Thursday, September 29, 2005

Where Do You Spend Your Time?

A friend once told me that if you want to identify what is truly important to a person or company, all you need do is identify where they spend their time and money.  I therefore found the results of a recent survey by The Gallup Poll® interesting.

In my personal experience, I have observed that more and more employees seem to be working very long workweeks.  That trend may be changing.

Gallup reports that between 1993 and 1999, the percentage of employees surveyed who reported that they worked, on average, more than 45 hours per week increased from 37% to 45%.  However, since the poll taken in August 1999, that percentage has trended downward, to 43% in 2001, 40% in 2002, and now 39% in 2005.

I wonder whether this downward trend is an indication that individuals who are working, on average, more than 45 hours per week are re-evaluating the priorities in their lives, and making necessary changes to ensure that their priorities are properly reflected in their time.  I also wonder whether the tragic events of September 11, 2001 helped solidify this trend by forcing us all to re-focus on our priorities in life.

Or is there some other explanation?  I would like to hear your thoughts.  (You may share them by clicking “comments” on the Blog main page.)

Friday, September 23, 2005

Tattoos and Religion

Do you think it is okay for an employer to refuse to hire applicants with visible tattoos because the employer wants to promote a wholesome image?  Think again . . . .

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc., whose former CFO stated that the restaurant chain seeks out “that all-American kid from the suburbs” for its server positions, has (maybe I’d better make that “had”) a dress code policy for servers that prohibited visible tattoos.  Understand—the policy did not prohibit having tattoos, but did require that the server conceal them with clothing while at work.

Edward Rangel, a server in a Bellevue, Washington Red Robin, requested an exception to the dress code.  According to Mr. Rangel, he is a follower of the Kemetic Orthodoxy religion, a modern practice of ancient Egyptian traditions, founded in the late 1980s.  Mr. Rangel asserted that he believes it would be a sin for him to conceal the religious inscriptions that encircle his wrist (in the form of tattoos.) Red Robin declined to allow an exception to its dress code, and terminated Mr. Rangel’s employment when he refused to wear clothing that would conceal his tattoos.

The EEOC filed suit against Red Robin for religious discrimination.  The Court held that Red Robin had to support its defense that the dress code exception would create an undue hardship on its business with more than hypothetical hardships based on unproven assumptions.  In other words, the Court rejected Red Robin’s “wholesome image” argument without concrete evidence that the dress code exception would hurt its business.  After that ruling, Red Robin agreed to settle the lawsuit by paying Mr. Rangel $150,000 and changing its policies to allow for accommodation of religion.

So if you are served by someone with tattoos, do not assign responsibility (either blame or credit—depending on your perspective) to the employer.  Instead, you can thank Mr. Rangel, the EEOC and a federal district judge in the Western District of Washington.

I wonder when the First Church of the Harley-Davidson will be founded . . . .

Heavy workers, hefty price

It should come as no surprise that it costs more to employ obese people.  As reported here:

The average medical expenditure for a normal-weight man is $1,351 a year. Men who are 30 to 60 pounds overweight cost $462 more based on added medical costs and absenteeism. Extremely obese men cost $2,027 a year more.

Average medical expenditures for normal-weight women are $1,956. Women who are 30 to 60 pounds overweight cost $1,372 more when medical costs and missed work are included. Women who weigh 60 to 100 pounds too much cost $2,485 more.

My question is whether corporate wellness programs actually work?  The economist quoted in the above article doesn’t seem to think so, at least not for the morbidly obese employees.  Irrespective of disability discrimination issues (some obese employees may suffer from conditions protected by the ADA or State FEP laws), it certainly would be a bad employee relations tactic to just fire all of your fat employees.  Are there any practical suggestions on how employers are successfully handling this issue?

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Decisions, decisions

There’s an interesting article in yesterday’s New York Times about female students at Ivy League schools and the, now familiar, “work/life balance” question.  It seems that “many women at the nation’s most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children.” It’s hard to say whether that’s true, as the he story is almost entirely anecdotal about attitudes of current students.  The evidence does, however, appear to confirm that nearly half of the women at Yale will leave the workforce by the time they are in their 40’s:

According to a 2000 survey of Yale alumni from the classes of 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1994, conducted by the Yale Office of Institutional Research, more men from each of those classes than women said that work was their primary activity - a gap that was small among alumni in their 20’s but widened as women moved into their prime child-rearing years. Among the alumni surveyed who had reached their 40’s, only 56 percent of the women still worked, compared with 90 percent of the men.

A 2005 study of comparable Yale alumni classes found that the pattern had not changed. Among the alumni who had reached their early 40’s, just over half said work was their primary activity, compared with 90 percent of the men. Among the women who had reached their late 40’s, some said they had returned to work, but the percentage of women working was still far behind the percentage of men.

A 2001 survey of Harvard Business School graduates found that 31 percent of the women from the classes of 1981, 1985 and 1991 who answered the survey worked only part time or on contract, and another 31 percent did not work at all, levels strikingly similar to the percentages of the Yale students interviewed who predicted they would stay at home or work part time in their 30’s and 40’s.

I don’t think that anyone should question a person’s decision to place more value on child rearing than working, but shouldn’t employers be free to come to the alternate conclusion?  If it’s true that 60% of Yale’s female graduates plan on dropping out of the workforce – a historically accurate percentage – does it make sense to hire one?

What do you think?  Post your comments!