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<b style="color: blue">Human Resource Associates</b>
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<h2>HR - On The Job</h2>
<h3>Are You A Proactive Or A Reactive Manager?</h3>
<p>This isn't a trick question, although it would seem that the desired answer is obvious. Most of us want to be proactive managers. But there are two questions we should consider first.</p>
<ol>
<li>Why are most of us reactive managers?</li>
<li>What's the difference between proactive and reactive managers?</li>
</ol>
<h4>1. Why Are Most Of Us Reactive Managers?</h4>
<p>Because that's where the applause comes from. That's how heroes are made. When we're knee deep in alligators the person who swings in and pulls us out is our champion. But another reason is that it takes a lot more brainpower and patience to prevent the problem before it occurs.Why didn't someone figure out ahead of time how to keep the people out of that alligator infested swamp?</p>
<h4>2. What's The Difference Between Reactive and Proactive Managers?</h4>
<p><b>A. Reactive Managers</b> solve problems when they arise. That's a good thing. It's a management style that's admired for its ability to quickly get the resources back into production, whether those resources are machines or people.</p>
<p>If you're good at reactive management you are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Decisive and able to think and act quickly</li>
<li>Able to identify the root causes of problems</li>
<li>Creative and resourceful with an ability to develop many solutions</li>
<li>Calm and in control in the face of crisis.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, someone who is good at reactive management is able to remain calm, quickly analyze the problem, find the root cause and be decisive in activating the solution. This is clearly a desirable set of skills for a manager to have. But, however valuable, the reactive style is not really the best style.</p>
<p><b>B. Proactive Managers</b> focus on reducing or preventing the problems before they occur. You could also call this the predictive style. The more problems that can be predicted and prevented, the less you will need reactive management later. Beyond dealing with problems and emergencies, proactive managers are people who don't wait to be told to get things done. They look and act ahead. That works here too.</p>
<p>If you are good at proactive management you are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Thoughtful and analytical</li>
<li>Not spending much time in panics and crisis</li>
<li>More focused on what's important than on what's urgent</li>
<li>Able to identify patterns in data including patterns in failures</li>
<li>More focused on <em>why</em> something failed than on <em>what</em> to do about fixing it</li>
<li>Able to keep the big picture in mind when working through the details</li>
</ul>
<p>So, someone who is good at proactive management is sufficiently detached from the urgent pace or current emergency, to identify the problems that are important and install procedures to reduce or eliminate them. Rather than being focused on the immediate crisis, proactive managers are able to compare current conditions to earlier information and predict which problems might occur and when. The more problems that can be prevented through proactive management, the fewer resources will be spent on reacting to them when they pounce on us later. Proactive management does not replace reactive management but its almost always less costly and it reduces the need for it.</p>
<p>Both management styles are of value. We often refer to our daily panic as “putting out fires”. That's a good analogy.</p>
<p>Reactive managers are firemen putting out fires.</p>
<p>Proactive managers are fire inspectors preventing them from happening.</p>
<hr />
<p align="center"><b><i>Have an employment question?</i></b></p>
<p align="center">Send it to <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=From HR On The Job">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p align="center">Please include Company Name and Association in your e-mail. Company identification will be kept confidential.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Hitchhiking on the Information Highway</h2>
<h3>October Unemployment Report, Just What the Heck Is it?</h3>
<p>There certainly have been questions regarding the accuracy of the monthly unemployment reports coming from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) over the past year. But this month it was like being on the TV game show “Jeopardy”. “Well give you the answer and you can ask all the questions you want.” The answer is “The unemployment rate for September dropped from 8.1percent down to 7.8 percent.“ The question is, “How can that be possible?” We know the summer jobs had pretty much ended and that <em>the monthly report s from employers (The Current Employment Status Survey) showed that only 114,000 new people had been hired</em>. That was fewer than the month before (August), and that month had fewer than the month before that (July). <em>But the BLS said that they found 873,000 people claiming they had suddenly found jobs!</em> No economist liberal or conservative predicted such an enormous jump in new job hires.</p>
<p>Economist and business people across the country demanded to see the numbers. Jack Welch former CEO of General Electric for 21 years said “these numbers don’t look right to me.” and wrote a scathing attack on their validity in the Wall Street Journal. Wells Fargo, the largest U.S. bank by market capitalization, said that there could be no reality in numbers that are more than four times the average change over the past year. Gallup Chief Economist, Dennis Jacobs said the job gain numbers certainly “seem to lack face-validity.”</p>
<p>Further investigation has proved these folks were right to be doubtful. Here is a condensed version of the complicated avenues that led to this questionable number.</p>
<ol>
<li>The increase in jobs came from a U.S. Census Bureau “Household Survey” made by phone calls to the general public. They say that 837,000 people told them they had just found a new job.</li>
<li>187,000 of them said they had just been hired by the U.S. Federal Government.</li>
</ol>
<p>These numbers alone, if accurate, still wouldn’t be enough to bring down the unemployment rate that much. Heads were still scratching when a report from Dow Jones who publishes the most trusted business news and information in the world reported that their examination of the report showed that only 49 states reported their unemployment numbers! Did the government forget that there we have50 states in the union? How could they lose an entire state? Dow Jones Confronted the BLS with their findings and BLS agreed that one of the larger states (unnamed) did indeed fail to send in their unemployment numbers.</p>
<p>So what is the correct unemployment rate for September, the last unemployment report until after the election? We won’t know until after the election.</p>
<p class="quote">“The American Public will endure until the Congress discovers<br />
that it can bribe the public with its own money”<br />
- Alexis de Tocqueville</p>
<h3>NLRB Rules That Employees Can Lie As Long As They’re On Union Business</h3>
