Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

The Benefits of the Blue Cross S Network in Nashville

2012-01-21T10:56:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned on my last post, we are renewing all lines of coverage for the same premiums as we're paying this year; no changes in coverage or cost for the company or our people. In breaking down the numbers it is obvious that there were three factors contributed to this successful outcome; broad movement to high deductible plans, the discounts of the S network, and good fortune in that we had few high-dollar claims.

Breaking these numbers down further, however, the S network discounts stand out as the real game-changer in our plan.

Just to review, we offer three health plans: a High Deductible Plan with the broader P network (HDP-P), and High Deductible Plan with the S network (HDP-S), and a PPO with the S network (PPO-S).

For the underwriting period April - November, 2011 here's how these plans performed. The HDP-P claims were 116% of premium, meaning that we paid 16% more in claims than we paid in premiums. Were this our only plan our premium increase for next year would be in the 33 - 35% range.

By comparison the HDP-S plan performed at 41.4% claims to premium. Note that this is the same benefits and deductibles as HDP-P; the only difference is HCA hospitals are not providers in this network and those hospital which are providers give deeper discounts.

Finally, the PPO-S performed at 80% claims to premiums. Were this a standalone plan we would be looking at a 2-3% decrease in premiums at renewal. Note that the PPO plan gives the richest benefits, and yet outperforms the HDP-P plan due to the difference in discounts.

As we look at ways to continue holding the line on our insurance costs one of our primary concerns should be moving people away from P network coverage. Our strategy will be encouraging people to move through education. A future strategy could be to unlink these three plans let the premiums "float" to their own levels.
For now we hope to show everyone how a High Deductible Plan and a deep discount network save them more money than staying with their current suburban hospitals and PPO co-pays.

Good News On Insurance Renewal

2012-01-18T11:22:00.000-06:00

Last week we met with our broker and learned that we are able to renew all lines of benefits coverage with no increase in cost. As such we will also opt not to make any changes in insurance coverage.

This doesn't come as a complete surprise. We've been tracking our insurance plans' performance all year and we're running about 83% claims-to-premium. That suggests a good renewal, but our last year with United Healthcare we had 84% and still received a 33% increase proposal.

This year's good news comes mostly due to two things: very few high-dollar claims and a significant migration from the PPO plan to the High Deductible Plan. The beauty of these results is that the overall cost of co-pays and coinsurance paid by our people is not significantly higher than last year. This indicates smarter medical buying on the part of people in high deductible plans. It appears that, in aggregate, both workforce and employer saved money or at least held their costs static.

We will have our usual Open Enrollment period during the month of March. There won't be much in the way of "new" information other than we'll continue to show people how the High Deductible Plan (and we're going to find another name for it) is the best plan for almost everyone.

More to come...

Jim

You Say "Stress" Like It's a Bad Thing...

2012-01-11T17:52:00.000-06:00

Nobody likes stress. All the typical language around that word is negative:

"Don't stress me"
"You're stressing me out"
"I'm stressed to the max"

Even the liturgy of my Church has changed to include the phrase, "...and protect us from all stress...".

Stress is an inevitable part of life so taking the negative energy and turning it into something positive becomes an essential life skill, as well as a career skill. Several of the Fortune 500 were founded during depressions or recessions. People do things during stressful times out of necessity that they normally would not have done. They get degrees and professional certifications, seek promotions, open businesses, change jobs, kick bad habits, get out of bad relationships, etc... because they got "stressed out" of their complacency.

Think of stress like you would a big snowfall. You can either look out your window in dread, or grab your sled and go play outside. When stress comes your way, embrace it and turn it into a positive force for change. Turn your anxiety into motivation and do something spectacular.

HR Toolkit: Fair vs. Equal

2012-01-10T09:29:00.000-06:00

If there is a touchier subject in the workplace than "fairness" I've never seen it. I'm not talking about "our" workplace necessarily: I'm talking about "any" workplace. For positive morale the workplace needs to have an overall sense of fairness; that the rules are known and people are held consistently accountable to them in terms of outcomes and consequences.

The problem with managing an overall sense of fairness is that often people equate fair with equal, and they are not the same thing. Every person is different and every situation is different if only in nuance. Sometimes the most common offenders in mistaking equal for fair are HR people. After all, the laws governing employment practices require that we treat every similarly situated individual in a similar way. While the law doesn't say that, it does in practice. If you treat two similarly situated individuals differently, and those individuals happen to differ by race, gender, age, etc... (as they naturally do in a diverse workforce), you leave the company open to charges of discriminatory employment practices.

Also, a workplace without considerable consistency leaves management opent to accusations of favoritism. Two people do the same thing and get different outcomes and people want to know why. Also your least loyal or charitable employees often jump instantly to the conclusion of favoritism because they don't have all the facts or just because they do that as a matter of habit.

The delicate balance for HR departments is to see each situation in all its complexity and to make good decisions and recommendations on when to depart from policy. A good example would be when somone reports to work after consuming alcohol. When confronted, one employee denies drinking while the other asks for help with their alcoholism. An unsophisticed HR department will recommend termination for both because they committed the same offense. After all, "fair is fair", right?

Well, no. That's an equal approach, but not fair. The more nuanced recommendation is that one person was deceptive while the other was forthright and asked for help. The "fair" result is to termiate one and put the other into required rehabilitation and on a final written warning. The message to the workforce, as the facts leak out over time (and they always do, usually from the employees themselves), is that management cares about their people.

And that, HR practitioners, is the right approach. Do what's right for your people, see past equal treatment to what is truly fair, and see the workforce's trust in you grow over time.

A Mile Marker on Gender

2012-01-08T10:10:00.000-06:00

I'm old enough and from enough of a rural area to have grown up around some (thankfully) old ideas about how people should live. Having been born in 1960 my earliest memories of television were news coverage about the Vietnam war and the equal rights struggles of the mid to late 60's. I heard my family and friends detestation of race and gender equality protests and legislation. One of the difficult realities I confronted as a young man was that these people that I love so much were (and in some cases still are) wrong about so many things.

This last week I saw first-hand how far we've come regarding gender. I had to have a series of tests and procedures at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, mostly related to a bad fall I took back in September and some lingering injury. Every one of my doctors, nurse practitioners, and ultrasound techs were women, and the oldest was probably in her late 30's. I received excellent, state-of-the-art care from bright young women who would not have been admitted in medical school had they graduated high school in my youth.

So maybe none of this is ground-breaking news; after all, equal opportunity has been a settled issue for how many decades now? Still, every so often something shows me how far we've come and I take a moment to feel good about our future as a society.

Benefits for Care Givers

2011-12-07T15:14:00.001-06:00

Health information has never been more readily available. However what you hear about and what people need is often two different things. Wed MD's Top Searches for 2011 have, so far, been Pancreatic Cancer Symptoms (Steve Jobs), Listeria (tainted cantaloupe), and Bullying (hot topic in the media). What people most struggle with, however, are the basic life balance issues and stresses that revolve around care giving.

A recent Gallup study showed that one in every six employees in America is a care giver for a minor, ill or aged family member. Before you draw any quick gender conclusions, 46% of those are men and 54% women. If you slice the data by age and income, the numbers increase to one in five for middle aged and older employees and those earning middle income and below.

The importance of this study, other than the human need, is that these care givers miss an average of 6.6 days per year in call-in, care-giving-related activities. The lost productivity and paid time off benefits cost employers $25 - 28m each year. While there's not much an employer can do about births, aging or chronic illness, finding a way to lessen the human toll and the expense of care-giving-related absences is worth addressing.

In looking at how to reduce this impact on people and business Gallup looked at several interventions. The most effective, ranked by days saved, were:

1.2 days - Counseling for assisted living or nursing home admission
1.1 days - Access to support groups
1.0 days - Paid vacation time that can be used for care giving
0.8 days - Paid sick leave

Because our PTO program is flexible enough to use for care giving, and we have a sick bank program that can similarly be used for this purpose, I want to focus on how to access the two most effective forms of help: counseling and support groups.

If you are an employee of Thomas Nelson you have access to these benefits 24/7. Our benefits programs are accessible at thomasnelsonbenefits.com. If you don't know the password you can probably guess it or call any member of the HR team. Once there you can find the phone number and brochure for our Cigna Life Assistance program with a 24 hour counseling and referral line, and up to three free visits with a behavior health care counselor via referral. The referral line is 800-538-3543 for employees of Thomas Nelson.

Behavioral health providers generally include Clinical Nurse Specialists, Licensed Social Workers, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Family Therapists. If you need more visits than is provided by the Life Assistance program you can access the Blue Cross Blue Shield network of behavioral health providers for your state by logging into BCBST.com and searching a list of behavioral health providers. These providers can usually refer you to support groups in your area for your particular issue. Our insurance pays 80% of the cost for in-network coverage and 60% out of network (your plan option's deductibles apply).

You might not normally think of "behavioral health" as a source for life-balance or care giving services. Not only can these services help, but according to Gallup they can give you the most effective forms of help. Please see any member of the HR team if you need help accessing these benefits, but otherwise they are available to you via 800 number in the privacy of your home.

Yes, There is a Scott Agthe

2011-11-09T07:20:00.000-06:00

Scott Agthe is a labor attorney with whom I have worked for 15 years. We started working together when I opened up new facilities in El Paso for my Japanese employer at the time. He was a labor attorney with one of two major law firms in that city.

Scott and I worked together on the opening of a warehouse/material services center and a wire mill. Later he moved to Austin to join a regional law firm and continued to service my needs from there. Later I moved on to Thomas Nelson and, with a Texas operation in Plano, Scott continued to take care of my needs in that market.

Scott and I have worked complex cases together and have always been successful. We've beaten back bogus EEOC claims, phony worker's compensation claims, and consulted on the whole array of labor issues. We know each other's voice and no longer have to say, "This is Jim" or "This is Scott". We know our kids ages and send each other a little something at Christmas.

But last night over dinner in Richardson, TX Scott and I did something we'd never done :we met face-to-face. For 15 years Scott has been a trusted advisor and friend, and a first-rate colleague but all over email, fax, and phone. I keep up with his practice from his web site, and he keeps up with me through my Linked In page.

My experience with Scott Agthe is proof for me that the technological developments of the last two decades really do make space largely irrelevant in seeking vendors. The critical learning for me is that we should get our vendors, advisers, service providers, or whatever we need from the person or organization that fits us best regardless of proximity or geography.

How Our Sick Bank Works

2011-10-21T11:09:00.004-05:00

Ten years ago we combined our sick and vacation programs into a comprehensive Paid Time Off (PTO) bank. A couple of years ago we moved from a PTO-payout program to a use-it-or-lose-it program. This was in response to the Recession for financial reasons. It wasn't simply that paying out unused sick/vacation time was an expense. It was also that accrued but unused PTO has to be booked each month as a liability against company profits due to the fact that is a payable obligation under most states' Wage and Hour regulations. Even if you use that time to take a vacation, between the time that you accrue it and the time you actually take the vacation the value of that time is a financial liability.

Moving to a use-it-or-lose-it program is a difficult move for employees. There are all manner of reasons why people forfeit unused time at year's end, from simple mismanagement all the way to work demands and won't allow for all time to be taken. For that reason we implemented Sick Bank as an extra benefit. In addition to an employee's current PTO benefit, they can roll unused time up to a maximum balance of 80 hours into Sick Bank. So why isn't Sick Bank a bookable liability since it is carried over? Because of the rules of the Bank:

1. The hours have no value to you if you leave the Company.
2. The hours have no cash value while you are employeed with the Company.
2. The hours are restricted use in that you must have a doctor's statement.

We get questions with some regularity such as "How come I have to have a doctor's note to use my sick time?" The answer is simple; you don't. Your "sick time" is a component of your PTO bank along with your vacation time. When you or a family member are too sick to come to work, but not so sick that it is worth a trip to the doctor, you use PTO. Sick Bank is for use when you have, as everyone eventually does, that rare situation where you are under a doctor's care and too sick to come to work for a period of days.

If we remove the restrictions on Sick Bank use those hours would become payable under Wage and Hour laws, which would then make them a bookable liability. We would then most likely lose that benefit altogether.

Remember, Sick Bank is an extra benefit for serious illness or injury. No restrictions have been placed on the sick time component of our PTO benefit for use in cases of minor illness or injry.

Separating Person and Behavior

2011-10-19T17:12:00.000-05:00

One of the hardest things for managers, especially inexperienced ones, to do in a Christian organization is to call out unacceptable behavior. Doing so can cause conflict or hurt feelings and we are taught as Christians to be kind. Working oftentimes in small work groups, offending one of your staff can mean having 1/3 of your workforce mad at you.

For that reason two things often happen: either the manager doesn't address the behavior at all or does so with so much positive "spin" that the corrective message doesn't get through. In either case two bad things happen. In the short term the behavior gets worse, and in the long term the manager gets fed up and wants to terminate the individual who may not understand what they did wrong.

Ken Blanchard, in the old "One Minute Manager" series explained how to do this well. He spoke of separating the individual from their behavior: loving and supporting the person but not tolerating what they did. It is the difference between, for instance, "You are a gossip" and, "You need to stop gossiping." By addressing what a person does, while expressing support for the person themselves, you can have even very difficult conversations candidly and without leaving bruises.

The approach works well in a Christian organization because it has the biblical basis of, "Hate the sin, love the sinner." It can also be used between peers and family members and is not just a tactic for managers. It is ultimately more honest and ethical to deal with issues straight-on, but in a loving and supportive manner, than to let things go until frustration boils over.

Fire Drill October 7th

2011-09-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

On October 7th at 2:00 we will have a fire drill for the Corporate Headquarters. It has been a long time since we had one for this building while the warehouse has done a much better job conducting these drills. For that reason this drill will not involve the DC.

First Responders are scattered throughout the building and cover all areas. They are also best equipped to handle any injuries should someone become injured either during a fire or exiting the building (falling down stairs, for instance). For that reason we will ask them to take responsibility for clearing their work area.

All employees should exit the building and go to the South lot. If you are directionally challenged (like I am) that is the lot heading towards the airport and running parallel to the warehouse. There each employee should find their supervisor and group by divisions and determine who was in the building at the time of the alarm and if they all got out. HR will float between divisions with a checklist to determine if everyone got out of the building.

ELT members, Facilities team, and First Responders will gather at the pump house just off the front sidewalk. This team will be responsible for interacting with Metro and any media that might show up in the case of an actual fire.

If we do this right the drill should be over in about 10 minutes. Our goal is to have everyone out of the building within 1 1/2 to 2 minutes after the alarm, then have a headcount within 5 minutes of gathering in the South lot and reporting that back to the ELT at the pump house.

So if you are a Nelson employee the two takeaways you should get from this drill are (1) you should participate fully and willingly because it is done for your safety and that of your colleagues, and (2) it will only take 10 minutes of your time.

See Jack, Eric, Scott Holloway or me if you have any questions. Otherwise help us, and yourself, by evacuating the building and quickly organizing yourselves by division.

The Continuing Power of Face-to-Face Communications

2011-09-22T17:29:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month Gallup released an article entitled "Three Social Media Myths" in which is made three broad statements worth considering:

1. Social Networking Primarily Happens Off-line. It then carries over to on-line social media outlets, not the other way around.

2. Social Media Doesn't Drive Customer Loyalty. Brand Engagement Drives Social Media Engagement. Brand loyalty is a complex thing but once it happens it, like social networking, spills over on-line. Again, not the other way around (i.e. you don't build brand engagement on-line).

3. Social Media is a Tactic Waiting on a Strategy.

HR is a face-to-face business. It like so many similar pursuits from retailing to sales calls has felt the pressure of outsourcing or centralization leveraging social media communications channels. Here's a daring prediction: the next dot bomb will be some social media outlets. There is way more hype than substance, but there is some substance. This medium is a game changer, but it doesn't change the game's fundamentals.

Most every business is a people business. Businesses who abandon that understanding and try to replace face-to-face interaction with technology won't succeed. The exceptions to that are the technology companies themselves and those who promote it. The rest of us need to keep pressing the flesh.

Boiled Frog Alert: Changing our Service Award Program

2011-08-26T13:49:00.001-05:00

You probably have heard the old metaphor; how a frog placed in hot water will jump out immediately, but put in cold water and slowly heated he'll sit there and boil to death. That happens in business so often: we have a program that works in place and turn our attention away from it until one day we find we've been boiled and hadn't noticed.

Such is our Service Award program, which had been in place a decade or so before I got here a decade or so ago. It is a corporate incentive not charged to HR so we hadn't paid attention to the pricing, and since we administer the program nobody else had looked at the cost assuming we had.

Then we began to get complaints about the quality and selection of the awards. When we dug in we found that, looking up those same items on on-line retailers, we were paying about double plus shipping. Then we had a great suggestion from an employee: why not just give her the same value and purchase on-line through Amazon with free shipping?

Times like this make you feel dumb; like this should have been obvious had we been paying attention. It took just a few days to put together an alternative program, self-administered through HR, utilizing the new p-card program.

More details are coming, but today we received approval to ditch the current Service Award program and move instead to 100% self-administered program through Amazon.com. Employees will be able to buy any single durable goods item they want up to a set limit, and by taking the service award company's markup (including their mark-up on shipping!) and putting that towards the value of the award itself, the award item will be nicer.

Many thanks to Lisa Young for the original idea, to my staff for trouble-shooting and what-iffing the program, Elaine Williams for volunteering to take on the extra work, and for everyone involved in implementing the p-card program that makes this change possible. If we had to fill out check requests for every service award item we would not be able to take this on!

More details coming next week. The water is feeling cooler already.

Separating Social Media Messages and Sites

2011-07-25T23:46:00.000-05:00

If you've read this blog or followed my tweets since I started using social media you know it has been an uneven path. I have twice deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts only to re-start them some time later. I have vacillated on the best use of this blog and generally questioned the whole purpose of this medium. Now a few years later I use this blog, Facebook, Twitter and Linked In on a regular basis.

The reason I use four sites when I once questioned the use of social media at all is simple; it makes sense to separate various types of communication among various outlets and restrict access to some.

If you have ever sent a Facebook friend request and been ignored, or worse yet been accepted and subsequently dropped, do not feel excluded. I use Facebook for family and current close friends only. By that I mean if we grew up together but haven't seen each other since high school, or we work together but do not see each other socially, I don't grant you access on my Facebook page. I then restrict access to my content to anyone who is not specifically a friend or family member.

This is the place where I feel free to be candid; to communicate to my closest friends and keep in touch with (sometimes sordid) family business.

The reason I have resurrected my Facebook page for that purpose is that sometimes content intended for our internal audience (most of the readers of this blog) can come back to bite me from people outside the company. At my level in the organization outsiders sometimes mistake my opinions for the company's positions on this or that. Separating those two is important, and difficult, so I keep politics and religion on Facebook and reserve this outlet for business and professional topics.

This blog is my outlet for professional speech. It is all about workplace issues and HR and little else. Anyone is welcome to comment and I never censor comments unless they are vulgar or compromise the confidential information of an employee. Otherwise this blog should be a place for open professional conversations.

Similarly I use Linked In for professional networking. Just like I don't censor comments on this blog, I rarely turn down a Linked In connection. As far as I'm concerned the more the merrier.

The hybrid in my system is Twitter. I generally try to shy away from controversy and just talk about what I'm doing and where I'm going. Long periods of silence generally indicate that I'm working in that part of my job dealing with confidential matters and I just can't talk about it. Otherwise I like to mention products and services that I like and talk about places where I'm traveling to or from. I also use it to point people to blog information that I think is important, as I have far more twitter followers than blog subscribers.

For what its worth that is where I've come down on social media. Blog and Linked In for professional communication, Twitter for travelog and blog traffic, and Facebook for private conversations with family and close friends.

Comments, ideas and suggestions are always welcome.

New Concept Workplace, Meet Reality

2011-07-20T22:22:00.001-05:00

There are all manner of new-concept workplaces written about in on-line and print media. From Google to Zappos HR professionals are forever getting articles, some of them sent anonymously, about the rule-less workplace; where performance is all that matters and policies are so last-gen.

New Concept, Meet Reality.

As much as I would like to build a workplace where the rules are minimal to non-existent, there is a huge looming presence that makes that irresponsible in the form of Federal, State and Local Governments.

The various laws and regulations promulgated and enforced by various government agencies at all levels comprise a bureaucracy that can be used as a weapon against employers. Some of these are staffed by true believers who honestly feel that greed and discrimination are institutionalized in every workplace and its their job to use the full force of government to set things right.

HR's job is multi-faceted, but it is primarily to build a fair workplace where good people want to come to work, stay a long time, and can advance as their talents and efforts warrant. Implicit in that same system are controls built-in to make sure that poor employees not hired, not promoted, or let go don't use the bureaucracy and its true believers to extort money from the company.

The way this is done is a system of job descriptions, performance records, disciplinary records and work rules designed to identify similarly situated people. This is a fundamental concept that cannot be overlooked or omitted. If a current employee complains about treatment, we must be able to identify the rules and see if they were broken by employee or management, and know what we've done in every other similar situation, i.e. with other employees who were similarly situated.

If the accusation or complaint comes through a government agency, such as the EEOC, we must be to able to provide the agency with information on every similarly situated employee and include their race, age, gender, disability status, national origin, etc... If we can (and we always can) then we can prove that we manage by policy and not by discrimination. If we can't (and shame on us if we can't) it gets expensive.

So as much as I'd like to make it into Fast Company or WSJ for our innovation, until there is a change in governmental structure and policy (don't hold your breath) it will be the duty of any responsible HR team to administer a system that, among other goals, protects the enterprise from all enemies foreign and domestic.

And yes, that's necessarily bureaucratic at times because that's the government-induced reality of HR.

The new concept workplaces are mostly less than 5 or 6 years old and have a small number of very young highly-educated employees. All the major social media companies combined have about 80 employees. As these workforces grow and their employees mature, it remains to be seen how many bogus $100,000 settlement checks are written before equity ownership mandates more traditional HR programs. Meanwhile HR pros have to put up with looking old-school and behind the times while we continue to win cases and protect the workplace.

Leading Through Your Failures

2011-07-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

I came on board at Thomas Nelson in April 2001. There was a lot wrong with the overall HR program for a lot of reasons (no body's fault in my estimation; just a dysfunctional evolution), which was why I was recruited. The one thing that was going right was payroll, and by May of 2001 I had managed to screw that up pretty well.

We were closing all operations except Plano, TX and Nashville. To do that required that we consolidate payroll processing from four ADP processing centers in four different regions of the country into one center in Atlanta. We had a new payroll person and we didn't know what we didn't know.

The first pay date after going live with the consolidation we had 265 messed-up paychecks. The ADP center in Atlanta, we would come to find out, trained its people on small accounts like ours. Our instructions weren't followed and we didn't know how to find that out before the line formed outside our door. One fateful week all sales commissions were coded as "Christmas club" which is a benefit we don't have, so tens of thousands of dollars in compensation floated around cyberspace before bouncing back to us four days later. Meanwhile people needed their money and couldn't get it. Let's just say they weren't charitable and understanding.

So here I was, "new guy" here to shake things up, and all the keepers of the status quo who opposed change were enjoying our misery a little too much. Some of those included members of the staff I'd inherited.

So I called the staff into my office and I told them, "We screwed up, we need to understand how it happened and how to fix it, but fix it we will. We have the talent, we'll find the resources and we'll fix it. And, if you or anybody you know is enjoying this too much l have a message: Enjoy it while you can because you won't be able to enjoy it much longer."

Now I'll admit that I stole that from Coach Jackie Sherrill who was at Texas A&M when I was in grad school. He got the richest coaching contract in the history of college sports at that time, won three games his first year, and used those words to put the Southwest Conference on notice. In Year Two he went to the Cotton Bowl. So while not original, it worked. Here's why:

1. When you lead a team that fails, job #1 is to acknowledge the failure. You can't fix something until you call it by name and know what needs to be fixed.

2. You can't tell the team "they" failed; it has to be "we" failed. You are in charge so you get most of the blame anyway, and if you are seen as throwing blame on your staff in time of crisis you have just lost your credibility and ability to lead.

3. You must be defiant in the face of failure. If you accept the failure and become resolved to defeat so will your team, and your days in charge are numbered.

4. Enroll everyone in the analysis of the failure and in the solution. The team has to own both the problem and the solution before they can share in the success of overcoming and winning again. If they won't, the professional naysayers and cynics have to go.

5. Do what it takes to fix the problem and win. Nothing makes you look strong as a leader like winning. Conversely no amount of sound leadership theory makes you look good to a losing team.

Once we discovered that we didn't have reliable contacts at ADP we hired our own former ADP processor. She worked within our team to reset our program and also rode ADP's Atlanta staff hard until they lived up to their contract. She also educated me about how ADP worked and pointed out that my newly hired in-house payroll processor was inept. We replaced the in-house processor, overspent our budget by $98,000 (and forfeited my bonus for the year) but we reset the payroll and HR programs like we set out to do.

Too often managers, especially in Christian organizations, don't want to speak the hard truth of, "We failed." They don't want to lose face, or they don't want to deal with the conflict if team members can't or won't respond to their leadership. This is absolutely the wrong thing to do. You won't win all the time, and when you lose your team can't fix what they don't know is broken. Be brave, fear not, and a little humility never hurt a manager or minister. Unless you think you are always going to win, this is a career strategy you need to master.

Summer of Space Projects

2011-05-25T06:14:00.001-05:00

This is shaping up to be a summer of major projects in the Facilities part of our group. We're making good investments in providing a safer work environment for our warehouse team and keeping our Nashville operations all on one campus. This includes adding air conditioning to the areas of the Distribution Center where about 80% of our people work, moving the Library Archive to the DC, moving our Design and Multimedia Group into the current Library space, moving the Remainder Sales showroom into the existing DMM production room, and reconfiguring the current DMM space as growth space for new office positions.

The Cap-X was approved last week and these projects are rolling out as follows:

This week modular walls are being delivered to the warehouse to build the new Library Archive space. This self-contained, climate-controlled room will be heat and humidity controlled to protect this very important company asset. This space should be ready for the Library assets between June 8th and 10th.

The Library Archive will move between June 10th and 15th, after which the build-out of the current Library space will begin. Having been finished-out as storage space when the building was built, additional HVAC and lighting will need to be installed in order to accommodate moving 12 people into this area. New fixtures and an office will be added and this project should be completed about July 15th. The DMM team should move between the 15th and 20th.

Sometime in late July or early August the Remainder Sales showroom will move over to this building and the current DMM areas cubicles will be reconfigured to accommodate new positions or any currently pending space moves.

Finally, additions to the Legal team will necessitate converting the existing Lobby B conference room into a private office. One of the current vacant offices in the Sales area, on the other side of the elevator lobby, will be reconfigured as the new Lobby B. No date as been set yet.

All these moves are good news. As our business continues to improve and we carefully add needed staff our group's goal is to keep every Nashville employee here on this campus. The benefits in communication and teamwork that we've experienced these last 2 1/2 years since leaving all leased office space are indisputable. We hope to continue accommodating strategic growth while also improving our work environment.

