Verbs: The Recruiter's Best Friend
Have you ever encountered this situation? Read on for a method to break down communication barriers.
Recruiter: So, Manager, for this internal position you'd like me to fill, what skills are most relevant?
Manager: I need someone who is sharp.
Recruiter: I interpret that to be someone who will try to understand all aspects of a problem, including underlying ones. Is that it?
Manager: No, that's not exactly what I meant.
Recruiter: Someone who looks for subtle opportunities to improve service, productivity, etc.?
Manager: No, not really. I mean, a "big-picture" person.
Recruiter: Oh. Someone who prioritizes the team's goals when making day-to-day decisions?
Manager: Yes, that's it. Someone who is sharp.
The manager in the above situation assumed that the word "sharp" means the same thing to everybody. But it doesn't. If you ask ten people to write a brief sentence describing what "sharp" means in a human performance context, you will get at least seven or eight different answers.
The central thesis here is that descriptions of behaviors are a much better way to communicate what high performance looks like than traits or other one-word descriptions. Think of behaviors more simply as "verbs." As a rule of thumb, when describing desired performance, verbs are best. Adjectives and nouns are generally more ambiguous. An argumentative person might say that "is" is a verb, and therefore, to tell the recruiter you want someone who "is sharp," passes the test. But that just misses the point. The real goal is clarity, and verbs are clearer. (Source: Recruiting Trends Bulletin, 7/14/2009)
The Future of Work: Safety and Health Issues of an Aging Workforce
Work is predicted to change greatly in the near future, whether itís through the emergence of global and virtual employment models, the redefinition of career and retirement, or the development of new technologies.
One area already triggering concern is the rise of the "graying workforce" and the special safety and health concerns this demographic brings. Employers need to be able to protect, engage and retain older workers as the workforce ages-especially by looking at safeguards from musculoskeletal injuries, matching workspaces and job tasks to each worker's capacity, and implementing flexible return-to-work policies, said Dr. John Howard, former director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Speaking at a forum presented by the U.S. Department of Labor, Howard suggested that the value of a worker may be assessed less by his age and more by what talents and skills he brings to the workplace, "and therein lies the power of investing in older workers."
A Look at the Numbers
As the result of two major long-predicted shifts in workforce demographics-a substantial aging of the workforce and a diminishing number of younger workers-employers today are facing unique human resource challenges. On the one hand, all signs point to an increasing abundance of older workers, with many showing indications of choosing to continue working beyond the traditional retirement age of 65 and, on the other, a diminishing pool of younger workers to replace them.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the worker age groups of 65 to 74 and 75 and older are projected to grow more than the other worker age groups between now and 2016, increasing by 83.4 percent and 84.3 percent, respectively.
Additionally, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's 2008 Retirement Confidence Survey, the number of Americans who are very confident in their ability to afford a comfortable retirement has declined sharply, from 27 percent in 2007 to 18 percent in 2008, the largest one-year decline in the survey's 18-year history. More than half (54 percent) of American retirees in 2008 said they were more concerned about their financial future than when they retired, which marks a 14-point increase from the 40 percent who gave this response in 2007. According to AARP data, nearly 70 percent of workers report that they plan to work in their retirement years or never fully retire and nearly 50 percent of workers ages 45 to 70 indicated that they envision working into their 70s or beyond. The recent catastrophe in the financial markets has added new urgency to these challenges as financial losses compel even more men and women in their 50s and 60s to reassess their retirement plans.
In contrast with those statistics, 60 percent of CEOs report that their companies have not accounted for workforce aging in their long-term business plans, according to AARP.
Impact on Safety and Health
The changing demographics in the workforce point to a significant impact on occupational safety and health. While data show that older workers are responsible for fewer injury claims than most other age groups, the injuries they do report tend to be worse and two to three times more costly than those for younger workers. The primary dangers for older workers include increased falls, increased fatality rates, increased rates of accidents while driving, longer healing times (two to three times longer than younger workers), greater overall severity of injuries, and more severe musculoskeletal disorders.
Some key best practices for reducing the primary safety risks to older workers include:
- Preventing slips and falls, the leading cause of injury and accidental death for workers 65 and older, including conducting periodic audits of walking surfaces; keeping walking surfaces clean, dry, unobstructed and in good repair; requiring safe employee footwear; making elevations safe and providing handrails for both sides of stairs; and ensuring good lighting for facilities and grounds.
- Implementing task rotation or job reassignment to eliminate repetitive stress and heavy lifting injuries.
- Matching job tasks and workspaces to the capacity of each worker, with ergonomic principles in mind.
- Enforcing a driver safety policy that includes mandatory seat belt use, familiar driving routes, regular driving hours and driver training
- Facilitating healthy, gradual transitions back to work after an injury.
(Source: SHRM's HR Week, 7/14/2009)
Staffing Firm Ordered to Pay $250,000 in Bias Lawsuit
National employment agency chain Preferred Labor agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced recently. The company, which did business as Preferred People Staffing, agreed to the settlement after it sold its day labor business to another firm.
