Happy Birthday Mom

Mom passed away February 8, 2009 from cancer but today would be her 77th birthday. With all Today's news about birthers, deathers and life support for the government plan I am most grateful for the common sense Mom instilled in my brothers & I. For example, Mom was hosptitalized last election Day and she was adamant about getting released early enough to go vote. Life was the ultimate issue for Mom and she knew that when a society placed so little value on it as to label abortion as a simple "choice" instead of a childs life a slide down the slippery ethical slope was inevitable. It is no wonder today that the left simply cannot understand why senior citizens would oppose rationing with Pete Singer writing in the NY Times about QALY's and stunning deficits being generated. But Mom knew Obama's record on Life defined him as a politician and he had pledged to make his first presidential action to sign the FOCA.

I wonder when the left is going to discover the fact dissent at town halls is being generated by a an awakening in America?

Sick Leave Entitlement

Here is an interesting story from the Washington Post on Sick Leave and the problems its creating at the IRS. Like most federal employees, IRS employees receive 13 sick days annually and use an average of 11. Since they cannot be cashed out at and can be carried forward the average IRS employee had 43 sick days at the end of 2006. Naturally, employees have an incentive to burn them all before retiring--hence the average 85% annual utilization rate.

At the Internal Revenue Service, one employee over a two-year period took sick leave on 13 of the 14 Tuesdays after a Monday holiday

Pretty sweet huh?Sick Days are an entitlement. There is no way to manage an entitlement except to limit its scope while incenting the behavior you seek. Too many private sector firms have sick leave programs with similar charactersistics as the federal sick leave program

Men who hold high places must be the ones to start

2008 will mark the 18th year anniversary of the passage of The Americans With Disabilities Act yet yesterdays ABC News Broadcast with Charlie Gibson shows how newsworthy it is for a corporation to actually comply with the spirit and intent of the law. Walgreens has a distribution center in Anderson, SC staffed with a workforce which is 40% disabled.

The quiet revolution happening in Anderson is the brainchild of Walgreens executive Randy Lewis, who has a 19-year-old son with autism.

"As a parent, I saw the future and so the question is, given our position, what do we do about it? Maybe we could be an example, maybe we could use our position of leadership to try to change the work environment."

NBC News Brian Williams covered the story as well last July.

Evidently, what was news last July is still news today. Randy Lewis deserves credit for focusing attention on functionality, choosing to see what people can do versus what they cannot. A stable workforce that is 20% more productive than other distribution centers

As our workforce ages and the baby boomers gray it will become important for many companies to consider functionality and ability both in hiring as well as stay at work and return to work programs for existing employees.

Lewis says the distribution center in Anderson is no less productive than others. In fact, Anderson is more productive. The training and technologies that help disabled workers do their jobs better help all employees do their jobs better, he said.

"People come to me and say, will this work in my environment? Yes, it will. This is not just a good thing to do, the right thing to do. This is better," Lewis said.

Mr Lewis is correct and on point IMHO both in hiring as well as stay at work and return to work programs for existing employees. Too often companies take an all or nothing view of work in regard to the disabled which prevents them from equally obtaining talent as well as retaining it. In their disability programs such assumptions manifest in higher than average disability costs to the company as well. This phenomenom has been apparent to me on multiple occasions while analyzing diability loss experience in Fortune 1000 business'.

One of the most profitable studies an executive could commission at their company would be to consider the ROI possible from re-examining the impact of attitudes in hiring and retaining the disabled. This is not just a good thing to do, the right thing to do. This is better. Indeed. As we approach Valentines day this week Mr Lewis reminds us having a heart is better than the right thing to do.

The Drug War

The National Community Pharmacy Association (NCPA) commented on a "bogus"
study released by The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA)
in a spin war designed to garner support for H.R.971, the Community Pharmacy
Fairness Act of 2007. See if you can detect the hatred here;