One To Go

2011-05-02T06:34:00.000-05:00

A year ago this past weekend 11 families in the Thomas Nelson workforce experienced flood damage to the extent that their homes were, at least temporarily, unlivable. Four had to be almost completely rebuilt. One in particular, the home of Mark and Yvette Cowden, had to be bulldozed after it took Metro months to decide if they could rebuild or not.

This past week construction finally began and is progressing quickly. Yvette recently had a baby and this family has been in an apartment with their lives on hold for a year. When construction ends, which looks like late this month, we'll want to partner with them for whatever they might need such as moving, landscaping, etc...

This will conclude our flood relief efforts. Of our 11 families not one received a dime of aid from We Are Nashville or the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee or the Red Cross. Even though some applied, none was given. I personally will never give money to CFMT or the Red Cross again, especially given the Red Cross' similar problems with the billions it received after 9/11. One organization that was impressive was FEMA. While no large-scale government operation is flawless, this one was as close as I've ever seen.

None of what these organizations didn't do should overshadow what so many did accomplish. This included individual donations from our people to the Flood Relief Fund, weekends worked in service to neighbors, and Abilene's South 11th and Willis Church of Christ's amazing mission week helping our people. Those who could work did; those who couldn't cooked meals for those working; others wrote checks that made all the difference. Some people did all three.

In the end the story of Nashville flood relief was neighbor helping neighbor, churches showing the love of Christ through service, and flooded families pressing through tough times with determination not to be victims.

Ten down and one to go; watch for information in the coming weeks on how you can help.

Rx HDP Off to a Good Start

2011-04-19T21:45:00.000-05:00

Today my wife went to our local Publix pharmacy to fill two of our maintenance drugs. Each was a Tier 1 drug under the PPO plan meaning that they were covered under a $10 co-pay each, or $20 for the two. We paid full price for both of them which was $16! So for the past couple of years I've been paying an insurance premium which caused these two drugs to cost me more.

When she went to pay she swiped our HSA card and it worked. Success!

For those of you, like me, chose the HDP and HSA pairing for medical coverage, I hope you are having a similar experience. If not I'd like to hear from you, and feel free to comment on this blog.

For those of you still on the PPO plan, with or without an FSA, I'll keep you posted with our family's experience in this brave new world of quasi-self insurance.

Off the Aggregator

2011-04-15T13:21:00.000-05:00

This morning I asked Lindsey Nobles, who reluctantly agreed, to take my blog and twitter feeds off the Thomas Nelson blog aggregator and website. If you wish to read it you will still find it here but it won't be listed as a Nelson blog.

My intention in this blog has been to use it as a tool for (1) employee communication and (2) HR tech-talk. The former of these was successful but can be accomplished through internal email or the occasional link-out to a specific post here. The latter has been problemmatic and is why I chose to make this change.

The big issues changing the HR landscape and about which we need to talk shop are changes in employee lifestyles, immigration, changing demographics, and the changing religious landscape not just in our country but right here in our community. The labor pool locally and nationally is growing more non-white, less married, less Christian (either secular or Muslim in particular) and more multi-lingual. How HR departments and employers select candidates and deliver professional services within both the American legal framework and Christian values will change to reflect the new reality. How we go about this change, what tools and techniques we use, is something about which I'd like to talk shop.

The problem with that intention is that sometimes people outside the company draw broad conclusions about Thomas Nelson's policies or values based upon my opinions. Sometimes these are one in the same, but often times they are not. Separating my opinion from the Nelson platform seems to me the wisest approach to facilitate an honest conversation while not becoming a distraction to our company.

Periodically Check the Calendar

2011-04-06T17:03:00.000-05:00

When were your attitudes formed, and where? By whom? Are they still relevant today?

These are questions you should ask yourself periodically, especially as you (1) get older and (2) work in one organization over time.

Lately I've run into several examples of this. I don't know if it is circumstance or because lately I've personally made some changes, but I'm noticing outdated attitudes in others. My favorite comment of late is, "Open Outlook and check the calendar; its not that year anymore."

In this position you hear all manner of things, very few of which I can repeat. In general I see occasional perceptions about "how things are" that are 10 years behind reality. The occasional turf battle that arose out of fear based on something that happened years ago. The occasional person who is afraid for their supervisor to know that they came to HR, as if their right to come here for anything at any time hasn't been a matter of policy for 10 years.

The old saying goes, "What got you hear won't get you there." Some experience is wisdom, some is prejudice, and some is laziness. You can't just repeat what's always worked and expect that it always will. Knowing what to keep and what to throw out is a nuance that we all must master to sustain a lifelong career.

What A Quality Focus and Time Can Accomplish

2011-04-05T06:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the Department of Transportation reported an encouraging if not amazing statistic. Highway fatalities in this country for the year just ended were just over 33,000, the lowest in any year since 1949. Fatalities reached their peak with 52,000 in 1972.

The reasons are many but all have their origins in various systems which have been intentionally improved over the years.

Cars are better. Airbags, side curtain air bags, stability controls, better tires, and more recently spacing control radar in high-end models. Highways are better, smoother, and with more gradual curves as road builders have improved their techniques. DUI enforcement is much stricter and values have changed along with the law. Law enforcement no longer lets intoxicated drivers go with a warning.

Medical techniques for trauma have improved. EMT response time and techniques are vastly better than in the 70's, and trauma care in emergency rooms improved significantly with doctors coming back from Vietnam and seeing how they had better techniques in the bush than did most hospitals.

Seat belt use is now mandatory and reflects a change in values. 85% of drivers surveyed report wearing your seat belt and those annoying alarms hound you until you put the darn thing on.

Why is this relevant to a workplace blog?

Because it points out what happens to a system when the people executing it become intentional about improving how things are done, not just getting things done.

In a workplace focused on quality we should have two goals every day: to accomplish what is set in front of us and to get better at how we do it. While in our workplace we focus so much on creativity we should also leave some room for innovation. What problems could we solve if over the next 10 years we set about to intentionally solve them? This is how Japanese cars went from the tinker toys of the industry to the envy of the industry.

What seemingly impossible problem in your area needs to be solved?

Sooner or Later

2011-03-31T06:25:00.002-05:00

I've been saving this post for a very long time. As we come to the end of another fiscal year, one in which we have much to celebrate, I want to take a moment to challenge the thinking of a sub-culture within our company that looks for signs of layoffs...constantly.

This was undoubtedly our comeback year so as we move forward to build a better Thomas Nelson I'd like to ask this simple question: how can we as Christians contemplate and come to terms with the gravity our own mortality and eternal destination and yet gyrate uncontrollably at the thought of losing a job?

Over lunch one day Sam Moore told me the story of how he came to buy Thomas Nelson from Lord Thomson. Undoubtedly many of you have heard or read that story, although some of our newer or younger people haven't. It is one of the great lines on this topic and what follows is the abbreviated version of what Sam told me.

Lord Thomson, British publishing magnate getting on in years, notices the success of Sam's upstart Royal Publishing on 7th Avenue in Nashville. He calls Sam to lunch in New York and asks him to come work for him running Thomas Nelson, whose brand had lost its way in the marketplace. Sam says, "I won't come to work for you but I'll buy it from you." One of Lord Thomson's staff quickly jumps in the conversation and says, "Lord Thomson does not sell companies, he only buys them." Sam replied, "Lord Thomson, the Good Lord has designed it so that eventually we all sell."

And so it is with our jobs...

I will eventually leave Thomas Nelson. It could be after I get my gold watch for my 80th birthday like Jack Countryman (although thankfully he's still here!). It could be next year in a disagreement with my bosses or in 10 years due to disability or an offer I can't refuse. I'll eventually leave my job in some fashion just like I'll eventually die. I've come to terms with both as much as anyone can in advance of it happening and so my work experience is generally positive.

The economic and financial paranoia of this recession is easing. Our future looks bright. As we move forward together I encourage you, whether you work at Nelson or elsewhere, to make plans for your retirement; to pay off your debts and to have an emergency fund. Come to work with the same surety and outlook with which you come to your Church. To strain at job security and swallow mortality whole is illogical and makes your day, and mine, harder than it has to be.

A Thankful Monday

2011-03-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

This morning as I was doing my usual 6:30 email and web news check the big story was another Abercrombie and Fitch stumble. Adding to its history of sexualizing pre-teens, the company recently made the news for selling a push-up padded bikini top marketed to girls as young as seven.

The news caused me, on a groggy Monday morning, to pause and be thankful for where we work. While we're not without our problems (what workplace isn't?), I wondered for a moment what it would be like as a person of faith working at A & F. How could you be proud of your company? How could you feel good about going to work knowing that you contributed to a product line and company culture that makes money turning second graders into sex objects?

By contrast last week I spent a day in Abilene visiting the missionaries who had come to Nashville for flood rebuilding and relief. They reminded me that it was the inspiration of our products that caused them to form domestic mission teams. They not only perform domestic mission work but have also built an orphanage for deaf children in Kenya. This congregation of 250 supports 2 1/2 paid missionaries overseas. They give us and our products a lot of the credit.

I went there to thank them, on behalf of Thomas Nelson, for their help with one of our own whose house had flooded. Instead they thanked me for the inspiration of our products.

So fresh off that visit I read about A & F and said a quick prayer of thanks for working at a place whose products inspire the best in our readers. I also said a quick prayer for those working for employers of which they are ashamed. May they find a way out and support their families some other way.

Why I've Not Blogged and What's Next

2011-03-27T13:14:00.000-05:00

After posting almost daily I've been silent for about a couple of weeks. Since my last post we've been at the individual counseling stage for employees making important and sometimes difficult benefits choices. I've also been to Texas to do the same for our Live Events workforce. The days have been too full to allow much blogging time.

I've also been avoiding topics other than Open Enrollment until April 1st. We have been using this blog as a place to post FAQ-type information for Thomas Nelson's benefits plans. This has driven traffic to the blog. Because of this I've shied away from op-ed pieces; I don't want anyone thinking that I've driven them to my blog so they could be exposed to my opinions on one topic or another.

After April 1st I hope to get back to regular posts on more general workplace topics as our benefits enrollment deadline will have passed. I may also have one more post on the CAN-DO ordinance before Metro Council, as its Final Reading is April 5th.

Meanwhile, if you're a Nelson employee, remember that Monday, March 28th is the deadline for your benefits decisions. You legally have until the 31st and we'll honor elections up until that time, but it takes 2-3 days to get your elections in the system and your coverage will start a few days late.

So What Constitutes a Medical Emergency?

2011-03-16T16:20:00.001-05:00

In the choice between P and S networks one of the most common concerns is emergency room care. We always say, "Never drive past an ER", meaning that you should never think about in and out of network in emergency situations. Another reason is that emergency care (which is different from emergency room care which could include going on the weekend for the flu) is covered in our medical plan at the same in-network rate at any hospital.

When we give this response the first very reasonable question we get is, "So what is emergency room care to Blue Cross?" The concern is that a person might go to an out of network hospital thinking something is serious, find out that it isn't, and then be stuck with a big ER bill for out-of-network treatment.

Here, exactly, is the Blue Cross Blue Shield definition for emergency care.

An emergency situation is defined by a "prudent layperson" who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine, as a medical condition that develops itself by symptoms of sufficient severity, including severe pain. Failure to provide such treatment could reasonably be expected to result in:

Serious impairment of bodily functions
Serious dysfunction of a body organ or part
Could reasonably be expected to place the person's health in serious jeopardy
Threat to the health and safety of a pregnant woman who is having contractions or to an unborn child
Danger to self (including psychiatric conditions and intoxication

While there is room for debate after the fact, here are three things for you to consider. We have had the same possible situation historically with in and out of network ER care before ever going to BCBS. In ten years of managing the plan we've never had an issue with ER care charged as non-ER care. Also there is an appeals process and you should use your HR department to help as your advocate if there ever is an issue. Finally I've reviewed the list of acceptable medical billing codes that count as emergencies and it is 138 pages long.

Remember, if its an emergency go to the nearest ER. We'll help you sort it out after the fact if there is a problem, but the chances of you having a problem are slim.

Why Are We Moving the Book Archive?

2011-03-10T14:00:00.002-06:00

While plans are not yet finalized, the word appears to be out that we're planning on moving the company's archive to space in the warehouse building. All manner of speculation ranging from dead-right to ridiculous has made its way around the building. I'll take responsibility for not getting out ahead of this story; it is a proverb in HR and PR that if you fail to tell your story someone will tell it for you, facts or no facts. So what's the real story?

We are out of space.

With the recession-era move of all offices into the Corporate building, and subsequent subleasing of our other spaces, we are committed to one location for our publishing operations. We are about to embark on a new budget year with less than five spaces left in our building. When the new budget year rolls around on April 1st we will begin to receive requisitions to hire those approved positions and we have no place for them to go.

Our options were to reduce all cubicles down to 6x8, making more work spaces in this building by cramming people closer together and cutting down on the amount of counter and file space for every person. We eliminated that idea as too disruptive and detrimental to the work environment.

We could lease more space. This is not only unacceptably expensive, but it reverses the operational advantages we gained from having Publishing, Sales, Marketing, Operations and Administration in one building.

Our other option was to look for something to move out of this building. This building houses people, storage, archives and equipment. Much of our storage is in rooms where we can't put people, including our mechanical rooms. The building HVAC and servers can't move, and we're not splitting our team. That leaves the archive, which can go anywhere so long as we provide the correct humidity and temperature.

There is more to be determined and written about this at a later date as decisions are made. For now its sufficient to articulate what we're doing and why. Questions and comments are, as always, welcome.

If "Preventative Services" are Free, How are They Defined?

2011-03-07T13:22:00.004-06:00

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the law behind Congressional Healthcare Reform also known as PPACA) mandates that all preventative services be delivered at no cost to the insured patient (that's you if you participate in our health plan). So since most everyone at some point or other has been burned by the specificity of how an insurance carrier defines covered services, the big question so far as been, "What exactly is considered a preventative service?"

Here from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee PPACA flier "Preventative Services" is how BCBS defines these services.

All Members

• One-a-year preventive health exams. More frequent preventive exams are covered for children up to age 3

• All standard immunizations adopted by the CDC

• Screening for colorectal cancer (age 50 – 75 ), high cholesterol and lipids, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and depression

• Screening for HIV and certain sexually transmitted diseases, and counseling for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases

• Screening and counseling in primary care setting for alcohol misuse and tobacco use; tobacco cessation counseling in the primary care setting will be limited to eight visits per year

• Dietary counseling for adults with hyperlipidemia, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure; limited to six visits per year

Women

• Cervical cancer screening

• Screening of pregnant women for anemia, iron deficiency, bacteriuria, hepatitis B virus and Rh factor incompatibility

• Advice to promote and aid with breast-feeding

• Mammography screening at age 40 and over, and evaluation for genetic testing for BRCA breast cancer gene

• Osteoporosis screening (age 60 or older)

• Counseling women at high risk of breast cancer for chemoprevention, including risks and benefits

Men

• Prostate cancer screening at age 50 and older

• Abdominal aortic aneurysm screening at age 65 – 75

Children:

• Newborn screening for hearing, phenylketonuria (PKU), thyroid disease, sickle cell anemia and cystic
fibrosis

• Development delays and autism screenings

• Iron deficiency screening

• Vision screening

• Screening for major depressive disorders

Please note that annual limits apply to some: for instance, I have two physicals a year to monitor a personal health condition. One of those will be considered a free preventative health screening, the other will be considered diagnosis-related and applied toward my HDP deductible.

Never neglect your health, but it is always a good idea to have your doctor check with BCBS for coverage before undertaking any potentially expensive procedure. Knowing up front prevents surprises after the fact.

High Deductible Plans and Medicare Part B Don't Go Together

2011-03-04T11:43:00.006-06:00

Those of you who have reached or are approaching age 65 have an extra decision to make regarding our Open Enrollment. You are or soon will be enrolled in Medicare Part A, which is free and automatic for U.S. citizens. This covers hospitalization, nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and some home health. This does not impact your group insurance decision at all.

What is an issue is whether or not you should take Medicare Part B, which covers physicians, outpatient procedures, and durable medical equipment. Part B must be elected and will cost you, for this year, at least $1,384.80 for the next 12 months. In our opinion, and that of our broker Corporate Benefits Alliance, this coverage will not pay more in benefits than you'll pay in premium (see chart).

Now before your eyes gloss over, let's walk through it.

Medicare pays 80% (you pay 20%) after a $162 deductible. Medicare is always the payer of last resort, but it will pay its portion between the $162 Medicare deductible and the $1,200 Blue Cross deductible. That totals $830 in benefits ($1,200 - $162 deductible = $1,038 x 80%).

After you've reached $1,200 in medical bills your Blue Cross insurance kicks in at 80%, making Medicare secondary. In the coordination of coverage rules for Medicare, it will pay whatever Blue Cross does up to the limits of Medicare's coverage. Because Blue Cross pays 80%, and Medicare pays 80%, Medicare will pay nothing else. You pay 20% until your total out of pocket reaches $8,800 (a rarity)and then Blue Cross pays 100%.

The coordination of these two coverages means that you'll pay $567 more in Part B premium that you'll ever receive in benefits.

Bottom line: if you have Parts A and B you don't need to elect our coverage. If you have Part A and want a Blue Cross High Deductible Plan you should not elect Medicare Part B.

Guest Post: "Why was that High Deductible Plan so SCARY?" by Matt McCurry

2011-03-03T10:40:00.004-06:00

Let’s face it : most of us like security. When it comes to our health I would venture to guess that we all love security. Health, and the lack there of, can be a scary thing , and that’s why I was willing to pay for “peace of mind”. Two years ago I subscribed to the theory that paying the highest insurance premium had to be cheaper than paying the doctor or hospital for their services out of my own pocket. It also gave me the sense of security I was looking for in regard to my family’s health. I was married , we had just had our son , and I knew we would be going to the doctor quite a bit because that’s what infants like to do.

So what changed my our mind? Our wonderful HR department had just sent out the new insurance premiums , and after I picked myself up off the ground I decided that I really need ed to weigh out every option. I read up on this crazy thing called an HSA and found it to be quite intriguing. Not only was it a way for us to save up for medical expenses , but it was also an investment opportunity. What!?! I know - how amazing is that? So after looking at the traditional PPO premium (which I think was around an appendage per pay period ) and the High Deductible Plan premium I decided to dig in and run the numbers.

I won’t bore you with the details but the numbers blew my mind . It was painstakingly obvious that the HDP was the better option. When I came to work that Monday I discussed it with a coworker who had gone through the same exercise that weekend. After we ran the numbers about 50 different ways, and even though it was counterintuitive to everything we had known, I decided that this was our new plan.

Instead of paying money to an insurance company on the front end that would pay my bills IF we had them, it would be better to save that money and pay the higher deductible. By applying the difference between the two premiums into an HSA , in six months we had the funds available to cover the higher deductible. What about those first six months? It can be a concern , but it went by faster than I thought and the funds were in place before I knew it.

This is my experience and I have to say it was one of the best decisions my family has made in regard to our finances. We have been doing this for two years and this year we met the full deductible. At the end of the day we still spent less. I encourage everyone to at least consider the High Deductible Plan ; you might just be surprised.

S and P Network Hospitals

2011-03-01T15:37:00.009-06:00

With the start of Open Enrollment, one of the biggest issues for Tennessee staff is whether to take a plan with the Blue Cross Blue Shield network S or network P. The most common question is, "What's the difference?"

Well, here you go:

Hospitals in the S Network include Vanderbilt, St. Thomas, Baptist, Nashville General, Williamson Medical Center (Franklin), University Medical Center (Lebanon), and Middle TN Medical Center (Murfreesboro).

The HCA hospitals, which are in the P network but not in the S Network, include: Centennial, Southern Hills, Summit, Skyline, Stonecrest, & Hendersonville Medical Center.

A complete list of P and S network providers can be found here. Note that there are several network listed on that page but only P and S are available in our plan.

A complete list of HCA hospitals, none of which are available in the S network, can be found here.

As always, see any member of your Human Resources team with any questions you might have.

Benefits Education Week March 14 - 18th

2011-02-25T16:44:00.008-06:00

March is Open Enrollment month for Thomas Nelson. Every year we have a Benefits Fair in Nashville, and attempt to get local resources to visit Live Events offices to deliver similar information. This year in Nashville we'll devote the entire week of March 14th - 18th for education on some important topics.

In addition to raising general awareness on the benefits available to our emplmoyees (i.e. our Benefits Fair and electronic communications), our points of emphasis will be:

1. High Deductible Plans and Health Savings Accounts
2. 401(k) participation and diversification of investments
3. Home ownership and refinancing

We chose these points because the medical insurance market is moving toward almost all high-deductible plans. We won't be there this year, but could be by next. With the 401(k) match still suspended, wisely saving and investing your own money is more important than ever. Also, being in the plan is necessary to take advantage of any future restoration of matching contributions. Finally with interest rates at historic lows, but credit still hard to come by, we want to leverage our corporate banking relationship with Fifth/Third Bank to help our people obtain information on lowering their home payments or purchasing that first home.

Please mark your calendars and take advantage of information you'll receive simply because you work at Thomas Nelson. Live Events staff will have a separate schedule of vendor visits, and I play on coming down to answer Open Enrollment questions March 22nd and 23rd.

Mon 3/14
9:30-10:00 Fifth Third Home Mortgage Workshop – Refinancing, Cafeteria area
10:00-12:00 Fifth Third Mortgage Representative available for individual consultation, Lobby Meeting Room B

Tues 3/15
12-5 Benefits Fair, Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room

Wed 3/16
9:00-10:00 Vanguard 401(k): Diversify Your Plan Investments (breakfast provided), Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
10:30-11:30 Open Enrollment Meeting, Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
12:00-1:00 Vanguard 401(k): Save More (pizza provided), Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
1:30-2:30 Liberty Mutual – Auto 101 (snacks provided) , Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
3:00-4:00 Vanguard 401(k): Invest in Your Future - SPANISH (snacks provided), Warehouse Break Room
4:30-5:30 Vanguard 401(k): Invest in Your Future (snacks provided), Warehouse Break Room

Thurs 3/17
9:00-10:00 Vanguard 401(k): Save More (breakfast provided), Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
11:00-12:00 Vanguard 401(k): Invest in Your Future (pizza provided), Warehouse Break Room
1:00-2:00 Vanguard 401(k): Diversify Your Plan Investments (pizza provided), Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
3:00-4:00 Vanguard 401(k): Invest in Your Future - VIETNAMESE (snacks provided), Warehouse Break Room

Friday 3/18
9:30-10:30 Open Enrollment Meeting, Corporate Cafeteria Conf Room
1:00-2:00 Fifth Third Home Mortgage Workshop – First Time Homeowners, Corporate Cafeteria Conf. Room
2:00-4:00 Fifth Third Mortgage Representative available for individual consultation, Lobby Meeting Room B

Guest Post: "An Accountant Runs the Numbers on the High-Deductible Health Plan" by Darlene Mangrum

2011-02-23T09:13:00.013-06:00

I have been enrolled in the HDP insurance plan through Thomas Nelson for two years. The HDP insurance plan is based on the principle of the insured having a deductible and no co pays. Once the deductible is met, the insurance pays 80% of medical costs and the insured pays the remaining 20%.

In the HDP plan offered by Thomas Nelson, the deductible for our current year is $2,400 for employee + 1 and family coverage. What that means is that you will pay $2,400 out of your pocket before the insurance pays anything. I know that seems like a big pill to swallow, but consider the cost/benefit of the HDP over the PPO. When thinking about deductibles, there are differences between the PPO and HDP. With the PPO, you pay higher premiums, you pay a $35 co pay each time you visit the doctor, and you pay a co pay of $10, $30, or $50 for each prescription at the pharmacy. In the PPO none of these payments are credited to your deductible. With the HDP, everything counts toward the deductible. So once you reach out of pocket expenses of $2,400, you then only pay 20% of any future medical expenses for that calendar year. Deductibles are always calculated on a calendar year.

Premiums for PPOs are higher than premiums for HDPs. Since insurance premiums are deducted from your paycheck, it’s easy to forget how much you are actually paying for insurance. For example, the PPO annual premium for Employee + 1 is currently $2,410. The HDP annual premium for employee + 1 is $638. That’s a difference of $1,772.00. By choosing the HDP option, you could use some or all of the difference in premiums to fund an HSA bank account that can then be used to pay for actual medical expenses.

Nelson offers payroll deductions to fund your HSA account. You can use a debit card or checks to pay medical expenses from the account.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when considering the HDP:

• Annual premiums are lower.
• Your charges from physicians and pharmacies are at a discounted rate.
• You pay for medical services as you use them instead of paying high premiums for services you may not need.
• All medical expenses you pay are counted towards your deductible.
• Only people with an HDP can set up an HSA bank account.
• HSA accounts are owned by you.
• HSA accounts are not a “use it or lose it” account. The funds roll over and accumulate year to year if not spent.
• HSA money is portable and can be moved with you when changing jobs.
• HSA accounts can be used as an investment vehicle-after the age of 64, you can withdraw your money from the account for any reason.

Darlene is a Senior Accountant working primarily with both Women of Faith and corporate Payroll reconciliations and journal entries. She has been with the company 9 1/2 years.

Guest Post: "Why I Chose a High Deductible Health Plan" by Mandy Mullinix

2011-02-22T17:12:00.009-06:00

I consider starting a Health Savings Account (HSA) in conjunction with a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) to be one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made.

I came to Thomas Nelson in August 2007 after five years of working at a small-business that unfortunately did not have a large enough pool of workers to get good health insurance at a competitive price. As a result, I watched my health insurance premiums and co-pays increase dramatically year after year. By early 2007, I was paying close to $100 a week (or $5,200 annually) just for bare-bones coverage that came saddled with huge out of pockets costs.

My “a-ha” moment came that year when I actually sat down and read an Explanation of Benefits letter and saw just how little my insurance at the time paid my doctor. My son had been for a normal visit for some routine kid-sickness he had at the time. He didn’t have an x-ray, blood work or even an injection. It was a simple doctor visit and we received a script for an antibiotic. I remember paying the doctor a $35 co-pay, so you can imagine my shock when I read the EOB and saw all the insurance had left to kick in was $9.00. We made few visits to the doctor in 2007, which is a wonderful blessing. However, when you realize I paid in well over $5000 to receive maybe just $100 in actual benefits, you don’t have to be a mathematician to see why I started looking for an alternative to a traditional PPO plan.

I had read online about HSAs and thought that would be a good idea for me. I equated it to how I shopped for car insurance. I pay less in premiums if I agree to a higher deductible. The trick with it though is to actually save the difference for the deductible should anything happen (not pocket it, as is tempting). Unfortunately, a HSA/HDHP was not offered at my former job, but I started my HSA as soon as I was eligible for benefits here and haven’t looked back.

I’m going on my fourth year now in the plan and haven’t had any difficulties. My initial concern was how doctor’s offices would handle the billing/fee payment part (since most want your co-pay money upfront). I shouldn’t have worried. They all know they have to submit to my insurance first, then send me a bill for my portion which I pay with my HSA debit card. The exception to this is my dermatologist’s office. They somehow know up front what charges I am responsible for, but that’s even easier because I simply pay before I leave and there is no bill needed. Prescriptions work the same way. I drop them off along with my insurance card, then when it’s ready I pay for it with the HSA debit card. My pharmacist knows I’m in this plan and lets me know if a certain medicine is going to be expensive. If it is, we call the doctor and see if there is a lower priced alternative. The trick to making this plan work for you is to communicate your participation to both your doctor and pharmacist.

