a pediatrics department right down the hall. And the kids love the focused and careful attention they get, and the activities they get to do if they're feeling up to it. My daughter says every once in a while she wishes we still lived in Iowa so that she could go to Bearly Sick when she's sick. I wish every community had a resource like this.

December 20, 2007

Donna Klein and her Corporate Voices for Working Families staff just keep thinking outside the box! Now they've partnered with Working Mother Media to get the U.S. Congress turned on about work-life issues. How would one best do that? By recognizing them, of course, and doing it in a very public way – a way that will get the attention of the electorate!

Together, they've created a new award, inviting U.S. Senators and members of the House of Representatives to apply to be the "Best of Congress."  The award will be given "in recognition of their leadership in improving the quality of life for working families by partnering with business to create long-term solutions to work-life issues." Working Mother will profile the winners in their September 2008 issue, right before they profile the best companies for working mothers.

December 18, 2007

The first expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) since 1993 cleared a final hurdle in Congress when the Senate voted 90-3 to approve the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1585) on Dec. 14, 2007. The measure had passed the House of Representatives just two days before, also with overwhelming bipartisan support. Unfortunately the original proposal, which would have reauthorized SCHIP, was vetoed by the President.

The legislation now moves onto White House, where officials have indicated that President Bush will sign the bill into law. The final measure requires that employers provide 12 weeks of FMLA leave to the immediate family members (spouses, children or parents) of reservists or members of the National Guard who are called to active duty in the U.S. military. They also must offer up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave to employees who are providing care for family members wounded while serving in the U.S. military. Workers can take the leave in increments of the shortest time periods tracked by their employers’ payroll system. Sources say the president will sign the bill soon, but no one seems to know when the law will take effect.

December 15, 2007

On TheMatureMarket.com Website you can download an interesting new study by the Urban Institute on the relationship between employers and older workers. If you’d rather have the digest version, here are their conclusions. 

Employer attitudes toward older workers are mixed. Employers value their loyalty, work ethic, reliability, and experience, and view older white-collar workers as more productive than younger white-collar workers. Yet, employers express concern that older workers may be less creative, less willing to take initiative, less willing to learn new things, and less able to perform physically demanding jobs. Employers are also concerned that older workers are more expensive. They're paid more, and in some cases, their wages reflect historical seniority arrangements instead of experience and productivity.

Health insurance costs for employers increase with age. Traditional defined benefit pension plans have very high accrual rates just before retirement age. But most employers report that older workers’ high productivity offsets their higher costs.  

Employers are less likely to train older workers because there's less time for costs to be recovered. Some continue to discriminate based on age, and some older adults report in surveys that employers treat older workers less fairly than younger workers and are more likely to lay them off. There's less time to recoup recruiting, hiring, and training costs from older new hires, and they rapidly accumulate defined benefit pension benefits. They also may be more difficult to terminate because of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. One study found employers were less likely to call back older job applicants for interviews than otherwise identical younger ones.

The report raises some questions that can't be answered at this time. The aging population may result in tighter labor markets in the future. Demographics imply slower labor force growth, which may raise the demand for older workers. Will global labor markets meet demand? Will more rapid technological change and substitution of capital for labor allow the economy to continue to grow with a relatively smaller labor force? Will more older workers choose not to work, or will financial challenges demand that they stay in the labor force despite the fact that they'd rather be playing golf? (And if so, will they be as valuable? As engaged?)

On the positive side, jobs in the future may be more perfectly suited to an older workforce, less physically demanding and more cognitively demanding, and requiring more interpersonal skills. All we really know is that in the not-too-distant future, the workforce – and the workplace – is going to bear little resemblance to the one we have now!

December 13, 2007

We attended a forum on Iraq the other night and heard some staggering and perhaps little-known facts about the war from an activist with Veterans for Peace named Tom White. Here's what he told us. "We have already spent over $500 billion on this war and on Oct. 22 the President requested $46 billion more. The original government estimate of the cost of going into Iraq in 2003 was $50 billion (we were going to pay for it with oil revenue and Dick Cheney said it would last no longer than two years). Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist, has said the first four years have cost $1 trillion – $720 million per day. Even if no more was spent, that figure exceeds the total cost of the 10-year Vietnam war. But of course more is being spent; about $3 billion a week, over $12 billion a month.

Just to put it in perspective, according to the National Priorities Project, a non-profit research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data, the proportionate cost to our state of Minnesota has been $11 billion. Our Congressional district's share of that would have provided 595,000 children with health care or hired 31,800 elementary school teachers, or provided 210,000 full University scholarships.

President Bush recently vetoed an S-CHIP health care program for 8 million poor children because of an estimated cost of $6 billion – two weeks in Iraq.

