Mike Aitken discusses workplace flexibility on “Fox & Friends”
Friday, 22nd of May 2009 at 11:17:20 AMThis morning, Mike Aitken, SHRM’s director of government affairs, discussed workplace flexibility on FOX News’ “FOX & Friends.”
Earlier this month, SHRM launched a series of principles to guide the development of a federal policy on workplace flexibility. According to SHRM’s principles a federal policy should encourage employers to offer uniform and coordinated paid leave; take into consideration different work environments, industries and organizational size; offer employers and employees accountability, certainty, and predictability, and create compliance incentives for employers who meet the leave standard.
We in the U.S. remain first, not”dead last”. Who says the other countries are doing it right? My personal insight is that having more free paid time off does not make a Nation first, it makes them last. Last in productivity, last in initiative, and a Nation in decline. Being unproductive more than others does not make any country enviable. It is like saying, “We have more time to do nothing and to please ourselves, therefore we are first and everyone should follow us.”
Hi, Mike -
Gosh, I don’t know how I missed this. I watch FOX News almost all morning every weekday and would love to have seen you.
You did great! I don’t know how you kept your cool at what I think are some of the absurd comments the other guest make about workers needing breaks (that employers should pay for) and we are “last” in the line of industrial countries.
Keep up the great work and please do let me know if there is anything I can do to help further your initiatives. (I haven’t been up to making the State or SHRM Legislative and Leadership conferences but I hope to in the future, after I have my 2nd hip operation this June.
Oh, and Cornelia did agree that we should be able to give/get STRATEGIC HRCI credits whenever a legilsative update asks attendees to take any actions and provides information on what/how. Have you been giving Strategic credits,then?
Warm regards,
Susan
I agree with Mr. Aitken. One size does not fit all and giving employees rewards for meeting the myriad leave needs of their employees is what will make our nation even greater than it is now.
Yikes - sorry folks. I did’t realize my message was getting posted for all to see.
Susan
I am pleased to see SHRM take a stand that supports the workforce without undermining benefits already provided by many employers. Our company has a very liberal PTO (Paid Time Off) Policy which gives employees 24 days of paid leave per year for their first five years of employment, and 30 days of paid leave per year after five years of employment. We originally provided Vacation, Sick and Bereavement paid leave, and rolled it all into PTO because we didn’t want to have to quiz people and police the time off. Whereas employees used to call in sick, now they can schedule a day off for R & R or a half-day to stay home for the plumber. Bereavement time was particularly uncomfortable. We had found ourselves having to ask people what the relationship was between the employee and the loved one who had died, to make sure it fell into the parameters of our Bereavement Policy. The change was a win-win, because it wasn’t as important for us to know why people were taking time off, as it was to know when, and be able to schedule it to accommodate our work flow. I fear that legislation will be so restrictive that we will have to change back to a paid leave policy that has less flexibility, and our workers will end up with less of a benefit than they have now.
As a Federal Employee, HR Generalist (Staffing/Classification/HRD), I find the comments of Ms. Buckenroth not spoken like a senior manager, but very emotionally driven. As the VP of HR for Hudson S/R Firm, I am surprised that she did not show any senior management thought process in her comments. Consideration of the reasons for paid vacation being that of stress from day to day activities, work pressures, and the “deadly” financial strains of life, can be ambiguous and subjective. One employee’s stress can be another employee’s drive. Regardless of the profession, the basic business considerations relative to the management of it’s [a business] resources must be of prime consideration. The success of the organization is going to be in relation to the tangible or intangible productivity that is produced. Efficiency and effectiveness are relative to the tangible and intangible of resources management within a business. This is regardless of the type business. For Ms. Buckenroth to make a statement that today’s employees are overworked, stressed out, and financially distraught (I paraphrase), is not founded. Is there truth, yes, but there is so much variance that to generalize and standardize a program based on an extreme or a simple few, that would impact all, does not make good business sense. As for Mr. Aitken, I feel his response to Ms. Buckenroths’s comments, were short, sweet, and to the point. He was deliberate without being abrasive and focused his comments on the absurdity of attempting to “corral all reasons supporting a mandatory paid leave agenda, into one pen, and requiring all businesses to adapt and invoke this type policy, is socialist, radical, and has Marxist connotations. Mr. Aitken is correct when he mentioned that there is no way you can put all reasons for a leave program under one umbrella. The myriad of reason an employee takes leave is as many as what they spend the money on, who they date or marry, what they choose to eat for supper, or where they may choose to go on this paid vacation time. The Federal workforce has a very supportive and defendable leave program that support, sick leave, medical leave, family friendly leave, annual leave, military leave (for those who are members of the Reserve or National Guard), and leave without pay. All are available from the date of hire without a vesting period. All the leaves stated must be request by the employee. Supervisory approval is required and normal considerations, i.e. work load, amount of leave accrual, purpose of the leave, length of leave request, adherence to leave procedures, etc. may be used in leave approval or a request that a later date be considered because of mission necessity. I have had over 28 years in Government service, 23 years in the US Army and going on six as a federal civilian in HR. I feel very comfortable saying that there are more opportunities to take a vacation under the federal system that support the mission and the employee. Both are revitalized by the time taken. To mandate leave by a business, make them pay for it, and still expect them to be efficient, effective, and productive, I truly believe is as hopeful as wishing to win a lottery. Mr. Aitken, you certainly have my support. Ms. Buckenroth, your thoughts and words showed sympathy, not empathy, and displayed a tunneled view of employees that you feel one mandated program would fix. My statement to you would have to be….”back to the drawing board.”
I was unable to play the video but based on the comments by others here, it appears we are moving towards a socialist agenda of more and more time away from work and many more personal agendas . . . except making your livelihood and doing the job to your best ability. America is a melting pot and has shown the drive, enthusiasm and pride to excel by working hard to advance in the work world to make a good life for your family. It sounds more like the agenda now is more time to do what you prefer, other than work, and to have every possible malady, condition, sympton, syndrome and life stress and reason that has been mainstreamed and popularized to excuse you from work . . . and then expect the employer to pay you to boot! As a free country we didn’t work to become # 1 for almost two centuries to just find a way to regress.
I am just glad I do not work for Ms. Buckenroth…she sounds like just the type of HR Professional that distributes Great Adventure coupons and thinks that is employee relations! As a HR leader, she is out of touch with the current economic environment, especially in staffing. Guess her leadership plans on passing the cost of temp employee paid vacation on to the client??
I agree with Susan. I watch Fox & Friends every day but missed this. I guess I was on my way to work - not to my mandatory paid vacation.
Our company still has vacation, sick and berevement, but I hope we will someday move to PTO. The bottom line is that making an incentive for companies to provide paid days off is always better than being forced to by the government.
I appreciate SHRM for taking a stand with a better solution. I also appreciate their dedicated efforts to remain non-partisan in such a charged political environment where HR is now a big focus for new legislation.