In the past three years, I’ve saved significantly more than I paid for medical claims. And since the money in my account rolls forward, I can use it for future expenses I may incur.

Mandy works as a Marketing Coordinator in trade book Publishing. She is a single mother and sole support of her family. That she's made the High Deductible Plan and Health Savings Account program work for her shows that most any family can benefit from this program. - Jim Thomason -

Guest Post: Strengthen Your “Critical Connections” at Work

2011-02-21T09:56:00.002-06:00

Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau are co-authors of Fired Up or Burned Out (www.fireduporburnedout.com). Michael is president of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training firm. He writes about leadership and employee engagement at his award-winning blog, www.michaelleestallard.com. Jason is president of Life Spring Network, a Christian discipleship and leadership training ministry (www.lifespring.network.org).

Research has shown that people perform better if they take time to create checklists that break their work down into necessary tasks. Here is an approach we recommend. Make a list of those individuals whom you count on you in order to do your work well and the individuals who count on you in order to do their work well. Think of these people as your “Critical Connections.” Strengthening your relationship with them is, in addition to making checklists, another key to achieving excellence in your work.

With each Critical Connection you should strive to develop a “Rational Connection” and an “Emotional Connection.” A Rational Connection is a “meeting of the minds” in terms of what has to be done by whom and what date it needs to be completed by. Frequently, mistakes are made when one individual presumes a meeting of the minds when in reality it doesn’t exist. An Emotional Connection is how you feel about an individual and how they feel about you. How we feel about people has a impact on trust and cooperation. Research has shown that Emotional Connections affect the amount of effort people put in their work up to four times as much as Rational Connections.

Here’s a two-part process you can use to be intentional about strengthening your working relationship with these individuals. First, periodically sit down with each Critical Connection and explain your W3 task list. A W3 task list describes what the task is, who is responsible for a specific task, and when it must be completed. It looks like this.

WHAT
Verify Books Shipped
Marketing Plan
Foreign Rights Agreement Completed

WHO
Sandy Bradley
David Schroeder
Daisy Hutton

WHEN
December 1
December 1
January 15

After you share your W3 task list, ask each Critical Connection to tell you “what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s missing” on your W3 task list. Work through any differences until you reach agreement. You might even consider confirming what you agreed upon in an email to each Critical Connection. This practice will help you establish a Rational Connection with each Critical Connection.

You might think of Emotional Connections as being established when you interact with your Critical Connections as human beings (as opposed to the task interactions we have where we interact with individuals as “human doings”). We recommend having lunch or coffee periodically with your Critical Connections. Ask them questions that are unrelated to work such as where did they grow up, what are their interests outside of work, what’s their favorite movie or what kind of music do they like. Look for ways to help them in their work and life outside of work.

By developing both Rational Connections and Emotional Connections with each of your Critical Connections, you will be more effective at work and, as you get to know your Critical Connections better, you’ll enjoy your time at work even more.

Our Benefits Direction

2011-02-18T13:23:00.011-06:00

We're pretty much finished with this year's insurance renewal negotiations and, as expected, it was another brutally frustrating year. Our claims experience was outstanding yet again, with claims running between 80 and 90% of premiums. While that would normally mean a flat renewal (as underwriters have to project this trend out 15 - 16 months to reach the end of next plan year), this year it means another set of increases.

How could this be? Trust me when I say we've asked that question repeatedly for weeks. The answer lies in three places: (1) the general mess that is the state of American health care, (2) the lack of competition among insurance carriers, and (3) the unfunded mandates of the Health care Reform law. I'll save you my personal views on what's wrong with our health care system, other than to say that we spend a huge amount more than any other nation on earth and rank somewhere around 10th in life expectancy.

The lack of competition comes from the fact that the multi-state, fully-insured carrier market is down to Blue Cross in each state, Cigna, Aetna, and United Health care. At any one time whoever carries your policy is one, so you have a market of three; and they all watch each other. Present your renewal case to any one and the first question you'll get is, "What's everybody else doing." They won't admit to that because it would arguably violate anti-trust, but that's what happens.

This year we're already with the Blues, and Aetna is shaky financially. United Healthcare and Cigna, when shown Blue Cross' quote, declined to quote saying that they couldn't' undercut it enough to entice us to convert.

So as bad as our renewal ended up being, on top of that Healthcare Reform mandates will make up 5% of our total benefits cost for FY '12.

In order to give our people reasonable options we'll most likely implement the following changes:

1. The PPO, P-Network option, which is a Nashville-only network that includes HCA hospitals at a higher negotiated cost, will not continue into next year. This plan was costing us substantially more than the other plans and yet most of the utilization was in the S network (deeper discounted). It appears that most of chose this option just asked, "What's the best plan?" and didn't choose it for HCA access.

2. The PPO, S-Network will continue to be part of the plan, but the premiums will increase substantially. That's because this plan's cost is significantly more than High Deductible Plans, and if you choose this option it is just that you pay for what you choose.

3. The two High Deductible Plans will remain in the plan, and a new provider for our FSA and HSA cards will come on-line around April 1st.

Rates and specifics will come soon via internal emails and memos. For now it is important for all Nelson employees to understand two facts:

- That the Company is still paying the same proportion of your health care costs that is always has: the increase in cost is not from our shifting cost to our people.

- That the days of having any PPO option are probably numbered. We will probalby be an all-HDP medical plan by next April.

A major emphasis during Open Enrollment and all during FY '12 will be education about High Deductible Plans and Health Savings Accounts. Everyone should make plans to learn more about how these programs work. They really are good programs and can save you money if used correctly, or cost you if not. We've avoided making them our only options due to complexity, not because they are bad options.

More to come...

A Moment to Appreciate Gender Progress

2011-02-14T20:22:00.011-06:00

Last Tuesday I hosted a coffee-talk session with our staff members hired one year ago or less. I wanted to get a first-hand view of what we were doing well and not-so-well now that we're hiring with more frequency. I didn't realize until the list spit off the printer that every one of these individuals were young women, almost all in their early-to-mid twenties. This turned the session from a look at "newbies" to a session exploring age and gender issues as well.

I had my usual list of questions: from generally how they liked it here to what do they specifically like to what do they specifically not like. I was very pleased with almost all of what I heard. We are doing a very good job connecting mission and people; not just articulating our company mission and values, but in selecting people with a passion for who we are and what we do. Almost everyone in that room appeared to be a really good fit. Most of the negatives revolved around on-boarding, initial training, and some miscommunication about PTO. There was nothing I heard that couldn't be addressed.

It was when I asked the question, "So since you are all young women, tell me what its like to work at Thomas Nelson as a woman." The best way to describe the facial expressions and body language was, "Huh?" as most had no idea what I meant. When I expounded about if they felt they were treated with respect, as equals, and perceived an environment of equal opportunity there was an almost unanimous "yes" in the room. They spoke of being on all-women teams, having women supervisors, seeing women in leadership as role models, etc...

Having been at Nelson 10 years this was rewarding. More important was the fact that I had to explain what I meant when asking the gender question. I've been in HR for close to 30 years and I've seen a lot change during that time. I'm married to a 50-something wife who remembers having to stand at attention in front of the high school principal to prove that her skirt (shorts weren't allowed) touched her knees. I had a relative who almost died in the 1970s waiting for a hysterectomy because her husband wouldn't give the doctors his permission. There are literally thousands of such examples in society and in the workplace. These young women have no such frame of reference. They entered the workplace after the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings.

And now here's the big lesson. Providing equal opportunity is to this generation like paying time-and-a-half for overtime or providing a 401(k) plan. You don't get a cookie for doing it, but not doing it brands you as no place they will work. The impressive progress of society in these last 30 years comes with expectations and assumptions that they are respected and get an equal shot at success. If you're a manager who doesn't yet get that; who gives lip service to equality but holds on to your biases, beware. If you thought dealing unfairly with a generation of women who see gender behind all issues was tough, try it with a generation of women who don't.

Eight Gables and the Lesson of Debt

2011-02-13T07:20:00.004-06:00

We are spending a long Valentine's Day weekend once again in Gatlinburg at Eight Gables Inn, a favorite of ours for some years. This year we've met the third owner since we began coming here. The results of this new ownership, in place since November, is significant. The situation here has a lesson to teach for businesses and individuals about debt.

The last owner, a dear lady who we liked a lot, simply paid too much for this property. During her tenure prices went up to cover that debt, which was structured pre-recession. During the recession, due in part to the higher prices, occupancy went down as did service and the number of available staff.

The new owners, from all indications, paid considerably less. The property had been on the market for some time before it sold. The new owners also operate a string of wedding chapels in Gatlinburg so this property is an adjacency for them; book the chapel and house the wedding party in one package: operate the Inn as normal otherwise.

The impact is noticeable. First of all, prices have dropped about 30%. The parking lot was full this morning, and there are about three times more staff than usual. The facilities are still a little tired from years of ownership that couldn't reinvest, but there are small visible improvements with more planned. The place has the feel of something about to come roaring back.

Have you seen a business example of this recently? How many companies are straddled with pre-recession debt and can't invest in people or infrastructure? How about a friend (I have a couple) who overbuys for their home as compared to their income and has a great house in a great neighborhood, but no shrubs?

The lesson is to never overpay for anything. Whether it be a car, a home, or a business you can operate smaller and better rather than over reaching and struggling. This should be one of the rules for the "new normal" of the post recession economy.

Nashville's Anti-Discrimination Issue

2011-02-12T07:55:00.008-06:00

Once again the Metro Council has taken up the issue of requiring companies that do business with the city not discriminate against gays and lesbians in matters of employment. Mayor Karl Dean was quoted in today's Tennessean newspaper that if passed, he will sign it. The Nashville Chamber is asking to slow down consideration of the measure for more study; in other words, they don't favor it but need more time to know just why.

Its time for this measure to pass. Discrimination is good and necessary so long as its based upon performance and behavior. You should, as an employer, pay more, give more, and advance people who perform in favor of those who don't. The word "discriminate" has a negative connotation based upon its use in the civil rights struggle, but leaders must do it every day to lead an organization. It is discrimination using factors other than performance and behavior that run counter to both Christian and American values.

Labor lawyers and traditional managers don't favor sexual preference discrimination because it complicates the employment landscape. How do I know the sexual preference of an individual I'm about to discipline, terminate, or not hire? I understand that argument, believe me I do. But the framework is already there to accommodate new restrictions using the existing non-discrimination framework (methods, policies, procedures) that HR departments already use in employing minorities and women. It really isn't that big of a deal.

I would suggest to Metro and to the Mayor's office that they go one step further. Once enacted, they should ask for all employers who are not city contractors to sign a pledge to uphold the law voluntarily. In a region not known nationally for tolerance (the South's reputation has not caught up with the fact that we're pretty open-minded in our urban areas), this would brand Nashville as progressive and tolerant and would give us an additional advantage in landing new businesses and creating new jobs.

"But that lifestyle is not Christian," you say? Well I'll leave that theological debate to others. Almost all Christian companies employ non-Christians whether we know it or not. Chances are some of the Christians that those companies employ engage in immoral behavior at times without losing their jobs. Our goal each day should be a workplace where performance, behavior and adherence to our core values in the workplace are all that matters. Banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in all workplaces would be a huge step in that direction.

A Simple Solution to Retaliation Charges

2011-02-04T14:25:00.015-06:00

Thompson vs. North American Stainless, LP is the latest ruling to send labor lawyers spinning. This US Supreme Court ruling expanded Title VII protections against retaliation to cover third party employees. In Thompson lower courts had ruled that the employer had retaliated against the fiance of a terminated employee who had brought legal action against them. The employer's defense was that Title VII didn't cover third parties. That the Court ruled for the Plaintiff has caused a new selling opportunity for labor law seminars, as law firms want to teach all of us in business how to protect ourselves from third party retaliation claims.

This is much hysteria about nothing for a couple of reasons. First Title VII already protects against "affiliative discrimination" i.e. protection against retaliation for whites who worked with and/or are friends with a non-white who brought an EEOC charge. Protection of third parties is not a new theory.

Second you can avoid third party retaliation claims with a simple countermeasure: don't retaliate.

One of my first Regional Managers back in my Wal-Martian days taught me that leading people who don't necessarily support you is the highest form of the managerial arts.

If you are in business and you run your operations for efficiency instead of trying to make sure nobody's feelings get hurt you will inevitably be charged with something. Work through the charge and focus on the work. Forget about who did what, trying to exact payback, running off the sympathizers, etc... That only gets you your own version of Thompson.

Getting accused of something at some point in your career is the norm in management; you are probably not doing your job if you don't. Prevailing against charges, self-correcting if you inadvertently do something wrong, and not retaliating are the three elements to keeping you and your workforce focused on business and not conflict: no seminar required.

Better Unemployment Numbers for Nashville

2011-01-28T06:58:00.005-06:00

This morning the Tennessean announced that the jobless rate in Nashville had dropped from 9.3% a year ago to 8.1% last month. That sounds good... actually that is good. But what exactly does that mean?

The Chamber of Commerce lists the adult workforce in Nashville at 787,389. Allowing for those commuting in from outside Nashville and undocumented/uncounted workers, let's just say that the total adult workforce in 850,000. Remember too that at any one time about 4% of the workforce is in transition; just moved here for their spouse's job, just had a baby and out of the workforce for awhile, just graduated and looking for that first job, etc... Historically Nashville's unemployment rate, even in boom times, is 4.5%.

So the real unemployment rate, that percentage of people who want a job and can't get one, is the difference between 8.1% and 4.5%, or about 30,000 people. That's still a large number but in a community of over a million people, its 3% of the population. Put another way, 97% of everyone in Nashville and surrounding counties who want a job has one.

This isn't to make light of the tragedy of long-term unemployment. About half of those unemployed nationwide have been so over a year. Just keep in mind when you hear the staggering figures about 15 million unemployed people that there is context behind those numbers and that, locally, we're recovering.

Weather As Drama

2011-01-26T09:00:00.008-06:00

This morning WSMV in Nashville, usually my favorite local station, reached a new low in weather reporting. With a light snow falling amidst rising temperatures and substantially clear roads, the warnings and imagery would have you thinking Donner Party. Our parking lot is almost empty, and much of that due to Metro Schools lack of courage in closing yet again when it didn't have to. Other absenteeism can be traced to folks looking at their televisions and not out their windows.

There were two accidents, count them, in Metro Nashville that required emergency workers. The footage of one of those accidents played continuously throughout the morning weather coverage. Some young cub reporter was dispatched to Clarksville showing footage of a slushy street with cars moving at nearly full speed. His comment? That it was surprising how fast traffic was moving given the dangerous conditions. He also pointed to Wilma Rudolph Blvd. where "last week over 200 wrecks were reported." Well, there were over 200 wrecks in all of Clarksville last week (he later corrected himself), but if there were 2,000 wrecks last week what does that have to do with today's conditions?

I left the house, drove my 20 minutes to work, and there was no snow on the streets. None. Zip. Nada. Metro Schools and local media combined to create unnecessary absenteeism that's disruptive to families and to business.

You can't yell, "Fire" in a crowded theatre. There are crimes against hate speech. How about a law against fear mongering that contributes to lost wages and productivity?

Just remember when you watch local weather that its sponsored by Kroger; the people selling you milk and toilet paper.

The Inevitable Younger Boss

2011-01-23T10:52:00.009-06:00

Unless you get to be CEO, at some point in your career you'll work for somebody younger. When that happens it stings for a lot of reasons. It is an unpleasant right of passage like the loss of an older friend or grandparent. It tells you where you are in your career unless you do something drastic to shake things up. What it tells you about your career status may hold true even if you do shake things up.

Organizations, as much as they may try to adopt egalitarian language, are pyramids. There are fewer positions the higher up you go. Along the way you reach a point past which you won't rise higher. You know that in your intellectual mind just like your know your own mortality. You just don't want it brought front of mind like when one supervisor moves on or retires and the next one is younger than you.

This can happen for several reasons. You can be a professional in a skill that supports, but is not at the core of, your employer. I'm an HR professional in a publishing company, for example.

Other less pleasant reasons for a younger boss are that the company thinks this youngster is better suited for tomorrow's skills, or that they've assessed the two of you and just think the other person has more potential.

So after you get the news and absorb the shock, what's there to do? Here are some suggestions.

1. Don't chalk it up to discrimination. If you take the easy way out you'll miss the self-examination that is needed for you to benefit from this development.

2. Ask the decision makers why it wasn't you. Also ask what you would need to do to be the right candidate next time, if they're willing to support you in that effort, and what they see your career track to be going forward.

3. Seek advise outside your company. Get a second opinion and decide for yourself if your company is right or if they're just made a terrible oversight as to your potential.

4. Make a decision and move forward positively. Whether you decide to shop your skills on the market, seek to close the skill gap with your current employer, or transfer to another department, do it. Do it and don't let the decision cause your performance to erode through poor attitude. You can't make a positive change in a negative frame of mind; people smell it. You can, with the same amount of energy and a better outcome, turn other's negative opinions of you into motivation.

To handle this type of career turning point you must first expect it. Unless you're going to work for yourself, or be CEO, it is going to happen. Skip the anger, self-doubt, and suspicion and turn it into the energy needed to deal with this inevitable point in your career.

The Fool's Errand

2011-01-19T23:11:00.010-06:00

Our daughter works in HR for a local state-supported non-profit. They absolutely, positively prohibit employee use of social media at work. Don't do it, don't think about it, don't even think about thinking about it. This means she violates organizational policy whenever she updates their Facebook page or posts job openings on Craigslist.

You can't make this stuff up...

Now before you think I'm picking on one organization I would submit that there are a lot of old school traditionalists that are still of the mindset that social media use at work can be banned. The State of Tennessee where two of my relatives work has blocked eBay at the firewall. Many others have blocked Facebook. What all of these types of organizations fail to recognize is that a game changer has arrived.

Mobile Social Media. Here's why this changes everything.

According to Research in Motion approximately 50 million people use mobile social media applications, most notably Twitter and Facebook. At current sales projections this same report estimates that number by the end of 2012 to be 800 million.

Instead of a single phone usage communicating two-ways between two people (caller and receiver), one post can communicate instantly with tens of thousands and start a hundred thousand collatoral conversations. Our CEO can reach 90,000+ followers with one tweet from anywhere in the world instead of reaching one person with a phone call or email.

Vanguard's Vision 2010 report estimates that only 15 million adults in the world don't have a cell phone. Yes, you read that correctly, don't have a cell phone. In the next five years that number will be cut in half.

The Economist recently reported on a Chinese company making light-weight solar panel kits that sell in African for the equivalent of $70 U.S. dollars. One small panel on a grass hut provides enough electricity for a small cook stove, a few light bulbs, and a cell phone charger. Yes, you read that right as well.

Combine all these innovations with the rapid development and deployment of smart phone hardware and higher band-width networks (3G, 4G, etc...) and you have a worldwide e-ecosystem that operates outside of your company firewall.

Want to ban certain sites from your workforce? They'll access them on their phones. Want to control their phone use? Well, have you seen the small size of those phones? Hope you have cameras in the ladies room...

Workforce control is the SOP of weak managers who limit information out of personal insecurity or fear of hard conversations. Good management engages its workforce in the conversations pertinent to the business, especially the tough ones, and earns its respect. Concerned about confidentiality? Put confidentiality agreements in your Handbook and Employment Agreements and deal with violations as they come up. Oh yeah, and hire the right people and treat them well. Don't be afraid to get rid of the rest. Loyal and engaged people are better than the best security.

The better model is what we've done at Nelson. Encourage really good people to engage the marketplace in social media conversations that are good for the business. This current technology, much less whatever is coming next, makes your firewall obsolete except as a way of protecting your servers from hackers and viruses. Companies soon will have a simple choice; the fool's errand that brands your company as backward or the policy of engagement.

What It Takes to Get to Work

2011-01-10T16:57:00.022-06:00

Please don't mistake this for a rant because it absolutely isn't. I have a bias for coming to work and I always, always do unless I'm so sick that I can't get out of bed. I have missed work because of road conditions a total of two days in the nearly 30 years that I've been working for companies. This doesn't mean as much as it used to; technology has changed the nature of work to the point that much of it can be done from anywhere. Missing a day here or there while working from home, especially if schools are closed and you are watching kids is sometimes the better part of valor.

But what if your work won't allow that? What if you have to work in order to get paid and pay your bills? I find that a lot of younger workers don't understand what that takes. Here are some things I've learned and where my "I always go to work" comes from.

I grew up in a rural community of 1,200 where almost every man did one of two things; worked on the farm or worked in a factory. A handful of people were shopkeepers like my pharmacist dad. Our family had a drug store and two farms and I grew up farming while my parents went to work in town. Our town had three sewing factories that employed almost all women so the men commuted to Bowling Green and Louisville, 30 and 90 minutes each way respectively.

What each of these three groups had in common was simple: nobody was on salary and if you didn't work you didn't get paid. We had no middle class; we didn't know we were all working class until we left and lived somewhere else. This fostered a culture where neighbor helped neighbor, but where everyone took responsibility for being able to get to work no matter what. Farmers' herds had to eat no matter what the weather, and indeed had to eat more during snow and cold. Factory workers had to punch in at 7:00 or 7:30 an hour-and-a-half away on good days; up to three hours or more in the snow. Shop keepers took in what they sold, and medical professionals like my Dad had to go in at all hours during the cold and flu season.

What I observed in that culture sticks with our family today. If you must be there instead of working from home, and/or you want to develop the reputation of being the person who is ultra-dependable and always there it starts with some fundamental and intentional decisions.

1. Where you live relative to work - Whenever we've moved we always check the route between that house and work and ask ourselves if we could get up that hill or back down that steep driveway. If we felt it inhibited our ability to get to work we passed on that house.

2. Own a front-wheel, all-wheel, or four-wheel-drive vehicle - This doesn't have to be expensive. A small front-wheel-drive vehicle will get you to work almost any time unless you have a difficult hill or driveway (see 1 above). If you do, four-wheel-drive is essential. Buy an older model if expense is an issue and stick with common models where parts aren't overly expensive or difficult to find (Toyota, General Motors, Ford, Jeep, etc...).

3. Have a roadside emergency kit - You should always have a tow rope, small folding camp shovel, flashlight, blanket, jumper cables, rock salt or cat litter. These are indispensable if you or someone you come across ends up in a ditch. Store them in a truck box or a heavy plastic tote in the rear of your vehicle.

4. Practice, Practice, Practice - So many people don't get out on the roads because they are afraid. While the weather is icy, take your vehicle out to an empty parking lot and practice skidding and recovering. Most icy road accidents are caused when inexperienced or frightened drivers over-correct. Knowing your vehicle and how it steers and stops will keep you from being your own worst enemy.

5. Own snow boots and a heavy coat, and take them with you on the road - Dress to be on the side of the road even while taking steps to make sure you aren't. Every so often you may slide off anyway. Having the right clothes can be the difference between a bumpy ride and a threat to your health.

6. Keep your cell phone charged up - Being able to call for help keeps you from having to flag down help and hope for the best.

Remember that the keys to going no matter what start with where you live and what you drive. You also need to be prepared through practice and the right clothing and equipment. Is all this necessary to hold a job in today's world? Most likely not. Is it necessary to be that rare person who never, ever misses work and builds a reputation for incredible dependability? Absolutely! That, Gentle Reader, will take you farther in your career than people with more ability.

Provocation

2011-01-09T08:14:00.015-06:00

On Friday I had commented to a couple of executives that one of the goals in any employee communication is to incite the best thoughts and instincts in people. It is a fundamental HR competency that you craft any message to avoid inadvertently starting conversations that you don't intend to happen on subjects that divide people. Some examples that come to mind are one Plant Manager who tried to explain, poorly, to a group of factory workers that they were receiving market pay for their isolated area in Kentucky but said, "You're getting paid what you're worth." The anger over someone from outside that small town telling people that they weren't worth much never subsided until that Manager was replaced.

Another EVP was trying to brag on an assembly line group whose product went into a very expensive Toyota SUV. In the mid 1990's that vehicle sold for $40,000 and this group made about $6.50/hr. He said, "I bought one and recommend that you do too. You should be proud of the work that you do here." That set off an us-against-them discussion on wages and was a field day for the perpetually envious in the workforce (and every work force has them).

So if you can so easily bring out the worst in people when you're not trying, how much damage can you do when you mean to provoke?

I found it ironic that we had these discussions on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday we heard of the shootings in Arizona. Not surprisingly the shooter is young and, from my reading of his MySpace videos, disturbed. The Congresswoman who was shot had a target superimposed on her face on the Sarah Palin website. Every day people on the political spectrum from Glenn Beck to Maxine Waters make it their livelihood to provoke those who'll listen. The message is almost always the same; some variation of "they" are against you but "we" can rise up if you'll follow me. That message in the hands of the immature and/or disturbed can result in tragedy.

The idea of non-provocation is clearly biblical, from Colossians 3:21 to Ephesians 6:4. Although both of these are about parents not vexing or provoking their children, the principle is the same: those in power should not intentionally provoke those under their charge.

This goes for leaders, but remember that there are all manner of leaders. There are those who lead from position power, those who lead from the influence of their platforms, and those who lead from interpersonal influence. This last group can be anywhere in your organization.

Leaders should be careful to (1) not provoke intentionally when angered, (2) not inadvertently provoke through careless communications, and (3) discipline or remove "thought leaders" in their organizations who undercut the organization. It is the responsibility of leaders, no matter what type of leader you are or where you are in the organization, to intentionally bring out the better angels of human nature in those around you.

Doomsday Retirement Scenarios

2010-12-27T15:58:00.013-06:00

If you're older than 30 or ever attended a 401(k) educational seminar you've heard it. How we're not ready for retirement. How we haven't saved enough and how you need some astronomical amount of money you can't possibly save in order to afford retirement.

While few people are saving enough, period, there are problems with the doomsday scenario. It is based upon an unrealistic retirement age established in 1935, manual labor, and the idea of employer pensions, now mostly a thing of the past. With no pension and a traditional retirement age, how do you possibly retire?

Traditional retirement savings ideas are based upon the "three-legged stool" notion; your retirement is financed by your own personal savings, your private retirement benefits (pension or 401(k)), and Social Security. The doomsday Sayers project that without a pension your 401(k) and Social Security are all you'll have, and you'll be short.

Well, if you perform manual labor and have no alternative career, and you plan to retire at age 65, they're probably right. Here's why that won't happen.

The retirement age of 65 was established in 1935 with the original Social Security Act. At that time the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 69. The typical job performed by most workers was manual. See a problem already?

According to the CDC, the average life expectancy is now 78 years. Moreover, the forces at work causing increased life expectancy (improvements in nutrition, health care, etc...) are still at work. Since the Social Security Act we've added, on-average, 44 days (.12% of a year) of life expectancy each year. That means if you're 40 right now you could expect to live not just to 78 (by 2049), but to 83 (by 2054).

