Archive: November, 2010
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Even though just over half of chief financial officers surveyed by Baruch College and Financial Executives International expect their companies to hire in the next six months, they also expect the unemployment rate to to stay above or at nine percent at least until October 2011. Those that are adding staff expect a four percent increase in hiring.
With so many companies having drastic cutbacks, the CFOs are worried about retaining top talent -- not an unreasonable concern given a multitude of surveys about employee stress due to overwork and job insecurity. Training and development appear to be the tools for retaining that talent, just slightly preferred over compensation incentives. Others want to improve office atmosphere and team building, while providing increased career opportunities. This is a real sales job, given what companies have gone through.
Most CFOs support raising the traditional retirement age by about three years, perhaps because many of them expect to work beyond 65 due to need or desire. Two-thirds of the 250 say their companies do not have a formalized succession plan in place, according to the survey of 250 CFOs in privately-held and publicly-traded companies.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Employers everywhere wrestle with just how far they can push wellness initiatives on their workforces without alienating them and crossing some invisible big brother boundary into their non-work lives. Compensation director Steven Johnson would like to push it a lot further than he does now.
In my article on the topic in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, Johnson reports that the Naturally Slim wellness initiative now being piloted by business managers in various Philadelphia area private schools and colleges has meant big savings for his organization, Genesis Health Systems in Davenport, Iowa. His health insurance costs not only not risen, which is remarkable by itself, they have decreased over four years, thanks to this program. He's paying 2.5 percent less than he did four years ago and the rate of hospital admissions per thousand has declined by a third.
Johnson is such a big proponent of the Naturally Slim program, which essentially teaches participants a new way to eat, that he provides employees with a significant discount on their share of health insurance if they participate each year. They have to get blood tests. If the tests reveal that they have three out of five poor-health indicators (too much cholesterol, too little good cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and a disproportionate amount of weight as a ratio of height), they take a 10-week web tutorial on better eating habits.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Rashidah Johnson didn't mean to cry at Monday's vigil for the unemployed held at the Arch Street Methodist Church, but as she spoke, her voice was thick with tears. Here she was, 39 years old, and back in her old bedroom in her parents' home because she lost her job and could no longer pay her rent. When I spoke with her later for my story in Tuesday' Philadelphia Inquirer, I was struck again by all the indignities that people experience when they lose their work.
Johnson is luckier than most. She has a room in her parents' home and she's not sharing it with other family members who may be similarly displaced. And what I'm about to say is really a small thing, in the big picture. It's small, but it matters because it is just one more crappy element of being unemployed, of losing the dignity and stature that comes with work and a pay check.
Here's the scenario she outlined, and it made me very sad: No one would describe Johnson as a big drinker, but like a lot of us, she often enjoyed a glass of wine when she finished work. Even assuming she could afford the occasional modest bottle on unemployment, there's another reason why even that simple pleasure is now a thing of the past. Johnson's parents don't really drink, except on social occasions. In theory, she thinks, they wouldn't mind if she had a glass of wine. In practice, it would make her feel uncomfortable -- now that she is a guest in their home. This is the kind of daily negotiation that happens in this scenario. No big deal, really, yet emblematic of a life no longer ones own.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Nurses are writing to me about the violence they face at work. A nurse from Jefferson said when she went to court after being beat up by a patient, the judge made her feel like it was her fault. A nurse from Einstein wrote saying she considered herself lucky to have only been kicked. A colleague was punched in the face on Monday.
All these calls follow a story I wrote in Wednesday's Philadelphia Inquirer on workplace violence in healthcare settings. On that same day, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals held a seminar on the topic attended by close to 200 people. I've also been blogging about this as well.
No one deserves to be hit on the job, that seems so obvious. But then I get a call from a reader who, well, I was going to characterize him, but I just won't. You can judge for yourself. He points out trying to get a good night's sleep at a hospital is like spending a night in hell. He points out that patients are pricked, prodded and never given a moment's rest while nurses and other staffers chat loudly in the hall all night long.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Nurses and health professionals in psychiatric units face violence on the job. No one wants to stigmatize the mentally ill -- and that's the part of the awkwardness in these kinds of topics. But, there are people who, either because of delusions or intoxication or drugs or some vicious combo lash out at the people trying to help them. Patients and their families in all parts of a hospital can pose a threat to healthcare workers.
