Sneak Preview of our November Meeting
Also in November - Election of 2002 Chapter Officers…
Upcoming Chapter Discussion Groups
Board Meeting Minutes
Chesapeake Bay Organization Development Network
Human Resources Association of the National Capital Area
SHRM Fall 2001 Seminar Series
The Basics: Performance-Based Measurement for Diversity
Mark Your Calendars
Upcoming Meeting Topics
Check Out Previous Newsletters

Sneak Preview of our November Meeting

Employee Benefit Trends:
Rising Costs, Being a “Great Place to Work”, and Linking Employee Benefits to Revenue and Profits

In 2001 Human Resource and Benefit professionals have been challenged by increasing benefit plan costs, financial pressures to stabilize or reduce expenses, and continued market pressure to offer an attractive array of employee benefits and services. Adding to these challenges are the dynamics of the imperative to retain high performers, the need to keep all employees satisfied and productive, and the mandate to improve financial performance.

Join us on November 14th when David Downer of The Segal Company will present:

• The trends and approaches to managing the rising cost of health and Rx benefits
• The attributes of Washingtonian's October 2001 50 “Great Places to Work”
• Linking Employee Benefits and Services into the "Service Profit Chain"

David is a Senior Consultant with The Segal Company in Washington, DC. He serves as the Vice President of the WEB Network of Benefit Professionals Northern Virginia Chapter. He is also a member of the Dulles and NOVA Chapters of SHRM. Mr. Downer has more than 20 years of experience in the field of employee benefits. His experience encompasses working with national insurers, national managed care organizations, and he spent more than six years consulting employers while with another well-known national firm. He recently served as a technical consultant to Washingtonian magazine for their October 2001 50 “Great Places to Work” article. The Washington Post, Potomac Tech Journal and Washington Business Journal often quote him. He is a frequent speaker on employee benefits trends and how benefits can empower employee retention and recruitment programs. The Washington Business Journal and Virginia Technology magazine both have published Mr. Downer’s articles on employee benefits.

Also in November - Election of 2002 Chapter Officers…

November is when we elect our officers for 2002 (and you sure don’t want to miss the installation of officers at our holiday party in December!) Of course you know Nancy Streeter will be our 2002 “fearless leader,” and your current Prez will be the “past fearless leader.” The nominations for the remainder of the offices are as follows:

Even with this terrific line up, we still have a few opportunities for members to get more involved with the Chapter.

The Dulles Chapter has a history of understanding that volunteer leaders have busy professional and personal lives, so don’t think you will be overwhelmed. Please contact me (LynnLorenz@aol.com) or Nancy Streeter (nabbs@aol.com) with your questions or even better your offer of help.

These are the positions that we currently have open on the Board:

Assistant VP, Membership
Workforce Education Director
Sponsorship Coordinator
Student Chapter Liaison
Member-at-Large (1-2 positions)

Please thoughtfully consider having a more active role in your Chapter next year. The commitment is small, but the rewards are HUGE!

Upcoming Chapter Discussion Groups

The "Downsizing with Dignity" discussion group has been rescheduled to November 13 (from November 9). The facilitator for this topic is Deborah Siday.

And the next discussion group is "Sexual Harrassment" with facilitator Cornelia Gamlen, scheduled for December 11.

Join either of these groups to share experiences, learn from others or both! They will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at Lafarge Corporation, 12950 Worldgate Drive, Suite 600, Herndon, VA 20170. Contact Cindy Loison at Cindy.Loison@lafargecorp.com or (703) 480-370 if you are interested in attending.

And if you have any suggestions for topics for next year (either one where you would like to facilitate, or one where more information would enhance your work place effectiveness), please let Cindy know.

Board Meeting Minutes

Starting this month we will be posting the minutes from Board meetings on our web site - please take a few minutes to review them in full. Click Here to View.

Chesapeake Bay Organization Development Network

One of our sister organizations is the Chesapeake Bay Organization Development Network, who has a Tyson's Corner SIG. CBODN membership is not a pre-requisite, although encouraged. No pre-registration and no fees are required for SIG meetings. Meetings are normally held on the third Friday of each month.

Friday, October 19th meeting -
"Succession planning and high potential employees".
This session will include guest panelists, Steve Bauman, who is VP for HR at Marriott Corporation and Kathy Morinski, a consultant. We shall hear about Marriott's approach for the identification and retention of high potential employees. Planned topics include: A framework for identifying high potentials and classifying talent, introduced by Donal O'Hare; a moderated panel discussion chaired by Kim Pakstys; and a group exercise moderated by Burgess Levin.

The meeting will be held at Booz Allen offices in Tyson's Corner, at 8283 Greensboro Drive, McLean 22102. Free parking is available near the visitors entrance. Alternatives include using the Orange Line Metro train to West Falls Church station and taking the Rte 427 bus directly to Booz Allen offices. Sign in at Booz Allen Central Reception and pick up your visitor's badge. The meeting will be held in ALLEN building, Room 1169. Note that the start time is 8am, as always.

