Chapter 2 A Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management 59
“This is the most high-maintenance workforce in the history of the world,” says Bruce Tulgan , the founder of leading generational -research firm RainmakerThinking . “The good news is they’re also going to be the most high-performing workforce in the history of the world. They walk in with more information in their heads, more information at their fingertips—and, sure, they have high expectations, but they have the highest expectations first and foremost for themselves.”
There is likely to be a cultural clash between the different generations in the workplace.
The Gener a tion Y tribe is offering some startling examples of changes at work. A Beverly Hills psychiatrist’s office is an unlikely triage center for the mash-up of generations in the workforce. But Dr. Charles Sophy is seeing the casualties firsthand. Last year, when a 24-year-old salesman at a car dealership didn’t get his yearly bonus because of poor per- formance, both of his parents showed up at the company’s regional headquarters and sat outside the CEO’s office, refusing to leave until they got a meeting. “Security had to come and e s cort them out,” Sophy says.
A 22-year-old pharmaceutical employee learned that he was not getting the promotion he had been eyeing. His boss told him he needed to work on his weaknesses first. The Harvard grad had excelled at everything he had ever done, so he was crushed by the news. He told his parents about the performance review, and they were convinced there was some misunder- standing, some way they could fix it, as they’d been able to fix everything before. His mother called the human resources department the next day. Se v enteen times. She left increasingly frustrated messages: “You’re purposely ignoring us”; “you fudged the evaluation”; “you have it in for my son.” She demanded a mediation session with her, her son, his boss, and HR—and got it. At one point, the 22-year-old reprimanded the HR rep for being “rude to my mom.”
The patients on Sophy’s couch aren’t the twentysomethings dealing with their first taste of failure. Nor are they the “helicopter parents.” They’re the traumatized bosses, as well as the 47-year-old woman from HR who has been hassled time and again by her youngest workers and their parents. Now the pharmace u tical company that employs her has her in therapy, and she’s on six-month stress leave.
And she’s going to have plenty of company. Managers and their companies will have to deal with the 76 million children of baby boomers, born after 1978, who have started pour- ing into offices across the land. Four generations are being asked to coexist at once: tradi- tionalists (born before 1945), boomers (born 1946–1964), Generation X (1965–1977), and Gen Ys. Managers will be challenged to minimize the friction and maximize the assets of four distinct sets of work values and styles simultaneously.
The generation Ys are disruptive not only because of their size but because of their attitudes. Speak to enough intergenerational experts who study such things (and we spoke to more than a dozen of them), and you begin to get the picture: Generation Ys aren’t inter- ested in the financial success that drove the boo m ers or the independence that has marked the Gen Xs , but in careers that are personalized. They want educational opportunities in China and a chance to work in their companies’ R&D departments for six months. “They have no expectation that the first place they work will at all be related to their career, so they’re willing to move around until they find a place that suits them,” says Dan Rasmus , who runs a workplace think tank for Microsoft. Thanks to their overinvolved boomer par- ents, this cohort has been coddled and pumped up to believe they can achieve anything.
Immersion in PCs, video games, e-mail, the Internet, and cell phones for most of their lives has changed their thought patterns and may also have a c tually changed how their brains developed physiologically. These folks want feedback daily, not annually. And in case it’s not obvious, Gen Ys are fearless and blunt. If they think they know a better way, they’ll tell you, regardless of your title.
Meet any of the Generation Ys now embarking on their careers, and this picture comes to life. Imp a tience with anything that doesn’t lead to learning and advancement? “Nothing
Chapter 2 A Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management 61
infuriates us more than busywork,” says 24-year-old Katie Day, an assistant editor at Berkley Publishing, a division of Penguin Group USA. Fearlessness? “I don’t have time to be intimidated,” says Anna Stassen , a 26-year-old cop y writer at the advertising agency Fallon Worldwide who treats her bosses like “the guys.” “It’s not that I’m disrespectful; it’s just a waste of energy to be fearful.” Permanently plugged in and juggling? “I’m constantly playing video games, on a call, doing work, and the thing is, all of it gets done, and it gets done well,” says Beth Trippie , 26, a senior scheduling specialist, aptly enough, at Best Buy’s corporate offices who’s also finishing her MBA. “If the results aren’t great, then fine; but if not, who cares how it gets done?”
Can some of this be chalked up to simple naïveté and brio , hallmarks of every genera- tion in its youth? Sure. But experts believe that this won’t wash away with age. “It’s not a case of when they grow up, they’ll see the world differently,” says Joseph Gibbons, re- search director at the FutureWork Institute. “These values don’t change over time.” So if companies want to attract, retain, manage, and motivate the next generation of workers, they’re going to have to adapt.
