AMERICAN WORKPLACE Volume 1 Issue 2 November 1993 NATIONAL CENTER FOR THE WORKPLACE ANNOUNCED On October 13, the Department of Labor awarded a $743,945 grant to create a National Center for the Workplace. The grant was awarded competitively to a consortia headed by the University of California at Berkeley's School of Industrial Relations. The National Center for the Workplace will address workforce development and workplace restructuring problems created by the convergence of broad economic, social, cultural, political, and technological changes. The Center will follow emerging workplace trends in work organization, labor-management relations, and workforce training and education issues, among others, as it develops and coordinates its program of research, policy analysis, remedy proposing, and information sharing. The Center's consortia, which includes the University of Wisconsin, University of Texas at Austin, and Teacher's College at Columbia University, will collaborate with workplace experts from American institutions of higher education and from the public and private sectors. Funding for this project is authorized under Title XV of the Higher Education Act. ____________________________________________ CLOSE-UP: THE AMERICAN WORKER By Marjorie Segel Haas American workers are working harder. They care more deeply about doing a good job. And they are willing to put in extra effort at work, even though they are burned out. These findings come from The National Study of the Changing Workforce, a 5-year effort of the Families and Work Institute that posed more than 1,200 questions on American workers' attitudes toward their jobs, families, and personal lives. The study's key findings will not come as a surprise to most working people, they already know. But despite working hard and feeling burned out from balancing work and family life, workers care passionately about performing their jobs well. They care more about the quality of the work environment than money or professional advancement. "Workers' commitment is more to themselves than to their employers.... Perhaps more surprising is the high value that workers place on the quality of their own work," conclude the study's authors, Ellen Galinsky, James T. Bond, and Dana E. Friedman. EMPLOYERS HAVE A STAKE IN RESULTS Companies willing to provide more workplace flexibility and control and otherwise improve the quality of the work environ- ment, the authors agree, can enhance their workers' productivity and loyalty. "We think we can use the results [from the study] to help us identify the needs of our employees, especially in the areas of benefits and job satisfaction," said Judd Everhart, a spokesman for Xerox Corp. Xerox was one of 15 organizations, including the DuPont Company, The Rockerfeller Foundation, Levi Strauss & Company, and the Salt River Project, that cosponsored the study, providing funding and suggesting survey questions. According to Galinsky, who is co-president of the Institute, the economic chaos of the 1980s has reaped a change in workers' attitudes. "Out of this change, we feel a different kind of worker has emerged," she says. As employers struggled to stay competitive by restructuring and cutting jobs, workers became less loyal to their employers. Today, says Galinsky, "their focus is on what they can control, since there is so much change going on around them. A RENEWED SENSE OF PRIDE Workers have, however, become more focused on doing the job well to avoid being fired. They view strong job performance as "an insurance card," according to Galinsky. "Workers have seen a lot of change and feel a lot of insecurity." Still, she said, they "are extremely resilient and take a tremendous amount of pride in their work." Some other key study findings: ù Only 35 percent of workers rated salary as very important. More than half of those surveyed said they measure success in terms of personal satisfaction gained from doing their jobs well, rather than by pay or job advancement. ù When workers are given more freedom to take care of family concerns, productivity does not suffer. To the contrary, employees are more willing to work hard and help their companies succeed, and are more satisfied with their jobs. ù Responding to the question, "What does being successful in your work life mean to you?," workers emphasized the importance of the caliber of their own work. ù When workers were asked why they had taken their most recent jobs, 65 percent cited open communications, 60 percent cited the effect on family life, and 59 percent pointed to management quality. But, according to Galinsky, these factors are "not necessarily high on the agenda of some companies." Work-family programs, for example, are viewed by some companies as a way to "keep family problems at bay," said Faith Wohl, Director of Human Resource Initiatives at DuPont Company. "I still think [work-family problems are perceived as] a problem of productivity. But the workplace itself may be the problem. It may be intensifying the fragility of the family. The worker brings an additional set of problems back into the workplace." WORK ETHIC/SELF-ETHIC The focus by workers on personal concerns, however, has not undermined their work ethic, as one might expect. Instead, workers have reconciled the uncertainties of the workplace by developing a "self-- ethic," based