Were you to retire at age 65, in 2036, Social Security would be subsidizing your idle retirement for 18 years, not the 4 originally intended in 1935. This is why Social Security solvency is an issue, and why governments including our own are pushing for older retirement ages.

But you won't retire at 65 now will you? No, you might retire officially and cash out your 401(k), but after that you'll most likely continue to work as long as your mind is sound. Why? Because most of you don't perform manual labor any more.

What about personal savings other than 401(k)? You'll have that in the form of home equity and, if you're smart, investments. Most people approaching retirement either have the opportunity to or actually do buy-down to a smaller, more manageable home.

Don't let the doomsayers tell you that your home won't be worth as much due to the recession. That sells headlines but just isn't true. In our area home values increased by 7-8%/year for a couple of decades, then lost about 15% in the recession. Do the math. A $40,000 home I looked at in the Vanderbilt area in 1992 sold in 2007 for over $400,000.

In the coming years you'll pay off your home and, in retirement, most likely need a smaller less expensive one. That becomes one leg of your stool.

So how much do you need for retirement? Here's a new "calculator". Calculate your estimated life expectancy (78 - your age) x 1.12 + your age. Subtract that by 5 years to calculate a reasonable retirement date. Take that date and plug it into the retirement benefit calculator of your 401(k) provider and get a real estimate of what you'll need to retire.

Chances are you may still be short. But you won't be "throw up your hands and pretend its not a problem" short. You'll be "some" short and can put together a plan for a secure, albeit briefer, retirement.

Don't want to work that long? That means you don't love what you're doing and should consider a second career. That's another story for another post.

The Art of the Fresh Start

2010-11-13T08:54:00.012-06:00

Most employee handbooks define what the organization considers its intolerable violations; those things that, if you do, you're fired. Most offenses fall far short of that, thankfully, and are corrected by coaching or discipline; the offending party goes back to work while everything is kept confidential.

Somewhere between those scenarios is that most difficult situation where everyone knows or thinks they know everything and the offense poisons team cohesion. The choices left at that point are to terminate the offender for a non-terminable offense, which isn't fair, or transfer them somewhere else in the organization.

This can prove to be far trickier than it looks, but it can be done and is often worth the trouble. A great example of how this is being done well is Jeff Fisher's acquisition and management of Randy Moss.

You don't have to be sports fan to get this example. To take the football talk out of the example you just need to know this: Moss is a fabulous performer who has during his employment both exhibited unrivaled performance and conflicts with management. His last manager removed him and the Titans accepted his transfer. The employees and people outside the company (the NFL) are watching to see how he reacts and when he blows up on this manager.

Fisher's management so far has been text book. He's met with Moss privately and nobody knows what that conversation contained, which is as it should be. Most likely there were expectations set for his new employment situation. Publicly Fisher's answers to all the speculation of potential problems has been to accentuate the positive. "He's a smart player", "he's a professional", "we don't believe this is a risk", "we don't expect any problems" are the answers quoted so far. The only conversation between Fisher and Moss that we know for sure is that when Moss asked about his future contract after this season Fisher told him to go have fun, win some games, and they would talk at the end of the season about a contract.

Now let's break down what happened here. Face to face communication was established between supervisor and transferee: no talking through others or listening to the rumor mill. Expectations were established. Next, the new boss becomes the transferee's advocate to all doubters. Finally there are no long-term promises made.

From the transferee's perspective they know they have a fresh start, what's expected, and that they aren't under a watchful and hostile eye from their boss. That gives them the freedom to learn their new job and role without undue stress over making the typical new-guy mistakes. But it also puts the responsibility for good performance and behavior squarely on their shoulders as no long-term commitments are made. They must perform and behave well.

Meanwhile the sports press is all over Moss' every move and waiting for the "big story" of when he blows up on somebody. Similarly, some co-workers often look for the slightest indication of the transferees past problems. This is where the manager's advocacy is critical in beating back public opinion and allowing the transferee a fresh start.

The art of this maneuver is found in manipulating and counteracting social mirror theory; the idea that humans behave over time in a way that they believe that other people expect them to behave. If workforce scorn is allowed to rule the day the transferee is almost certainly doomed to repeat their past problems. Artful management of the fresh start lies in changing or drastically diminishing public opinion, providing encouragement and hope for the transferee, and giving them incentives (i.e. survival) for developing new patterns of behavior.

Oh yeah, and its Christian. I'm not sure which Bible translation you use, but the two or three I have are full of stories of forgiveness and redemption. Some intolerable violations require termination due to business risk: we forgive the person personally but can't let them return to work. Most violations fall far short of that and are opportunities to live out our faith at work by challenging our negative perceptions of people and giving them a second chance.

If they fail to live up to this new opportunity then we can move on with a clear conscience.

To Tell the Truth

2010-11-10T13:13:00.008-06:00

In a corporate environment the truth is often a victim of power and the fear of it. That's as unnecessary as it is unfortunate. When people feel that they can't tell the truth to their boss, staff or peers it usually comes out of unfounded fear such as:

1. Afraid to make the boss mad
2. Afraid to look bad in front of others
3. Afraid to offend someone and deal with the tension or conflict.

Now here's the problem; organizations in the information economy live or die based upon good decisions. Good decisions depend upon having good information, which can't exist when people aren't candid with one another.

Coming from secular business almost ten years ago I was surprised that one of the biggest issues in Christian organizations is hearing the truth. Between the fear factor and the desire to be nice, the truth often suffers.

In my role I have to sometimes say unpopular things to people in power. For me there's no escaping that obligation and it just comes with the job. If I hear of an issue that, upon reporting it, will anger an executive I can't just let it go. If it festers and causes problems down the line that reflects negatively on me. So my duty is to sometimes say things that aren't well received but I always do it.

Now here's a big Ah-Ha for you:

I've never lost a job. I've said some really frank things to people who could have fired me on the spot and it has never happened.

What I've found is that really good leaders have the ability to take themselves and their emotions out of a situation and see it for what it is. Even when they don't, they didn't get to where they are by letting their emotions get the best of them. They have always, to date, appreciated the loyalty and candor even if sometimes they had to calm down a day or two before they appreciated it.

No matter what your position, if you want to succeed you can't be so afraid to lose your job that you fail to do your job. Your career, and the place where you work, will be the better for loyal, calm, impartial truth.

The Myth of the Consensual Workplace Romance

2010-10-26T17:21:00.004-05:00

I'm approaching 30 years working in private sector workplaces and I have learned a few things: loyalty is rewarded if you work for good people, getting behind can be cured by staying later, and a workplace romance is never a good idea.

The reason is that the presence of position power and romantic attachment are toxic.

This combination is toxic to relationships and to the workplace in several ways.

1. You can't hide a romance...don't even try. Once an individual with position power is perceived to show favor to someone on staff then favoritism is introduced, real or perceived, into the workplace.

2. Judgement gets clouded. The person with postion power may rationalize that they're being fair to everyone, but that's not always the case. Its worse when they lie to themselves that nobody knows.

3. The staff starts seeing ghosts. Even when no favoritism or romantic activity is going on, the perception that it is becomes the easy-out, blame-all for everything that goes wrong.

4. You can never tell when "yes" means "I dare not say no". Even if it starts as "yes", at some point one party tires of the relationship, doesn't feel that they can back out, and continues on somewhat or even totally against their will. At that point it becomes Sexual Harassment.

I have a little personal experience with this. My wife and I met at work over 30 years ago. Our relationship was complicated by our constant disagreements at work and about work. She left that job, I went back to college, and the rest is history. That we can sleep together but can't work together is not insignificant. Power sharing in a relationship is negotiated and voluntary. Power at work is structured and granted to individuals by more senior individuals through corporate governance. It is coercive by its nature and not negotiated. When coercive power is introduced into a romantic situation and supplants negotiated power a "yes" can never be certain.

Small Town Professionals

2010-10-22T07:20:00.005-05:00

I grew up in a small town. Actually, that's not true; I grew up about 10 miles outside a really small town in a community of about 500 people called Little Muddy, Kentucky. Next closest place was Morgantown, population 1,200, where my parents had their business. My wife and I raised our family is the next biggest place, Russellville, about 20 miles away with a population of 8,000. I am small town by birth and professional by choice. That's an important choice.

We're a medium-sized company of 500 people. There's another way to look at that; we're a really small town of 500 people. When you spend more time at work than at home you build community with the people at work. Departments are like streets; some neighborhoods are furnished better than others. Everybody is into everybody else's business.

Now I don't mean that in a bad way. You can't build community, connectedness and teamwork on the one hand and anonymity on the other. People can't just come in, not socialize, go their own way at the end of the the day and build strong teams.

But it is at the intersection of teamwork and privacy that we all need to make the choice to think like and act like professionals. People are people, and when you introduce all the messy problems that individual human beings have and mix them all into one workplace you're going to have talk. Those are occasions where either the best or the worst human instincts can show up in the workplace. To keep this a great place to work I propose a simple recipe:

One tsp of "behave yourself" + a pinch of "mind your own business" + drop of "focus on your work" keeps a company our size a professional workplace and not some place from which you have to leave to grow up. If you keep your personal business out of this business then it becomes none of anyone else's business. That is as it should be.

Appropriate Dress at Work

2010-09-30T16:52:00.004-05:00

This shouldn't be a long epistle of a blog post. The princples are simple and straightforward and go something like this:

1. We should be dressed professionally every day at work.
2. You can wear casual clothing items and still look professional.
3. You can wear professional clothing items poorly and still look sloppy.
4. Overly revealing clothes never look professional unless you're a dancer.
5. You never know which minister, author, or customer you're going to run into.

Nobody tied you up, threw you in the trunk, and made you work here. You came to the Bible Company and asked for a job. When you get dressed in the morning make sure to remember where you work. Central Parking's customers probably don't care how CP's people dress: ours do. HCA's content providers, their doctors, probably don't care if their receptionists are half dressed. Our content providers, our authors, more than likely do.

Remember where you work. It really is that simple.

The Vocational Root Cause of This Recession

2010-09-11T09:32:00.011-05:00

You can't turn on the television and avoid hearing opinions about how our economy came to its current state. And while it is true that speculation in real estate was rampant, fueled by poor lending practices and irresponsible buyers, there's a deeper root cause; we don't make much in the way of physical products anymore, and we don't really want to.

Two days ago in the New York Times David Brooks called this out wonderfully. In his Op Ed piece, "The Genteel Nation" Brooks points out that our change in thinking has given us "Great Britain disease" leading to the decline of our empire like that of our mother country centuries ago.

His thesis is dead-on; like Great Britain before us, we built our economy making things. We applied scientific knowledge of primary industries, and society's best and brightest engaged in those endeavors. Now 65% of graduates from the nation's top schools go into law, finance or consulting.

This isn't the first time we've heard this. In 1983 I was a graduate student in Texas listening to President Reagan's plan to globalize our economy; his vision eventually became the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which wasn't enacted until President Bill Clinton. The Democratic response to Reagan's speech was given by Senator Jim Wright of Texas, the Senate Majority Leader, who blasted globalization with a now prophetic comment, "We can't have a healthy economy delivering pizzas to one another."

When you think about it, that's pretty close to what's happened. Labor unions fought NAFTA hard, seeing that it meant the end of jobs that supported their organizations. It took three Presidents to get it enacted, and now two Presidents later we're debating how to turn around the demise of the middle class.

Where were those middle class jobs? Factories.

It's been almost 10 years since I was recruiting for skilled manufacturing talent, and even then it was getting tough to find. Sure, you can find assembly workers. What can't find are machinists, skilled maintenance workers, and electro-mechanical engineers. Right now we have 17 million unemployed while skilled trades jobs remain unfilled.

The casualty of globalization has been the American mindset towards work. I see this in the publishing profession especially; the idea that skilled trades are too blue collar and something you would never want to do yourself or have your children do.

As with most problems, this one rests between our own ears. While I'm too far into my own career to change, people in career transition and emerging high school graduates should take a look at vocational education. Machinists salaries average $41,000/yr; Engineering Salaries average from the high $50s to the mid $80s. Most good companies have education assistance programs, so a two-year vocational or engineering tech degree can land you with a company that will pay for your eventual engineering education.

Mostly we need to re-familiarize ourselves with the dignity of all work, not just white collar. Seeing manufacturing, mining, mechanical and technical trades as beneath us is the root of seeing the people who do that work as inferior. Candidly, if this post offends you or these options seem beneath you then you're part of the problem.

Quick Office Furniture Factoid

2010-09-07T15:30:00.006-05:00

We are 34 days away from move-in day at our new Live Events headquarters in Plano, TX. Just saying that, much less writing it, makes me catch my breath because there is a lot yet to be done. It is in Scott Holloway's capable hands, however, so I have every confidence that it will be (like all his projects) on-time and on-budget.

We meet on this project weekly and I came across some information today that might help answer an age-old question within the company: "Why does office furniture cost so much more than I can buy it at retail?" This is a question that comes up every project: why, for instance, does a good cubicle-grade desk chair cost $500 when you can buy them at Office Depot for $300 or less.

Okay, here's why...

You don't sit in your home office chair 8 hours a day for years at a time.

We have some $300 chairs in our company, and our experience with them is that they must be replaced about every three years. That's $100/year for usage. The $500 chairs average 18 years service, or just under $28/year for usage.

The same goes for any office furniture; desks, bookcases, etc... So next time you look at an office furniture budget and wonder if we have lost our minds remember that we are focused in our procurement on a couple of decades of use, not a couple of hundred dollars "saved" now.

Giving Away my AA

2010-08-31T15:27:00.005-05:00

Three weeks ago we hired an outstanding young woman to be my part-time Admin. Her name is Nubia and she has done a wonderful job very quickly. She will also leave my area in two weeks to take a full-time job at Grupo Nelson.

Early on we identified this young lady as a unique talent; bi-lingual with a degree in International Business and an intense curiosity about our business. An outstanding positive attitude didn't hurt either. I gave her an early version of our strategic planning materials to shred and she did, after reading them and coming back to ask really good questions.

When the Grupo job was posted a couple of weeks ago it became clear: she was a great hire for us, but fit the Grupo job perfectly. It was a tough decision, but we waived the six month waiting period for new-hires to post and offered her the position last Friday. In the end, the company is best served by having the right people in the right places and my job is easier to fill.

We're parting on great terms, even though this puts me back looking for an AA, part-time through the rest of this fiscal year and possibly/hopefully full-time thereafter. Candidates who speak Spanish or Vietnamese go to the head of the line so that HR can better communicate with non-English speaking groups within our company. Candidates should complete our on-line application at www.thomasnelson.com/employment. Meanwhile, if you see Nubia congratulate her for attaining her new role. She played her way onto the roster the old fashioned way.

Sometimes We Just Stand There and Take It

2010-08-26T17:00:00.008-05:00

One of the bedrock values that we live by in our HR department is the sanctity of confidential information. Whatever we know, we don't talk about. Anytime someone asks me if something is in confidence I always say the same thing, "If I hear in our conversation a violation of the law or significant violation of company policy I have to put on my "Agent of the Company" hat; otherwise what you say here, stays here."

That applies not only to information we know about employees, but also candidates and former employees. We adhere to this value because trust and confidence are the currency with which we do our business in the company. We never forget that and this is mostly a good thing.

I say mostly because there are times when it really bites us.

Not everyone who leaves us tells the truth about why they left. Not everyone who fails to get hired tells the truth about why they didn't. Sometimes an employee with an unfavorable outcome needs a face for their disappointment. Oftentimes that's us and we know that it comes with the territory.

So when this happens we have a choice to make; defend ourselves and reveal facts that are confidential, or stand there and say nothing. We choose the latter, because if we'd release their information to make us look better you could rationally reason that we'd release your information if it benefited us. We just don't do that.

So if you hear some horrible story about how someone was treated terribly by the Bible Company just remember this: the fact that we're not talking has nothing to do with the situation and everything to do with who we are as professionals.

The Thin Line Between Experience and Age

2010-08-07T12:09:00.005-05:00

Occasionally older team members leave your workforce involuntarily. That's a sensitive issue when it happens. Other older members of the team become unsettled because they probably worked with that person for years, and some wonder if they're next. There are legal issues involved as well. Age discrimination laws give disgruntled ex-staffers a tool with which to strike at your company even if no discrimination is involved.

We've had some older people leave our workforce in the past few years. At the same time we also recently celebrated a milestone birthday with one of our most revered and respected colleagues. At 80, Jack Countryman is producing some of the finest work of his long and legendary career. In his late 60's, Larry Downs Sr. is doing great work in selling Spanish products. So if we're welcoming of some and not afraid to dismiss others, where's the line between when someone has excellent experience and when they become a candidate for termination? I mean, at 50 this is something I have to know myself if I'm to continue to be relevant to this or any other company.

The answer is simple and elegant.

Are you still open to new information and are you willing to innovate.

The business world is changing daily. You can know practically everything about your profession but stop taking in new information and become obsolete in a breathtakingly short amount of time. You can know a little less but be a perpetual learner and never run out of career.

Some would say passion is the main ingredient, and I don't disagree. But I find that people who stop taking in new information and take the "we've always done it this way" attitude get bored with their profession and lose their passion. It is the willingness to learn no matter how long you've done the job, and the willingness to always look for a better solution, that keeps your profession fresh and your passion in place.

I've know 30 somethings who were totally inflexible. Given the choice, I want to be like Jack.

Job Skills You Need Now

2010-08-04T23:12:00.006-05:00

In the spirit of the Seth Godin, Tom Peters piece on YouTube, I'm going to keep this post to the point.

When you think of job skills you usually think of things you can do, like design a book cover or balance a spreadsheet. Those are important and will get you in the door. The keys to longevity, however, are the behavioral skills of coping with an ever-changing post-recessionary business landscape.

1. Adaptability to change - Change once came like an occasional tidal wave every few years and reset the landscape. Now it's like standing on the beach watching wave after wave after wave wash over your feet with no end to the waves on the horizon. You don't stand on the beach and bitch about the waves; don't stand in the office and complain about change. Its the business life you chose.

2. Resiliency in the face of change - Many bright, young talents start strong and burn out or become cynical when they see repeated changes. They blame management for poor planning or impulsiveness, or they just become weary and negative. The ability to stay strong and recognize change as an unrelenting business environment is critical to a long career.

3. Response time - The stakeholders around you are also having to respond rapidly to change. You don't have the luxury of responding tomorrow. With 15 million people out of work, chances are your customers or supervisors can find someone who'll respond quicker.

4. Positive Communications Skills - Get your point of view or progress report or marketing plan out for comment now. With free social media outlets there's no room for hermits in key business positions. Again, if you don't communicate your stakeholders have almost unlimited sources of information and will choose another.

If you want to have a long career, accept constant change and respond quickly and effectively to it. Professional chops and a great education may get you in the door, but it takes nimble, positive handling of change to stay there.

DWI: Driving While Immigrant

2010-07-30T21:51:00.008-05:00

About six months after moving to Nashville we traded my trusty commuter Honda for a barely-used Avalon for my wife. We got a great deal; an African American female soldier who had been in Iraq over a year decided to sell the car rather than make payments for it to sit in the parking lot at Ft. Campbell.

One of the things we liked about it was that she had trimmed it out nicely with rims and a smoked license plate cover. Nothing we would ever spend money to do, but sharp looking, especially the rims. We noticed the first few weeks we had it that young guys, especially African American kids, would actually back-up when stopped in traffic to look at the car. They were shocked to find a middle aged, gray-haired white woman behind the wheel.

And one day, so was Metro...

Heading home from meeting me for lunch, my wife was pulled over in Hermitage. She was in a stretch of Lebanon Road known as the "Bonnas" where at the time there was some daytime drug activity. Note the shock on the police woman's face when my wife rolled down the drivers' window and inquired as to what was the problem.

After stumbling and stammering all over herself, the police woman said, "It's that smoked license plate cover: we ask you all not to have those." She let my wife go with a promise to remove it. She did, and when I got home I put it back on where it has been for four years without any similar incident. And why? Because the wheels were cheap, started losing fake chrome, and wouldn't balance anymore. We replaced them with stock Toyota wheels and now the car looks like a middle aged white couple drives it.

Which is why I want to talk to you about Arizona's immigration law and why Tennessee would be foolish to adopt it.

This terrible idea/exercise-in-racism gives law enforcement the duty to run the immigration status of people it encounters in enforcing other laws. It is predicated on the notion that there will always be just and probable cause for any encounter between law enforcement and citizens. While there are fabulous professional law enforcement officers in this nation, there is also a significant number of Bubbas With Badges. For them, our nation's ideas of probable cause in traffic stops is as porous as our borders.

Taking also into consideration that poor people are more likely to drive cars with missing tail lights and non-working turn signals, the Arizona (and possibly Tennessee) law gives Bubba open season on Hispanics.

The other unthinkable aspect of this law is the requirement that citizens carry identification on them at all times to prove their citizenship. If you're old enough to remember the old Soviet Block you should remember being aghast that it required it's citizens in Eastern Europe and Russia to "carry papers" authorizing them to move around the country. Since when did Conservatives want to copy Soviet ideas of freedom?

As long as probable cause is as loose and ill-defined as it is in our country laws like Arizona's are unconstitutional and discriminatory. If you don't believe me, put some cheap wheels on your car and drive through Hermitage.

Being Real

2010-07-11T08:56:00.006-05:00

I'm posing a question here. I'm not being critical or making a point, other than to say that I have a question.

I've noticed in our 25 year old daughter and in co-workers of a similar vintage a generational value of authenticity. "Being real" is short-hand for baring your soul or expressing unvarnished, uncensored feelings to others regardless of how they receive that information. Combined with the growing ubiquitous presence of social media, you can now gain and lose friends with lightening speed by saying what you really feel.

At the risk of self-identifying as being old school, I find this noteworthy from both a generational and geographic perspective. I was not only raised in the south, but raised southern. My dad is from Kentucky and my mom is from Mississippi. Dad is from a tiny town in the western part of the state, and mom was raised by a school teacher and a minister. The southern value of that day was propriety and discretion above all else. It is 180 degrees from "being real".

Now here is what I believe to be the open question for the transparent generation. As this group moves through their career life cycles in business, politics, ministry, or whatever how will this impact their careers? Already employers are vetting candidates for both hiring and promotion through a review of available on-line information. This includes self-posted information such as twitters, unprotected Facebook information, and whatever else may show up when you Google an individual. This practice has become so pervasive that it's the new body of law emerging in HR: on-line invasion of privacy, as incredibly contradictory as that term may sound. (Your privacy has been invaded by someone reading something you posted on the Internet for everyone to see?)

By the time current 20-somethings are being considered for positions of greater responsibility, who will be making those decisions and how will this information play into their selection choices? Will the values of authenticity and transparency have been integrated into society as a value, much like tolerance has replaced racism in my lifetime? Or will what you write today come back to haunt you tomorrow?

Again, I don't have the answer. I believe what's relevant is the question and that it should be a topic of conversation among the rising stars of the junior ranks.

FSA Letters

2010-07-08T09:24:00.006-05:00

If you're receiving strange letters from Blue Cross Blue Shield to justify FSA purchases you're not alone. The rules on FSA purchases have tightened, and we informed everyone at Open Enrollment that you might be required to submit receipts or other backup to justify purchases on your FSA card. That's normal.

What's not normal is that some of you are being asked to submit backup for every single swipe of an FSA card, including co-pays for prescription drugs and in-network doctor visits. That's not right and we've addressed it.

But it has been good for a laugh...

Some of you have been asked by BCBS to submit an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) to justify your in-network FSA swipes. Those EOBs come from...BCBS! Their FSA unit has been asking some of you to send back to them forms that they themselves generate. Even better, one lady was told not to send it back in...just read it over the phone!

And my favorite is the 1¢ solution. There was a penny difference between the amount charged and the amount paid, so BCBS sent a letter requiring 33¢ postage to the employee asking for a check for 1¢.

We've spoken to our broker who in turn has spoken to the FSA group at BCBS. We've reminded everyone that you should always take a good opportunity to stop looking foolish. They are doing some staff retraining.

If you've experienced this and thought it strange, you were right! If you continue to experience it please contact me directly. BCBS is an excellent and reliable insurer that is so large that it sometimes operates like the government. When things like this happen just please let us know.

Business Lessons from McKnight Guitars

2010-06-28T13:18:00.020-05:00

We have, I believe, much to learn about business from a tiny luthier in the middle of nowhere. What he and his wife are doing right affirms some of what we're already doing and could teach us a thing or two that we're not. First a little background...

I picked the guitar back up at age 44 after not having played since high school. It started at Henry Horton State Park during a management retreat. In the unofficial hospitality room I found my soon-to-be good friend Gabe Wicks playing and passing around his Martin guitar. People were taking turns, so I took one. It just felt right, not necessarily the instrument, but the sense of community and camaraderie. Instruments can be pleasant fill-ins for the solitude of introverts and many of them become superb players. For me the instrument is the focal point around which we've built a tight community of friends.

Vonnie and I took this one step further this past weekend and traveled to Morral, OH, allegedly population 325 although I think that count was taken on a family reunion weekend. We were there to spend time with Tim and Mary McKnight of McKnight Guitars, the people who built my first serious guitar which I purchased off consignment from Artisan Guitars in Franklin, TN. I had met Tim via email and an acoustic guitar discussion board, and had invited he and Mary to Nashville for one of our local musical trade shows. They reciprocated with this invitation to their home for their annual homecoming of guitar owners. Tim is a quality control engineer by trade whose been promoted to running the stamping department of a major appliance manufacturer.

They were hosting their third annual "McJam" where about 20 or so McKnight owners, family and friends drive in and spend the weekend at their home or one of a handful of small motels out by the Interstate. For two days we ate, talked, played, ate, played some more, ate, and toured Tim's shop. He had some tweaks to do on some members' guitars so we also got to watch a master luthier at work. We also ate a little more.

I was surprised at how little we played. I was equally surprised at how much we talked. Three members had been inspired to take a lutherie class and build their first guitar. Tim and Mary set aside considerable time in such a short event for them to speak at-length on their projects. The McKnight home is in a modest neighborhood, but there were multiple spaces set aside for groups of 2-5 to sit and talk. Tim had about 10 of his display guitars available for anyone to play.

Now here's where it gets interesting (I know you were waiting for that!). During one conversation in one alcove Mary told Vonnie that they seldom sold on consignment anymore. She also said that the main reason they attended one trade show in Nashville was to meet me. Huh? I had already purchased and they don't do any after-market selling or customization, so why make a 10 hour trip to Nashville when my check had already cleared? Because they wanted to meet one of the few customers whom they did not know personally.

During unstructured downtime in the weekend's agenda, when people would be playing these high-end custom display guitars, Tim would come sit and watch us play. He would ask questions about how we played, what we liked and didn't like about the guitar we were playing, and get our feedback on projects he might be considering. He had one experimental guitar that he asked everyone to play during Open Mic Night on Saturday. He sat in the chair closest to the performer and watched, listened and asked questions of every player about the experimental guitar.

So what did I learn? I learned how McKnight Guitars has gone in just a few years from a garage hobby to being one of the premiere guitar builders in the nation (they just made a specialty guitar for the Newport Guitar Festival in Florida and the $15,000 it sold for went to charity).

