Workforce Week®

	www.workforce.com
	February 18 - 24, 2007 Vol. 8 Issue 8

In This Issue...

Workforce News of the Week
Feature: How Pitney Bowes Is Turning Its Innovative Health Care Practices Into a New Business
Feature: Your Co-Worker, Your Teacher
Get a Free Recruiting Benchmarking Report for Your Company
Forum Post: HR Isolation
Best in Shows: A Review of Conventions and Conferences
Commentary: HR's Burden of Proof

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Workforce News of the Week:

Biggest-Ever Bias Suit May Fuel Tort Trend: The appellate decision upholds a lower court's ruling that granted class-action status to the 1.5 million women who work or worked in one or more of Wal-Mart's 3,400 stores in 41 regions at any time since 1998.
Click to read more. >>>

Monster Inks Job Board Pact With New York Times Co.: The job board giant has created alliances with a variety of media companies, gaining access to 60 daily newspapers and eight television properties throughout the country.
Click to read more. >>>

'Sorry, We Don't Like the Looks of Your DNA': House, Senate Address Genetic Bias in Hiring
Both chambers have recently addressed an issue that hasn't popped up much on business radar—genetic discrimination. Despite congressional activity, genetic discrimination suits rarely turn up in courtrooms.
Click to read more. >>>

ACS Wins HRO Deal With GlaxoSmithKline
Click to read more. >>>

Bush Budget Plan Would Boost HSAs
Click to read more. >>>

Men Flirt the Most at Work
Click to read more. >>>

No English, No Benefits
Click to read more. >>>

Performance Leads to Promotions? Not Necessarily, Minorities Say
Click to read more. >>>

Clocking In, Staying Put
Click to read more. >>>

Feature
Bottling the cure
How Pitney Bowes Is Turning Its Innovative Health Care Practices Into a New Business

While the health care industry might seem like an unlikely business opportunity for a company known for selling postage meters, Pitney Bowes' approach highlights how an innovative health benefits team can take a problem and turn it into a solution that not only reduces costs, but offers a potential revenue source.

Feature
Special report: Training and development
Your Co-Worker, Your Teacher

The first generation of e-learning, launched about a decade ago, is often regarded as a misguided experiment. Today, blended learning is coming to mean mixing formal programs with informal peer-to-peer learning.

Discussion
HR Isolation ... Anyone?

Posted in the HR Career Forum:
A reader writes: "I've worked in HR now for 12 years and have made it to the so called 'top job' in the field. I guess I should feel happy, but I don't. Most of the time, I feel that no matter how cordial, friendly and empathetic I am, employees and managers alike still have a sense of distrust, because they ultimately know that I will do what's best for the company at the end of the day. The interesting thing that most employees don't understand is that my goal is to find a win-win scenario for both the company and employee. Most of the time, I'm successful at finding a happy medium. It's interesting that lately I have just been feeling this great sense of isolation that I haven't felt before in my career. And, as I reflect back, I think that I'm just noticing it more now than before. I'm interested in hearing from other HR professionals who have felt this way and what strategies have they used to overcome this feeling."

Join the discussion. >>>

Conventions & conferences
Best in Shows 2007: Notes From Key Workforce Management Conferences and Conventions

Ever wanted to attend an important conference or convention but just couldn't make it? The staff of Workforce Management will bring you reports from key workforce management conventions and conferences throughout the year in this exclusive Web feature. We'll report on the buzz at each show as well as highlights from selected seminars, presentations and speeches. We hope that Best in Shows will be the next best thing to actually being there.

Read about the Pensions & Investments 15th Annual East Coast Defined Contribution Conference; the 2007 Deploy Solutions User Conference and The Conference Board 2007 Employee Health Care Conference. >>>

Also:
Best in Shows 2006 >>>

Work Views

HR's Burden of Proof
There are many areas in HR where you can provide "dead bang" proof of a program's effectiveness through the use of split samples.

Read more about providing proof of the effectiveness of HR programs. >>>

Also:
Zero Tolerance for Jerks >>>
Think Competitively >>>
Becoming the 'Eye of the Tiger' >>>

High Gas Prices

1. Are high gas prices and the effect they have on commutes affecting your company's ability to hire or retain employees?
    31%: Yes, we are beginning to see an impact.
    69%: No, gas prices are having no discernible effects.

2. Are high gas prices causing your company to consider instituting or increasing telecommuting?
    22%: Yes, gas is too expensive, commutes are too long and telecommuting helps increase efficiency.
    78%: No, we won't offer telecommuting no matter what happens.

3. Are high gas prices affecting your employees' ability to get to work and do their jobs?
    38% : Yes, it's a hardship for some of our employees.
    62%: No, gas isn't expensive enough yet to make a big difference.

4. Is your company offering commuter benefits of any kind?
    32%: Yes.
    68%: No.

5. What level of gas prices do you think would cause you company to change its workforce strategy to include some form of employee commuter or transportation benefits?
    21%: $3.50 to $4.50 per gallon
    15%: $4.50 to $5.00 per gallon
    18%: $5.00 to $5.50 per gallon
    45%: European-style gas prices of $8.00 to 9.50 per gallon.