How Healthy is Health Care?

The first of the Obama health care reform provisions took place in September. Love them? Hate them? Either way health care is a necessity. Should employers be responsible for providing it? Should it be required at all? We in insure everything else - cars, homes, art - are our bodies not worth as much as our possessions? The interesting part of the discussion that doesn't seem to get as much attention is the quality of the insurance. Good insurance can get you access to great doctors at low costs... What about everyone else?

I've also never understood why people don't take advantage of preventative care, when they have insurance. I find it strange that we are better to our cars than our bodies.

Here are some of the new provisions - from SHRM.org Key patient protection provisions triggered Sept. 23, 2010:

• Insurers will no longer be able to rescind coverage, except in cases of fraud. Some patients diagnosed with serious illnesses had reported having their coverage canceled because they had forgotten to list minor ailments experienced years earlier.

• Lifetime limits on coverage will be barred.
• Preventive care, such as cancer screenings, immunizations and colonoscopies, will no longer require co-pays or pay deductibles.
• Employees with family policies can opt for coverage of their grown children up to age 26 who cannot get their own employer-provided coverage.
• No penalization for out-of-network emergency room care.
• A transparent third-party appeals process for denied claims. “As a former insurance commissioner, I can’t tell you how important it is to know that someone other than the company that denied the claim can make a decision on whether or not the benefit should be paid for,” Sebelius said.

Teaching Human Resources

What about the People? Teaching Human Resources in 20 Hours.
By Laura Jacob, President Pro Way Development.

Although I’m not a magician, for my next trick, I’m going to try and impart the importance of a strategic human resources department over five Saturday mornings to students at the University of Bridgeport’s IDEAL (I N N O V A T I V E D E G R E E E X C E L L E N C E I N A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G) program, targeted to working adults completing their undergraduate degree, www.bridgeport.edu.

Employees are an organization’s most important asset, responsible for customer service, sales, new products, patents and more. Unlike machines, websites, or other tools employees want decent pay, good working condition and benefits. Most companies develop Human Resources Policies; however, employees bring unique needs, performance standards and expectations to their role.

Managers of a team need to balance the needs of a group vs. those of the individual which can be a struggle. The resolution of these issues is often left to the human resources department. Each person at work wants to be treated as an individual and yet letting them dictate working conditions, hours, and other aspects of work can lead to unfairness, squabbles, and worse, legal mayhem.

What does an HR Manager do? They represent the needs of employees to management and management’s needs to the employee. This sometimes high wire act is made more complex by ensuring adherence to changing Federal and State labor laws, the economy, and building a cohesive work culture. Complicating things further is the fact that there are now four generations of people working together!

Good HR departments ensure the smooth running of an organization. Great HR departments are the savvy executive’s right hand resource, having moved from an administrative role of “personnel” in the 20th century to that of a strategic business partner.

In Marcus Buckingham’s book “First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently,” he noted that:

“The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.”

The culture that is the basis for the relationship that Buckingham describes is also shaped by an organization’s HR practices.

So, can HR Management be taught in 20 hours for the non HR professional? That’s the challenge of professors across the country teaching the one class in HR that students may attend. While personnel departments developed out of necessity today’s HR leader may have studied human resources in one of many graduate programs as well as receiving certifications through the Society for HR Management, www.shrm.org.

Topics of my course range from past and current human resources management theories and practices, selection and placement, training and development, basic compensation and benefits, recruitment and retention, modern interviewing techniques, the role of social networking sites, and technology in the practice of human resources.

A good HR textbook is great but unlike a history, math, or finance textbook, a large part of textbook’s content is out of date the minute it is published. Therefore, HR is a skill that needs periodic refreshers. With the textbook as a base, the class will be supplemented with guest speakers who are experts in their area of HR, by case studies, and a real-world look at the current human resources practices of each student’s company.

Why Employees Leave

“The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.”

Marcus Buckingham, First Break All the Rules
- What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently

First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do DifferentlyWhat does this mean for you as a manager?

Catch me doing something right...

In the world of the "customer is always right" it is too easy to complain and not easy to compliment service staff when merited. The Boston Hilton downtown took an interesting twist on the traditional complaint card. I stayed at that Hilton last year on several occasions and found an intriguing note card at the front desk. Rather than a complaint card they had a similar sized card labeled "Catch me Doing Something Right." What an interesting shift in perspective. They wanted their guests to recognize employees who had gone out of their way, or been helpful in some way. I meant to ask some employees how that impacted them, but I can only imaging it was better than complaint cards. It also changed my mindset and I did look for, and found, employees doing things that I needed. It didn't mean I couldn't complain but I did start looking for employees doing the right thing. Overall, the staff at that particular Hilton were helpful and courteous and provided better customer service than I had seen in other hotels and I wonder if their from focusing on complaints to compliments made a difference...

Welcome to Workplace Civilization

Welcome to Workplace Civilization. Going to work can be the best part of our day, or the worst part. Workplace Civilization is a place for thoughts and resources on great ideas, simple steps and ways to make work a better place to be.