1. An obsessive, relentless focus on quality - There are lots of people building guitars, but very few that build them this well. I have an early prototype that is very special (just ask my friends who've played it), but that was built in 2006 and isn't anywhere near as well made as the McKnights of today. I bought it on clearance (again, no surprise to my friends) because while it hung in the shop Tim had moved on to better ways of building.

2. An equally obsessive, relentless focus on the customer - What does the customer want, how does the customer use the product, and what does the customer think about potential innovations is an on-going and constant part of the continuous improvement and re-engineering of the product.

3. A Sense of Christian Mission - The McKnight Guitar tag line comes from Psalms, "Make a Joyful Noise"; the McKnights very much place God at the center of their business and feel committed to the business as an extension of the Christian mission.

4. Building the Business through Building Community - Tim and Mary appear to have used consignment selling to help draw attention to their tiny company early on. They now sell and want to always sell face-to-face, builder to customer. McJam continues that strategy as attendees are invited to bring a sleeping bag and stay in the McKnights' garage, loft, or bring a camper or tent for the back yard. During the event hours (noon to midnight) you're invited into their home to eat at their table and meet their whole extended family.

5. Premium pricing - They make one of the best products on the market and they don't give it away. Margin allows for service, which is why service suffers most in commoditized industries. They can charge what they do because quality, and community, differentiate their company in the marketplace.

What does that have to do with a big business like Thomas Nelson? After all, the size and scope and industry are entirely different. Right? Yes, but the lessons are the same and here's how we're doing.

We are doing very, very well on building community. Michael Hyatt's leadership at building community through social media, supported by Lindsey Nobles in Corporate Communications, is innovative and being echoed across our marketing team. We're also doing well in some business units, like Fiction, at listening to customers either directly or through the sales division and letting what we learn inform what we publish. Other business units should take on this strategy. Our publishing standards, focused around the company's core values, has resulted in products faithful to our mission. This is an area of great improvement since 2006. Our digital efforts and focus on custom product make us one of the more innovative publishers in our space.

Where we and so many publishers could improve is in product quality. How many times have I heard over 9 years in Christian publishing that "mistakes happen". "We publish a lot of books" is often the explanation for spelling and grammatical errors, not to mention some poorly written products. The lack of product differentiation due to quality, especially in a commoditized industry like publishing, shows up in unit margin. Let me say that again! When our stuff is the same as everyone else's stuff then we can only compete on price which in turn causes corners to be cut and quality to diminish. When we play the commodity game we lose, and so does the end user.

Think about publishing differently in this way: print will eventually die except for high-end products. Digital products will be the commodity as they will be cheap and cheaply customizable. When paper is no longer involved then the quality of the content and how well the content fits the consumer's need become the only measures of product quality. Pushing quality as an uncompromisable metric will allow for premium pricing on the few printed products still made ten years down the road. It will also minimize lost sales and damaged brand equity from digitized commodities.

We should learn from the little luthier in Morral and start now building a quality system that will differentiate us in the future. Unless or until we do, we as individuals can make a difference. An old-tech concept of "pride in our work" can be an important first step.

Breaking the Taboo: Tools for Talking Price with Your Doctor

2010-04-19T15:36:00.014-05:00

Each time I go to my neighborhood Publix I experience two pricing models. The difference between these goes to the heart of what's wrong with our health care costs as a nation. I drop my prescription off at the pharmacy, and then head off with my wife (without whom I couldn't find the front checkout much less any food item, but I digress) to grab our food for the week.

When it comes time to check out I swing by the pharmacy and pay three $10 co-pays for three generic maintenance drugs. Then we go to the checkouts and pay for everything else. By the time we're at the checkouts I can tell you almost to the dollar how much we're going to spend because I've watched that with each item that's gone into the cart. I have absolutely no idea how much my prescriptions actually cost me because "they're $10 each." That's a lot of what's wrong with health care costs, and why HSA accounts are reshaping our thinking.

With FSA accounts and PPO plans we don't care about the real cost, the balance of which is paid for by our insurance plan. We don't care, that is, until the next renewal when our premiums, deductibles and co-pays rise sharply. With our last renewal, however, we had 80 employees elect the high deductible plan, and most of these opened an HSA. Now I'm hearing encouraging changes in perspective that I want to pass along to encourage everyone.

One person stopped me in the hallway recently and said that his family was comparing drug costs for all their prescriptions at all local pharmacies. They intend to move their business where the overall monthly bill is lowest. During renewal several people in our Accounting department asked about the physician and hospital discounts in one network vs another. Both of these instances show what happens when the HSA money is yours to keep, and whatever you spend comes out of that account. Now all of the sudden we care about the full price of our health care. We should have all along and I'm as guilty as anyone.

If we start to shop at the grocery store pharmacy with the same care that we shop the rest of the store we become several hundred negotiating consumers rather than a herd of insured bodies taking whatever we get at whatever price. While some may say that health care is not where you want to save money, it is a false choice between quality and price. You feed your family within your budget without buying spoiled produce and rancid meat, don't you? You do that by being smart consumers, and that same intelligent decision making can accomplish the same result in your family's health care.

It also happens that those physicians and institutions with the highest quality often have the lowest price. The number 1 maternity facility in Nashville is Baptist Hospital, which also has an excellent reputation and is ranked on our Blue Cross Blue Shield website as having the lowest cost rating in this market. During the health care reform debate The Cleveland Clinic was cited many times as having the best outcomes simultaneous with the most reasonable pricing model.

So if you want to compare price and outcomes between doctors and hospitals, where would you get this information? For those of us enrolled in the Thomas Nelson plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield you can get it off their website at www.bcbst.com. Register if you haven't already. Once you have, look to the lower left column to find typical discounted pricing information for a variety of treatments, cost rankings for area hospitals by type of procedure, and dental cost information.

Armed with this information you can do one of two things. You can ask your providers up front what they intend to charge for this procedure and compare that to the market. If you want to be less confrontational, you can check some of your old Explanation of Benefit (EOB) forms and see what they've charged you in the past. You can then ask your doctor's office why they charge more than the market average, or consider moving to a doctor whose charges are more in line. Listen for the tenor of their response; the greater their indignation the greater the likelihood that you've struck a nerve and are being overcharged.

Remember, anything is negotiable and now is the time to adopt this new posture. I recently had a dispute with one of my providers over a $25 late-cancellation charge that I declined to pay. I thought we'd have a fight, but they gave up without a word. While in there for my next appointment the provider remarked to me that their patient load was off significantly due to the number of unemployed people who had lost insurance. Remember, these are businesses and not philanthropic institutions. Now is the time to confirm where your providers charge vs. the market and, if you don't like what you discover, push back.

Demographics Will Save This Job Market

2010-04-16T16:57:00.007-05:00

As usual the headlines on the job market are dire. News agency after news agency reported that "March job losses were 61% higher than February." Surely all signs point to a slow recovery for jobs in the near term, but long-term the outlook is outstanding. Here's the rest of the story.

March job losses were sharply higher than February's because February's 40,090 jobs lost was the lowest in four years. March's 67,611 was not great news, but let's dissect that further. First of all it was 55% lower than March 2009's 181,183 jobs lost. Now of that 67,611, 50,604 were government job cuts announced in prior months and finally implemented. The media got to count these twice as bad news: once months ago when the various federal, state and local entities announced the cut and again in March when they happened. Furthermore of these 50,604, just over 30,000of those are at the U.S. Postal service.

So take out the USPS and the governmental sector cut 20,000 or so jobs and the private sector shed just over 17,000. Those are remarkably good numbers.

This opinion is born out by the quarterly job losses for Q1 this year (181,183) vs. last year (578,510). That's a 69% reduction, not that any media outlet will quote that. Good news doesn't sell soap.

So in the short-term the job market appears to have bottomed out and is beginning to recover. What about the long-term?

I read some interesting material this week hinting at a labor shortage beginning late this decade. Doing a little original research, I have to agree. The Baby Boom generation is inching toward retirement, with the leading edge (and largest group) hitting retirment age in the next 6-8 years. After WWII the Boomers filled the cradles and spare bedrooms of America to the tune of about 50 million people. However, 32 million of those were born between 1946 and 1951. They are now ages 59 - 64 and have social security retirement ages of 65, as opposed to us later "echo" Boomers whose retirement ages range from 69 1/2 to 72.

So what happens in the next 6-8 years? Well, it's difficult to predict exactly. People are healthier and living longer, and may not want to retire. There is speculation that part-time work will become more common for seniors, as will incentive pay for companies to keep older workers on longer. Lost 401(k) and pension balances from this recession may force some people to work longer. On the other hand, the incessant implementation of new technologies may make more jobs unnecessary or obsolete, or move past what most older workers are willing or able to master.

Whichever of these factors influences the job picture more, one thing is for certain; the number of hours that people age 59 and over are contributing to this economy is about to drop off sharply. We've seen the impact of decreased hours in fields like medicine and pharmacy, where women's share of those jobs as risen sharply in the last three decades and where the aggregate weekly hours worked has plunged. Women in these high-paying professional positions can easily work fewer days and still make excellent livelihoods in order to attain work-life balance with child rearing. Great for them and their families, but the resulting shortage in doctors and pharmacists is well established.

So assume the 32 million leading-edge boomers have experienced some mortality, disability, and early retirement. Let's just say that we have only 25 million workers who retire or sharply cut back their hours? With low fertility in all subsequent generations, and with our obsessive and immoral purging of illegal aliens, there won't be enough people to fill jobs abandoned by Boomers. Look for a labor shortage, and a suburban housing glut starting about 2018 and moving on through about 2030.

Oh, and on the immigrant topic, here's a pinch of perspective. There are about 40 million first generation immigrants in this country right now. Of these, it's estimated that about 15 million are illegal. Wanna kick 'em out? Send 'em back where they came from courtesy of the Tea Party. Well, imagine the year 2020 and a roofing crew of old white guys. Good luck with that.

I'm Looking for a Temp Assistant

2010-04-12T15:51:00.003-05:00

I've never tried this before but, hey, why not.

I am currently looking for a part-time Admin for a temporary spot that could work into a full-time job. Right now I need someone about 20 hours a week who would work as my AA about half that time and spend the rest of their time working for Travel and HR doing clerical support work.

Before you ask, no, my current AA Dawn isn't going anywhere. Our work load has expanded as has Travel, and we need to slide Dawn over to help Jack in the more traditional HR work. This position would pick up some of her slack while she's working for Jack.

As to who I'm looking for, we'd like someone who has previous Assistant experience (HR is a plus but not necessary), is professional in appearance and demeanor, has good instincts (we deal with people, after all), and is service-oriented so that our internal customers are treated well.

As an added incentive to find the right person, we're okay with someone on the "Mommy track" who wants to put their kids on the bus, come to work for a few hours, and be there when they get off the bus.

This sounds like I might get 5,000 resumes, but here's the kicker. If you are bi-lingual (English + either Spanish or Vietnamese) you go to the head of the line. I'd love to use this additional resource person to improve our communications with non-bilinguals within our company and in the greater candidate pool outside our company.

Interested? Know of someone who is interested? Send me an email that acts as your cover letter to jthomason@thomasnelson.com and attach your current resume. Spam, resumes with no cover letter, and candidates who don't fit the requirements go straight to trash without a reply. I'll read and reply to the rest myself.

Eligibility for Your Medical Benefits Plan

2010-03-26T12:17:00.004-05:00

As we near the end of Open Enrollment I want to highlight some changes to the eligibility rules for our medical and dental plans. These mostly impact new employees coming in after the first of next month. Supervisors and all of us who recruit should know this information so we can use our benefits to recruit prospective talent. I believe we have a good story to tell.

Immediate Eligibility

Although this isn't completely new, I find that some people don't realize it. You are eligible for coverage under our medical and dental plan beginning on your hire date. You must allow a few days for sign-up, card printing and mailing, etc... but there is no waiting period after you're hired.

Part-time Employee Eligibility

This year for the first time we are extending eligibility to part-time employees. This doesn't cover temps, interns, contractors or any other casual labor. This eligibility extends only to those individuals who work regularly 20 hours per week or more and who the company classifies as a "Regular, Part-time Employee."

Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions

For now these are still legal, and we will have a 12-month exclusion period for all new employees hired after April 1, 2010. With immediate eligibility extending even to part-time employees the plan must protect itself from "adverse selection" which is the phenomenon whereby sick people single out our company simply for the immediate eligibility, get their illness officially diagnosed, covered and treated, and then quit. All employees who come over to Blue Cross from the UHC plan have creditable coverage under federal law and are exempt from pre-existing exclusions.

It is my understanding the Blue Cross is printing cards today and that all of you who have made your benefits choices, including those who are making no changes, should have your cards on time. We appreciate the time and attention everyone has given to this year's Open Enrollment process and believe we've found a quality, cost-effective program for FY '11.

What Healthcare Reform Means for Our Benefits

2010-03-24T11:36:00.010-05:00

Unless you've been camping in a distant cave you know that this week the House of Representatives approved comprehensive healthcare reform legislation. Over the next nine years this new law has the potential to substantially change the healthcare system and industry in this country. While most everyone knows something happened, what it means seems open to interpretation.

Walking through the corporate office this week as part of our Open Enrollment process I heard many opinions and had several requests to blog on this topic. I've also sought out news items off the web, TV and radio. In addition, about a half dozen unsolicited email articles have come to my inbox by companies wanting to sell us consulting services for our health plans. The following is a summary of what I've learned to date.

One more thing before we start. I am neither Republican nor Democrat, conservative nor liberal. Please don't try to paint me with a particular political brush if you don't agree with my analysis. Liberal/progressives tout this law as the savior of humanity, and conservative talk radio refers to it as unconstitutional Armageddon. It is neither; it's a change in direction from a private insurer system to a quasi-private system with greater government involvement.

The goals of this legislation are to cover more uninsured Americans and control the escalating cost of medical coverage. To do this the government is proposing to use a number of levers at it's disposal, from changes in tax law, expanding medicare coverage rules, penalties and subsidies for different personal and corporate behaviors, and an expanded regulatory power requiring all Americans to be covered by health insurance of some form or another.

Specifically, here is what happens and roughly in what order:

Within 90 days

Family policies (I assume both group and personal) must allow dependents to stay on the plan until they reach age 26. In Tennessee right now that age is 24; in most states it's 22.

Plans may not apply a pre-existing condition exclusion to children under 19.

Uninsured citizens can obtain coverage through a federally subsidized insurance program.

Increased medicare prescription drug coverage.

Small businesses with fewer than 25 employees get a tax credit for providing benefits.
Restrictions on lifetime and annual spending caps in insured medical plans.

Medicare must cover preventative care at 100% (no co-pays, deductibles, or co-insurance)

Establish a reinsurance program for employers providing retiree medical coverage for retirees >55 yrs old but not yet Medicare eligible. Phases out by 2014.

Insurers must report not only what they spend on claims but how much they spend on administrative overhead.

In 2014

Establishes health insurance exchanges for individuals to buy insurance in a more competitive market.

Establishes Small Business Option Programs (SHOPs) where employers with less than 100 employees can group together and buy insurance with better buying power.

Requires all employers with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance or pay a tax fine of up to $2,000 per employee.

Requires all citizens to have health insurance or pay a tax fine phased in over four years of up to $750.

Provides tax credits for businesses that buy their health insurance through SHOPs

Provides subsidies for individuals who purchase health insurance through an Exchange

Employers who provide health insurance but which cost the employee more than 8% of their annual income (provided employee makes no more than 4x federal poverty level) must provide that employee with a voucher for what the company would have spent on the employee's insurance so that the employee can use that to buy insurance from an Exchange.

Employers whose employees use vouchers to purchase insurance from an Exchange must pay a fine of up to $750 per employee.

In 2018

IRS will impose a 40% tax on "high-end" health plans valued at $10,200/yr or greater for single coverage and $27,500/yr for family coverage. FSA and HSA contributions must be added to the cost of premiums for this calculation.

FSA Annual limits (what you can save in a tax year) will be reduced from $3,500 to $2,500.

Analysis

The immediate changes for our plan are the lifting of lifetime and annual maximums, and adding dependents up to age 26 back on our plan if we're asked to do so. Our new plan has pre-existing condition exclusions for new-hires after April 1st, but we won't be able to apply it to children under 19. Depending upon how the insurer underwrites our plan, these changes could add risk and therefore increase our premiums for next year's renewal.

Past this year, candidly its too early to tell what impact this will have on our plan. There is a Senate reconcilliation bill to be passed, a Presidential Executive Order that's supposed to put more limits on taxpayer funding of elective abortions, and court challenges in as many as 34 states. Another potential change would be amendments to the bill. Congress' approval rating is around 17%, close to an historic low, and we may have a substantially different Congress next year which might want to make changes.

Just remember, most of the changes from this law impact individual and small company plans, and we're covered under a corporate plan. Most of these changes impact how the uninsured buy coverage, and just about everyone here has coverage. We'll keep you informed as we know more, but overall there's no real cause for celebration or jumping out of windows yet. As the Zen Master said, "We'll see."

FY '11 Medical Plan Decisions Simplified

2010-03-17T13:51:00.005-05:00

It's open enrollment month in our company and many people are trying to make a decisions regarding their medical plans for the fiscal year beginning April 1st. This year our Tennessee employees have a four-option choice; PPO vs. High Deductible Plan (HDP), and Blue Cross "P" network vs. "S" network.

With the various differences in premiums, co-pays, deductibles, HSA vs. FSA, etc... there is a lot to consider. The HDP has gained momentum due to favorable payroll deductions and some good feedback from people currently in the plan. The S network rates are cheaper, but that network does not include any HCA hospitals including some where several of our people live.

With a lot at stake, and a lot to sift through, here are some simple decision points you should consider if you work at Nelson. This is just my opinion and does not change any of the Open Enrollment information we've sent to our people. We have informational meetings going on and you should attend one of those if you're struggling with this decision.

1. FSA, HSA, or Neither. In my opinion "Neither" shouldn't be an option. If you're going to spend money on co-pays, deductibles, or coinsurance this year why not get the savings of deferring that money to yourself pre-tax? Since "Neither" is not a smart option, then the choice is FSA vs. HSA and that's simple. HSA accounts are only available due to (a stupid) federal law if you have the HDP. Choose the FSA if you choose the PPO; choose the HSA if you choose the HDP.

2. PPO or HDP. The HDP combined with an HSA saves you more money in almost every instance, but there's an important catch that I'll get to in a minute. Practically everything you spend on your medical costs in the new fiscal year counts towards the deductibles and maximum out of pocket expenses. When you reach the $8,800 out of pocket maximum the plan pays at 100%. The PPO maximum out of pocket is $6,000 but only the deductible and coinsurance count towards it. Co-pays do not count toward it, and continue on after it. You can spend $6,000 and still pay co-pays into infinity.

So why not go with the HDP in all cases? Since everything counts towards the deductible ($1,200 individual and $2,400 family by law) there are no co-pays. That means that every prescription you buy, every doctor's visit, any ER services, everything up to when you satisfy the deductible is at your expense out of pocket. You'll get that back through premium savings by year's end and you'll save money in most cases. However, if you aren't $2,400 liquid at the start of the year the HDP can get you into serious financial difficulty. If you can't afford that much out of pocket starting April 1st, the PPO may be your better option.

3. P vs S Network. The list of doctors in these two networks is almost identical; the difference in is hospital coverage. In the Nashville area only, Blue Cross has a negotiated relationship with the non-HCA hospitals. In exchange for HCA hospitals being excluded, the other hospitals offer a deeper discount to patients with S network coverage. If your doctors have privileges at Vanderbilt, Baptist and St. Thomas (or their related facilities) or if you're willing to change doctors then the S network will save you money. If your doctor only has privileges at local HCA hospitals (Summit, Centennial, Skyline, etc...) and you aren't willing to change doctors you should select the larger P network. If your doctors are all at covered facilities (mine are all at Vanderbilt) then you should take S as it makes no sense to pay more for network access that you don't use.

So there you have it. Decide on PPO vs. HDP depending upon your liquidity, then select an FSA or HSA depending on which plan you selected and take advantage of tax savings on your non-covered expenses. Select P vs. S depending on which hospitals you use and where your favorite doctors are allowed to practice. Feel free to email or call me at the office if you have further questions.

Jim

Molested in a Runaway Prius: The Top Ten List

2010-03-15T22:41:00.016-05:00

I've been home-bound for a few days due to knee surgery. As a Catholic who owns two Toyotas, and proud on both accounts, it's been tough to avoid the news. The hysteria over 30 year old allegations of priestly impropriety has moved from the U.S. to Ireland and now to Germany. The smart money inside the Church is that Spain is next. Meanwhile, "Me too!" runaway Toyota incidents with lawyers and reporters on standby plague the world's largest automaker.

Being a student of institutional behavior, and a great admirer of these two great institutions, it's pained me to watch them get behind the story in their respective news cycles. Meanwhile, Late Night host David Letterman sets the standard for getting past his own reprehensible behavior of having sex with young female staffers over whom he had authority as host of the show and owner of the show's production and distribution company, Worldwide Pants.

The differences in how these three companies handled their respective scandals is a lesson in being nimble when trouble strikes. Both the Catholic Church and Toyota are old and venerable organizations with their own cultures. They see the world through their own lens and are almost incapable of seeing themselves as the world sees them. Letterman's company, by contrast, is a media company and understands the news cycle as well as anyone. When trouble struck, how all three reacted gives all other companies a cautionary lesson in handling crisis communications.

The Church's sex abuse scandal began in 2002 with a series of stories in the Boston Globe. These first cases were legitimate; where serial pedophiles working as priests in the Boston diocese were knowingly moved from parish to parish by Cardinal Bernard Law without regard for the safety of those parishes children. When the story broke the Church first obfuscated, then gave vague assurances that all was well, and only addressed the story after multiple lawsuits were in the works. It looked slow and out of touch and, by inference, guilty.

The truth of the scandal, which still goes on today, is that the majority of abuse cases were brought forward after 2004, two years after the original disclosures. Over 70% of those cases were for abuses committed between 1962 - 1974. Less than 1% of the Church's priests in the U.S. were responsible for over 60% of the accusations. So how does such a small number of predators taint the world's largest religious organization? Lawyers, money, and the smell of blood in the water. Two organizations, SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and Voice of the Faithful are full of attorneys and people selling books and speaking engagements about pedophile priests. They have opened branches both theologically and regionally and raise money off their websites. This story won't die until they've run the table on all religions and regions.

The Toyota story is similar, in that the problems with it's models came from prior years and the mistakes of a prior CEO. During the late 1990's through about 2007 Toyota expanded it's production 50% in order to gain bragging rights over GM as the world's largest automaker. To expand that quickly they built new factories in foreign countries and for the first time ever allowed non-Japanese owned parts suppliers to make critical parts. All the sticking accelerator pedals came from one Canadian supplier.

When early trouble came, about two years ago, Toyota obfuscated and denied any problem, and in the process looked guilty. When news of multiple deaths of sticking pedals came to light, they were already behind the story. When the news broke worldwide there were 19 cases over 9 million cars over 10 years. Now there are 54 reported cases, none of which can be verified or reproduced. There are 64 class action lawsuits against the company and law firms worldwide are trolling for new plaintiffs. Even those not experiencing defects are being encouraged to join class actions for loss of resale or trade-in value due to the scandal. As with the Church, blood in the water, money and lawyers have given the story a life of it's own.

Now compare that to the biggest non-story of the year: David Letterman's assignations with female staffers. When faced with possible extortion, Letterman went public first, said he did it, made fun of it, and that was that. His extortionist plead guilty last week and Letterman is still #1 on late night television. Benedict and Toyoda are the guys cleaning up someone else's mess, but the press and the lawyers don't care. That's not consistent with their narrative. Meanwhile Letterman goes on about his business.

So what's the critical learning for our organizations?

1. Tell you story first.
2. If you screwed up, decide how to fix it
3. Make communicating that part of your story.
4. Take care of anyone you've harmed or injured. Handling real claims early is cheapest.
5. Put together a team of PR, HR and legal to work cross-functionally on the situation.
6. Use your team to push back immediately and aggressively on those "Me too!" claims.

Your goals are to (7) make sure internal and external stakeholders know that you're the good guys, (8) fix what you've broken, and (9) let the bad guys know that any ill-gotten profit from your problems won't be quick or easy. Finally, (10) do some soul searching on how this happened (as Toyota and the Church have both done well) and make sure this doesn't happen again. The alternative, as my two much-loved institutions are finding out, is a decade of litigation.

Watch Your Medical Coding and Billing

2010-03-08T10:57:00.006-06:00

The American health care system is either the finest in the world or a hopeless morass of waste depending on who you talk to and their party affiliation. One thing that is absolute truth about our system is that it's complicated, and one of the root causes of that complexity is the interface between medical coders, medical provider billing, and your insurance plan. I'm near the end of a medical coding/billing/insurance problem that I've been working since July. The facts of this case (which I have permission to share) should help you understand why it's important to know your benefits, watch your bills, question everything, and use your HR department if necessary.

In July we had a dependent on the plan who was referred by her primary care physician for a colonoscopy. The patient here had no symptoms or problems but had reached the age when that procedure is recommended. The colonoscopy was performed later that month and the results were clear except for a mild case of diverticulosis, which requires no treatment. The patient was told to come back in 10 years to repeat the procedure. The UHC benefit for a precautionary endoscopy is 100%.

So imagine the employee's surprise when they received a nearly $300 bill for their 20% of this procedure. They asked for our intervention and I called UHC, who replied that the medical coding had been a "diagnosis" code, meaning in coding lingo that the procedure had been done because of a diagnosis, not as a precautionary wellness measure. We contacted the doctor's office, who said the medical facility's billing department did the coding. We contacted the medical coding unit who said that was the doctor's notes and so couldn't be changed.

I did something here that I've never done; I emailed the UHC rep, doctor, his nurse, and the facility billing department and said, in essence, "Who made the mistake?" If the coding is right then the doctor is wrong; if the doctor is right then the coding, billing, and insurance are all wrong. I don't anticipate getting a Christmas card from any of them, but finally a patient representative from the hospital called and said that the doctor's notes would be sent through for re-coding and re-billing.

About four months later the employee gets yet another bill for the co-pay. We speak with the medical facility's accounting department and UHC (who was wonderful in this instance), and UHC sent them what they said was their third verification that the patient owed zero balance. I spoke with the Accounting the department with assurance that all was well. Last month the patient received another bill for the co-pay, so this time we faxed the Explanation of Benefits showing no patient responsibility to the Accounting unit.

Over the weekend the employee received another bill for the same amount. Today I called and asked to speak to an Accounting supervisor, only to find that the accounting clerk who received my fax didn't forward it to the Adjustment Office for re-billing, and assures me all will be corrected this month.

At the heart of the problem is the complexity of the tasks vs. the ability of those performing them. Medical Coding is a semi-skilled vocation that really should be a highly skilled vocation. As a field it is trying to professionalize but has a long way to go. Unfortunately, how providers bill is based on this coding , and there's a lot of bad coding being done. Similarly, hospital and independent physician billing is complex and about half of the people doing it aren't up to the job. Finally, you have the insurance carriers who will readily question a strange bill if it costs them more money, but who are all too happy to rely on the coding and billing if it costs them less. In this case, as I said, UHC was very helpful.

