PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 317 - When Women Thrive: Supporting Women in the Workplace

HR Happy Hour 317 - When Women Thrive: Supporting Women in the Workplace

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Pat Milligan, Mercer

Sponsored by Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve is joined by Pat Milligan of Mercer, where she leads the When Women Thrive research initiative to talk about the project's most recent research on Women's economic standing and equity in the workplace. On the show Pat shared some findings and key recommendations from the recently released report from the When Women Thrive research titled 'Accelerating for Impact: 2018 Gender Inflection Point.'

Pat discussed the current state of women's economic standing in the workplace, how in 2018 the data show that despite progress, there are still opportunities and challenges for organizations with respect to including and improving women's representation and standing in their organizations. She also shared some of the ways and tools that are available to organizations - an increased focus on data and analytics to identify areas of opportunity and measure progress, the benefits of focusing on women's health and wellness - inside and outside the organizations, and finally how HR leaders can begin to change the culture in their organizations and with their leaders to better focus on these issues.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This is an important issue, and When Women Thrive are doing great work to help organizations make progress. Make sure to download the report here.

Thanks Pat for joining us!

Subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' on your favorite podcast app.

UPDATE: Who benefits from corporate tax rate cuts?

About a month ago I had a piece on the blog about the recent cuts in the corporate tax rate for US companies - more specifically, I looked at what companies were actually doing, (or have stated they will do) with the proceeds of these cuts, and how organizations may or may not be able to leverage these plans in their recruiting and retention efforts.

Long story short, last month I said, (and shared some data) that said most companies are taking care of shareholders before and to a much more substantial degree than they are looking after current employees (with raises, bonuses, increased development opportunities), and potential future employees, (investing in new facilities, R&D expansion).

Well, some more and more current data about corporate spending plans for their tax cut driven windfall is in, and sadly for (most) workers, the story has not changed all that much. Courtesy of Just Capital, a non-profit organization that has been monitoring what large US companies are doing and planning to do with these proceeds, have a look at how about 120 large organizations are allocating these new found funds:

If you can't see the chart, (email and RSS subscribers may need to click through), the data breaks down by category of corporate stakehiolder or potential spending group as follows:

Shareholders - 57% (stock buybacks, dividends)

Jobs - 20% (commitment to job creation, capital investment intended to add jobs)

Products - 7% (invesment in product quality or benefits)

Customers - 6% (reduced pricing, increased service, privacy, safety)

Workers - 6% (wages, bonuses, benefits, training)

Communities - 4% (charitable giving, matching gifts, volunteering)

Although the many announcements and rounds of one-time bonuses that many corporations have granted to employees have generated a lot of news, the Just Capital data continues to show that these programs and plans amount to an exceedingly small percentage of the total corporate benefit of tax cuts - estimated to be about $150B in 2018 alone.

As I speculated the last time I looked at this data, organizations that were really making a meaningful and greater than average commitment and investment of these tax windfalls in their employees would likely be able to leverage the investments effectively as a tool for retention and increased overall employee loyalty. And potential new recruits could also be attracted and drawn to organizations that if not putting their employees first on the stakeholder pecking order, at least consider them to be more important (relative to shareholders for example) than competitors and industry averages.

And here's one more bit of interesting information to consider for organizations and leaders trying to decide the 'best' allocation of tax savings. Just Capital periodically polls American's attitudes towards corporations - mainly to find out which corporate behaviors are seen as being the most 'just' or fair. In the most recent polling, how corporations treat their workers came in as the most important category in evaluating these corporations, with almost a quarter of respondents ranking worker treatment as number one.

Shareholders? How corporations treat them came in last, with only 6.4% of respondents naming their treatment as most important when assessing corporate behavior.

Lots to chew on here for sure. I will probably let this topic go for a while, as frankly its a little depressing. I suppose for most organizations, it is better to be a shareholder than anything else.

Have a great day!

CHART OF THE DAY: On the future of employer based health care benefits

Is it Spring Break where you live?

It is where I live - so I am going to be trying to balance some Spring Breaky things along with the blog, work, the HR Happy Hour Show and some other things.

So if you are trying to reach me on something this week please be patient more patient than normal.

But on to today's topic and Chart of the Day - and with a special bonus chart.

A few weeks ago on the HR Happy Hour Show I was joined by benefits expert Shan Fowler to talk about the Employer Health Care Benefits Update for 2018.On the show, we discussed changes (or potential changes) to the Affordable Care Act, how some employers may shift the health care burden back to employees, and what the future of employer-based health care benefits might look like. In that same vein, I wanted to present two charts today - one directly related to this topic of the future of employer health care benefits, and a second chart that may help to give some depth and context towards understanding the first chart.

Chart 1 - Courtesy of the Kaiser Famlly Foundatain's March Health Tracking Poll, which asked a representative sample of over 1,200 US adults whether or not they were in favor of a 'national health plan, or a Medicare for all plan', and also if they favored such a plan that was 'opt-in' only?

Here are the results which showed 59% of Americans in favor of a national health plan, and 75% in favor of such a plan with an 'opt-in' provision.

  

Let's go to Chart 2 before offering up some comments and observations about what the data might mean.

Chart 2- From the Brookings Institute, 'Rethinking worker benefits for an economy in flux', a look at the growth (and comparative growth) of non-employer firms, basically independent workers in the 'gig' economy.

