Welcome to the October 27, 2004 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Get "At The Forefront" - Three years ago we published a monthly newsletter but we couldn't keep up with all the news affecting workers and workplaces.  Two years ago we began publishing The Total View, our weekly newsletter....and we still can't keep up with all the news.

So today we're very excited to announce our "At The Forefront" Blog where we can post daily updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts.  Visit "At The Forefront" now and add it to your favorites.

In the News!

Central Penn Business Journal - October 8, 2004

Companies struggle to replace good, retiring managers

Business2Business - October 2004

The Truth About Workplace Stress

What's Inside

1. Ah.....Ah.....Ah.....choooo!  One Flu Over the Employee's Nest
Flu Vaccine Shortage and Presenteeism

2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #276 to #280

3. Tips You Can Use - NEW!   Background Checks

4. How to Hire High Motivation Employee

5. The Complete Manager's Pocket Guide Library

6 . When you think about the differences between work and prison......SMILE!

7.  Over 250 Supervisors Have Attended Managing to Excel Workshops

8 . Fall Workshop and Speaking Schedule

9 . You don't need a huge budget and staff to hire the best employees

10 . Thousands of Small Business Owner Now Build High Motivation Teams Who Never Thought They Could

1.  One Flu Over The Employer's Nest

Ah.....Ah.....Ah.....choooo! So it begins. Sniffles and a scratchy throat. You feel like you're burning up, and then the fever breaks and you start to shiver. Your muscles ache. You have the flu.

You want to burrow under the covers with a quilt pulled up to your chin. Instead, you chauffer the kids, running errands in between pick-ups and drop-offs. Staying at home, in bed, isn't an option. Your sick days went to taking care of ailing children. Missing work means losing vacation days to the flu.

Sullen, achy and miserable, you drag into work. Maybe you can close your office door, turn off the phone, tell your assistant you don't want to be disturbed, and put your head down on your desk. If don't have an office, you tough it out, trying valiantly to concentrate.

Ah, the flu, a malady that strikes nearly 20 percent of Americans each year. To employers, this means absenteeism and lower productivity. Think of the havoc this causes for staffing, maintaining customer service, and meeting deadlines.

The average worker misses up to 1.5 days a year because of the flu, says David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that healthy workers who had been vaccinated against the flu reported 43 percent fewer sick days and 44 percent fewer doctor visits as a result of upper-respiratory illnesses. That is until this year. As a result of the flu vaccine shortage, that absenteeism rates could double.

What this means to employers is that yet another front is converging on the workplace, making The Perfect Labor Storm even more imminent. First, the number of sick employees will increase dramatically. Absenteeism merges with presenteeism - the problem of workers being on the job, but not fully productive. Swirling around this lost productivity are rising health care costs resulting from flu-related medical claims. The final blow comes from the family factor - parents miss work when kids are sick.

This isn't conjecture. In an average year when nearly 90 million people receive a flu shot, influenza kills 36,000 Americans and puts more than 200,000 in hospitals for prolonged stays. This year less than 54 million people will receive a flu shot and that doesn't include many workers who fall in the lower risk age groups but are just as susceptible.

More people will get sick as the resources to cope with the flu dwindle. Health care workers are at risk due to their constant exposure to infected patients. Already, hospitals have contingency plans to shut down elective services and house patients in the corridors in the event staffing falls below demand for service.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that approximately four-fifths of mothers with school-age children and 51 percent of mothers with infants are in the paid workforce. Daycare centers turn away sick youngsters during flu season. That means working parents leave their jobs to take sick kids home. That's where they stay until symptoms go away.

There's more. Although many healthy employees rise to the challenge, there is always a sub-group of "me first" workers. You know them. They are the people who stay home when co-workers are ill. There is no way ailing colleagues will screw up their social lives. Even when everyone does show up, the healthy employee is pondering how to stay well and the sick co-worker is figuring out how to go home. By the end of the day, more time was invested in damage control than productivity.

All told, flu-related medical costs and work days could cost the economy as much as $20 billion this year. That is not necessarily what employers like you who run "lean and mean" operations want to hear.

Although it seems counter-intuitive, experts encourage sick employees to stay home. That's a change from the time-honored thinking that the ultimate loyal employee never misses a work day. Today, the employee who comes in sick and lethargic, spreading germs with every sneeze and sniffle should be the goat, not the hero.

Apparently no one told this to the workers. Nearly 90 percent of workers responding to a recent LifeCare poll admitted to coming in to work while sick. Why? Twenty seven percent show up out of obligation and twenty-four percent feel it's "too risky" to be absent.