Moral of the story? Questions your bills. In this case the employee knew that their plan paid 100% of preventative endoscopy procedures or they would be $300 poorer today.

If you don't like the answer you get, come see your HR department. We can either explain to you what your owe and why, or help you push back on bad coding and billing. Until patients and health plans become active, noisy and even a little belligerent we'll be the little guy victims in a complex system that favors the institutions who designed it.

Building Your Brand in Inclement Weather

2010-02-16T06:26:00.007-06:00

One of the truths of growing your career is that as you progress through the organization you become broad and shallow as opposed to the staff emphasis of being narrow and deep. By that I mean that when you are on staff you work on a small variety of tasks which you must know completely down to the last detail. As you progress in your career and take on broader responsibilities there simply isn't enough time to go into all the details of every task; that's why you have staff working for you and that's their job. The further you rise in an organization, the more you just touch the tops of your different responsibilities.

Your job then becomes fundamentally different; the organization starts paying you for judgement, trustworthiness, dependability and execution. Can they assign you to an area and almost completely walk away from it? If so, you've become a reliable manager.

It is in that area of dependability and execution that there's opportunity in times of bad weather. I know it sounds a little trite, but I've seen it happen many times over my career that the path to getting recognized goes through the snow.

On days when there are only a handful of people who can make it to work, you want to be among the handful. Staying home, if you can make it in at all, is a missed opportunity.

I know that sounds old school, but trust me it works. Managers have such a broad area of responsibility that they want to build a team around them with people who can handle things. Attendance is a huge part of that, and showing up in bad weather makes a statement. Two hours late is better than not at all; on time is sterling.

Being able to do this isn't just a matter of will power; it also involves preparation. I started my career in small communities where everyone either worked agriculture or worked by the hour in communities 30 - 90 miles away. Remember, this is pre-Internet and working meant being at work, and not working meant either dead livestock or not getting paid. In that culture, missing work was not an option and that rubbed off on me profoundly. In our marriage, my biggest fights with my wife didn't involve money, sex or how to raise kids; they started with, "Surely you're not going to work in this!"

So how do you become super-dependable no matter what mother nature brings? Here's some tips from small towns where people have to get to work:

Where you live - Most people have several addresses during their working life, so next time you change addresses keep your commute in mind. If all things are equal, avoid the place at the top of the winding hill with no guard rail. If you give yourself a flat commute you can almost ignore everything that follows below.
What you drive - Four wheel drives are best, front wheel drives are very good, and rear-wheel drive only if (like me) your commute is almost flat.
Good tires- Replace your tires in the fall if at all possible for good snow traction.
Emergency Kit - Keep jumper cables, a tow strap, kitty litter and a camp shovel. If you don't know what to with all that ask somebody with a long commute; they'll know.
Go Play in the Snow - One of the biggest causes of accidents, and missed work, are people who are afraid to drive in the snow. Next time everything ices over, go take your car to the nearest empty parking lot and practice sliding around until you're not afraid anymore.

Does this mean, from my HR post, that I expect anyone to come in when it's dangerous? Absolutely not! But if you're career is stuck and you can't seem to get noticed, be one of the super-dependable few who show up when nobody else does. Trust me, it works.

Building Quality Products One Relationship at a Time

2010-02-02T23:19:00.006-06:00

I consider it a life-changing experience having spent 10 years in the Japanese automotive business. Even in an HR role I got to see first hand how a "culture of quality" permeates a corporate culture. I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to install anything like it at Thomas Nelson. Our business model is split between experiential content (live events, social media, etc...), electronic content, and physical content. While we want everything we do to be of high quality and value to the customer, we aren't solely focused on how to make an excellent physical product from the top down. This divided focus is contrary to the type of fanatical devotion to "the thing" you make that is required of a "total quality" culture.

Still, we can make high quality physical products, and our product quality is in some cases an opportunity. Some regard the type of focus needed to make an excellent product too "blue collar" and so don't focus enough on it. An emphasis on numbers-first can also work against the type of decisions needed to run a total quality organization, like pulling bad product (i.e., "we'll fix it with the next printing"). A culture of quality requires supplanting whatever culture came before hand, and that's a years-long tough transition.

Part of that transition is how we call out substandard work, and how we react when told that our own work is substandard. In this relationship realm there are simple behavioral adjustments that can push the cause of quality forward. Lacking these adjustments you let interpersonal controversies overshadow the greater goal of zero defects, and quality gets lost in the finger pointing.

Here are three simple (but elegant) ways to use communication and relationship-building to help us make better products.

1. Senior leadership articulation of a zero defect goal - From C-level execs to division heads, the idea that the goal of each and every individual thing we do is zero defects is powerful. We don't publish written materials with typos, or videos with bad splices, or audios with background noise. But remember this:

Zero Defects is Not Zero Mistakes. Zero Defects is Finding and Fixing Our Mistakes

So the articulation from the top that we want zero defects rolls through the organization something like this: that errors be minimized through good processes, reasonable deadlines, and well-trained/well-equipped people, resulting in fewer mistakes. Mistakes that are found are corrected, including reworking or pulling bad product.

2. Call-out substandard work in a way that builds relationships - My Japanese bosses liked to say, "Fix the problem, not the blame." Just like good supervision separates the person from their behavior ("We love you, but we won't tolerate this thing you did"), identifying substandard quality separates the error from the person who made the mistake. "This work isn't up to par" is a lot different from, "Your work isn't up to par."

Too often I've seen a mistake used as an excuse to farm work out to a preferred vendor. That gives the content producer greater control, but does little to make the whole system (and company) better. Instead, we should examine each mistake and ask the person responsible (1) how did it happen, (2) how much work is out there that isn't up to our standards, (3) what can we do now to fix the problem in current inventory, and (4) what are you doing to make sure this doesn't happen again? Repetitive cycles of asking these four questions with every error will improve our system and raises everyone's game.

3. Receive quality complaints with grace, not defensiveness - This isn't about you; its about a standard that your product is not meeting. Granted, how you hear this oftentimes depends on how its said (see 2 above). It requires maturity and fortitude to take criticism and turn it into performance. But we only hire grown-ups so receiving this criticism maturely isn't an unreasonable expectation of anyone.

Once you know something you've done or made isn't up to standard, your next actions mirror the questions in 2 above: (1) how did this happen, (2) what is the scope of the problem, (3) how do we isolate bad work or inventory and then correct or destroy it, and (4) what procedural changes or controls do you put in place to make sure we don't have this same error again?

In all this we should have two goals: to work together toward a common goal of 100% customer satisfaction through zero defects, and to never fix the same problem twice. We can achieve this through graceful calling out of problems, graceful receipt of criticism, and focus on only producing products we're proud to sell...not sweeping it under the rug or catching it on the next reprint.

No Hiring Thaw

2010-01-26T17:11:00.003-06:00

I've received some questions lately about our hiring freeze "thawing out". The inevitable question that follows is when the wage freeze will similarly thaw, and why we aren't giving raises yet if we're hiring. Here are the facts.

We currently have four positions posted. Three are back-fills for people who left the company or were promoted internally to other positions. One is a new position in an area that management has determined was cut back too drastically in 2008 and where lack of a position is holding us back from needed revenue.

Earlier this year we replaced one person who left with two lower-paid people for the same money. Other than that, any new faces you see around the operation are temporaries, interns, etc... We all hope for better days, and soon; meanwhile its important to note that everyone is doing more with less, not just you and your group. All the positions filled recently and all those currently posted add to the company's overhead a small fraction of what it takes to give raises.

I hope this helps. While I can't make the economy better, I can address the one insidious type of rumor that most threatens our company. The "inequity idea", that some people are getting their raises and that the company has no intention of reinstating raises for everyone else is totally false. Not only is there no proof of that, there are no facts to support it at all. The next time someone comes by your workplace to tell you that, please ask them where they got their information. I'll bet you'll get a blank stare or some vague somebody-said-that-somebody-said answer.

Finally, if you hear something that bothers you and want to know the straight of it call or come by to see me. Please don't let something bogus ruin your day.

Count to Ten...

2010-01-20T11:52:00.007-06:00

Okay, so you are tired and overworked and people are just plain getting on your nerves. The temptation is to blast some idiot who really deserves it and has for some time. You decide its time to fire that "special" someone on your team simply because the law says you can't kill them. You, gentle reader, need to count to 10 before you say anything, and sleep on it overnight before you do anything.

I've seen it already this week. One of our managers started busting the chops of an outside trainer in the middle of class. Another one jumped all over me and didn't care to get the facts. I myself spent most of the weekend in the hospital with my Mom, and came back to work worn out and grumpy. The first three things that happened yesterday tempted me to invite the offending parties into a caged death match.

Acting on such frustrations is neither a Christian reaction nor a good career strategy. So what do you do when you wonder how high a co-worker or your boss would bounce if tossed off the top of the building? The solution, like most problems, starts with planning and ends with good execution (of your plan, not of any person).

You Need a Good Support System - There is a difference in fussing at someone and fussing to someone. Just venting to someone you trust will often get you past the urge to kill. Find that someone or someones now before you get in an angry situation.
Know That You're Not the Only Busy Person Here - Again, this is a pre-anger step. Come in each day knowing everyone has taken on more work, not just you, and that you haven't taken on any more than anybody else. If you approach each person with an appreciation for their burdens you're less likely to become angry.
Walk Away - If the moment seems like it puts you in career danger, excuse yourself and come back another time (or day). If the person truly needs to be straightened out they will still be here tomorrow. Chances are you'll either feel differently about it tomorrow, or you will at least be kinder and more diplomatic.
Apply the True, Kind and Necessary Test - Before you say anything to or about the source of your anger, ask yourself three quick questions: is what I'm saying true, is it kind, and is it necessary to say it at all. This is a post-venting rule; say what you want to your confidential venting partner so your head doesn't blow off your shoulders.

Here's the deal: everyone one of us voluntarily applied to work at the Bible company. None of us were conscripted and we all knew there would be behavioral expectations when we came to the company and said, "Please hire me." To respect those expectations and our company culture, and to be true to our own baptismal promises about who we are and how we will treat others, make kindness part of your work style.

(Disclaimer: all references to violent behavior are figurative and illustrative. No real Nelson employees were harmed in the making of this blog post)

Sometimes "None of the Above" is the Best Candidate

2010-01-14T10:03:00.011-06:00

As the recession begins to thaw and companies begin to rehire, supervisors and HR departments nation wide are dusting off their recruiting tools and trying to remember how to hire people. In the midst of this two university sports teams in this region have had similar coaching debacles that I believe reinforce a simple but elegant recruiting lesson. Sometimes the best solution is not to select a candidate and keep looking.

A couple of years ago the University of Kentucky lost its embattled basketball coach Tubby Smith, a quality human being and great coach who won about 17 - 18 games a season. This of course was not sufficient for Big Blue Nation which thinks under 30 wins and not making it to the Final Four is a disastrous season. Smith decided to go to Minnesota where he can win 17 games and have a field house named after him.

So when Smith finally had enough, UK needed a coach. Here is where college Athletic Directors are at a disadvantage. Season tickets have been purchased, games have been scheduled, and you have to hire the best person available. In this case it was Billy Gillispie, a hard-drinking professional bachelor who built a solid basketball program at a traditional football school, my alma mater Texas A&M. Gillispie's exploits are well-known, and the teams he built in College Station were street fighters. If your team's players had tattoos, his had brands. He built the program by getting kids too rough to play at more genteel schools like UK. His teams won by bringing a gun to a knife fight. He's a good coach but UK was not the place for him.

Living in Tennessee I can't escape UT football. Unless you're living on the other side of the country, or the world, you know the saga of Lane Kiffin. A self-serving, biding-his-time until he could get back to USC mercenary, he came to UT, committed a string of minor NCAA rules violations, helped the team up to a 7-5 record, and went back to USC about 10 seconds after they offered him the head coaching job. He goes with most of his coaching staff, and prior to signing day for next year's freshman class. UT will not only have to scramble for a coach, but also a coaching staff and will likely lose some of its better recruits.

Kiffin was available when Big Orange Nation threatened a revolt unless then-head coach Phillp Fulmer was fired. Kiffin was available in-part because he'd been fired by the Oakland Raiders in an equally ugly departure (see a pattern here?). Here's a hint for UT's Athletic Director: when Al Davis questions a man's character you should probably look elsewhere.

Both of these cases illustrate that the best person available at the time isn't always a wise choice. In business we don't have to make "a" pick when a position comes available, not if we plan well. When you have an opening, here are a few tips to ward off desperation and avoid a bad hire:

Ask yourself, "What if it takes six months to fill this job; how would we get by?" Put that plan in place and settle in for a long, calm search.
Be realistic about what you need. If you're paying $25,000/yr for a job don't tell HR you need a master's degree and 10 years experience.
With a realistic profile in hand, advertise widely and be patient. Some of your best responses come in 2-3 weeks after the ad goes up, as the first week's responses are almost always dominated by the unemployed and the employed-but-perpetually-dissatisfied.
When you eliminate all but the best candidates, make your decision quickly. Searches build momentum up to a decision point. Your finalists are most likely other companies' finalists too. If you snooze, you'll lose.

The point is, if you're not sure that you see what you want, its okay if the decision is, "I'll pass" and start over again.

Like most companies, the recession has left Thomas Nelson with a solid workforce. Most companies kept their toughest, most flexible, most resilient staff. Any of your people who weren't tough and resilient before 2008 are now. You don't want a drop-off in talent when the rehiring starts, so plan for a long search and be pleasantly surprised if/when you find the right person quickly. There are 15 million people unemployed in this country, and a new crop of graduates coming out every year. Take your time and only select the best.

Turn the Cell Phone Industry Upside Down

2009-12-28T09:23:00.004-06:00

This a rare, off-topic non-workplace post but I'm on vacation this week and thinking about other things. While shopping for Christmas presents I briefly considered and then dismissed buying an iPhone or Blackberry for my wife. Our daughter has an iPhone and loves it; I have a company-issued Blackberry and find it handy at times. The purchase price of these devices is $450 - $500 unless you renew your cell phone contract, and then they are anywhere from $49 - $99. But that's where they lost me.

I went to my local AT&T store and found out that we don't have a line on our family share plan that is up for renewal until February. I pushed back some with the nice young man behind the counter; after all, I send enough money each month to AT&T for my home phone, Internet access and three cell phones to supply a third world city with food for a year. What's eight weeks if you're making a long-time and very good customer happy. Nothin' doin'! I'm under contract and they don't have any incentive to make me happy. That's when it hit me.

I know I'm slow, but I don't think about technology and the business end of technological companies that much. I have a full-time job, and technology is simply the tool set of our modern age. I don't focus on the latest gadget anymore than my great grandfather sat around his WPA work camp talking hammers with his fellow carpenters. Tomorrow the technology will change we'll be on to something else and I just refuse to get caught up in the hoopla over the latest gadget. What does interest me are people, and part of that interest is in the art and science of customer service and building customer loyalty.

So, thusly unfocused, I missed what the cell phone industry has done to all of us. This business has undoubtedly become a commodity. Although really neat developments like the iPhone make even guys like me sit up and take notice, cell phone stores could just as easily resemble groceries with high competition and low margins. Rather than let that happen, the industry came up with a great gimmick: offer expensive phones for next to nothing, require that the customer sign away their freedom of choice in exchange for the phone, then amortize that cost over the two or three year term of the contract. Without freedom to change companies, the industry resists commoditization. Phone prices from hardware makers and the monthly fees charged by the service providers can stay artificially high.

Here's what I've decided to do about it, and I think you should too. Hang on to your phone, save up your money, and the next time you need a phone buy it at full price without signing a contract extension. When your contract is up, you then have leverage to negotiate terms with the AT&T's and Verizons of the world. How much leverage is unknown right now; it depends upon how many people decide to take this route. What won't happen is your being held captive to a corporation at an expensive price in what should be a cheap commodity market.

Things to Blow Up I: Performance Reviews

2009-12-04T10:02:00.019-06:00

In an industrial era where supervisors were "bosses" rather than coaches, where jobs were relatively unskilled manipulating things vs. information, and where the talent needed for these jobs was in ample supply was born the performance appraisal. The purpose was two-fold: force the occasion at least annually for the boss to speak to the worker about their performance and how they could do their jobs better, and provide a documented history of the worker's performance. That history, housed usually in the Personnel department, was primarily used for (1) review of the worker's history for purposes of promotion or reassignment, and in later years after the development of discrimination laws (2) documentation for the company to support its termination decision and defend against lawsuits.

W. Edwards Demming, the most progressive-minded and talented of all management gurus, advised American industry to end this practice in the 1950's. As is well-documented, his ideas were laughed out of the U.S. and promptly adopted in Japan whose industries recovered to outperform American companies for a generation.

The changes in how we supervise, how we work, the talent supply, and how we document have changed dramatically since the first performance reviews.

The mode of supervision has morphed from "boss" to "coach" with frequent and candid on-going communication happening throughout the year. No longer do you need to force an occasion for supervisor and staff member to talk.

The nature of the work performed in most jobs is now information-based. It is trackable and measurable and poor work is evident more quickly than in the industrial era, if not immediately evident. It is also evident to both employee, co-workers and the supervisor. A formal meeting is not required to point out opportunities for improvement.

The talent supply of information workers is not infinite. Yes, we have 15+ million people unemployed right now, but we simultaneously have highly skilled jobs open on all the major job boards like Monster and Career Builder. Thanks in no small part of the demise of public schools and nuclear families, we have lots of people and not so much educated talent. To keep this talent requires a softer, coaching-based supervisory mode that is antithetical to formal top-down performance reviews.

As Christian supervisors, we suck at performance documentation and constructive conflict. Rating inflation occurs in almost every workplace, but its a pandemic in Christian cultures. Most employees feel that they are above average and are insulted by an average rating, and supervisors don't want to insult their people. We find that comments on the appraisals are generally accurate ("Janie should not steal the company van to go line dancing during lunch hour") but are immediately followed by ratings of "Commendable" or "Outstanding". As such, this documented rating not only fails to help HR in defending against wrongful termination actions, it is actually a barrier that must be overcome in litigation preparation.

The review process does not build alignment. Reviews come at different times throughout the year. At different stages in the business cycle we have different needs and points of emphasis. Everything from the supervisor's mood to the department's budget-to-actual performance is different at each employee's review. The context is never the same for each review, and the review itself does not build alignment amongst and between the different jobs in the department and the department's role in the organization's goals and objectives. That's done informally by the coaching supervisor.

Because each employee feels they are above average, and is rated so by their supervisor, there is no meaningful link between rating and salary increases. In a 3% or 4% increase pool, if we rated based upon above average ratings, everyone would get 5-6%. To stay within budget managers typically disregard the ratings and give increases based upon other factors such as budget, position in market range, etc...

The review process is time consuming. It starts in HR where one of our staff members queries the payroll system monthly for a list of reviews due that month, and overview reviews from prior months. Next we send out an email list, and we follow up on supervisors with late reviews from prior months. The supervisors typically read last year's review to see if there's been progress made and then completes the review form, a process that takes all-together about an hour. The review meeting takes 30 - 45 minutes and involves at least two people, the supervisor and employee. The review form may or may not be sent to the second level supervisor for prior approval. It is always sent to HR for filing. All told, every review is the culmination of about 4 man hours. Multiply that by 500 people and you have the equivalent of one full-time employee's work for a year.

In summary, employees dread their annual reviews almost as much as their supervisors dread giving them. The vast majority of people leaving a review haven't learned anything new during the review meeting because they talk to their supervisor regularly throughout the year. The documented record, both in terms of how the employee is doing and the historical rating, are of limited value. The meeting does little to drive alignment between and within departments. The rating has little if anything to do with the eventual salary increase. The energy expended is significant for a process that adds little or not value.

So what should we do instead? We've discussed this with the ELT and will discuss it with all SVPs later in the month. Until then I'll reserve comment on what should replace the current system. Once we have SVP input I'll feel it appropriate to say more.

Question: What's your opinion of performance appraisals and how happy or sorry would you be to see them go?

It's a New Year: Let's Blow Some Stuff Up

2009-12-02T15:52:00.009-06:00

Okay so we've worked our way through the worst part of the worst recession in our lifetime. We've practiced a relentless focus on our business, watched our expenses, kept the company profitable through a variety of challenges from weak retail to financial backers who think a bible translation means English, Spanish or French. Everybody on the team deserves credit.

While focus is a great thing that keeps us on-task and taking care of immediate business it should not be the enemy of innovation. God gave us two eyes, and I believe that gives us the ability to keep one on the task at hand while the other one looks to the future.

Without taking our "eye" off our immediate needs, we need use the other one to take a fresh look at some worn-out assumptions, blow up some old programs, and continue to simplify our business. This is a well-run profitable company, but I believe there are places where we're expending energy for little return. Since we're all doing the work of more than one person we just don't have the time for that.

Over the next few blog posts I'm going to lay out a case for narratives we should shift, assumptions we should throw out, and programs we should end. I have my list (see below), but I'm really more interested in yours! If you have a "stupid things we should stop doing" list feel free to comment on this blog, send me a private email, or drop off your submission in an anonymous envelope in HR (although if you're that paranoid you might want to use gloves so we can't track your fingerprints). ;-)

My List

1. Performance Reviews - I think its time we "just said no"
2. Marketing/Publicity Job Titles - Its an old system that needs an overhaul
3. Expense Budgets - Hint: zero-based and grounded in an activity plan
4. The Equal Opportunity Narrative - I remember 1964 and this ain't it!

Okay, I've gone first. If you want to add to this series you know what to do. Feel free to join the conversation.

Skip the Social Media Staff

2009-11-20T23:59:00.008-06:00

In the past few weeks I'm hearing discussion in our company and elsewhere about the potential need for social media specialists of some sort. I believe we should heed the history of technological innovations, get ahead of the curve, and skip this expensive and soon to be outdated step. Social media is on its way to becoming a required and ubiquitous skill set in several job families, not a position or department.

I see similarities between this technological development and two others I've experienced in my career; the use of interpreters and the adoption of the personal computer.

In international business the model was often that people of different cultures transacted business in some neutral third language or utilized interpreters to facilitate communication. It may seem a quaint notion if you're under 50, but there was a time in business where executives working in foreign countries actually travelled with a person who was paid to help them communicate. Early in my career, about the late 70's or early 80's, we saw a shift in that companies began to train staff members in foreign languages, or hire bi-lingual or tri-lingual graduates. The last interpreter I hired was in 1991; after that it was required that you speak more than your native language for almost any foreign assignment, and no mono-lingual staff members were considered promotable to positions with international responsibility. The bar was raised and has never lowered since. Companies then had to cope with the unwinding of interpreter staffs through layoffs or reassignments.

We saw a similar situation with the personal computer. Again, a quaint notion for younger readers is that we used to pay people just to type memos and other documents. Skilled staff and managerial positions required no typing skills. When the PC broke on the scene it was embraced by skilled knowledge workers first as a way to improve all manner of graphic and calculating work (engineering, design, architecture, etc...) and a way for the average office worker to escape the control of the Data Processing department (another quaint notion) who controlled the main frame computer.

Within a very few years the idea that a company would pay someone to type for you became as ludicrous and paying someone to speak for you. Typing became "keyboarding" and became a requirement for practically any office job. Later the integration of spreadsheets and presentation software with word processing led to the "office suite" concept of prepackaged integrated software. Now the price of admission into any career working in an office was working knowledge of Microsoft Office, Word Perfect Suite, or similar product. Within a staggeringly short period of time about half the "secretary" positions in the country disappeared as the bar was raised for skills required to work in office positions. Today you don't think of hiring someone for a knowledge-worker position who can't keyboard and use office software.

This brings us back around to Social Media. This new technology continues to develop and morph into whatever it will become. When it finally matures the communications between people who share some affinity or commonality will never be the same. Positions like marketing and recruiting, those that connect a company with those outside its own walls, will require the people working in them to have social media skills. Those companies who decide right now to hire social media staffs to help them leverage this new technology will, by the time they build those staffs, find themselves with an expensive and outdated apparatus. They will be unwinding and disbanding their social media gurus like the interpreters and secretaries of past technological periods. I won't have a social media specialist to help my recruiters search LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for talent; I just won't hire a recruiter who can't do that for themselves.

What makes the most sense now is to discern the essential skills necessary to communicate and mine for information on social media, and then teach that to our staffs. We should not consider for entry-level employment anyone in marketing, PR, publicity, recruiting, and business development who does not know how to navigate social media. If done right we'll be hitting our stride in mining on-line communities for business while others are expending energy downsizing or disbanding their social media groups or departments.

Live Events Division Office On the Move?

2009-11-14T23:18:00.009-06:00

It is highly likely that we will move the division headquarters of Thomas Nelson Live Events sometime this summer. While that's not guaranteed, that seems to be the direction in which we're heading. Some might wonder why, in the current economic climate, we would do such a thing. After all, isn't that inconsistent with our measures to cut costs and preserve cash? Here's what we're doing and why.

Since the merger of the Facilities and HR departments I've been getting an education on commercial space. New space is often referred to as "Class A" space in that its new, well apportioned with a good location and solid management. Class B space is Class A space that has aged well, but no longer has the first class look of new top-quality space. Class C space is run down and tired, old and/or poorly maintained.

The Live Events division space in Plano occupies offices that its been leasing for 9 1/2 years of a 10 year lease. That space was probably Class B when it was leased by the previous owners of the company. The lease rate was very reasonable, but was a la carte. Everything is an add-on, including maintenance, janitorial, security, etc... We also get assessed for common-use major maintenance, such as when the HVAC system had to be replaced for the building. Over the years that we've occupied this space the actual "all-in" occupancy cost has been the equivalent in the Plano market of low-end Class A space.

During the period of our lease the absentee landlord has declined to put requested repairs and upkeep into that space. Last week I noticed that almost every wallpaper seam in the one larger conference room was loose. A letter sent by our broker 2 1/2 years ago requesting over a dozen "immediate" repairs has resulted in none of those repairs being made. The result of this neglect is that, according to our brokers, this space has now become Class C space at a Class A price.

Because of these factors, and a half-hearted renewal proposal from the landlord's property manager, we began looking for space a few months ago. What we discovered was that the vacancy rate in the north Dallas market (Plano, Richardson, Allen, etc...) is extremely high with some buildings having space that's been empty for 2-3 years. Our first round of price quotes indicates that we can upgrade these offices from Class C to upper-end Class B space for 30 - 40% less lease. We're also insisting on a comprehensive lease so that our division with the smallest percentage of male employees is no longer responsible for their own maintenance.

Over the next few weeks we'll issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to and receive responses from six finalists. We've arrived at these six from an initial review of 80 commercial buildings in the Plano area. The current landlord is welcome to bid as well and its not inconceivable that they could wake up. Given past history, I seriously doubt it but anythings possible.

So that's the inside scoop for those of you in Plano who asked me if you're "really going to move this time." That's also the facts for anyone wondering if we've lost our mind. Our goal is a significant reduction in cost and simultaneously a significant increase in the quality of the work environment and workplace satisfaction. We'll be pushing hard on this for an April/May decision and a possible move in late summer.