Discussion Questions
1. What will organizations have to do to adapt to the influx of needed Generation Y individuals?
2. Is Generation Y really that different than previous generations that entered the work- force in large nu m bers? Explain.
3. Will Generation Y individuals have to make adjustments in their style, preferences, and interests to be successful in their careers?
Notes
1. John M. Ivancevich , Robert Konopaske , and Michael T. Matteson (2008), Organizational Behavior and Management (Burr Ridge, IL: McGraw-Hill/Irwin), pp. 12–20.2. Ibid.
3. Susan Adams (April 2010), “Women’s Work,” Forbes , p. 52.
4. U.S. Department of Labor estimates per telephone discussion (October 10, 2007).
5. Ruth Milkman and Kim Voss (2004), Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Mov e ment (New York: ILR Press).
6. Allen Smith (April 2011), “Stay the Course Advised on Health Care Reform,” HR Magazine, pp. 13–14.
7. Ibid.
8. “French Unions Set New Protests Over Higher Retirement Age” (September 8, 2010), The Wall Street Journal Online (accessed on April 5, 2011).
9. K. Lesli Ligomer and Todd S. Liao (November–December 2010), “Unionization and Collective Bargaining New Tools for Social Harmony,” The China Business Review, pp. 28–32.
10. Javier Espinoza (September 7, 2010), “World News: Londoners Copy with Transport Disrup- tions,” The Wall Street Journal, p. A19.
11. Diane Brady (March 24, 2011), “ DeMaurice Smith on the NFL Labor Dispute,” Bloomberg Businessweek (accessed on April 5, 2011).
12. “Sparring Unions Now Working as One” (February 24, 2011), The Wall Street Journal Online (accessed on April 5, 2011).
13. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.toc.htm (accessed on October 1, 2007).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. “International Comparisons of Manufacturing Productivity and Unit Labor Cost Trends, 2009”
(December 21, 2010), Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor.
17. John M. Ivancevich , Peter Lorenzi , Steven Skinner, and Philip B. Crosby (1997), Management:
Quality and Competitiveness (Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin), pp. 80–81.
18. Dail L. Fields (2002), Taking the Measure of Work (New York: Sage).
19. Yossi Sheffi (2005), The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advan- tage (Boston: MIT Press).
20. Willie E. Hopkins, Shirley A. Hopkins, and Paul Mallette (2005), Aligning Organizational Subcultures for Co m petitive Advantage (New York: Basic Books).
21. C. Chadwick and A. Dabu (2009), “Human Resources, Human Resource Management, and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Toward a More Comprehensive Model of Causal Linkages,”
Organization Science, Vol. 20, Iss. 1, pp. 253–73.
22. Allen I. Kraut and Abraham K. Korman (eds.) (1999), Evolving Practices in Human Resource Management: Responses to a Changing World (San Francisco: Jossey -Bass).
23. Paul Gollen (2005), Strategic HRM (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
24. D. Brent Smith (2008), The People Make the Place (Washington, DC: Psychology Press).
25. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf (accessed on April 8, 2011).
26. Ibid.
27. “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook” (December 2010), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Report 1026.
28. Ibid.
29. Frank J. Bitzer (2005), Benefit Facts 2005 (New York: National Underwriter Co.).
30. Mitra Toosi (November 2006), “A New Look at Long-Term Labor Force Projections to 2050,”
Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
31. Ibid.
32. Susan Drake, Michelle Gulman , and Sara Roberts (2005), Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers (Chicago: Dearborn Trade).
33. Gollen , Strategic HRM .
34. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Winter 2002), “Strategy As Improvisational Theater,” MIT Sloan Management Review, pp. 76–82.
35. Kenneth Prewitt (Winter 2002), “Demography, Diversity, and Democracy: The 2000 Census Story,” The Broo k ings Review, pp. 6–9.
36. Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn (2005), Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (San Francisco: Jossey -Bass).
37. Ibid.
38. Gerhard Apfelthaler , Helen J. Muller, and Robert R. Rehder (Summer 2006), “Corporate Global Culture as a Competitive Advantage: Learning From Germany and Japan in Alabama and Austria,” Journal of World Bus i ness, pp. 108–18.
39. Christopher Palmeri (January 2010), “Now for Sale, The Zappos Culture,” Bloomberg Businessweek, Iss. 4162, p. 57; Tony Hsieh (July 2010), “ Zappos’s CEO on Going to Extremes for Customers,”
Harvard Business Review, pp. 41–46.