Obviously, employers haven't gotten the message either. Company policies are out of sync with current knowledge about employee productivity. More than 91 percent of companies surveyed had disciplinary policies for using too many sick days. Forty percent of hourly workers have no sick day benefits. With so many people living from paycheck to paycheck, staying home because of the flu is not likely to happen. Management takes some responsibility for the rash of presenteesim. As one manager told me, "I expect my employees to get their butts out of bed and get in here."

What can an employer do to prevent the flu from wiping out employee ranks? Re-think your sick pay policy. Both absenteeism and presenteeism cost an employer. Understand the impact of each on productivity and decide if is better for sick workers to come to work or to stay home? Think long-term effects, including the impact on the cost of health care. If you choose to protect the healthy worker and maintain productivity, make sure your sick day benefits don't encourage workers to come to work sick. The hero worker who manages to punch in for a full day's work, despite illness, needs to be discouraged from coming in at all costs.

Encourage all employees to practice good hygiene (See "Coping with the Flu."). Promote hand washing, discourage contact with sick workers, and keep doorknobs, desks, phones, keyboards, and computer and office machines clean with disinfectant wipes. University of Arizona researchers tracked disease-causing bacteria and germs in the office and found that there are 400 times more germs present at a workplace desk than on a toilet seat in the bathroom down the hall. A little prevention and proactive strategy could maintain a productive workforce along with a healthy bottom line.

Jac Fitz-enz, universally acknowledged as the father of human capital benchmarking, began his session at the HR Technology Conference and Exposition just a few weeks ago by pulling a pen from his coat pocket and holding it up so everyone in the standing-room-only audience could see. "Here's a piece of equipment," he said. "Let's watch it add value." He stood for a moment holding the pen as the silent room watched. "Nothing's happening," he said. "That's because it can only add value when somebody who knows how to use it properly picks it up and uses it."

Fitz-enz used the example to underline what he says top-level management is finally coming to understand: Human capital, expertly aligned to the business through careful deployment of workforce analytics, is the greatest "value-add" of all.

While Success Performance Solutions can't help irradicate the flu, we do help businesses and organizations identify the right benefits and value-added incentives to help recruit the best employees and retain them.  To speak with one of our consultants, call 800.803.4303.

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #276 to #280

Presenteeism isn't about pretending to be ill to avoid work or surfing the Internet when you should be preparing a report.  Presenteeism is productivity loss resulting from real health problems.

Fact #276:   Depression set U.S. employers back $35 billion a year.  (Source: JADA)

Fact #277:  Arthritis, headaches, and back problems cost U.S employers nearly $47 billion a year.  (Source: JADA)

Fact #278:   The total cost of presenteeism in the United States is more than $105 billion a year.  (Source: American Productivity Audit)

Fact #279:  On-the-job productivity loss resulting from depression and pain is roughly 3X greater than absence-related productivity loss attributed to these conditions. (Source: American Productivity Audit)

Fact #280:  Allergies, which affect rougly 25% of the U.S. population during the spring and fall seasons cause a productivity loss of 7 percent among workers.

Do you sit on a program committee for your local civic, business or professional association?   "The Perfect Labor Storm" is the perfect topic for meetings, conferences and keynotes.  Schedule Ira Wolfe today.  Find out what's ahead in employment trends and how it will affect career opportunities, education, quality of life issues and more.  Call 717.656.4632 for more information.

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Order your copy today - $7.95 includes no shipping costs for limited time only.

3.  Tips You Can Use - Background Checks

To provide our clients with one-stop shopping for employee evaluation from pre-employment to career succession, we are very pleased to introduce our new partnership with Information Architects, a leading provider of Employment Screening and Background Investigations. IA's premier background screening solution utilizes a state-of-the-art web based interface to provide you with the fastest, easiest, and most customizable ordering/delivering platform in the marketplace today.

If, like Pinocchio's nose, each lie a candidate told on his/her resume or during the interview became immediately apparent, business owners could easily weed out employees who cheat and deceive. So, how can you tell if an employee is lying about their work experience, education, criminal record or even if they are who they say they are? 

BACKGROUND CHECKS.  Sixty-one percent of the human resource (HR) professionals surveyed said they find inaccuracies in résumés after carrying out background checks. (Source: SHRM Background Checks/ Résumé Inaccuracies online survey, 2004)

Services include:

• Employment Verification
• Criminal Records Search
• Civil Records Search
• Workers Comp Search
• SSN Verification
• Credit Reports
• DMV Reports
• Bankruptcy Search
• Degree Verification
• Professional License Verification
• Drug Screening

Learn more about background checking here.