Sunday, November 18th -
"Performance measurement and self-assessment technologies"
arranged by Sunny Davis and Barbara Hampton-Barclay.

December -
Date and location not yet fixed - "Knowledge Management"
arranged by Norm Fisher and Joe Houck.

Saturday, January 19th -
"Fostering Creativity"
arranged by Dara Fulkerson and Mary Kirby.

Human Resources Association of the National Capital Area

2001-2002 Professional Development Programs

The HRA's Professional Development Series is designed to provide Senior and mid-level HR Professionals with the tools they need to become effective Business Partners, Leaders, and Contributors to their organizations. These half-day programs include presentations on current Human Resources topics by well-known local and national experts.

October 24, 2001: Educating Yourselves on How to Educate Your Employees About Retirement Planning, Loew's L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, Washington, DC.

This joint presentation by the Financial Planning Council of Annandale, Virginia, and Turner Pension Consultants of Annapolis, Maryland will help you communicate the realities of retirement planning to your employees.

Each program begins at 8:00 am and concludes at noon. Cost for each program for HRA-NCA members is $125.00; for non-members, the cost is $160.00. These fees include breakfast, the presentation, and materials.

For Registration information, contact Carol Worley, 301-657-3065; cworley@cohncommunications.com

SHRM Fall 2001 Seminar Series

SHRM announces that they will be bringing the Certification Preparation Course to our area this Fall. The information, including other dates/locations, is as follows:

10/22/01 - Orlando, FL
10/29/01 - Phoenix, AZ
11/05/01 - Baltimore, MD
11/12/01 - Atlanta, GA

For more information, please log on to the website: www.shrm.org/seminars.

The Basics: Performance-Based Measurement for Diversity
Myrna Marofsky, ProGroup President
Jackson Rains, Ed.D, ProGroup Associate

More and more, diversity professionals are being asked to measure the results of their activities. Some have resisted. They say, "It's not fair, we don't measure the impact of teams, management training, etc. We are being put to a higher test." Others have recognized the need to measure but felt inadequate to the task.

To the first group, we say, "You're missing a great opportunity to enhance your status and focus your efforts." To the second, we say, "You're underestimating your talents. You just don't know what you already know.

There are several good reasons for measuring the impact of diversity efforts.

• Organizational leaders expect it.
• Metrics can show where your diversity efforts are working and where they are not.
• Measurements that indicate success enhance your status and help to market new efforts internally.
• Measurements that indicate lack of success allow you to change course and develop new strategies and techniques.
• Incorporated into a diversity initiative design, metrics help to structure the effort, align expectations, and get senior management "buy-in" before, during, and after the effort.

• Relate directly to the organization's bottom-line business. Examples can include such things as entry into niche markets, improving communication between the organization and its customers, enhancing knowledge-worker productivity, increasing the effectiveness of newly merged functions or organizations, etc.
• Produce actionable results that allow senior managers to make decisions or take actions. Examples can include such things as attracting and retaining high-level technical professionals, providing English as a Second Language classes, determining schools to visit for recruitment efforts, etc.
• Adopt a systems approach to measurement so as to include all relevant variables.
• Adopt measurement techniques that are commonly used by the organization and enhance them by adding new elements, as needed, to demonstrate diversity's effectiveness. Examples can include such things as looking at productivity statistics by various groups, relating retention rates for groups to employee satisfaction results, etc.
• Incorporate your diversity expertise in ways that create meaning in metrics that might not otherwise be obvious. Examples can include such things as sales effectiveness by gender, customer complaints by demographic group, etc.

• Determining what actions are important to your organization's future success.
• Identifying how diversity is linked to those actions.
• Designing a research question that measures the impact of diversity.
• Building senior management support for the measurement effort.
• Locating and using relevant data that is already available within your department or organization.
• Gathering new data, including soft data, such as stories and examples.
• Analyzing the data.
• Producing a report that answers a question of interest to you and your senior managers in a way that allows them to make decisions or take actions.

Deciding What's Important

A good place to start is to ask senior managers to identify the issues that keep them awake at night. Also explore specific diversity issues such as recruitment, representation, retention, and promotion. The issues identified may vary considerably, depending on the organization's history with, and commitment to, diversity. In cultures that are compliance-oriented, interest will focus on issues of being in compliance with the law. Your challenge is to broaden the scope of the inquiry so senior managers see that diversity is linked to all aspects of the organization.

Designing the Metrics

Measurement is much more effective and informative when you create your metrics as an integral part of the diversity intervention. Early inclusion of metrics allows for "before" and "after" comparisons, encourages clarity on your part, and allows you to build support from senior managers. Both the diversity effort and the effectiveness of the measurements are improved immensely when you structure them and determine accountability from the beginning. Results of these measures can more reliably be used to show progress, adjust your program, and plan next steps.