Listen to Your Uncle Julio

2009-11-11T22:16:00.011-06:00

Earlier tonight at the recommendation of friend and colleague Lara Dulaney I stopped for dinner at Uncle Julio's in Allen, TX. Knowing that the rest of the Nashville contingent had gone home a day earlier, and that I was dining by myself, she told me that the food was good and that I could get a full meal at the bar. I thought that was a good idea because you're not so noticeable as "dinner for one" eating at a crowded bar.

I drove the extra exit up from my hotel in Allen and found the place on an out-parcel in a shopping center that had TJ Maxx and Dick's Sporting Goods among other stores. It was mid-priced/low-upscale so nothing that felt like a waste of money. Unlike the eerily deserted restaurants I saw during lunch in the Plano area Uncle Julio's was busy at 8:00 p.m. and had the appearance of winding down from the dinner rush.

So I sit at the bar and here is where the story really begins. One of the two bartenders stuck out his hand, said, "I'm Jeff what's your name?" and asked me where I was from and had I dined there before. I told him I hadn't and he made several recommendations. What I had isn't important, but it was good. Jeff came around and made conversation. When I asked for the check he said he'd bring it but that he had something for me.

When next I looked up there was a manager standing there with plate of soppopias and honey. He also stuck his hand out, introduced himself (Josh, I think, but I may not have heard him correctly). He said, "Jeff tells me you're here for the first time. We wanted to give you a little something special and ask you to come back." I tried to share this plate with everyone at the bar because there were enough for four people.

As I'm leaving I thought about what had just happened. A fully engaged and well-trained employee made a special effort to connect with me on a first-name basis and identify me as a potential new customer. He passed that along to his manager who similarly made a first-name connection and gave me way more than I had expected. I don't believe for a minute that its coincidental that Uncle Julio's parking lot was full while others were empty.

Business is about people and human connections. Business people tend to think its about finance, but finance is to business what a score board is to the football game. It doesn't play the game; people play the game. What a company's financials tell us is what happened between people in the act of commerce. When restaurants in this area are having the same predictable Board of Directors reaction to slash expenses and cut their way to prosperity, Uncle Julio's is reaching out and taking their fair market share, and then some, by engaging employees and connecting with customers.

If your parking lot is empty, either the customer lot or the employee lot, maybe your should listen to your Uncle Julio.

While We're Reforming Healthcare Let's Talk About Doctors

2009-11-06T12:25:00.011-06:00

I'm writing this over lunch having spent the better part of my morning going to and coming from an appointment at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Hand Clinic. I never saw a doctor; I walked out after an hour and a half and I'll decide later if I go back. This morning reminds me of a study done in 2007 on the hidden cost of physician inefficiency.

This study, available on economix.com studied Americans 15 and over during 2007 to see how much time is spent in physician waiting rooms. That number...and maybe you should sit down, is 847 million hours in one year. In 2007 the average wage for American workers was $17.43/hr, so the total cost to the economy was $240 billion. The average American that year spent the equivalent of 1.1 hours per week in a doctor's waiting room. So, take your average hourly wage x 52 weeks a year x 1.1 and see what you or your employer are spending each year.

In all other commercial transactions in a capitalist system the person to whom you pay money is working for you. Medicine is an exception. Only in medicine do the people and institutions to whom we pay money (either directly, through our health insurance, or both) dictate the environment in which we'll wait, how long we'll wait, and what care we'll receive (you can assert your rights as a patient to guide or refuse the care offered which is not always appreciated by your physician). Timeliness, it is safe to say, is not a metric used to assess the performance of most physicians practices.

Let's draw a distinction for the rest of this discussion between routine care, which most of us receive, and life-threatening care such as rendered via oncology, cardiology, emergency medicine, etc... I never minded waiting in the Breast Clinic with my wife while her doctors were treating cancer. That's way different.

Now here's the big "ah ha." Practically all non-life-threatening care is routine. When was the last time you had an experimental treatment? If you're like most patients, its never. Anything that's routine can be analyzed and measured.

Whether you're treating a common cold or rebuilding someones knee, with a modicum of study you can determine how long that takes. You can then schedule your appointments around those needs. You don't have to know the diagnosis if you're an ear, nose and throat specialist; those coming to you are making appointments because they have an ENT need. Same with orthopaedists and double for primary care physicians.

In other words, there's never a good excuse for over booking your practice and making people wait unnecessarily.

This is a paradigm that we should shift while we're reforming American health care. If more patients demanded timely care, and took their business elsewhere when they didn't get it, then timely care would become a measurable performance metric in physicians and clinical practices. Those operations, for all the good they do for humanity, are also businesses and are sensitive to customer pressure. As patients we just usually don't think to exert it and we should.

Push Back When Medical Bills Seem High

2009-11-03T09:55:00.002-06:00

One of my family members recently had an endoscopy procedure. It was recommended at this stage of life and was purely preventative. According to our UHC insurance that procedure is covered at 100% when its a preventative screening. After the test the physician met with us and told us the results were "unremarkable".

Note my surprise, then, when I received and EOB for the procedure asking me for $800 as my portion of the expense. We called UHC who explained that physician's office had coded the procedure as "General Illness" and so our plan would only pay 80% after a $500 deductible. I tried to explain back to them that the procedure was covered at 100%, to which they replied that as long as the bill was coded anything other than "Preventative" there would be a deductible and co-insurance.

Next I went to the physician's practice at Vanderbilt Clinic. After three phone calls over four weeks and ever-elevated blood pressure, I took an unusual step. I jointly emailed our UHC rep, the physician, and the VUMC billing dept rep explaining that someone had made a mistake; either the physician was wrong when he told us that he found nothing, the coding was incorrect when an unremarkable test result was coded as an "illness", the billing was incorrect if a preventative screening was billed as an illness, or the claims processing was incorrect if a co-pay and deductible was applied to a preventative service.

Well, none of them were amused and I did have to make a phone call to Vanderbilt Patience Advocacy. Eventually, on 9/23 (8 weeks after the service date) the physician's bill was reprocessed and paid at 100%.

So all was well. Until it wasn't.

Two weeks ago I received a $297 bill for the hospital's portion of the billing for this same procedure. My wife called while I was at work and Vanderbilt Patient Billing explained to her that this bill had already been reprocessed and that UHC would only pay 80%. We did indeed owe this. Two days later, this last Saturday, I received a final notice from Vanderbilt on this same balance.

Monday morning I called Patient Billing. I found that their customer service calls are taken by their accounting staff and I had a 40 minute conversation with a lady determined to tell me I was going to pay the bill. One supervisor conversation later and this bill is now in coding for review, which is what has to happen before it can be recoded and billed properly.

This long narrative is meant to make these points.

1. Vanderbilt's medical coding and billing has stumbled in recent months. I'm not sure what's wrong over there, but you should look at your bills and make sure that what they're charging you squares with what you understand your benefits to be.

2. You should question any charge to UHC and to your provider that is for more than you think you owe.

3. Make sure and get a printout of your scheduled benefits off myuhc.com or from HR, as the first time we asked UHC about our benefit they misquoted it until we faxed them our benefit schedule.

4. Keep your cool. The people who take these calls are accustomed to yelling and screaming and you make yourself refrigerator noise when you do. Get your facts together and beat them with kindness, calm, reason, and superior facts.

5. Medical billing staffs are not terribly well trained or well qualified. This profession is like Education and Human Resources. Anybody can get into the field so while you can have professionals of high quality and integrity you can also have under performers make a career out of making mistakes. Don't ever assume that your bills are coded correctly.

6. Ask HR. Before you let any of this make you crazy, come see us. We deal with these types of issues all the time.

Whenever I deal with my own insurance I get really concerned for everyone else. I've been administering benefits for 25 years, I know bad work when I see it, and I'm not afraid to call it out. If I have this much trouble, what does everyone else do? My concern is that you pay it and move on.

Before you pay something you don't believe you owe (because the providers and insurers will certainly let you!), come see us.

Education vs. Training

2009-10-21T22:45:00.005-05:00

There are two thankless sub disciplines in HR and I've done both of them: Training and Executive Compensation. You can never satisfy the majority of your stakeholders and some days you don't feel that you satisfied any of them. I don't manage executive comp at Thomas Nelson (the Board does that) so I'm spared that cross to bear. With training I have indecision. On the one hand we need it and I am duty-bound to advocate for it, knowing that if I get a budget I'll have the thankless job of delivering a product that at best will get mixed reviews. It is my most severe instance of, "Lord, how do I pray?" at budget time.

Part of our training regimen is that every three years we train or retrain all supervisors of two or more people. We use various forms of feedback to determine the content. We get requests of those who do the job and feel they need more training, requests of employees who say their supervisor needs certain training, and we observe problems from our seats in HR and see what skill problems cause people problems.

So this month we started delivering supervisory training (not leadership training; that's different) to all supervisors, rank of VP and below, who supervise two or more people. The training is right down the hall from my office and I roam the hallways on breaks to get feedback. Some feedback comes to me via email and drop-ins to the office. The wide variety of opinions from "fabulous" to "total waste of time" make you wonder if these folks were in the same room with the same instructor. It reminds me of some truths about training that everyone should keep in mind.

1. You get out of it what you expect - I've had people who had this same information in NLU hear it again as members of the leadership team and still think its "good stuff." These tend to be people whose supervisors were "thrifty" and disinclined to invest in their training. They approach these sessions like water in the desert and we could probably present to them the recipe for dog food and they'd love it. Conversely, Mr. Starbucks who comes in an hour late and instantly begins checking email roundly pronounces it inferior.

2. Training is Vocation, Not Education - Training topics range from making pivot tables in Excel to the supervisor's roll in tracking hours worked. My friends and colleagues with advanced degrees from prestigious institutions sometimes take training as an insult. After all, what can a training class tell them that Presumptuous U hasn't already imparted? Plainly stated, I've had colleagues and supervisors who were both educated and uneducated. My experience has been that education is no leading indicator of a person's ability to organize, instruct, think creatively or implement strategy. To specifically reference our current supervisory training, if education made for good supervisors we'd all go straight to management right out of college.

3. Come Humble- To be trained requires that you not come into the room knowing it all. There is a vulnerability that is required to accept information from someone else in front of your colleagues. If you're too proud, or too afraid, to ask questions you won't get much out of your time in the seminar.

I know of what I speak. I am currently going through continuing education over the course of several weekends. Except for a couple of hot-shot attorneys I am further in my career and outrank everyone in the room. I'm learning a ton because I (1) expected to learn, (2) took this as an opportunity to pick up new skills and (3) came in with questions rather than answers.

On my way home from the first weekend I made a mental evaluation of the material and found that I knew half or more of the information presented. It was my willingness to suspend where I was in my career and come thirsty to the training that allowed me to absorb the half I didn't know. Approach training in that spirit and you'll seldom be disappointed.

Williamson Medical Center and United Healthcare

2009-10-07T12:43:00.008-05:00

Several of you have asked about the latest in Williamson Medical Center's dispute with United Healthcare. For those of you who don't know, UHC dropped WMC from its network effective October 2nd. We have monitored this situation and communicated clearly with UHC regarding our concerns. We also continue to recommend that patients of physicians practicing out of WMC call their doctors and/or WMC administrators and encourage them to come to terms with UHC.

Network contract negotiations are not unusual, even though this type of hardball isn't common. This situation is the collision of two profit-minded monopolies. WMC is the only hospital or surgi center of any size in the Franklin/Cool Springs corridor. UHC is one of only five remaining multi-state health insurance conglomerates in the country. Both think the other needs them more and is waiting for the other guy to blink.

My sources tell me that both sides are still talking. That's good as it would be a loss for both companies and our people if negotiations broke down completely. The root of the conflict is money. WMC is asking for the highest network reimbursement rate of any hospital in the state of Tennessee. It believes UHC will blink because of the significant percentage of its patients that are health care decision makers (CEOs, CFOs, Presidents, etc...) for their companies. UHC believes that it has such a large share of the market that WMC can't operate profitably without their covered insureds (that's you).

We continue to monitor this situation and will let you know more as we know it. Meanwhile, for emergency care WMC is still considered in-network. Regardless, you should never pass up a hospital looking for an in-network hospital in case of emergency. For elective care you need to go elsewhere for now.

Jim

The Changing Nature of "Off-Hours Conduct" Policies

2009-10-01T15:27:00.022-05:00

Most companies of any size (and any sense) have a policy against egregious off-hours and off-property employee conduct. Thomas Nelson is no exception. Unlike policies on specific workplace behaviors, these policies are intentionally vague and are intended to address a wide variety of non-work behaviors that reflect negatively on the employer's reputation. Such policies are rarely used today, but when used their very nature has changed significantly.

Like so many traditional corporate workplace rules, the history of off-hours conduct policies goes back to the U.S. military. Aside from violations of military rules of conduct, for its officers the military used a catch-all rule against "Conduct Unbecoming and Officer" to address off-base conduct that besmirched the integrity of the military in general and its leadership (officers) in particular. Chief among these violations were public moral failings (drunkenness, carousing, etc...) especially while in uniform.

In the corporate setting these rules often translated into the company's judgement on an employee's personal life. In small "company town" communities they were most often applied to employee personal moral conduct, disciplining or terminating employees with the rationale of, "We don't want someone like that in our company." In my own experience it was mostly applied by my bosses toward unmarried women with multiple partners, gay men and lesbians.

While the same vague policy language still exists today its being applied in an entirely different context. Definitions of what is immoral have changed to the point that personal morality is almost never addressed under these policies. At the same time employees' on-line presence brought about by social media (especially Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter) connects the employee and their personal expression with their employer's brand and reputation in a very public way.

In completing profiles on social media sites one common step is to tell where you work. That's a step that occurs in the early stage of joining the site, and is soon forgotten. After that its easy to miss the fact that what you say in public can in some instances reflect badly on your employer. Another complication is the use of personal accounts on social media sites to promote your employer or its products during work hours, and then the use of the same site for personal expression after hours. Now you've joined your personal brand to the employer's brand and here's where the line between personal and professional expression becomes blurred.

As if this wasn't already a recipe for a fun day in an HR conference room with your boss, as the TV commercials say, "Wait, there's more!"

Whose reading what you write? More people than you think. On top of the people whom you know "follow" you are a group of lurkers who sign on to the sight and look up company employees, especially managers, but who never register or officially follow you. This happened to me recently when what I considered to be a personal tweet (I'm not on any company aggregator for Twitter like I am for this blog) came back to my office in the form of an offended employee. One controversial opinion of mine about public option healthcare received comments from Nelson staff and management, both on Twitter and in person, none of whom follow me.

You can make your Facebook private but then you can't effectively use it to promote the company, its brand or its products. You can block people whom you don't want following you on Twitter, but that doesn't address the lurkers who can easily outnumber your followers. If you have a public Facebook account and use Twitter you can accurately assume that nothing you write is private.

I'm not sure of the solution. It seems to me that you either must edit yourself for all on-line content incongruent with the company's brand and reputation, or you should establish separate personal and professional accounts. Otherwise anyone with a social media presence identified with their employer runs the risk of violating off-hours conduct rules. The more wholesome your employer's brand (Hello? Bible company!) the greater the risk.

Its a sticky situation and the new rules of the road are being written almost daily. Today I received a flier for a conference in Chicago on "Social Media and HR" so at least I know we're not the only people facing these new challenges.

Take a Big, Deep Breath...

2009-09-17T09:45:00.002-05:00

I've been all over the corporate office building and burning up email in the last few days. My level of activity has apparently raised alarm in places because we've had several quietly asked questions lately along the lines of, "What's going on?"

Here's the skinny. Amy in Benefits is out on maternity leave (expected back Monday) and HR Manager Jack is in-and-out on Jury Duty until October 8th (thanks a lot, Smyrna). The HR Department most days is Dawn, Elaine, and me. Factor in lunch hours, days off, sick kids, Elaine's new grand baby and Jack's anticipated grand babies (arriving Friday) and we're operating with two people a lot of the time. You're seeing me because you're most likely not seeing anyone else from HR.

Mystery solved! To quote Chevy Chase, "Sometimes a banana is just a banana."

Jim

401(k) Catch-Up Contributions

2009-09-15T13:32:00.004-05:00

I learned something today that should be passed along to our Nelson team, especially those 55 and older or who will turn 55 in the near future. The IRS guidelines allow maximum contributions up to $16,500 per year. This "maximum contribution limit" changes almost every year and is a feature in the law that prevents 401(k) plans from becoming a wealth building tool for executives rather than a retirement plan for all employees.

If you're 55 and over you can also make additional annual deferrals known as "catch-up contributions." This feature allows older workers who may be behind in their retirement savings to contribute up to an additional $6,000 per year.

In our plan, and most plans, the methodology for maximizing your contributions was cumbersome. You had to separately elect catch-up contributions. Then as Plan Administrators we had to wait until you had contributed your $16,500 maximum before directing the Record Keeper to accept your additional payroll deductions as catch-up contributions.

I learned today that, among many technological advantages to or new Vanguard 401(k) arrangement, their system is smart enough to do all this for you. If you are 55 or older and have deferred a percentage of your salary that will exceed $16,500 annually the Vanguard system will automatically take all contributions after that point and consider them as catch-up. The system will then accept contributions up to $22,500 ($16,500 + $6,000) before stopping your deferrals.

As you plan for your retirement and consider accelerating your contributions, you can defer whatever flat percent of your base pay that will lead you to $22,500 and the Vanguard system will take care of the rest. Its one more reason that, at this early stage, I'm a happy Vanguard customer.

Jim

I'll Take Care of That For You

2009-09-12T10:30:00.010-05:00

In an recent conversation, just as a throwaway comment, our Live Events COO Vance Lawson quoted Zig Ziglar (paraphrasing here) that, "The world still opens up for people who say, "I'll take care of that for you"." I hadn't heard that in awhile, but it precisely sums up what I'm seeing and experiencing in this economy. The rules have changed and your policies no longer matter. What matters in chasing the fewer consumer dollars out there is doing what it takes to be of service to the customer and your employer.

Simultaneously I'm overseeing three departments and rebuilding two boats. I see every day at work those who struggle and those who succeed with the tougher work loads. Off work, I'm spending my own scarce capital in the final stages of these two projects the type of which I never thought I'd do. In both the corporate and personal situations the demarcation of success is not necessarily the number of hours being worked, but the attitude of those doing the work. If you recognize that everything has changed and you've adjusted accordingly, you're hanging in there pretty well. If your instincts are bad and you're still working and doing business like you always have, you're struggling.

In the economy of 18 months ago there was room for quoting policy to your customers; dictating to them the product quality and pricing which you want them to have. I have blogged before about sales people who want to sell me what and how they wish rather than selling what I want at the price I want to pay. Before I was the exception and now I'm the rule. The corporate employees who are doing well are showing creativity and resolve and developing new products, new ways and places to sell those products and ways to control or reduce the cost of product. Those who aren't are struggling.

In my boat world I took my dad's miniature pontoon to a local dealer for what I thought was going to be a $1,500 quote for a refurb. What I got back was a $6,000 "best case" bid. Now since I'm cheap and going in for half of those cost (and a share of the boat) there was no way six grand was happening. I challenged the dealer and got, "That's how we do it because that's what it takes to get it right." I told him $2,500 was our max (since half of that was coming out of my pocket) and how could we economize to hit that number. He was having none of it.

Later that night I sat down and planned out a project schedule of everything that needed to be done, and hit Craigslist. Over the next two weeks I screened independent handymen and mechanics, many of whom had lost their day jobs and started their own businesses out of necessity. I had to kiss a couple of frogs before finding the Princes, but I settled on two handymen and one mechanic. All three had, coincidentally, the Zig Ziglar response to everything I asked; "I can take care of that for you."

Labor Day evening we water tested the pontoon on Old Hickory, then took it over to Percy Priest and launched it at Four Corners Marina. On Thursday I took a PTO day and took my dad fishing on Priest for his first time on that lake without a guide since the 1960s. Total price tag, $2,650 against a $2,500 budget.

Trailering the boat to Priest from my home I passed by the $6,000 dealership and waved. That guy could have had my money and I would have been in the water in July if he'd tried creatively to solve my problem (old boat, limited funds) instead of quoting his policies. He didn't realize that the ground had shifted beneath his feet; that his competition was no longer just the other dealers in the lake area. It now includes a large number of skilled trademen-turned-entrepreneurs launched by the recession.

In the corporate world the competition for sales is no longer between big businesses, but now includes the array entrepreneurs working from home and similarly "inspired" by corporate downsizing. Similarly the competition for jobs is not just between you and the others at work who do your job, but includes the many, many good people wanting to get back into the workplace.

So for now and the foreseeable future, possibly a half dozen years to come, quoting policy and dictating price is old news and a remedy for failure. The path to survival and success is listening to your customer, caring about their needs, and finding a way to use the resources at your disposal to solve their problems. It actually always has been the recipe for success albeit forgotten in the boom economy.

Oh, and another thing about satisfied customers is that they tell other people and help make new customers. If you need good handymen, a great marina, or an outstanding mechanic I am glad to pass those along off-line if you'll drop me an email.

Social Media Conflicts at Work

2009-08-27T14:36:00.013-05:00

According to the number of seminar emails and fliers I'm receiving the new "hot topic" in employment law is how social media impacts the employee/employer relationship. I've begun to see this within our own walls. This truly is a new area where mistakes can be made and relationships can be damaged if everyone doesn't know and observe the appropriate social and legal boundaries.

Most of the problems created by Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkIn accounts revolve around two issues: employee criticism of employer and supervisor and the unwelcome reading of personally posted on-line material by supervisors and co-workers. For the employee there are risks from posted materials meeting the legal definitions of libel, slander, breaches of confidentiality with the employer's private information, and conduct that damages the employer's brand or other protectable interests. For the employer, especially supervisors, the risk is invasion of privacy and arbitrary or capricious employment actions taken on the basis of private or non-work communications.

For reasons of space and brevity I won't go into legal details, but if you're interested in a typical case you can research Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group for more information.

So what are the boundaries? Nobody is totally sure because the precedents from case law are still being decided. From my perspective here are some common sense guidelines to keep everyone out of trouble.

Employees

Be gracious and kind in your comments. If what you say isn't negative or unfair you can skip everything else below.
If you want to post private information for your friends and family only, make your social media pages private. You can't say on the one hand that this is your personal and private information and then post it publicly on the web.
This isn't an absolute protection. If your page is private and you have 50 co-workers as followers the impact of a negative comment about your company or supervisor is the same as if you said it in the hallway in front of a group of 50.
Don't divulge confidential information about your employer or anyone else.
If you read information on someone else's private page, repeating it is the same as overhearing a hallway conversation or eaves-dropping on someones phone. Sometimes telling a supervisor what you read on someones social media page is justified (abuse, threats of suicide, illness, etc...) and that's up to each individual's ethics.
If you read something on someones Facebook or Twitter that offends you, follow someone else. Its not a matter about which to complain to your supervisor or co-workers.

Employers

If an employee's page is private, don't seek the information that's on it. You can get the password from a co-worker or log in on a PC where a saved cookie gets you in, but its the equivalent of looking through a keyhole.
If you cruise your co-workers or employees' social media pages and you get offended, whose fault is that?
Know what are the protectable interests of the company and never bring up anything from someones social media page unless it damages a protectable interest or violates an agreement. The person must have identified themselves on their page as being associated with the company and then engaging in conduct (discussions, posting pictures, etc...) that reflects negatively on the employer's brand.
Know if any company information posted by the employee is available elsewhere in public forum. If so, move along. If not, you have a confidentiality issue that is actionable.

90% of the social media conflicts I've seen can be avoided by good taste, mutual respect, and the keeping of confidences. Just like in the off-line world!

All About Us

2009-08-02T22:39:00.008-05:00

In its July 25/26 Weekend edition, the Wall Street Journal printed a fascinating article, "A Class of Generals" about the West Point class of 1976. From this class have come five Generals currently leading major military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the first time in West Point's 207 year history that one class has produced generals commanding two wars simultaneously.

What is fascinating about this story, for those of you too young to remember, is that the class of 1976 entered West Point in 1972, at the low point for prestige and morale in the U.S. military. This was the period immediately post-Vietnam and in the midst of Watergate. It was decidedly uncool to be in the military at all, much less pledging your life and career to lead its soldiers.

Yet this one class has produced 33 active or retired generals from its 855 graduates. Not since the class of 1915, which produced Generals Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, who led the U.S. through World War II, has one class had such an impact on military leadership. Asked why they came, most said as part of their families' traditions, a sense of duty, and some had scholarship or other opportunities that made it their best opportunity. Today, after stepping into an organization in which they believed when it needed them most, they are a class of professionals who will go down in history.

Reading this reminded me of a similar group, this from the sports world in my native Kentucky. The 1991-92 University of Kentucky men's team is revered in our state as "The Unforgettables." Due to flagrant recruiting violations under then Head Coach Eddie Sutton, the U of K program was banned from postseason play for two years. The best players left the program and the best recruits went elsewhere. Four seniors, Richie Farmer, Deron Feldhus, John Pelphrey (now coach at the University of Arkansas), and Sean Woods stayed with the program. All were native Kentuckians who, because of family traditions stayed together and with the program.

Their reward was a new head coach recruited from the NBA, Rick Pitino, who in turn recruited great underclass players. In the '91-'92 season they went 29 - 7 and lost to eventual national champion Duke in what is often called the greatest college basketball game ever played. All four players' jerseys are retired at UK. Their rise from the bottom of the SEC to national prominence in one year turned around the UK program for a decade.

Which brings me to us. Eighteen months ago there were around 660 of us; now there are around 480. I won't go back through what we endured in the year between April 2008 and 2009; you know that all too well. What I can tell you now that is probably news to you should make you feel good about yourself and your teammates. The staff reductions of 2008 actually happened in six phases of planning and implementation over a 14 month period. During this time every single one of us was discussed at some time or other. The magnitude of the downsizing, and the fact that it came in wave upon wave, necessitated an examination of each and every job and person. Was the job necessary? If so, which person was the right one for the job and who should go?

So, if you're here at Thomas Nelson right now, today, you are good at what you do. You have been vetted and approved, and you're regarded as someone who knows what they're doing. That doesn't give any of us a pass on doing our job everyday, but it should make you pause for a moment to hold your head up. Like the Class of Generals and like The Unforgettables, you are leading and performing at a unique time in our history. You're doing that almost completely because of who you are and what you believe, not because its raining money on Nelson Place.

And, since nothing happens accidentally, you are where you are for a reason. As we near the mid-point in this very difficult Q2 may this be an encouragement to you that you can also pass to anyone around you who needs it.

Doing Good in 140 Characters or Less

2009-07-23T16:39:00.016-05:00

Mother Teresa said, "There is more hunger for love and appreciation in the world than for bread." Kentucky historical figure and leader Henry Clay said, "Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart." In other words, showing appreciation for people has power and fills a need that transcends the workplace, building friendships and forging loyalties along the way.

I've followed the development of social media with a suspicious eye and written about that on this blog. I unplugged my Facebook and MySpace accounts as huge time wasters, reinstated my Twitter account and maintained my blog. The purpose of so much social media is marketing, or purely personal use such as "friends and family" type communications. My world, on the other hand, is focused both professionally and personally on face-to-face communication and the keeping of confidences. There doesn't appear to be much use for social media in those endeavors...or maybe not.