 For nearly two decades, the growth of nonemployer firms - firms that have no employees and mostly constitute incorporated self-employed freelancers (workers in the “gig economy”), has consistently outpaced traditional payroll growth. More and more workers in the 'gig' economy generally translates to more and more workers who lack access to 'tradtional' employment benefits - health care, paid time off, retirement and 401(k) plans, etc.

And it's this trend in workplaces, and truly, in the nature of work and jobs themselves, that probably is driving the increases in interest and/or support for some kind of nationalized, and more importantly portable, set of health care benefits. Increased workplace fluidity, less growth in traditional payroll employment compared to gig work, and additional pressures on workers to provide child and elder care are all conspiring to make the idea of national/portable health care coverage more appealing to Americans.

Politics (and passions) on both sides of the spectrum will likely make the passage of any kind of nationalized or Medicare for all plan really unlikely in the near term. But that is not the only mechanism to create platforms for more portable health care - programs that would be more easily accessible to the growing number of workers who lack access to traditional employer-based plans.

A number of states, (most notably Washington) are proposing programs that would create non-profit benefit providers, to which employers of 1099 workers would contribute, and who would then collaborate with workers to determine which kinds of benefits to offer - like heath care, retirement, and PTO. Other state and local laws that have expanded access to retirement plans and paid time off and family leave are all being pressured to expand access to independent worker as well.

The growth of the gig economy has changed and will continue to change the way we think about work, workplaces, jobs, and careers. It just might also change the way we think about and ensure access to, affordable health care in our country too.

Have a great week!

UPDATES: What's new on the HR Happy Hour Podcast Network

For a 'If you are working it's probably a good day to goof off a little and listen to a few podcasts' Friday, I wanted to alert and update readers as to what has been happening on what I like to call The HR Happy Hour Podcast Network.

As a reminder, about 18 or so months ago, we launched three new podcasts - 'We're Only Human', with Ben Eubanks; 'HR Market Watch' with George LaRocque; and 'Research on the Rocks', with Madeline Laurano and Mollie Lombardi. These are all fantastic shows covering all aspects of HR, HR Tech, workplaces and leading-edge HR and HR Tech research. 

And last week we welcomed the latest title to our growing HR Happy Hour family - 'The Human Friendly Workplace' with Jason Lauritsen.

And of course the original, flagship HR Happy Hour Show is still going strong too, with recent episodes covering Diversity & Inclusion, AI Technology in HR, and the latest updates in Employer Health Care for 2018.

So in case you have some free time today, or over the weekend, or while you're on the treadmill - I wanted to share a few of the most recent shows on the HR Happy Hour Podcast Network with the readers of the blog. 

We're Only Human 23 - New Research Addressing the Skills Gap in the Workplace with Ben Eubanks

Research on the Rocks 3 - Spring HR Events, Research Updates, and More with Madeline Laurano and Mollie Lombardi

The Human Friendly Workplace 1 - Creating a Human Friendly Workplace with Jason Lauritsen

And finally, the most recent HR Happy Hour Show - Thinking about AI and Personalized Experiences at IBM with me and Madeline Laurano co-hosting

All the titles on the HR Happy Hour Podcast Network can be subscribed to on one feed in Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Podcast Addict, or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' and you will be sure to never miss any of the five great HR podcasts on the network.

I'm super excited for what this great collection of hosts/creators have in store for us on the network and am really glad they are a part of the HR Happy Hour family.

That's it from me, thanks for indulging in this bit of promotion and have a great weekend!

Career and Life Advice: You're probably not right for that job

An example of some short and sweet 'Career and Life Advice' courtesy of the New York State (Full disclosure: the state in which I reside. For now), contest for the Democratic Party nomination for the November Governor's race.

One one side we have the current two-term Governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, who is running for re-election in November.

On the other side, contesting Governor Cuomo for the Democratic Party nomination is Cynthia Nixon, best known as the actress who portrayed Miranda on the long-running HBO series 'Sex and the City.'

As a New Yorker, I would rate Governor Cuomo as a perfectly fine Governor. For what that is worth.

But that is not the point of this post.

The point is how many folks, the kind of folks like me who don't follow politics all that closely, or take it all too seriously, would evaluate the qualifications of these two candidates.

On the one side we have the incumbent Governor, who has been in office since 2011, and who had previously served as the Attorney General of New York, as well as the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

On the other side, we have an actress/activist whose prime claim to fame is playing 'Miranda' for several years.

But as I said, I don't follow this very closely and am not offering my opinion, but I do want to highlight the comments made by 'Miranda's' best friend - none other than Sex and the City's 'Carrie' - AKA the actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Sarah was asked to comment on her former cast mate and friend's run for Governor and according to the New York Post she responded with the best 'Non-endorsement that doesn't actually read like a non-endorsement but really, really is a non-endorsement'.

Here's the quote:

Cynthia has been my friend and colleague since we were little girls. I look forward to talking to her about her New York State gubernatorial run.

Man, that is sick. 'I look forward to talking to her'. Not, 'She would be a great Governor' or 'She is the sharpest pencil in the box' or even a 'She is a wonderful person who cares deeply about New Yorkers.'

But here is the thing, it is probably a good response/bit of advice from a friend/colleague that knows Ms. Nixon pretty well. It says, 'Hey friend, you are probably not right for that job' without coming out directly and saying 'Hey, you are probably not right for that job.'

Most job advice is crap. Especially job advice from your silly friends.

But this time, a well-crafted 'non-endorsement' from a friend just might be the best career advice you will hear all year.

Good luck Miranda.

Have a great day!