Psych nurse Jean McFadden, 61, of Wilmington, said she's seen so much violence, although she's never been punched herself. "I haven’t taken a hard beating," said McFadden, who works with troubled children and youth at Crozer Chester Medical Center in Upland on the edge of the city of Chester. "I've gotten bruised, mainly pinched." McFadden was one of a group of nurses I interviewed for a story in Wednesday's Philadelphia Inquirer about violence in the healthcare workplace. You can read it by clicking here. I also blogged a little about on Wednesday. Click here to read the previous post.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals held a daylong session on the issue.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Everyone of the nurses I spoke with for my story on the violence nurses face on the job had either experienced physical violence themselves, or knew someone who had. While unacceptable, some of the violence seems inevitable given the conditions in emergency rooms and psychiatric facilities. But, I was told, a lot can be done with a careful assessment of the surroundings and training that includes drills on typical scenarios. You can read my story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by clicking here.
Consider the story of Connie Snavely, 52, an emergency room nurse at Temple University Hospital who said she was punched while on the job. In the spring of 2009, she was at work on a typically busy day when patients coming to the ER for non life-threatening illnesses could expect to wait six to eight hours for care. Not optimum, or even acceptable.
Snavely said that one young woman was "quite angry she had to wait. She got verbally abusive," Snavely said, describing the verbal abuse as an every day occurrence in the emergency room.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
If there's one lesson I've learned in covering business, it's that business people crave stability of above all. Even a negative regulation is better than a changing regulation. Change can paralyze businesses, as they stay on the sidelines with hiring or product development, waiting to see how the changes play out. Can't blame them, but it poses a problem when we have nearly 15 million unemployed.
So, what worries me a little is that it seemed that the uncertainity over the health care overhaul, which was being blamed right and left for slowness in hiring, was beginning to resolve itself into the ordinary lobbying that goes into regulation making. Some orderliness seemed to be underway. Now everything is up in the air again. Aside from whether individual provisions and concerns have merit and should be revisited, I just hate to see anything that slows hiring. People need to be working, if our economy is to move again.
You can read my Philadelphia Inquirer article about the post-election health care landscape by clicking here.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
No doubt President Obama and the Democrats were wishing this morning that the first Friday of the month, when the jobs numbers come out from the Department of Labor, had occurred after the first Tuesday of the month, Election Day. Maybe a positive number like 150,000 jobs created, mostly by the private sector, would have pushed some of the swing voters into the Democratic camp.
Believe me, there's nothing wrong with 150,000 new jobs and it is especially heartening that the private sector created 154,000 of them -- not enough to offset the 8,000-job decline in government hiring. But I can't shake my feelings of discouragement as I write about these numbers month after month in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Let's just look at the top seven numbers in the report. You can click here to see my story online about today's news.
First of all, there's the civilian noninstitutional population. That means everyone of working age that is not in the military or in jail. That number went up by 208,000 to 238.5 million as the general population grew.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
If you grew up in a family where your parents, uncles and aunts all attended college, you tend to think it's an automatic rite of passage. But that wasn't the case in Odelia McFadden's family. The youngest of five children in a family headed by a single parent, Odelia, 21, a graduate of Olney High School, is the first to graduate from college. It happened because she lucked into being involved in an internship program throughout high school. The internship not only gave her college-impressing credentials, but because the internship was a paid one -- eight hours a week during the school year, fulltime during the summer -- she had enough cash for teenage necessities.
Odelia's opportunity came through the Health Tech program sponsored by the Philadelphia Youth Network. She worked at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.
This morning Odelia will be a speaker at an event held by the Philadelphia Youth Network to thank the companies who bring on high school students as interns. Last year, there were Philadelphia11,000 high school students gaining real life experience, credential and money through the internship program. Some of the interns were paid through various government initiatives -- including the stimulus bill. But 1,000 of them last summer were in employer-funded summer programs. Many of the students are involved in the WorkReady program which includes weekly classroom sessions on appropriate workplace behavior such as punctuality, etiquette and grooming.