The North Carolina-based company restricted women to only certain work assignments and accepted discriminatory requests from customers to send only male workers at its location in Worcester Massachusetts, according to the EEOC. The company also retaliated against one woman for complaining.
In addition, the ruling provides that if Preferred resumes conducting business as a temporary day labor agency, it will be enjoined from engaging in discrimination or retaliation and will implement policies and procedures prohibiting those practices. The company also will have to conduct anti-discrimination training for its employees and managers and take other steps designed to prevent discrimination and retaliation.
"We commend Preferred for working cooperatively with us to reach this agreement," said EEOC New York District Director Spencer H. Lewis. "The resolution of this lawsuit represents substantial progress in the expansion of job opportunities for women in the temporary labor industry." (Source: Workforce Week, 7/14/2009)
Supreme Court Finds City's Rejection of Promotion Test Results was Unlawful Racial Discrimination
By throwing out the results of an examination to determine those firefighters best qualified for a promotion, the City of New Haven, Connecticut violated Title VII's prohibition against discriminatory treatment based on race, the Supreme Court ruled in a narrowly divided opinion. The case (Ricci v DeStefano, No. 07-1428, June 29, 2009) has been even more closely watched because of the role that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Obama Administration's nominee for the announced Supreme Court vacancy, played in the appeals court's decision below that upheld the city's actions.
Although the city threw out the results for all firefighters who took the exam, white firefighters sued for reverse discrimination, alleging that they were denied a chance at promotion because the city's decision to reject the exam was based on the fact that the highest-scoring candidates were white. In response, the city argued that throwing out the results was its best alternative: if it had certified the test results, it could have faced Title VII liability for relying on a test that had a discriminatory impact on minority firefighters.
New standard of statutory construction applied. Announcing a new statutory standard, the Court held, 5-4, that before an employer can engage in what otherwise would be prohibited discriminatory treatment in order to avoid or remedy an unintentional, disparate impact, the employer must have "a strong basis in evidence" to believe it will be subject to disparate impact liability if it fails to take the race-conscious, discriminatory action.
The Court decided the case by reconciling the two potentially conflicting provisions of Title VII: the prohibition against intentional acts of employment discrimination (disparate treatment), and the prohibition against policies or practices that are not intended to discriminate but, in fact, have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities (disparate impact). Once an employee has established, on its face, a case of disparate impact, the employer still may successfully defend its practice by demonstrating that it is job related and consistent with business necessity. And, even if the employer meets that burden, the employee may still succeed by showing that the employer refuses to adopt an available alternative practice that has less disparate impact and serves the employer's legitimate needs.
In adopting a new standard, the Court looked to prior cases decided on constitutional grounds that held that certain government actions to remedy past racial discrimination-actions that were themselves based on race-were constitutional only where there is a "strong basis in evidence" that the remedial actions were necessary. It reasoned that the same interests are at work in the interplay between the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions of Title VII.
The Court said that, "Applying the strong-basis-in-evidence standard to Title VII gives effect to both the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions, allowing violations of one in the name of compliance with the other only in certain, narrow circumstances. The standard leaves ample room for employers' voluntary compliance efforts, which are essential to the statutory scheme and to Congress's efforts to eradicate workplace discrimination."
Applying its standard, the Court found that the city's reasons did not present a strong basis in evidence. The city could be liable for disparate impact discrimination only if the exams at issue were not job related and consistent with business necessity, or if there existed an equally valid, less discriminatory alternative that served the city's needs but that the city refused to adopt. There was no substantial basis in evidence that the test was deficient in either respect, said the Court. Finally, fear of litigation alone could not justify the city's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions under the test, it reasoned. (Source: hr.cch.com, 6/29/2009)
Recruiters Say Doing Business as UsualIsn't an Option
Economic conditions and new technology are changing the way recruiters meet the demands of clients and job seekers. Those who have been in the recruiting business for more than a decade have likely been through this type of hiring environment before.
It can be summed up like this: Companies are waiting to hire for key positions. A slew of nonqualified job applicants are vying for the potential job openings. And companies are being extra picky about their hiring moves, even when there is clearly some top-notch talent that could fit the open position like a tailored Armani suit.
"I started my career in the mid-'90s, and I worked through the uptick of the recession of the early '90s. And I worked through the dot-com boom and bust, which affected a lot of other industries, as well," says Robert L.S. Boroff, managing director of San Francisco-based executive search firm Reaction Search International. And, adds Boroff, the present economic conditions haven't been friendly to recruiters from his company or other firms nationwide.
Yet recruiters have been survivors, even dating back to the 1930s. "The executive search industry was actually created during the Great Depression," says Boroff, giving a quick history lesson. "It was created because there were too few jobs and too many people applying for those jobs. And companies needed an agent to basically screen through those people to find the very best."
Similar to other tough economic times, the oversaturation in the current market can be a thorn in recruiters' sides. "Thousands of people are applying for jobs, which can be very frustrating and a real time-waster, especially as companies are laying off some of their internal recruiting and HR functions," Boroff says.
New technology has come to the aid of recruiters, something that wasn't readily available in prior years–even in the wake of the dot-com meltdown. According to Wayne Cozad, managing partner of Cube Management in Beaverton, Oregon, using Internet-related social networking and other available technology has been one key to surviving the recession.
