Susan's Blog  
(Occasional comments by Susan Seitel)

November 25th

Job hunting? This may be the right time to try the feds

The federal workforce is about to be hit by an unprecedented "retirement tsunami," says Linda Springer, the feds top personnel manager. During the next ten years, about 60% of federal employees, including 90% of senior managers, will be eligible to retire. And it's her guess that about 40% of them actually will do so. They're starting now to recruit all kinds of professionals at all levels of their careers. So if you've lost your job or are considering getting back into the workforce, think about applying to work for the U.S. government.

You might find it a welcome change, says an article in The Job Journal. Most federal employees stick to a 40-hour workweek. They're rarely laid off, get good salaries, regular promotions and annual cost-of-living increases. Full-time employees enjoy ten paid holidays and nine to 26 days of vacation each year, depending on seniority. They can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for birth, adoption or seriously ill family member. They have great health insurance and many agencies have onsite childcare. Their pensions aren't going to be whittled away and they have lifetime health insurance coverage.

Flexible schedules, including telecommuting (it's encouraged!) mean many opt to work from home or a telework center or work nine-hour days and take one day off every other week.

To find a federal job, go to http://FederalGovernmentJobs.US. We aren't in the job market but we tried it just for fun. A quick search found us ten HR jobs in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area.

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Diversity pays off, says a study, but it's not about compliance

November 15, 2008

We know there are a lot of reasons why diversity in a workforce is good, and we have long suspected that a workforce that looks like its customers is good for business.

In the December Newsbrief we write about a groundbreaking new study that actually demonstrated the value of diversity in dollars and cents. But the most important part of the study is that it clarified where the payoff comes from. It's not just having a diversity policy that makes the difference, but really valuing diversity – walking the talk.

The study looked at hundreds of stores in a retail establishment, each of which was subject to a common diversity policy that came down from the top. The retailer was on Diversity Inc.'s list of "Top 50 Companies for Diversity," indicating that the policy was probably a good one.

Although the policies and goals were the same throughout the company, in some of the stores, management really did value their diverse groups of employees, supporting the policy through practices. In others they didn't.

The study showed that African-American employees in stores with high pro-diversity climates increased their sales by about $20 per hour, an annual sales gain of nearly $21,000. Hispanic employees increased hourly sales by $26, resulting in annual gain of $27,000. Even white salespeople showed improvement in their sales figures in those stores, maybe because there was less discrimination directed at whites.

The lesson is obvious. It isn't the policy that makes the difference. The study concludes that "organizations that foster hospitable diversity climates by providing equitable opportunities for their minority workers can experience greater profits and a more harmonious workforce." A company that's paying attention to its diversity climate will give employees the opportunity to grow and do their best. Said one researcher, "Employees, no matter their ethnicity, who feel valued and are treated well, will be productive and add profitability to the organization.”

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Working families won a victory in the election (and we don't mean the presidency)

November 5, 2008

Working families won a victory in yesterday's election, and I'm not talking about the presidency. Milwaukee's voters overwhelmingly approved a binding referendum that calls for private employers in the city to provide paid sick leave for all their workers, a measure strongly opposed by business leaders and the city's Mayor. The final vote tally showed 69% voted for the referendum with 31% against. That makes Milwaukee the third city in the country, after San Francisco and Washington DC, to require private employers to provide paid sick days.

Under the measure, says an article in the Milwaukee Journal, a full-time worker would earn a minimum of one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, or nine days a year. Businesses with 10 or fewer employees would be required to provide five days a year of paid sick time to full-time employees. The paid leave could be taken for illness or medical care for the employee or the employee's child, parent or other relative. The time could also be used to attend to medical and legal issues resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

Proponents waged a grass-roots, door-to-door campaign, distributing more than 200,000 pieces of literature that said no workers should have to lose a job because they are sick or have to care for a sick child.

The Milwaukee Small Business Times today reported that the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce has notified the city that it is considering its legal actions to stop the new sick leave mandate.

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November 4, 2008

It occurred to me today, as I was standing in line waiting to vote, that in nearly every respect this is a wonderful country in which to live – a perfect country – with just one exception. The exception is that we have no national commitment to our future. Very strange. We're leaving that to the generosity of employers and the luck of the draw.

When we were raising our four children no one questioned whether I would leave the house and go someplace to work every day. I never even saw the inside of a daycare center until my fourth child was four – and then only because my volunteer work began to be a little more demanding. Lucky? Absolutely.

It's not especially productive to ask why we've paid so little attention to the needs of children and families when European countries have paid so much. The appropriate question is rather what we might do about it if this election gives us a majority of those who agree that we've dropped the ball. At the very least we might pass the Healthy Families Act, which provides for national paid sick leave to ensure that Americans can address their own health needs and the health needs of their families. It's been killed off every year since 2005. This next year could be the one. We might even consider offering a decent paid maternity leave so parents who don't happen to work for the 100 Best could bond with their infants.

And perhaps we'll begin to work toward covering our uninsured children. The Children's Defense Fund reports that nearly nine million children in America – one in nine – are uninsured. The majority live in two-parent families; almost 90% have one working parent; and almost 90% are U.S. citizens. The weakening economy is going to have a dire effect on the uninsured, says a new Kaiser 50-state Medicaid budget survey. Their analysis says every one percentage point rise in the unemployment rate leads to a 1.1 million increase in the uninsured population and a one million increase in Medicaid and SCHIP enrollment. The economy is also going to have an impact on employers' ability to pick up the slack.

Whatever the outcome of today's election, the U.S. has a fighting chance to wake up and put children and families on the agenda for the next four years.

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