The study paid for by the prescription middlemen lobby claims
that one of the main provisions of H.R.971, which allows
independent community pharmacists to join together in
negotiating lower prescription drug prices,would increase
health care costs.
In response, National Community Pharmacists Association(NCPA)
Executive Vice President and CEO Bruce Roberts, RPh, issued
the following statement:"Pharmacy benefit managers are
continuing to post record profits while many independent
community pharmacists are being driven outof business due
to anticompetitive PBM business practices. The nation's giant
PBMs are the subject of a slew of investigations and
prosecutions for deceptive business practices, but oppose state
and federal efforts to reform their business
practices and bring transparency to the PBM industry.
The statistics cited in the self-serving, self-funded report
are particularly questionable in light of the fact that PBMs
keep their business operations, upon which the conclusions are
based, a closely guarded secret. In fact, the giant PBMs
make much of their profits by taking kickbacks from drug
companies and through interest earned by delaying reimbursements
owed to community pharmacies.
"The report's figures are nothing more than an attempt by PBMs to put
Congress and the public on notice that they intend to hold American
taxpayers hostage if attempts are made to reform the PBMs'
anti competitive business practices.

The NCPA left out price spreads on generics--hey they want in on that action too.
But the NCPA is correct to call out the PBM's for keeping their reimbursement levels to retail pharmacies a secret even from the employers for whom they purportedly work as vendors. There ought to be a law against that and in short order I sincerely hope there is.

So I applaud the NCPA for pointing out the record profits PBM's are enjoying while telling their clients to shut up and take the pain. Employers all have a huge stake in this fight. By the way Iowa has passed a new law which awaits the governors signature which would regulate PBM's.

Retaining and Attracting Skilled Baby Boomers

The Dallas Morning News has reported The US is ill prepared with countermeasures to deal with a wave of retirement as baby boomers exit the workforce in droves over the next 5 years.

The oldest boomers will qualify for Social Security's early retirement benefits in less than a year, but a large part of corporate America isn't prepared for the tens of millions of employees who will quit their jobs or scale back their hours over the next decade.

"Most companies haven't seen their boomer employees retire yet, and if it's something not happening in this quarter, CEOs believe they have time to think about it," said Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, co-director of Boston College's Center on Aging and Work.

The research center surveyed 578 businesses and found that only 12 percent have planned in-depth for the wave of boomer retirements that are projected to create a worker shortage. Twenty-six percent of the companies haven't planned at all.

Labor analysts predict the U.S. economy will face shortages of 6 million workers by 2012 and 35 million workers by 2030. Some industries will be hit harder than others, but the boomer brain drain is expected to ripple through the entire economy.

A Federal Reserve official recently told Congress that the nation's economic growth may slow to 2.2 percent annually by 2015 because of the surge in boomer retirements. That's a full percentage point below the average growth rate for the last 40 years.

Generation X is only three-fourths as large as the boomer generation it follows. Analysts predict that some businesses will be hard-pressed to find replacements for the senior managers, technicians and other employees approaching retirement

So if only 12% of Business has planned for expected retirements that leaves 88% vulnerable. One of the first areas impacted unfortunately will be an employers Short and Long Term Disability plan. In the absence of a flexible work schedule which permits the boomers desire to cut-back their schedule to spend time with grandchildren in another state or with a spouse who has retired, some boomers will notice peers going out on disability and ask; Why ot me? Since some Americans over 55 work everyday with physical problems which are disabling for many will choose disability especially where there is pain involved. Dr Scott Haig wrote on this in Time recently in an article focused on pain;

As an orthopedist who has seen a lot of tough older men with painless, yet arthritic joints, I'm suspicious of there being a peripheral pain blockade that sometimes occurs around joints that are simply not given a chance to rest when they hurt. These are the ones who when asked "Don't you have any pain? say something like "not really but what does it matter, I still have to work to put the food on the table."

The population between 55-64 will grow by 48% over the next 5 years. Incidence rates for disability explode exponentially over 55. When employees realize they can go on disability for many the concern about putting food on the table is suddenly removed. These are some of cultural factors cited by employers in my march 28, 2007 post The Black Hole In Your Benefits Plan.

To see how just a small percentage of the disabled population can drive costs up exponentially in a disability plan see my 3/30/2007 post Surveillance exposes Disability Fraud-Black Hole II

Most people in business would readily acknowledge its considerable less expensive to keep the customers you have than to acquire new ones. This is also true of employees. So while employers should look to be senior friendly in hiring they should also consider return-to-work plans and job accommodation as critical retention tools for talent with a very high ROI. Employers should consider engaging a consultant with significant expertise at evaluating plan loss experience data and formulating recommendations for return-to-work plans as well as plan design for short and long term disability to achieve the optimal ROI outcome.