Veterans Day has come and gone, but the tribulations of soldiers and their families continue. I didn't know this, but 48 percent of our available military power are in National Guard and Reserve forces. Unlike other members of the military who join the Army, or the Air Force, these men and women work in regular civilian jobs until they are called to serve. For them and their families, the support of their employers is crucial.

From now until Jan 18, the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, an agency affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense, is accepting nominations for the Freedom Award, given to companies that best support their employees in the National Guard and Reserve. The best employers provide full salary, continuation of benefits, care packages and family assistance to employees fulfilling their military obligations.

Nominations must come from National Guard and Reserve families and their members. Click here for a nomination form and an explanation of the award.

Reader Doris Digilio, a senior citizen from Flourtown in Montgomery County, said she's not surprised that Independence Blue Cross is trying to cut costs by asking employees to take early retirement -- not with the way they throw money around. She and her husband each subscribe to the same plan Personal Choice 65. They each receive identical and voluminous mailings. It all ends up in a landfill somewhere, she said, which doesn't help her township with its expenses either.

"They could really cut some waste," Digilio said when she called me the other day. "Then maybe they could lower my premiums."

Or, keep more people employed. The Inquirer recently reported that more than 500 Independence Blue Cross employees accepted early retirement packages. Meanwhile, the company said it might not be done trimming its payroll. "All those people forced into early retirement, that's terrible," Digilio said. 

Last week, on Friday, the U.S. Labor Department released its monthly report on the national job situation. The headline, of course, was the top number, the 10.2 percent unemployment rate. Earlier this week I got a call from Karen, who lives in New Jersey.

She said that the number doesn't tell the story and she's right. It really doesn't talk about her situation and lots of other people who are severely underemployed. 

In 2000, Karen's environmental company was looking to lay off some people and Karen, an executive, raised her hand. She had a son who was really skilled in a sport and she needed to squire him around the country as he advanced to Olympic levels. Fast-forward to 2009 and Karen, now 59, can't get a job. Theoretically, she's not unemployed, because she does some consulting and other self-employment gigs to bring in some money. Essentially, she relies on her husband.

But, she'd much rather be employed and she is constantly looking for a job in her field. So where does she fit in? She says the work she is doing is nowhere near what she's capable of doing. Anybody else in this boat?   

FYI, the unemployment rate is a fraction. On the bottom is the labor force -- that means everyone who wants to work, is available to work, and is actively looking for a job. If you are a young mother who quit to stay with your baby, you are not in the labor force. But if you fill out an application today and you are available for work when you are called, you are back in the labor force. The top line is the number of unemployed people -- people without work. Divide the bottom number into the top number and multiply that by 10 and you have the unemployment rate. 

Any of us who have worked on a job for any length of time can probably trade top-this-tales of inept managers, but one of the trickiest of the inept-manager scenarios arises when a co-worker is promoted out of the ranks of the great unwashed into the role of supervisor. 

First, buy soap, or at least get it included in your compensation package. Just kidding. 

However, here's a word to the wise from Colleen McCullough, Senior Vice President of OI Partners-Gateway International, a Philadelphia talent management company.

There are some reasons newly-promoted supervisors fail:  They are unsure of what their bosses expect them to accomplish, including the two or three most important goals.  They may lack management skills. There are tricks to that trade. Adequate verbal and written skills for a rank-and-file worker may not be adequate for management. They are not used to having to motivate others and don't know how to do it. They aren't used to building relationships across departments.

One positive side (if there can be a positive side) to all the bloodletting on the job can be the opportunity for advancement. No one wants to dance on a grave, but...

But, here's the problem. At the same time companies are promoting to fill management holes, they may also be cutting training budgets. That can leave some newly-minted managers without the proper training to do the job, says Colleen McCullough, Senior Vice President of OI Partners-Gateway International (Philadelphia), a career and talent management firm.

More about this tomorrow... 

"Many companies have promoted employees after making layoffs without giving them the coaching and training they need. Some newly promoted employees have been unable to make the transition from being individual performers to managers. Others have been promoted to the next level without getting an opportunity to improve their management, motivational, team-building, and communications skills," said McCullough.

"In a good economy, about 4 out of 10 employees who are promoted usually don’t work out. But workers who were advanced to replace higher-salaried, laid-off colleagues are at a greater risk for failing in their new positions without receiving adequate preparation," said McCullough.

Lots of vitriol yesterday on my voice mail and email, mostly about the SEPTA workers. One or two had some racial epithets for Willie Brown, head of the union. One suggested that vets returning from the war replace the drivers, especially "that fat one," whoever that is. One said he'd like to see the whole group replaced.

What bothers me about the whole economic scenario is the general deflation of wages and benefits. Everyone is taking cuts. The SEPTA workers managed to get themselves a decent deal -- not a great deal, but a decent deal. Is getting a decent deal a crime? You'd think so, listening to the calls. 