40. John P. Wilson (ed.) (2005), Human Resource Development: Learning and Training for Individuals and Organ i zations (New York: Kogan Page).
41. Ronald J. Baker (2007), Mind Over Matter (New York: Wiley).
42. John M. Ivancevich and William Lidwell (2004), Guidelines for Excellence in Management (Cincinnati, OH: South-Western).
43. Marlene E. Turner (ed.) (2001), Groups at Work: Theory and Research ( Mahwah , NJ: LEA).
44. See Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith (2010), Learning to Lead (New York, Basic Books).
Chapter 2 A Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management 63 45. Henry C. Lucas, Jr. (1999), Information Technology and the Productivity Paradox (New York:
Oxford Unive r sity Press); Deborah L. Duarte and Nancy Tennant Snyder (1999), Mastering Virtual Teams (San Francisco: Jossey -Bass).
46. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (accessed on November 1, 2007).
47. Hilda L. Solis (December 2010), “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook ,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Report 1026.
48. Toosi, “A New Look at Long-Term Labor Force Projections.”
49. Jenell L. S. Wittmer and Leslie Wilson (February 2010), “Turning Diversity Into $: A Business Case for Hiring People with Disabilities,” T 1 D, pp. 58–63.
50. Douglas Kruse , Lisa Schur , and Mohammed Ali (October 2010), “Disability and Occupational Projections,” Monthly Labor Review Online , Vol. 133, Iss. 10 (accessed on April 12, 2010).
51. Michalle Mor Barak (2005), Managing Diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
52. Joseph J. Matocchio (2007 ), Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management (Cambridge, MA: JAI Press).
53. Geoffrey Colvin (July 19, 1999), “The 50 Best Companies for Asians, Black, and Hispanics,”
Fortune , pp. 53–70.
54. Mike France and Tim Smart (November 18, 1996), “The Ugly Talk on the Texaco Tape,”
BusinessWeek , p. 58.
55. Bari -Ellen Roberts and Jack E. White (1999), Roberts v. Texaco: A True Story of Race and Corporate America (New York: William Morrow).
56. Allison Bruce (May 29, 2005), “Employees Are Demanding More Job Skills, Education,”
Knight Ridder Tri b une Business News, p. 1.
57. Julie Brisbee (June 8, 2005), “GM Cutbacks Fuel Fears Here; 25 Thousand Layoffs Set,” Knight Ridder Tribune News Business News, p. 1.
58. Stephanie Thompson (March 7, 2005), “Kraft CEO Pledges a Faster Culture,” Crain’s Chicago Business, p. 19.
59. Pat Galagan (November 2010), “The Biggest Losers: The Perils of Extreme Downsizing,” T 1 D, Vol. 64, no. 11, pp. 27–29.
60. Carolyn Hirschman (April 2001), “The Kindest Cut,” HR Magazine .
61. F. McKee-Ryan, M. Virick , G. Prussia, J. Harvey, and J. Lilly, (2009), Life after the Layoff:
Getting a Job Worth Keeping, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 30, Iss. 4, pp. 561–80.
62. J. Weber (January 19, 2004), “Not Just a Temporary Lift,” BusinessWeek .
63. Kathryn Tyler (March 2008), “Treat Contingent Workers with Care,” HR Magazine, pp. 75–80.
64. Contingent Employment Law Journal (2002) (New York: REW Associates).
3
Chapter Legal Environment
of Human Resource Management: Equal Employment
Opportunity
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter you should be able to:
1. Summarize the historic context within the United States from which equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws emerged.
2. Describe two major criteria used to determine EEO and affirmative action compliance or noncompliance.
3. Explain what is meant by the term discrimination . 4. Compare and contrast several different EEO laws.
5. Outline how an organization can implement an affirmative action program.
HR Challenge
Hugo Rodriguez, the director of human resource management at Reliable Insurance, is sitting in his office, thinking. The problem is equal employment opportunity. Reliable is a medium- sized company in Milwaukee that specializes in homeowners, auto, and, to a lesser extent, life and health insurance. As is typical of firms of this type, the top-management team members are all white, are in their 50s, and have been with the firm all their careers. The composition of the workforce is as follows:
• Sales representatives—98 percent white males, the rest white females and African American males.
• Underwriters—98 percent white males, 2 percent white females.
• Claims agents—90 percent white males, 8 percent white females, 2 percent African American males.
• Administrative staff—90 percent white females, 10 percent African American females.
• Other administrative personnel, such as computer programmers, marketing staff, and security—95 percent white males, 5 percent white females.