4.  How to Hire High Motivation Employees.

It is finally here - The How to Hire The High Motivation Employee audio series. Six 30-minute CDs - more than three hours of interviews - guide a manager through each section of the TotalView(tm) Assessment System, complete with examples and stories you can use to hire the right employee, ask the right interview questions, and build the best teams. Why TotalView? It is simply the best job matching and employee evaluation system on the market today.

The first CD begins with an overview of the TotalView(tm) Assessment System and explanations of each of the Abilities scales. The second CD focuses on Motivations and Interests. And CDs three through six discuss the four major personality traits and eight sub-scales in detail.

As a thank you for reading The Total View newsletter, we're offering the complete audio series for only $197 (valued at $257)

Order How to Hire The High Motivation Employee

5.  The Complete Manager's Pocket Guide Library

Today's busy leaders and knowledge workers are looking for informative, to the point self-study resources that will answer questions, stimulate new thinking and help solve problems.

These management development pocket guides are ideal for self-directed learning, training and coaching workers, corporate universities, or to use in seminars and workshops.

Each guide covers an important topic such as managing generations, mentoring, creativity, project management, knowledge management or strategies for handling people issues such as conflict management, sexual harassment and performance.

Order the complete library of these 32 best selling Manager's Pocket Guides for only $279 - that's like getting 5 books free, a savings of $39. 

Order the Manager's Pocket Guide Library for Management Development today.

Plus this bonus!  We'll include a copy of "Understanding Business Values and Motivators"

at nor additional charge, a $12.95 value.

6.  SMILE!   When you think about the differences between work and prison, maybe prison isn't so bad... (considering 1 out of every 130 people will serve prison time at some point in their lives - Fact #177 - The Perfect Labor Storm)

IN PRISON.......You spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell.
AT WORK........You spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.

IN PRISON.......You get three meals a day.
AT WORK........You get a break for 1 meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON.......You get time off for good behaviour.
AT WORK........You get rewarded for good behaviour with more work.

IN PRISON.......A guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK........You must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON........You can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK.........You get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON.......You get your own toilet.
AT WORK........You have to share.

IN PRISON.......They allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK........You cannot even speak to your family and friends.

IN PRISON.......All expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK........You get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from you salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON.......You spend most of your life looking through bars from inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK........You spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON......There are wardens who are often sadistic.
AT WORK.......They are called supervisors.

IN PRISON.......You have unlimited time to read e-mail jokes.
AT WORK........You get fired if you get caught.

Source: lotsofjokes.com

7. Over 250 Supervisors Have Attended Managing to Excel Workshops

Ever since Success Performance Solutions introduced Managing to Excel in 2002, Central PA supervisors and managers have been learning and developing proficiency in the twelve competencies that highly effective managers and supervisors have that average performers don't. 

To read more about Managing to Excel, visit Managing to Excel - Management Competency Workshops.

Managing to Excel is also available for purchase by in-house trainers and human resource professionals.  The per participant cost per program is as low as $20!

8.  Fall 2004 Workshop and Speaking Schedule

January 16, 2005 - 2005 International Builders Show,  Orlando, FL

February 28, 2005 - IQPC''s Best Practices in Disease Management,   Las Vegas, NV

9. You don't need a huge budget and staff to hire the best employees

Eliminate The Hassles and Headaches Associated With Screening Candidate with Total APS.

The Total Applicant Processing System enables the small and medium sized employer to do online recruiting and screen applicants with customizable and scorable filtering questions with a click of the mouse.

Use Total APS to recruit and screen applicants for your next job opening.

10. Wondering if you have the right people on your team?

Everyone wants to build the High Motivation Employee Team. Do it with team building activities packaged exclusively for small businesses and home businesses.

Contact Information:
Success Performance Solutions 2481 New Holland Pike, Suite 2, Lancaster, PA 17601

email: tv@super-solutions.com
voice: 717.656.4632
web: http://www.super-solutions.com

To learn more about Success Performance Solutions or read back issues of The Total View, stop by our website at www.super-solutions.com.

Order your personal copy of Understanding Business Values and Motivators.


Order your personal copy of The Perfect Labor Storm


Ira S. Wolfe. 2004 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

Syndication available - call us.