The Workplace Reinvented

If you're employed, you're probably asked to do more with less: harder, faster, better.

There's no reason to believe that today's employers are crueler than past ones. What's different is that today's employers have large new costs that make it ever more difficult to stay in business: mountains of paperwork to comply with federal, state, and local regulations, more employee lawsuits, and government-required employer costs: from worker's compensation to "non-worker's comp-"-the too-often abused Family and Medical Leave Act.  

And of course, employers are ever more subject to global competition. For example, in the not-so-distant past, U.S. car makers could get away with making inferior cars using parts with deliberately short mean-time between failure/planned obsolescence, and could afford to cave to the media-abetted unions and despite mediocre work, give assembly-line workers lifetime job guarantees and better compensation packages ($73 an hour) than most professionals receive.

As a result, a large percentage of the price you paid for for a car has gone to paying for inferior parts and very expensive not-great workers. Asian car companies such as Toyota and Honda offer higher-quality-quality vehicles (average labor cost: $48 an hour)

The U.S. keeps trying to prop up U.S carmakers: for example, a 25% tariff on foreign pickup trucks and a taxpayer-funded $60 billion bailout of GM. Regarding the latter, despite statements by the Obama administration, it has failed--the bailout occurred when the stock price was $34. The breakeven price is $53 but it closed today at 22, a $15 billion loss for you and me.

Yes, a small percentage of large American corporations are doing just fine and because their stock price is up, their executives make a fortune. But more broadly, because of the above factors, to survive, American employers, from auto makers to chip makers to small companies, and, yes even government agencies, must often ask workers to work harder, faster, better.

Alas, too many employees will crumble under the pressure. If you're lucky enough to have a job in this economy, you are ever more likely to get maxed out--you have no more blood to give. 

So what's the answer? I believe the U.S. workplace can be reinvented so as to make worklife better for employees, while net, improving employers' products', services and bottom line. 

Of course, no one model will apply to all workplaces but I hope the eight ideas in this proposal will at least stimulate your own thinking on how to improve your workplace.  

1. No one-size-fits-all treatment of employees. Unions and gender/race advocacy groups often demand policies that require all employees be treated equally. Yet it's wiser to celebrate diversity: Each individual employee needs more or less supervision, more or less accountability, more or less flexibility of hours, more or less telecommuting, more or less of a workload. Employers deserve broader latitude in individualizing approaches to employees.

2. Convert at least some cubicles into officettes. The noise and lack of privacy in cubicles is draining. Employees' worklives would be more pleasant and employers would probably gain more in profitability if at least some cubes were converted into officettes: Use standard wallboard to raise the between-cubical screens to ceiling height, and add a door. 

3. Expand telecommuting. With government having decided to try to force us out of our cars and into mass transit by not building freeways and thus increasing gridlock, commute times are growing. In many metropolitan areas, by the time we arrive at work, we've already dissipated a fair amount of our day's energy. Tack on the commute home and we're ever less likely to want to finish up any work nor have the energy to be a patient parent or domestic partner, let alone to do volunteer work. So, many employees spend most of their evening exhausted in front of a TV with a beer or something stronger.

Especially with the availability of free videoskype to augment phone and internet, more employees who feel they can be as or more productive working at home (or a Starbucks) should be allowed to do so, at least for part of the week. Not only would that reduce commute times, many employees are more relaxed at home, working in their comfies, and may enjoy reduced child-care expenses. And the employer saves money by not needing to build or lease as much office space. 

4. Allow pets. Yes, I'm aware that an inconsiderate pet owner could bring a fleabag to work. Solution: After one warning to use flea remedy, Fido's visitation rights could be revoked. Too, I'm aware that some people are allergic to or terrified of Fido. Solution: If Fido's owner's efforts to keep Fido away from Fearful fail or if Fearful's workspace can't be moved far enough from Fido, the doggie could be forced to turn in his employee badge. 

The benefits of pets in the workplace greatly exceed the liabilities. According to a survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, most people believe that pets in the workplace make people happier, reduce stress, contribute to a more creative environment, and decreases absenteeism. That makes sense to me. Besides, think of how happy Fido will be to have its owner close at hand for a hug--and a much appreciated walk. Already, 17 percent of large companies allow pets at work. More employers should. 