For $100 billion we could have provided universal health care for every uninsured person for a year. We’re spending $6 billion on cancer research. In 2007 an estimated 1,444,920 new cases of cancer were expected, along with 559,650 cancer deaths.

A few more facts: The U.S. ranks just under Mexico for poverty in the industrialized world, 25th in the world in infant mortality, 21^st in child mortality. We're ranked 37^th in quality of health care by the World Health Organization. We're 13^th in the world in bachelor level college enrollments and 45^th in mathematical literacy."

We must each make up our own minds, but these facts make the conclusion inescapable.

December 12, 2007

Will Marre, author (Reclaiming Your Dream) Emmy award winner and speaker about life was a presenter recently at the Master's Forum in Minneapolis. Among other things, he talked about how we work harder for money to pay the debts we incurred to buy stuff we don’t need, which we bought to relieve the stress of being in debt! And he said the core cause of this imbalance is confusion. It occurs to us that confusion is probably at the source of all work-life imbalance. Marre says new brain research has found that "we have 40 to 50 thousand thoughts a day. 95% of them are habitual. Unexamined. Automatic thinking prevents us from reflecting on the consequences of our choices. What we all want are fulfilling relationships, health and vitality, satisfying work, and a vivid sense that we matter. As for the world we want peaceful relations, world health, productive employment, fair opportunity, and mutual respect. The 'solution' for the sustainability of our own lives and the world’s future is the same. We must ask ourselves, 'What are we trying to accomplish?' Really," said Marre. "If we just answer that question honestly, our choices will change.” Simple but wise.

December 7, 2007

A Wall Street Journal article last month pointed out that there's a squabble brewing over the Family and Medical Leave Act, with employers and workers increasingly accusing each other of abusing the law. As many as 13 million workers took FMLA leave in 2005, says the Department of Labor, but companies say more workers are taking time off for vague illnesses, and doing it intermittently, which makes scheduling harder. They're fighting back by keeping a more careful eye on them. And workers say companies are making it harder to qualify, asking for second or even third opinions from health-care providers or firing or punishing them when they come back.

Some companies acknowledge taking a surveillance approach, hiring a company that actually sends an investigator equipped with tiny cameras hidden in buttons or hats, even following them when they leave home. And occasionally they do find workers who are cheating. But we much prefer the ComPsych method. They say their FMLA business has doubled in the past two years and they're able to cut FMLA use at companies by as much as a fourth. One way they do it is by helping workers find child care, nursing-home care or legal services, so that they don't have to take off as much time from work.  Your opinions are welcome!

 December 5, 2007

We have seen the future and it is here. eMediaWire reports today that Laura Durst, 16-year-old honors student from rural Woodstock, Ct., has launched WorkInMyRoom.com, the first website to offer screened telework jobs and projects for high school and college students. The site, which Durst plans to continue to develop as she completes high school and enters college, includes paid survey taking, modeling and event staffing, voice work, writing, artwork sales, blogging and other types of work. Some jobs are open to teens as young as 13, while others require a minimum age of 18. Durst personally screens all companies, and plans to add new opportunities regularly as schoolwork permits.

Durst says she was inspired in large part by her mother, Christine Durst, who is credited with founding the Virtual Assistant industry in the early 1990s. "My mom was a pioneer in virtual work, and is the CEO of Staffcentrix, which does virtual-career training for the US Department of State and Armed Forces and owns a teleworker site at RatRaceRebellion.com. I grew up in a home where working from home was the norm, and developing an entrepreneurial attitude was as likely as learning to feed or dress myself." WorkInMyRoom.com, whose revenue will be based on advertising, includes polls of visitors' interests, and in the current poll 19% of respondents say that tuition is the top reason they want to earn money. Also high on the list are money for an automobile (18%), wardrobe and electronic items (tied at 14% each), and funds for dates/socializing (12%). Durst adds, "I have some exciting plans for the site, and I think my visitors will find WorkInMyRoom.com enjoyable as well as informative. Since my income is based on advertising, come visit it often!"

December 3, 2007

Make sure your caregiving employees know about Caring.com, the new site that offers Facebook-type sharing, Q&As and a wealth of information and resources. Besides helping you figure out if your parent has Alzheimer's, it will keep them from getting scammed, it will offer assistance in sorting through the Medicare maze, moving them to assisted living, etc., there are links to information on health, housing, finances, legal issues and daily care, among others. They offer expert opinions on tricky issues like when and how to get a parent with dementia to give up the car keys or the checkbook, how to divide caregiving tasks (and resolve conflicts) with siblings, talk to your parent's doctor, etc. It's all free information, paid for by ads.

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