<p>A recent Case by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against <i>Fresenius USA Manufacturing</i> (the company) again illustrates that Uncle Sam wants you to be union. An employee of the company was an active union supporter who had been intimidating employees to vote for the union in an upcoming election. He wrote anonymous notes to employees using vulgar and threatening statements. He called employees “Pus...s” and used terms like “RIP”. Female employees filed complaints under title seven of the civil rights act and the company investigated them. The employee lied about his actions swearing he did not do them. But his authorship was confirmed. The company suspended and then discharged him for the actions and for lying about it.</p>
<p>The NLRB investigated the company’s actions and agreed that they had indeed proven the employees guilt on both counts. However, they still found that the company was in violation of the Nation Labor Relations Act because they had terminated him. Their ruling states that the employee’s “handwritten comments encouraged warehouse employees to support the union,” “We therefore conclude that (the employee) was engaged in protected union activity.” Their conclusion was that it’s okay to intimidate, threaten and use obscenities against employees as long as it’s for a good cause- cause it helps the union to organize employees.</p>
<p>But, said the company, he was also fired for lying about his actions and doing it during an investigation. But the NLRB had an answer for that also. “(the company’s) questioning of (the employee) put him in the position of having to reveal his protected activity, which (NLRB) precedent holds an employee may not be required to do where (as here) the inquiry is unrelated to the employee’s job performance” As a result, although the company had a legitimate interest in questioning (The employee) and lawfully did so, <em>(the employee) had a sec 7 right not to respond truthfully</em>.” If you can’t fire an employee for harassment, threatening employees and lying, what good is the Employment at Will doctrine?</p>
<p class="quote">“Like all utopians, he preferred obedience to independent thought”<br />
- Dean Koontz</p>
<h3>Who Needs A Job?</h3>
<p>23% of recent college graduates polled said they would not accept a job if they were not allowed to make and receive personal phone calls.</p>
<p>75% of 1,000 unemployed Americans said they would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation.</p>
<p>58% of 847 surveyed individuals said they would not work for a company that is located in an area with poor cell-phone reception.</p>
<p class="quote">“The philosophy of the classroom today<br />
is the philosophy of government tomorrow”<br />
- Abraham Lincoln</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: center"><sub>© William J. Cook</sub></p>
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<span class="heading">Labor Stats</span>
<hr />
<b>Federal Minimum Wage</b>
<hr />
<p align="center">
<b>$7.25</b>/hour<br />
</p>
<hr />
<b>Average Income</b>
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<table>
<tr><td /><td class="u">September 2012</td><td class="u">September 2011<td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Hourly</td><td class="b">$23.58</td><td class="b">$23.16</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Weekly</td><td class="b">$813.51</td><td class="b">$796.70</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>Federal Povery Level</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td class="i">one person</td><td class="b">$10,956</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">family of four</td><td class="b">$21,954</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>IRS Mileage Allowance</b>
<hr />
<p>July 1, 2011 through December 31, 2012</p>
<table>
<tr><td class="i">business</td><td><b>55.5</b> cents/mile</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">medical or moving</td><td class="b">23.5</b></td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">charitable</td><td class="b">14.0</td></tr>
</table>
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<b>Postage</b>
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<table>
<tr><td class="i">1 oz</td><td><b>44</b> cents</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">postcard</td><td class="b">29</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>Population</b>
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<table>
<tr><td class="i">world</td><td class="b">7 billion</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">U.S.</td><td class="b">314.3 million</td></tr>
</table>
<p align="center">
<i>one birth every </i><b>8</b><i> seconds;</i><br />
<i>one death every </i><b>14</b><i> seconds;</i><br />
<i>one new immigrant every </i><b>44</b><i> seconds;</i><br />
<i>net gain of one person every </i><b>13</b><i> seconds.</i>
</p>
<hr />
<b>U.S. Civilian Workforce</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td /><td class="u">September 2012</td><td class="u">September 2011</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Total</td><td class="b">155,063,000</td><td class="b">154,004,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Employed</td><td class="b">142,974,000</td><td class="b">140,107,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Unemployed</td><td class="b">12,088,000</td><td class="b">13,897,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Want A Job</td><td class="b">6,727,000</td><td class="b">6,240,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Unemployment Rate</td><td class="b">7.8%</td><td class="b">9.0%</td></tr>
</table>
<br /><hr />
<b>U.S. Workforce Productivity</b><br />
<sub><i>(The amount of goods produced, divided by the number of work hours it took to produce it)</i></sub>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td class="i">1992</td><td class="b">3.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1993</td><td class="b">0.5%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1994</td><td class="b">1.3%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1995</td><td class="b">0.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1996</td><td class="b">2.5%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1997</td><td class="b">2.0%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1998</td><td class="b">2.6%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1999</td><td class="b">3.3%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2000</td><td class="b">3.4%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2001</td><td class="b">2.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2002</td><td class="b">4.6%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2003</td><td class="b">3.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2004</td><td class="b">2.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2005</td><td class="b">1.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2006</td><td class="b">0.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2007</td><td class="b">1.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2008</td><td class="b">1.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2009</td><td class="b">+5.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2010</td><td class="b">+3.6%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2011</td><td class="b">+0.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1st quarter 2012</td><td class="b">(-0.9%)</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2nd quarter 2012</td><td class="b">+2.2%</td></tr>
</table>
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