The Ultimate Goal

The short-term goal of measurement is to provide information on the impact diversity has on the organization's effectiveness. The long-term goal of performance-based measurement for diversity is to provide management with the data needed to make strategic decisions that normalize diversity and imbeds it in all aspects of the organization. This is already happening when an organization realizes that it cannot provide top-quality customer service without addressing the growing diversity of its customer base, or when a team-building initiative incorporates the diversity of the team into the process. Instead of measuring the impact of diversity as an isolated factor, more and more, diversity is recognized as one of a constellation of factors that contribute to the effectiveness of the organization.

Control the Complexity of the Measurement Process

Keep in mind that measurement is a process, not an event. Begin with simple diversity measures, then link them together to build a more complex system of measurement. The results of one study combine with, and give perspective to, the results of the next.

Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to design a plan that measures everything at once. Start with the obvious questions and connections and work your way up to the more complex issues. This way, you will learn what your boss and senior management expect from a measurement process, and you can build it into future activities. Over time, you will learn more about what results best reflect the impact diversity has on the organization, and which then will allow you to design more elegant measurement processes. Designing Research Questions

Both supporters and detractors of diversity initiatives ask questions. The questions may be the same, but the motivation for asking them may be very different. The key to effective measurement is to ask questions that are clearly stated and unbiased and where the impact can be isolated. The last part is the most important. Diversity is linked to so many parts of the organization that it is difficult to isolate its impact to one or even a few dimensions. Build alignment early in the process among senior management about what areas are impacted. Defending your conclusions about the impact of a diversity initiative is virtually impossible at the report stage if you have not built alignment during the design stage.

The hot question currently seems to be the broad measurement of return on investment (ROI). This requires that you quantify the result of the action and divide it by the cost of the action. These calculations often miss the intangible results of an initiative and simply measure their short-term return. In spite of their shortcomings, many companies begin here and continue to measure ROI, even as they move on to ask questions designed to elicit more in-depth and strategically significant knowledge.

Sources of Data

When first confronted with a measurement request, most professionals think that there is no data to use for the measurement. Seasoned measurement professionals know that we are drowning in a sea of data, and the hard part is identifying and limiting it. Each of the categories of metrics in the figure on the preceding page contain dozens of measurements that are made on a regular basis by your organization. Look at each of these areas and talk with people who compile these reports. Consider how each of these reports is linked to the diversity effort you are measuring.

There will be some situations in which you will have to collect new data. This is usually a straightforward process, with the main issue being sure to not introduce any biases into the data.

Conducting the Analysis

The prospect of having to use statistics to conduct an analysis of the data is one thing that makes people nervous. Our answer is to find those in your organization who have an expertise in statistical analysis and use them. They may be in the marketing department, information services, or accounting. If there are no internal people, there are inexpensive computer packages available, and even Lotus or Excel can complete the analysis. In addition, there are always consultants who will be glad to conduct the analysis for you.

Reporting the Results

The report is both an opportunity and a challenge. The report has to state the results in a clear and unbiased manner. The report can become a target for detractors, so it needs to be well constructed and documented. Like a chain, a report is only as strong as its weakest assumption. If a detractor can successfully challenge any part of the report, the whole report is usually tainted. The work you have done early in the process to manage expectations and build support and alignment will serve you well in the report phase.

Putting it all Together

Just like when you started that last exercise program, and your muscles were sore for a while, the first few measurement activities are going to be hard. You will do some things the first few times that you will quickly learn to do in a more effective way the next time. But once the language of measurement becomes internalized, metrics will be a normal part of your thinking and planning.

Thanks to Deidre Iannelli, our chapter’s Diversity Director, for finding this article for us.

Mark Your Calendars

Upcoming SHRM conferences and seminars:

• SHRM Leadership Conference, November 15-17, 2001, Alexandria VA
• SHRM Workplace Diversity: New Challenges, New Opportunities Conference, December 3-5, 2001 in San Diego, CA
• 2002 VA SHRM State Conference, October 9-11, 2002 in Roanoke, VA (never too soon to block the time)

Upcoming Meeting Topics

Upcoming meeting topics:

• November 14 - Benefit Trends- Dave Downer with The Segal Company - note the date: the second Wed
• December 5 - Holiday party and installation of officers - note the date: the first Wednesday
• January 16 - Legislative update by Jason Branciforte, Chapter Legislative Liason
• February 20 - Managing Your Boss with chapter member Marty Brown

And as we think about next year -- got any program ideas?

We are beginning work on next year’s programs and would love your input. Please share your ideas (either for speakers you’ve heard who would be good, or topics you would like to hear) with Nancy Streeter at nabss@aol.com.

That’s all for this month unless you have any ideas or suggestions? We received some great feedback after the last meeting. This is your chapter - let us know what’s on your mind!

Lynn M. Lorenz, SPHR
President
Dulles SHRM
E-mail