If middle-class people can't make enough to paint their homes and keep up their properties, what will happen to the city? What will happen to my home, if I live across the street from someone who can't afford a roof repair or who parks a junker in the street? If people don't have enough money for health insurance and go broke and abandon their properties, then what? If more and more kids come to school without enough to eat or without enough support at home to handle homework, what will happen to the education of the rest of the people? How will teachers be able to cope with the average, non-trouble-making kid, when the class is oversubscribed with children who can't cope with poverty at home.  

Truly, I don't know what the answer is and how the economy will be resolved, or if it ever will, but the more people who can't make enough to have a decent life, the more everyone will suffer.  

This blows my mind -- six of the top 10 staffing agencies (based on global staffing revenue in U.S.) are foreign-owned. I guess I should be glad, since Von Bergen is a Swiss name, that Adecco, the number one company with annual sales of $29.36 billion in the U.S., has its headquarters in Glattbrugg, Switzerland. Number two, Randstad Holding, with $25.27 billion is based in the Netherlands, as is number four USG People, with $5.92 billion. This is from a list in Workforce Management magazine, one of my favorite "trades." The magazine sourced it from Staffing Industry Analysts, a unit of Crain Communications, which publishes the magazine.

Among the top 20, seven are based in the U.S. They are Manpower Inc. in Milwaukee, number three at $21.17 billion; Allegis Group, number five at $5.74 billion in Hanover, Maryland; the famous Kelly Services Inc. of Troy, Michigan, number six at $5.52 billion and California's Robert Half International ranked ninth at $4.03 billion. Numbers 13 and 15 are from Florida, MPS Group in Jacksonville at $2.22 billion and Spherion Corp. in Fort Lauderdale at $2.19. Volt Information Sciences, Westbury, N.Y., is number 17 at $2.04 billion.

Four groups are based in Tokyo, three in France and three in England. Philadelphia's CDI Corp., which had an abysmal quarter, owns a British staffing company that is under investigation. As I've written before, a pick-up in hiring through staffing companies will herald a change in the economy.  

What about this scenario? A company hires an excellent tech worker who does a great job, but then decides, for whatever reason, to go off the drugs that keep his bipolar tendencies in check. Weirdness at work ensues and the excellent worker isn't able to do his job in the same way. Now what? Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, if a person's disability was "mitigated," by some means, say drugs, then the person wouldn't be considered disabled and wouldn't qualify for accommodations and wouldn't be able to sue for discrimination. New amendments to the bill now broaden the definition of disabled and change how this idea of "mitigation" should be applied.

What's happening now is that commissioners from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are traveling around the country to listen to various concerns about proposed regulations that will govern how the amendments are applied. In Friday, they were joined in Philadelphia by some officials from the U.S. Department of Justice. Among the speakers was management lawyer Sarah Bouchard, an attorney from Morgan Lewis, a Philadelphia law firm.

What happens, she asks, if the employee "refuses to take the appropriately-prescribed medication?" Or what if the employee says he can't afford the medication?

"This is a real concern for employers," she said, speaking about conditions such as bipolar disorder or ADHD. "Pre-amendment, a lot of these wouldn't have been disabilities.".

"We believe the regulation should make clear that an individual is no longer qualified for that position if he refuses to take a reasonable accommodation."

I have to tell you that I'm grateful to this blog, because I never have enough room in my articles to write much of what I report. 

Tomorrow the jobs numbers come out and we'll see, unfortunately, how little the economy has moved. Personally, I don't care what the stock market does. Jobs matter. Period. And not just any jobs. They've got to pay enough for people to live, not scrimp. Double period.       

About midway through the morning last Friday, Stuart Ishimaru, the acting chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, took a break from listening to testimony about changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act to talk about changes at the EEOC. Some critics of the ADA amendments say that there will be a flood of new complaints coming into the agency, but Ishimaru says he isn't worried.

"I don't buy the flood of litigation argument," he said. "We're trying to get bigger cases brought and better cases brought, cases that deal with systemic issues. How do you get as much bang for your buck as possible?"

Does that mean that the individual complaint doesn't have a chance? Ishimaru says the EEOC can't limit individual cases, because, "as an enforcement agency, I send the message that discrimination is illegal." 

But, he said, "you can just get buried with individual cases. We will never be able to handle all the individual cases, so we have to find a balance as an enforcement agency."

Before he headed back to the panel, he made another interesting point: These amendments, signed into law by President Bush, make it easier for the disabled to bring discrimination cases because they broaden the definition of disabled.  Now it's a matter of writing the regs to give everyone guidance on how the amendments will be applied, which was the point of last Friday's "listening" town hall meeting -- to give folks a chance to opine.

President Obama, Ishimaru said, totally supports the wider definition for "disabled." But for most of President Bush's time, the emphasis had been different -- more oriented on moving cases through the system, Ishimaru said. That left Ishimaru, a longtime commissioner, in the minority during that period of time. "I raised a lot of questions."

Now the emphasis is different, but managing the change within the agency is a challenge, Ishimaru said. "It is easier to be critic," he admitted. "And it also hard to turn the ship. You have to let people know there are new priorities and that it's a slow change."