Reliable is located in an area where at least 35 percent of the labor force is African American.
Hugo knows that many firms just like Reliable have been ordered to set up affirmative action plans. At a recent conference, Reliable’s lawyers devoted much time to discussing the laws and recent cases. This had prompted Hugo to visit the company president, Gregory Inness.
Gregory, 64 years old and a lawyer by training, did not give Hugo much hope that things were going to change at Reliable with regard to equal employment opportunities.
It is a few days after the meeting. Hugo has just received a call from a professor at one of the local universities. The professor had encouraged Osanna Kenley to apply at Reliable for a management trainee position that had been advertised. She had been discouraged by the HRM department because, they said, she was a liberal arts major. She’d also been told there were no positions. In fact, the company had just hired a white male for a trainee position.
Somehow she found out about this.
The professor informed Hugo that Osanna was going to file a complaint against the firm with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). He suggested that Hugo talk with her before she went to the EEOC. In fact, she is on her way over to see Hugo right now.
Hugo and Osanna had a pleasant talk, but it is clear that she would like Reliable to be open to all applicants, even if she personally does not get a job there. He arranges to see Gregory right after Osanna leaves.
Hugo Gregory, remember how I was just talking about equal employment opportunities? Well, we may have a case on our hands. And remember the insurance company that just paid out $15 million in back pay and had to hire its fair share of minorities as a result?
Gregory Well, maybe we should hire this young woman. That ought to take care of the problem, won’t it?
Hugo No, it won’t. We’d better establish minority recruitment, retention, and promotion programs now.
Hugo then explains the legal details of recent court cases on affirmative action.
65
The impact of law on HRM is indicative of the development of all laws governing business and societal activities. Today it is common for patients to sue doctors and consumers to sue manufacturers of faulty products; children even sue parents for not being supportive and nurturing. In 1960, there were about 59,000 civil suits filed in United States district courts.
In 2010, there were 282,307 filed which was an increase of 9.2 percent over 2009. 1
Although suits by consumers against manufacturers of defective products account for a large proportion of the increased litigation, suits by employees or job candidates against employers are increasing rapidly. 2 For example, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported in 2010 that individuals filed a total of 99,922 charges of discrimina- tion against their employers.3 Therefore, it is in the best interest of the organization for the HRM unit to develop policies and procedures that comply with the law. The best way to begin studying the relationship between HRM and the law is to devote time and attention to equal employment opportunity (EEO) programs . No other regulatory area has so thoroughly affected HRM. EEO has implications for almost every activity in HRM:
hiring, recruiting, training, terminating, compensating, evaluating, planning, disciplining, and collective bargaining. 4 EEO programs are implemented by employers to prevent employ- ment discrimination in the workplace or to take remedial action to offset employment discrimination.
EEO cuts across every HRM activity, and this means that HR officials and managers in every function of the organization are involved. Top managers must get involved in EEO issues and programs to make sure that the organization complies with the law, avoids fines, and establishes a discrimination-free workplace. Operating managers must assist by chang- ing their attitudes about protected-category employees and by helping all employees adjust to the changes EEO brings to the workplace.
The HR Journal on the preceding page will test your initial understanding of the law and various aspects of employment. Try it now before you progress further in the chapter.
Listed below are several questions that can determine your present state of understanding of the law. Try them out now and when you complete the chapter look them over again. The correct answers are at the end of this chapter.
Yes No 1. EEO laws provide clear definitions and distinctions about what constitutes illegal discrimination.
Yes No 2. If an organization can prove that only men can carry out a job’s duties (bona fide occupational qualification), it precludes someone from suing on the grounds of discrimination.
Yes No 3. A group of men are passing around a Playboy magazine that a female employee notices. She files a complaint of sexual harassment. Is her complaint legitimate?
Yes No 4. An employer that knowingly hires an employee who is undocumented and not legally permitted to work in the United States can be fined.
Yes No 5. The definition of a disability has been expanded under the recently passed ADA Amendments Act?
Yes No 6. An employer must accept any accommodation an employee with a serious religious belief has regarding time, date, and place of work.
Yes No 7. Assume that an organization lays off only workers who were 40 years or older to cut costs. This is a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Yes No 8. Requiring employees to speak only English to English-only customers is a violation of discrimination law.
Yes No 9. Final court decisions in Title VII cases can result in the offending companies having to issue back pay, rehire former employees, give immediate promotions, and create special recruitment and training programs.
Yes No 10. A sales associate who makes demeaning comments about female customers to co-workers can be charged with sexual harassment.