Cozad says Cube, which focuses on placing sales and marketing managers and executives, uses "social networking sites for advertising positions and finding candidates, and for networking with folks who may not be a candidate but might know a candidate. We also use about 800 job boards to post ads, and we feel it's important to be an Internet-savvy company. We're definitely part of the electronic age." He's also confident that adopting new technological advances will position Cube well once the economic recovery materializes. But don't expect that recovery soon, Cozad says. He expects the job market to affect recruiters, companies and job seekers at least into the fall.
Cozad is not alone. According to the recent Execunet Recruiter Confidence Index, a survey of executive search firms, only 28 percent of recruiters are confident or very confident the executive employment market will improve in the next six months. Boroff isnít quite as pessimistic, saying, "Traditionally if you look at the ebbs and flows of hiring, the first part of the year is strong. It wasn't that way this year. Then usually it goes through the dog days of summer and things slow down. But since we missed that first big hiring influx because everyone was thinking the sky was falling, now companies don't have a choice but to fill some of those critical roles."
Boroff's prediction for the job market may differ from Cozad's, but one thing they do agree on is that too many of their colleagues in the recruiting field are hanging on to the traditional ways of doing business. Now it's more important than ever to listen to a client's needs and work the referral networks, Boroff says. On top of that, he says recruiters at RSI are direct-recruiting instead of waiting for candidates to come to them.
"Things that we're doing differently today are using sites like LinkedIn," Boroff says. "It really gives you a chance to access people that you normally would not be able to get to on a resume search or database search because they're not on the marketplace."
Astoundingly, Cozad says the number of recruiters not using LinkedIn and other social networking is higher than he would have thought. A recent example: "I just got back from a national show down in Tampa with all these recruiters," he recalls, "and I was really surprised how many sales and marketing recruiters, in particular, still do the 'old' resume/call/referral kind of work without using the Internet and other electronic means that are out there."
Cozad insists that just tapping into online resources such as Monster isn't going to cut it. "Using Google AdWords and other avenues out there to promote your business will bring candidates and clients to you if you're creative about where you place yourself on the Internet," he adds. In other words, adapt or become extinct. (Source: Workforce Recruiting, 7/9/2009)
Bill to Ban Sexual Orientation Bias Introduced
Bipartisan support for legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has grown, and the bill, known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), has a good chance of being enacted into law, sources familiar with the issue say.
The newest version of ENDA was introduced on June 19, 2009, in the House of Representatives, by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. The bill (H.R. 2981) originally had 10 co-sponsors (five Democrats and five Republicans), but by June 24, the number of co-sponsors had grown to 118, which led Frank to "re-drop" the bill.
The proposal would make it illegal for most public and private employers to discriminate against employees or job applicants based on their sexual orientation, transgender status or gender identity. The bill does exempt the U.S. military, veterans' service groups and religious organizations and does not require employers to provide benefits to domestic partners of their employees.
"I am encouraged that we are going to be able to pass ENDA this year and do what we weren't able to do a couple years ago, and that is pass a fully inclusive bill," Frank told reporters. "I urge people to keep lobbying. You can now take for granted that there will be a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives almost certainly this calendar year on a fully inclusive ENDA."
The House of Representatives did vote to approve a version of ENDA in November 2007. The measure, as passed by the House, did not include the provision which offered transgender and gender identity protections for workers.
Frank and other sponsors of the bill agreed to remove the controversial provision after support for the original proposal began to fade. The House action marked the first time that ENDA passed in either house of Congress. However, the measure stalled in the Senate.
Supporters of ENDA have vowed that the bill will pass both the House and Senate this time. President Barack Obama has indicated that he supports the legislation and would sign the bill into law.
Political observers agree that the legislation has the needed support to pass the House again, but it will face tougher opposition in the Senate. Republicans have strongly opposed ENDA ever since it was first introduced in the Congress 15 years ago. With only 40 Senate seats, the GOP does not have enough votes to block a cloture vote to end any filibusters of the measure. However, the Democrats only hold 57 seats, and with independents Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), they are just one vote shy of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and halt any threatened filibusters.
With Democrat Al Franken winning the disputed Minnesota seat, Democrats have enough votes to finally push ENDA through the Senate.
However, support for the controversial legislation is not guaranteed among moderate and more conservative Democrats. The political wrangling and heated debate in the Senate over health care reform could delay any action on ENDA this year, several sources familiar with the issue say. Still, support for ENDA is the strongest it has ever been, and chances for passage this year or in 2010 look favorable, the sources agree. (Source: SHRM's HR Week, 7/7/2009)
- Verbs: The Recruiter's Best Friend
- The Future of Work: Safety and Health Issues of an Aging Workforce
- Staffing Firm Ordered to Pay $250,000 in Bias Lawsuit
- Supreme Court Finds City's Rejection of Promotion Test Results was Unlawful Racial Discrimination
- Recruiters Say Doing Business as Usual Isn't an Option
- Bill to Ban Sexual Orientation Bias Introduced