on achieving personal and workplace successes. Still, this increasing self-ethic means that workers seek jobs that allow for more personal input and provide benefits and opportunities to manage their personal lives. For example, a large number of workers surveyed said they would consider changing jobs if the cost of child care was covered by a new employer. An overwhelming majority of workers surveyed reported living with family members or partners. "Eighty-seven percent of the workers in the study have some degree of day-to-day family responsibilities at home. Eighty-seven percent!," said Wohl. "Benefits, policies, and programs designed to help workers balance their work, personal, and family lives should not be viewed as special assistance for a small group of workers, but as general assistance for virtually all workers." "It means that personal issues are not the issues of the few, but of the many," says Galinsky. According to Galinsky, the number one question most workers ask themselves before accepting a new job is, "'What effect will this job have on my personal and family life?' It's a profound new path after 15 turbulent years in the workplace. For years, people were living and breathing their careers. Now they're saying, 'I just won't put aside my family life."' For information on The National Study of the Changing Workforce, contact the Families and Work Institute 330 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10001 telephone: (212) 465-2044. _________________________________________ W O R K P L A C E S P O T L I G H T ORGANIZATION: Bose Corp., manufacturer of high-quality audio equipment PROGRAM: JIT 11, Employee Exchange RESULTS: Significant decreases in paperwork, personnel, inventory, and administrative costs associated with purchasing, sales, and transportation; enhanced relationships leading to concurrent engineer- ing and "partnerships" with suppliers; new career paths and increased training for employees. At first look, the idea of paying an employee to work for somebody else does not seem like a brilliant management plan for the '90s. However, more companies are swearing by variations of this unlikely strategy. It seems that "employee exchanges," allowing members of one organization the chance to work in and observe the culture of another, can lead to some dramatic results. In 1987, audio manufacturer Bose Corp. of Framingham, Mass., masterminded a unique kind of exchange. Bose purchasing director Lance Dixon invited his suppliers to put an in-house representative at Bose. Called "in-plants," these supplier personnel replace both the Bose buyer and the supplier salesman. "The key to the success of the program is empowerment," says Dixon. In-plant personnel are given access to customer data, people, and processes and are authorized to place purchase orders to their parent company on behalf of Bose. As a result they can influence the design process and better understand the role of their technology in Bose's operations." "I am not an in-house salesman," says Chris LaBonte, an in-plant representative from G&F, a plastics supplier and one of nine Bose suppliers participating in the employee exchange. "I am a resource for the customer." IMMEDIATE BENEFITS Benefits start with savings on personnel and paperwork. One Bose in-plant representative estimates that as much as 90 percent of Bose's supplies are now cleared without paper. Because the in-plant representative has immediate access to the resources of the supplier company, shipments can be easily located and changed if necessary. Transactions that used to take weeks are accomplished in days. "Transit inventory can be treated as a stock location," says LaBonte. For those who don't know, "That's pretty much the ideal," says LaBonte. Suppliers offset the cost of paying the in-plant representative by their new ability to sell directly to engineering. They receive an "evergreen" contract that requires no sales effort and no rebidding so long as their prices remain competitive. Suppliers can design themselves into Bose's manufacturing process early in a manner that is most efficient for both companies. FRONT-LINE INVOLVEMENT Such exchanges challenge companies that traditionally have related based on confrontation and self-interest to move toward cooperation. The companies "partner" each other at every level, from senior management to the front lines where products are built. For instance, LaBonte was able to cut costs on a Bose product by 20 percent by replacing the expensive plastic that Bose had used on a speaker enclosure with a cheaper resin with similar qualities. The two companies then split the savings. When Bose decided it needed a new cosmetic technology, worker teams from both companies visited each other's lines to understand exactly what kinds of processes and quality were required. Not only did G&F gain a world-class product line, the G&F workers also gained new technical skills. The two companies, seeing the value of such exchanges, continue to send workers and managers to each other's plants to learn. "This kind of communication enables us to see with each other's eyes," says LaBonte. _________________________________________ DEAR AW READER Many of you have sent updated information regarding your mailing label. The Office of the American Workplace is now in the process of updating its