Today I came across a series of websites that offer, either free or for sale, inspirational and motivational materials. When you talk as much as HR people often do, you sometimes need new material. What struck me in reading through the content on these sites is how many praises, phrases, and encouragements use 140 characters or less, which is the format on Twitter. This gave me an idea that I would like to propose to everyone. Please read on...

In my early days as a supervisor I, like many, was taught MBWA: Management By Walking Around for those of you who didn't have jobs in the 80's. While you were walking around, observing your operations for yourself, you looked for ways to "catch someone doing something right" (which was another 80's management phrase). The power in acknowledging good work while walking around was that other people heard it. Rather than the private note, it was the public praise on the job site in earshot of co-workers. When done well, it is amazingly well received and highlights what good work looks like and the praise that it should bring.

If a significant portion of our workplace is moving into the social media arena, it seems to me that there should be a social media equivalent to MBWA. What if each of us, while scanning our email, IMs, Twitter messages, and Facebook friends found something each day to publicly praise? What if each day or two or three, we used a Tweet or Facebook entry or Blog post to acknowledge someone in front of everyone? While I still prefer face-to-face conversations, I don't believe the social mediasphere has to be all tech-talk, product promotion, and baby pictures.

I'll end this post with a real life example; something that's praiseworthy and going on right now at Thomas Nelson. We have subleased the last floor of our Two Lakeview Place office space, which we abandoned early this year when moving all office staff into our corporate headquarters. Today our Facilities team is doing the hard work of moving out all the excess office furniture, leftover marketing materials, overstocked Bible samples, and trash off of the 6th floor so that the sublease tenants can take possession August 1. They spent the week planning the move, spent the morning loading, came to the All Employee Meeting, and had the delivery trucks staged in the back parking lot when the doors unlocked at 1:00. They're sweating, working hard, and doing a great job. Such a great job in fact, that they aren't a distraction and few people know what they're doing.

By contrast, my wife has been home all week from her job at Easter Seals because of a less coordinated move. That organization changed offices, and has been a whole week in their new space without phones or Internet. Hourly staff members like my wife have nothing to do, and so are being told to stay home. Easter Seals doesn't have a professional, first-class Facilities group and has to handle this amongst themselves. This type of problem has never happened at Thomas Nelson because Scott Holloway and his team won't allow it to happen.

This is a true story, and well-deserved public praise for some great members of our Nelson team even if I did take more than 140 characters. Now, gentle readers, its your turn. Tweet somebody doing something right.

Government Run Healthcare Makes Sense

2009-06-27T08:41:00.011-05:00

As a young man I was a Reagan Republican raised in a family of Goldwater Republicans. My views have moderated significantly during the ensuing years but the one thing that hasn't is my belief that each individual is responsible for their own outcomes in life and should pursue them without outside interference or restriction.

With this type of outlook it might then surprise you to know that I favor a national health care plan, either a public "option" or the conversion of the current system into a single payer program similar to the Canadian system.

Why in the world would I feel that way? Simple; for the last 20 years I have had the responsibility over group health plans and have had to deal with insurance carriers.

In the last 10 years the health insurance industry has grown more profitable, has consolidated to just a handful of carriers, and makes literally life-and-death decisions about your health care based upon profit-and-loss considerations. In years past we as corporate Plan Sponsors have been able to influence some coverage decisions by using the leverage of taking our business elsewhere. That influence erodes more each year and has never been less than it is now. That's because there's almost nowhere else to go and the carriers know it.

Our last health care negotiations were hurt by the fact that only four multi-state fully-insured carriers remain: United Healthcare, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, and Cigna. No matter which of these is your carrier, that means you're only marketing to the other three. As a rule, Blue Cross has the highest quotes by about 30% as they focus on margin rather than volume: if you want a better price than your current carrier that means you're marketing to only two others. During our recent re-marketing effort (to see if we could get a better deal than we got at our April renewal) we had UHC as our incumbent and Blue Cross was immediately out of the running due to price. The Aetna and Cigna representatives' main questions during our negotiations was "what's the other guy's quote?"

In this scenario its no wonder that the insurance industry is howling about the prospect of a government "option". Entry into this monopolistic and recalcitrant marketplace by a strong competitor would change the landscape to favor people rather than carriers.

Personal liberty would also be increased through a government plan because I believe many people with serious health conditions stay with their employers because our health care system is employer based. To change jobs and risk losing yours, or to start you own business and become self-employed means risking becoming uninsured. According to Dave Ramsey, even though foreclosures have been the highest on record this year personal bankruptcies due to unpaid medical bills are four times that of bankruptcies due to home foreclosure.

I'm loathe to depend on government for anything. But with government I have an elected representative that I can call if my government health plan isn't working. Who do I call if my carrier cheats me on coverage or overcharges me? The current health care system is dictating who can and cannot afford coverage, what is covered, and (since its employer based) where you can work. As such, I would suggest to you that the solution to this lack of freedom is, paradoxically, the government. I can elect my representatives but I'm stuck with my UHC rep.

Back to Basics on Security

2009-06-23T10:14:00.008-05:00

Last week we had a (thankfully) minor security breech that resulted in an a team member's cell phone being stolen off her desk. Someone from outside the company walked past the front desk like she knew where she was going and wandered the building for 12 minutes before leaving the way she came in. She then walked around the property for 8 more minutes trying doors (unsuccessfully) before leaving through the back field. By the time our staffer noticed the theft and reported it to her cell phone provider the thief had made 60 phone calls and sent 72 text messages, all to pre-paid phones. We identified one call recipient through a paid cell phone registry, pulled up her name in the local court website, and discovered a long history of petty theft and drug use. In other words, this was a professional job by professional petty criminals.

In reviewing video and talking to our employees we've discovered how this happened, and it represents a breakdown in some fundamental disciplines that we must reiterate.

Front Desk Security: Challenging Strangers - We use the reception desk to give a positive first impression of the company. That won't change. However, these nice ladies don't know everybody, and sometimes people get ill with them if they stop someone who turns out to be an employee or long-time contractor. I have given them instructions beginning noon today to ask, "Can I help you?" anytime they don't know someone. Since they can't know everybody, some employees may get asked and that's okay. I urge you not to be offended as these ladies are doing this (a) under instructions from me and (b) for your safety.
Front Desk Security: Requiring Name Badges - All non-employees are required to sign in daily to wear a visitors badge at all times. That is not a new policy, but one roundly ignored in some parts of the company. Beginning at noon today that policy will be strictly enforced. Nobody thought a thing about the young woman walking through our building because its not unusual to see temps, contractors, family members, etc... in the building without a badge.
Children in the Building - Five people who saw this very petite young woman thought she was someone's teenager because its become so common to see children in the building. Our Handbook is specific and has not changed in eight years that the workplace is no place for kids. Visiting for a short period of time and escorted the entire time is fine. Staying with you after you've picked them up from sick day care just long enough to arrange alternate care or wrap things up and go home is also fine. Hanging out here with you half a day, or wandering the halls, or sent to your workstation unescorted from the front desk has to stop.
Noticing People Who Look "Wrong" - You know what I'm talking about: sometimes you just see someone who looks out of place. Every employee in this building should feel empowered to say, "Can I help you?" and make eye contact with a stranger not wearing a visitors badge. If you feel uncomfortable doing that, call Facilities or HR and we'll do it for you.

I'm the first to acknowledge that our security is bass-akwards and has been for years. We should have swipe badges for access into the building. We'll make our fifth annual attempt at that with the next budget cycle, or anytime this year that we think the money might be available. Until then our security is each other and the array of security cameras operated by Scott Holloway's fine staff. Meanwhile please come see me if being asked who you are or asked to wear a visitors badge offends you. Just don't fuss on the nice ladies at the front desk.

The Importance of Pushback

2009-06-11T09:30:00.005-05:00

We're a relatively small company as corporations go. Aside of our core vendors, like printers, we're just large enough to need first-class service but too small to be a priority customer. To get first-class service you want vendors who also service large accounts like Coke and Google. The problem is that, by comparison, our business will almost never be such a vendor's priority. The common result is that you get second or third priority, your account gets served by trainees, and the service you receive suffers. Managing in a company like ours makes it more important than ever to master the skill of pushback.

This month I've had issues at ADP, one sub-group at Vanguard, a confidential potential vendor whom we've asked to quote, one internal department, and (through my Homeowners Association) the Metropolitan Police. I'm just back off vacation and still in Margeritaville mode and just wanting to slide happily through the days; instead I'm having to periodically put on my "SOB" cap and push back on bad service. With the exception of Metro's Thin Blue Bureaucracy, service is improving on all fronts.

So how do you push back when you have no leverage? Actually, I find that leverage is not required and the solution is to simply stand up for yourself and your business unit. I know that sounds corny or simplistic, but I see it more as a simple and elegant solution. If service isn't satisfactory, just say so. You'll immediately get an excuse and simply don't accept it. Ask the person giving the bad service for a solution, and if they don't have one ask them who in their organization or chain or command would have one. When you ask that question, what the vendor hears is, "He wants to talk to my boss." Nobody wants that distraction or negative feedback, even from a small customer.

This actually works for pricing and billing as well. If you don't like the price of something, ask for a better one. If they don't offer a better one, ask them how long this price is good for since you'll need to shop. I'm always amazed at the price-lowering power of walking away and shopping elsewhere.

If you get a bill that doesn't sound right, ask for an explanation. If you don't agree with the explanation, ask for a better resolution. If the vendor rep doesn't have one, ask who in their company or chain of command you'd need to talk to for resolution.

There is amazing power in not accepting an answer with which you don't agree. That power is multiplied by persistence; not satisfied x not going away = results. Just by making the people whom you're paying aware that you're "not satisfied and planning to stay that way until its fixed" starts a chain reaction that almost always results in a better situation; better service, better pricing, and better overall value.

There are people in this world who get less than they deserve because they won't push back. If they have stewardship responsibilities in a company, church, or other organization then whoever they represent is similarly not getting what they deserve. To be an effective head of anything, your family, a department, a ministry, or even a company you need to master the skill of effective pushback. Go ahead, give it a try...you'll thank me later.

The Fuss About the Employee Free Choice Act

2009-05-19T06:29:00.005-05:00

Over the next few weeks we'll hear more in the press about this piece of legislation, called by some informally as the "Card Check Act", as it winds its way through Congress. Its a bad bill but it may pass anyway as the AFL-CIO has pumped a reported $500m in campaign contributions to both parties in what may be its last stand as an organized body. I say this bill is bad because it will make union campaigns more prevalent, more intimidating and more prone to employee-on-employee threats and violence. I'm not quoting the Chamber of Commerce line on this; I've seen it with my own eyes working on the company side in three Steelworker campaigns in Kentucky.

To understand this bill we first have to visit the process of how a workplace becomes unionized, so I'll digress just briefly.

Union elections are governed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency whose members are appointed by the President. Republican presidents tend to stack it with pro-business members and the Democrats stack it with pro-labor members. Its regulations are basically unchanged from decade-to-decade, but how those regs are interpreted changes with each administration.

Under NLRB rules a labor union can petition for an election if it has cards signed from at least 30% of the workforce. A union will begin a card signing drive, person-to-person and often in secret. At some point in the drive if/when word gets around the workforce the union will officially notify the company that it has in-house employee organizers and lists their names. Those individuals are (supposedly) then protected from termination/retaliation by the company.

Once the union can certify to the NLRB that it has 30% cards signed the NLRB notifies the company of an impending election and sets a date. A "campaign" then starts in the open during which time the company campaigns to its workers why it should stay union-free, and the union campaigns as to why the workers should vote for union representation. Finally a secret ballot is held on company property with NLRB observers who certify the results and notify both the company and union. The winning margin for either side is 50% plus 1 vote.

If the workplace votes union, negotiations begin. The union and company can agree to terms, or sometimes they don't. When they do, a contract is signed and the workplace implements the controls and restrictions of a union shop. When they don't, the union may or may not call a strike, after which time the company more often than not hires permanent replacement workers and continues operations.

So what's wrong with this system? Plenty. Unions often use threats, intimidation, and promises it can't keep to get cards signed. Because of this fact, which they know well, no union I know of will petition the NLRB for an election if they don't have at least 60% cards signed. NLRB regs say that only the party with the authority to make good on their promises is bound by its regs to tell the truth in a campaign. Since the union has zero authority to make anything happen, it can promise anything and does. In other words, most unions cheat.

Problem is, so do most companies. Officially a company can't Threaten Intimidate Promise or Spy (TIPS). To do so creates an "Unfair Labor Practice" charge and they can be fined by the NLRB. That's all fine and good, but the fines are a token amount when compared to the added overhead and lost productivity of going union, so most companies cheat. Most workplaces prone to unionization are semi-skilled occupations for which employers can find and train permanent replacement workers. If the company loses it has two nuclear options; replace the workforce in its intirety or close the operation and move it to another state or country. All that is expensive so there's a financial incentive to cheat big.

So what's the solution? According to the unions, who basically wrote the Employee Free Choice Act, the problem is the election. Since companies cheat during elections, the unions propose that we do away with them and have the NLRB certify a union based solely on card signing. In order to keep companies from negotiating too forcefully after that, the company will have 90 days to come to terms with the union before an NLRB arbiter will be appointed to hear both sides and mandate the terms of the contract to the company. The bill will prohibit replacement workers.

Any good organizer will tell you that getting cards signed is the easiest part of the election. I have seen wild promises of promotions and pay raises, I've seen women pulled into restrooms and manhandled until they agreed to sign cards. I've seen people threatened in parking lots to get them to sign cards. People sign the cards and avoid the intimidation knowing that they have a secret ballot and can vote their wishes without fear. Employee Free Choice, ironically, will deny people in the workplace the opportunity to vote their will and conscience free from intimidation.

The solution to the current system's problems is as simple as raising the fines and penalties for unfair labor practices. The existing NLRB system worked well for decades up until the point where it became far more economically feasible to cheat rather than to follow the rules for both sides. Keep the system, multiply the existing fines x 10, pull business licenses for both sides in cases of repeated violations, and keep the private ballot. That provides employees with the most free choice.

Finding Your Next Job

2009-05-09T08:42:00.006-05:00

MORE magazine weighed in this month on the use of web technology in finding your next job. Their thesis was that the game has changed; nice resumes on Crane stationary with good cover letters have been replaced with social media, a personal web page about your professional abilities, and a web marketing strategy. In the last year I've probably gotten an equal number of unsolicited resumes and unsolicited social media contacts (from Facebook friend requests to LinkIn invitations).

With a tough job market its an easy sell to say to a job seeker that they aren't getting results because they aren't using the right technology. Unfortunately that's not totally true. Technology is a work tool, much like in an earlier tech era your tools might have included a lathe or a hammer. Updating to more modern tools (let's just say a power lathe and a pneumatic hammer) may increase the speed of a process, but it doesn't change the basic process.

You build a house from the foundation to the frame to the roof, plumbing and wiring, exterior walls, and then interior work. That hasn't changed even though power tools have sped the process. You still have to do the job right; the roof can't leak, the wiring must work, and all the walls have to be square (unless you're Beazer and then all bets are off...but I digress).

Like home building, the basics of job search haven't changed although the tools have improved. You still find a job through networking and reputation. The use of social media and email can speed the communications process in helping you find open positions and getting the word out that you're looking for work. You still have to interview well and close the deal (land the job) and that involves preparation and research like it always has.

In the last 15 months 177 people have left our company. We pledged, as an HR department, to help anyone who'd let us and to keep following up with people until they found work. We checked in this past week and about 65% have found a job. Some have landed elsewhere in better positions for more money; others have found "a" job from a lateral move to a survival job. A handful (maybe 10%) are going back to school, staying home with children, etc...

In talking with some of these good people it becomes obvious that in spite of all the new technology people still get their next job, first and foremost, through networking. I met a representative from one Nashville non-profit at a convention in Atlanta. He told me he was looking to hire a particular position. I gave him a recommendation and he smiled, telling me that someone else at Thomas Nelson had already sent that person's resume to him. The lady had an interview the next Monday and is currently a candidate.

Now don't miss what happened in this example. The former employee had such a good reputation that, without her doing anything, a co-worker and an exec at her former employer put her name out by word-of-mouth.

I have also fielded a considerable number of reference calls on our former employees. Similarly, when I've recommended someone I've often gotten the, "I'll call around and check them out" response from the prospective employer. This aspect of job hunting hasn't changed since the advent of non-farm jobs. I have not, to date, heard of anyone getting hired from a LinkIn recommendation. Reference checking is still done over the phone, person to person.

The secret to finding your next job is 90% your reputation for doing great work and your personal brand for being a person of integrity at your current job.

Social Media can help, but only so much. MORE magazine is right when it says social media invitations have replaced resumes; I throw unsolicited social media invitations in my Outlook trash with the same speed that I throw unsolicited paper resumes in the waste basket under my desk.

So how do you find your next job, and what is the role of the new technology in doing so? Its a two-fold mixture of old and new tech.

You need a good resume. That "content" is just like book content and can be delivered on paper, via email, or through social media.
You need a professional email address from which to send resumes. One friend of mine at a religious non-profit showed me a very nice looking resume received from "hotgirl69@..." and needless to say it went in the trash.
You need to tell everyone who has a favorable opinion of you that you're looking for a job. Networking through people who would give you positive word-of-mouth puts positive buzz into the marketplace.
Follow that up by sending them a copy of your resume so that they can forward or hand it to someone they know.
Google yourself and make sure that any information out there is positive. You probably can't do anything about it if its not, but you need to be able to respond to a question about it if asked during an interview.
You need a web presence, open to public view, such as a LinkIn page or personal home page. That will put positive information, that you planted, out for a web searcher to find.
Get samples of your work together. Contact former colleagues to retrieve non-proprietary samples of things your done on the job. You should keep samples of work you do anyway. Showing an interviewer a physical example of something you've done is much more powerful than just saying you've done it. In HR we get lied to a lot during interviews.

Most importantly, if you still have a job (and remember, most people still do) now is the time to build your brand and reputation. If you're a kiss-up, kick-down politician who walks over people in the workplace, social media won't help you. The kind of conversations that happen when people check your references are what we in the HR world refer to as karma.

If you're known for quality work, integrity, professionalism, and for being the kind of person people want to work with then you'll sell yourself. Social media well-implemented will then help you do that faster.

Valuing Diversity Includes Language

2009-04-23T10:18:00.005-05:00

For about eight years of my career I worked off-and-on along the Mexican border. My employer at the time had 9 manufacturing plants on a corridor from Juarez through Chihuahua City to Torreon. On the border about half the people with whom I worked spoke English. The further I got into the interior the fewer people spoke any English at all. I spent one whole week in Torreon by myself and encountered no one who spoke a word of English.

Imagine for a moment being in meetings for hours at a time where not a word of what was said was understandable to you. Think for a moment about the concentration that it takes to look interested and be polite while not having the slightest idea what's going on...for hours at a time.

That, friends and neighbors, is what its like for some of our non-English speaking warehouse staff to attend our all-employee quarterly meetings.

In order to bring our 40 or so non-English speakers into the conversations about our business we made sure they were invited to these meetings. Some who spoke good English would interpret for the others in Vietnamese or Spanish (as the case may be). After each meeting we would receiving complaints from Anglos (as my Mexican friends call us white boys and girls) about how distracting it was to have "those people" talking all through the meeting.

So next we began renting headsets so that one interpreter in each language could broadcast one interpretation to the employees rather than having multiple conversations. The result... complaints about the interpreters being a distraction.

In a few hours we will have our next All Employee Meeting. We are trying a different room layout and placement of the interpreters to minimize the distraction to everyone else. However, some distraction is unavoidable. The alternative to interpreters is to have separate meetings for these groups (segregation by national origin? I don't think so...) rent expensive Plexiglas interpretation booths to soundproof the interpreters from the rest of the group, or discontinue the service altogether. The last option would involve either making these meetings optional for non-English speakers or asking them to sit through long meetings with no idea of what's happening.

Or there is another option. We can be tolerant of the distraction and know that its worth the trouble. The statement that this service makes about the value of each employee regardless of their ethnicity or national origin is worth the distraction. The statement this makes about the value of everyone no matter what their role in the company is worth the distraction. The statement about the rest of us, that we're willing to tolerate the distraction, is important. Basically we can't say with a straight face that we value a diverse workforce...just so long as everyone speaks English.

Life Less On-Line

2009-04-10T19:36:00.004-05:00

Its been two weeks since I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. There have been a couple of times that I've thought, "I'll write a quick tweet on that" but couldn't. Otherwise its been a good move to make my life less virtual and more temporal. Since social media is all the rage and Twitter is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds why is swimming against the tide working for me? Here's my critical learning at this point.

1. Social Media is best suited for promotional communications. As such, promoting yourself, your products, your services, or some political or social agenda is the sweet spot for this media. Communications that are critical or negative are ill suited for social media audiences; the posts don't read as well, the wording has to be more carefully crafted so as to be diplomatic, and you lose the spontaneity of the tweet or FB update.

2. Related to point #1, social media is best suited for sole proprietors, independent professionals, or heads of organizations. Posts discussing positions, directions, and opinions are more positive by nature coming from these individuals. Those working within organizations, however, are more prone to censor communications giving their point of view from the middle. For example, I know of a staff member who tweeted about a "dumb, boring" meeting and the meeting organizer was one of their followers. The higher up the food chain you are, including being the sole proprietor of your own food chain, the more likely you are to be candid. The further down you are, the more likely that you'll stay with personal interests and news and avoid posting about what's going on at work.

3. Social Media is ill suited for confidential information, and those whose careers deal in confidences. You can imagine the problems it would create if I were to tweet, "About to terminate a 25 year employee and I'm bummed" or, "Counseling an employee in a physically abusive relationship." If your job doesn't communicate outwardly, but instead protects confidential information (HR, Accounting, Law Enforcement, etc...) social media posts are problematic.

4. Social Media updates clog your inbox. I had about 40 FB friends and an equal number of Twitter followers. I averaged 21 email messages a day telling me that I had received a message from one or the other of these accounts.

5. Social Media keeps you in touch with people. Since deleting my accounts I am not as in tune with the 80 individuals with whom I was connected. Restoring that connectedness without the downsides (above) appears improbable.

6. That assumes that you want to stay connected. My job brings me in close and sometimes intense contact with people. I love the people with whom I work, but off-hours I'm not always interested in seeing or hearing from anyone. The Twitter and Facebook communications aren't always welcomed intrusions into my home office.

7. You need a hand-held device. Waiting until you get home to tweet or update misses a lot of the point. I was at a large Catholic wedding in Louisville last weekend, and if you've been to one you know that its an organized drinking event that starts with vows. There were so many funny observations and pictures I could have shared had I had an account and a web-enabled phone. If you're going to network through social media, buy the hardware.

I am toying with the idea of getting back onto Twitter, but just toying. I have flowers to buy and plant, three difficult guitar pieces to master, and there's so much about my work life right now that I can't say to anybody much less to the whole world. I'm getting so much more done in the temporal that I'm not interested in getting much more virtual than I am already. Its an evolving conversation I'm having with myself and there may be more to come as I work through all this.

Why I'm Optimistic

2009-04-04T07:33:00.014-05:00

"Are things ever going to get better?" That's a question I've heard several times this week and here's why I think the answer is, emphatically, "Yes."

In the midst of a tough economy, and after an exceptionally hard year I see signs that make me feel like the worst is behind us. Externally there are signs of life in the general economy. First time home buyer activity is higher than expected, and manufacturing activity (while depressed overall) beat analysts expectations this week. These developments helped bolster the stock market and as it improves we should start to gain back some of our depressed 401(k) values. The market analysts with which I've spoken tell me that the stock market typically leads employment gains by about six months coming out of a recession.

Remember that six month number because you'll see it again below.

Internally we now have a single operational executive running Sales, Marketing, and Publishing. These formerly separate divisions now can't help but coordinate their activities and work together, and that's huge.

We now have our best marketer and product developer (our CEO) developing product and strategizing with our Publishers. In our business new product from inception to market is about 200 days, but product currently in the pipeline can be improved or marketed more effectively in about half that time. Look for the impact of Mike Hyatt's influence on products to show up in about 4 - 6 months.

There's that number again.

During this past year our sales began to falter as retail activity dried up, beginning somewhat around July but taking a big hit in October. Since that time we've reduced our overhead significantly with painful staff reductions but also in other more positive moves such as consolidating all offices into the Corporate Office Building (except for the Live Events division in Texas). Our overhead expenses are the lowest that anyone with less than 10 - 15 years service can remember.

When we start to annualize 2008 sales (our FY '09) we'll be against weak numbers with extremely low overhead, and that's a recipe for sales increases and profitability. Combined that with what I hear is a very reasonable sales budget, and we have a recipe to beat expectations in the last half of FY '10 or in about six months.

There it is again.

With the executive reorganization also comes the ripple effect of management realignment throughout the company. With new managers over different areas comes a different perspective on each business unit. That generally leads to fresh ideas and an uptick in efficiency. For example, Vance Lawson will be making some HR decisions at Live Events in his new role there, and I picked up his Travel and Facilities departments. Neither one of us may be a better or worse manager than the other, but all three areas will benefit from a fresh perspective.

The Executive Leadership Team is pared-down and making faster decisions. Rather than a group of 10 that often lumbered through decisions the ELT is now three people (CEO, COO, and CFO) who go into a room and make a decision. That will make the whole company more nimble and able to respond quickly to changing business conditions.

Our core sales channel, Christian Retail Sales, was our strongest FY '09 performer. That tells me that our core business is healthy and that the weakness in the business is mostly the external economy and in non-core products.

I'm not saying that all the bad stuff is over. I think we're in for about 4 - 5 more tough months but with our situation improving after that. If we will all stay focused on executing our roles, serving our core customers, putting great core products out into our core markets, and constantly looking for dumb stuff to stop doing (every business has these) then we're going to be fine.

So You Have a New Boss...

2009-03-30T23:13:00.003-05:00

With the recent shakeup in executive leadership it seems like half the building has a different supervisor this week. With that comes the usual anxiety, plus a little additional angst given that its happening during a time of economic travail. I both have a new boss and picked up two departments that haven't reported to me before.

While having a new supervisor can be a challenge at first, here's a few reasons not to jump off the roof.

1. Its not about you! Changes in the executive ranks ripple through an organization. You weren't assigned to a new supervisor to "straighten you out" because you're a screw-up. This has nothing to do with you so just roll with it.

2. There aren't many bad ones. The people to whom you could possibly report are whittled down to a handful of capable managers. If a manager is on our org chart they are seasoned and have a good heart. I can't think of many exceptions so whomever the "luck of the draw" threw your way, you'll be fine.

3. You're not too bad yourself. No disrespect to any of our former colleagues, but if you're still here after the year we've had you're pretty good at what you do. You can chin the bar with the new boss.

There's plenty of challenge ahead of us in this troubled economy. Stay the course and give your new supervisor, whomever that may be, a fair chance. If they ask you to prove yourself, well, just do it and don't get insulted because you've proven yourself to others before them. Once you establish trust in your new situation it will look like your old situation and life goes back to normal.