5. Relax the dress code. Sure, some people love dressing up every day to go to work, but many more find it time-consuming, expensive, and constraining. Personally speaking, I find a tie a mere step from a noose. And when I see someone (a lawyer, financial planner, etc) in a suit, I grab hold of my wallet--It makes me wonder if s/he didn't spend all that money on packaging himself to hide a lack of substance underneath. Dress codes should be more flexible. "Dress as you like" may sound extreme but I think that's wisest.

6. Improve the subtleties of workplace safety. Fortunately, the era of workplaces with toxic fumes and other noxiousness have largely been eradicated in the U.S. But more subtle but still very problematic safety hazards exist. For example, millions of desks/workstations contribute to repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Another example: research indicates that sitting too long can kill you. A solution: an adjustable-height desk or, less expensive, adjustible height keyboard tray and monitor arm. Those allow you comfortably to, for example, work on a computer, while sitting or standing. Improving workspaces ergonomically is a cost-effective way to improve workers' lives.

7. Make ADA requirements more flexible. As with many laws, pressure groups have filed lawsuits forcing expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act well beyond the non-controversial improving wheelchair access, to everything from celiac disease to chronic fatigue so that now, for example, a person with a psychologist's note saying the employee is depressed is entitled to so-called "Reasonable Accommodation."  

On one hand, I understand the frustration of a person with a mental or physical illness or disability not wanting the additional burden of being persona non grata in the workplace. On the other hand, if employers are forced to assume the burden of employing such people, net, that causes harm:

• coworkers often must take on extra work to "carry" the disabled employee,
• all of us customers suffering from worse products or services. 
• the shareholders who have invested their savings in the company losing money, the employers. If an employer chooses to terminate any of the 43 to 54 million Americans now covered under ADA, the employer must prove that the employee wasn't fired because of the disability. As a result, many employers retain poor performing employees, make Reasonable Accommodations for them, and accept the resulting reduced profitability and increased risk of going out of business. The companies are more at risk of going broke because, in every other country in the world ("the U.S. is a benchmark",) employers are under less pressure to retain employees with serious mental or physical disabilities. And, of course, if a business goes bust, all its employees lose their jobs--devastating to their and their family's lives.

I believe that moderating the Americans with Disabilities Act would lead to greater net good. 

8. Make Affirmative Action policies more flexible. As with the ADA, no reasonable person could dispute Affirmative Action's original intent: to ensure that people of all races, religions, and sexual orientations are treated fairly.

But pressure from government and advocacy groups has converted the originally reasonable affirmative action laws and policies to, in practice, decreasing the weight of merit in hiring, promotion, and firing, and increasing the weight of non-merit-based criteria: aiming for proportionality in race, gender, age, and sexual orientation.

And government is now extending employment rights to the long-term unemployed and to ex-felons. For example, the Obama Administration has made it easier for ex-offenders to prevail in lawsuits by providing such legal weapons as the Disparate Impact Theory of Discrimination. For example, in a biotechnology company, if there is a smaller percentage of African-Americans or ex-felons in leadership positions than in the general population, that is deemed to be evidence of discrimination! There's something Alice-in-Wonderland-like about pressuring employers to not give preference to applicants who haven't been felons nor been rejected by many other employers. 

Such policies are bad for coworkers, who thereby are forced to work with coworkers who are not as competent or easy to work with as those who would have been selected if hiring, promotion, and firing were based only on merit.

They're even bad for the protected classes: minorities, women, the disabled, sexual minorities. Too often, even fully qualified people in those classes are viewed askance: that they wouldn't have been hired if it weren't for their being, for example, an "underrepresented" minority.

Nor are such policies good for employers, whether companies, nonprofits, or government agencies. Their products and services have to be worse for feeling pressure to hire, promote, and fire, based on criteria other than merit.  And such companies are more likely to fail, costing all the employees' jobs, because their competitors in other countries such as India and China are under far less such pressure. 

Of course, a few foolish employers will refuse to hire and promote the best candidates because of non-merit-based factors but, for the reasons cited, far greater ill to society accrues from the massive so-called "equal opportunity" enterprise. America would be wiser to reduce pressure to hire based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and age, let alone having been long-term unemployed or committed a felony.

Instead, American law and policy should simply encourage people perceiving discrimination to seek mediation, and, if that fails, arbitration, with taxpayer-funded subsidizing of legal fees for low-income claimants.