list and we ask for your patience as we wrestle it to the ground. __________________________________________ CHARTING A WORKER-MANAGEMENT FUTURE The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, named in March 1993 by labor secretary Robert Reich and commerce secretary Ron Brown at the direction of the President, has taken its examination of workplace issues to the people. Monthly public Commission meetings in Washington, DC, have been supplemented with regional hearings in Louisville, KY, and East Lansing, Ml, with future day-long sessions planned for California in December and Georgia in January. The Commission is charged with examining three questions: 1. What (if any) new methods or institutions should be encouraged, or required, to enhance workplace productivity through labor-management cooperation and employee participation? 2. What (if any) changes should be made in the present legal framework and practices of collective bargaining to enhance coop- erative behavior, improve productivity, and reduce conflict and delay? 3. What (if anything) should be done to increase the extent to which workplace problems are directly resolved by the parties themselves, rather than through recourse to state and federal courts and government regulatory bodies? Public hearings thus far have addressed issues such as workforce characteristics, the impact of technology, the structure and operation of employee committees, the Railway Labor Act, and the web of government workplace regulations. An Oct. 14 forum in Washington, DC, attended by more than 300 academics, women's advocates, labor and management practitioners, sought to place the issue of labor law reform in the social context of women's work. Sponsored by DOL's Women s Bureau, the day-long event highlighted six expert papers and featured discussions on the changing American workplace, the experiences of women of color, impediments to organizing, and relevant labor lessons from Canada and France. "Labor law is usually seen as a very special interest, but it will have a huge impact on the lives of working women," explains women's bureau director Karen Nussbaum. "Women comprise almost half the workforce and increasingly do part-time or temporary work. We want to ensure that their perspective becomes part of the dialogue." The Commission, chaired by former secretary of labor John Dunlop, also includes former labor secretaries Ray Marshall and W. J. Usery, Jr., former commerce secretary Juanita Kreps, former UAW president Douglas Fraser, Xerox chairman Paul Alaire, and professors Richard Freeman, Thomas Kochan, and Paula Voos. Professor William Gould IV, who was also named to the panel, assumed an inactive role upon his nomination to the National Labor Relations Board. _________________________________________ TWO NEW LABOR DEPARTMENT TOOLS RELEASED State Maternity/Family Leave. Thirty-four states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia have enacted some form of state maternity/family leave law, each of them summarized in a recently issued Women's Bureau publication. For a single, free copy of State Maternity/Family Leave Law, send a self-addressed mailing label to: Women's Bureau, Box AW, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20210. Small Business Assistance. Help in understanding regulatory obligations of small business owners is the focus of an updated 87-page guide issued by the Labor Department. Small Business Handbook laws, Regulations, and Technical Assistance Services summarizes requirements regarding minimum wage and overtime pay, child labor, employment eligibility of alien workers, occupational safety and health, employee benefit plans, whistle-blower protection, veterans, plant closings and mass layoffs, lie detector tests, wage garnishment, and family and medical leave. The guide also lists how to get more information or help from the Labor Department. For a free handbook, write: GSA's Consumer Information Center, Dept. 629Z, Pueblo, CO 81009. _________________________________________ CALL FOR IDEAS/INPUT The Office of the American Workplace's Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) is seeking to expand its educational programs and other outreach activities to promote more effective compliance with the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). That Act, among other provisions, requires unions to file annual financial reports with the Department of Labor and sets standards for electing union officers and safeguarding union assets. OLMS is considering development of two initiatives: a program to assist newly elected union officers understand their LMRDA responsibilities and a course on general financial management for union officers. If you are a past or present union officer with suggestions on what might have helped you understand and comply with the LMRDA, or on financial management course content that might have helped you better manage and safeguard union assets, please let us hear from you. Send your comments to: Lary Yud, American Workplace/OLMS, U.S. Department of Labor, Room N-5605, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20210, call him on (202) 219-7320, or fax him on (202) 219-4330. _________________________ [Published by] U.S. Department of Labor Office of the American Workplace 200 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20210