Welcome to the November 3, 2004 issue of The Total View

Your resource for cutting-edge news, tips, and tools to help you hire, manage,
and motivate top-performing employees.

If you are receiving this issue as a forward, and want your own subscription, visit
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/newsletter.htm

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In This Issue
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1. Announcing the Hiring Top Performers Blog.
2. Ah.....Ah.....Ah.....choooo! One Flu Over the Employee's Nest.
3. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #276 to #280.
4. Tips You Can Use - Background Checks.
5. SMILE! When you think about the differences between work and prison, maybe prison isn't so bad...
6. How to Hire High Motivation Employees.
7. What Would You Do if You Could Get Inside The Head of Your Customers?

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The Total View is written and published each Wednesday by Ira S. Wolfe, founder of Success Performance Solutions. (Yes, Ira writes every article, every week!) and is distributed with permission by The Chrysalis Corporation.

Ira S. Wolfe 2004 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

To learn more about The Chrysalis Corporation or to read back issues of The Total View, visit our web site at http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/totalview_backissues.htm

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1. Announcing the Hiring Top Performers Blog.
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We are pleased to announce the Hiring Top Performers blog -- the official blog of The Chrysalis Corporation.

Three years ago we published a monthly newsletter but we couldn't keep up with all the news affecting workers and workplaces. Two years ago we began publishing The Total View, our weekly newsletter....and we still can't keep up with all the news.

So today we're very excited to announce our "Hiring Top Performers" Blog where we can post daily updates, audio clips, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. YOU can even post questions, comments, and opinions anonymously. In addition to containing newsletter excerpts, our blog will have special updates and news features not included in our weekly newsletter. For example, if you visit our blog right now, you will find "The Apprentice" Post Game Analysis audio update.

The Hiring For Top Performers Blog provides you with a way of receiving breaking news as it happens. Visit our new blog now and check back often. If you have a Yahoo Home Page, you can even add our blog to your page with one click.

Check it out at:
http://www.hiring-top-performers.blogspot.com

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2. Ah.....Ah.....Ah.....choooo! One Flu Over the Employee's Nest.
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Flu Vaccine Shortage and Presenteeism

Ah.....Ah.....Ah.....choooo! So it begins. Sniffles and a scratchy throat. You feel like you're burning up, and then the fever breaks and you start to shiver. Your muscles ache. You have the flu.

You want to burrow under the covers with a quilt pulled up to your chin. Instead, you chauffer the kids, running errands in between pick-ups and drop-offs. Staying at home, in bed, isn't an option. Your sick days went to taking care of ailing children. Missing work means losing vacation days to the flu.

Sullen, achy and miserable, you drag into work. Maybe you can close your office door, turn off the phone, tell your assistant you don't want to be disturbed, and put your head down on your desk. If don't have an office, you tough it out, trying valiantly to concentrate.

Ah, the flu, a malady that strikes nearly 20 percent of Americans each year. To employers, this means absenteeism and lower productivity. Think of the havoc this causes for staffing, maintaining customer service, and meeting deadlines.

The average worker misses up to 1.5 days a year because of the flu, says David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that healthy workers who had been vaccinated against the flu reported 43 percent fewer sick days and 44 percent fewer doctor visits as a result of upper-respiratory illnesses. That is until this year. As a result of the flu vaccine shortage, that absenteeism rates could double.

What this means to employers is that yet another front is converging on the workplace, making The Perfect Labor Storm even more imminent. First, the number of sick employees will increase dramatically. Absenteeism merges with presenteeism - the problem of workers being on the job, but not fully productive. Swirling around this lost productivity are rising health care costs resulting from flu-related medical claims. The final blow comes from the family factor - parents miss work when kids are sick.

This isn't conjecture. In an average year when nearly 90 million people receive a flu shot, influenza kills 36,000 Americans and puts more than 200,000 in hospitals for prolonged stays. This year less than 54 million people will receive a flu shot and that doesn't include many workers who fall in the lower risk age groups but are just as susceptible.

More people will get sick as the resources to cope with the flu dwindle. Health care workers are at risk due to their constant exposure to infected patients. Already, hospitals have contingency plans to shut down elective services and house patients in the corridors in the event staffing falls below demand for service.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that approximately four-fifths of mothers with school-age children and 51 percent of mothers with infants are in the paid workforce. Daycare centers turn away sick youngsters during flu season. That means working parents leave their jobs to take sick kids home. That's where they stay until symptoms go away.

There's more. Although many healthy employees rise to the challenge, there is always a sub-group of "me first" workers. You know them. They are the people who stay home when co-workers are ill. There is no way ailing colleagues will screw up their social lives. Even when everyone does show up, the healthy employee is pondering how to stay well and the sick co-worker is figuring out how to go home. By the end of the day, more time was invested in damage control than productivity.

All told, flu-related medical costs and work days could cost the economy as much as $20 billion this year. That is not necessarily what employers like you who run "lean and mean" operations want to hear.

Although it seems counter-intuitive, experts encourage sick employees to stay home. That's a change from the time-honored thinking that the ultimate loyal employee never misses a work day. Today, the employee who comes in sick and lethargic, spreading germs with every sneeze and sniffle should be the goat, not the hero.

Apparently no one told this to the workers. Nearly 90 percent of workers responding to a recent LifeCare poll admitted to coming in to work while sick. Why? Twenty seven percent show up out of obligation and twenty-four percent feel it's "too risky" to be absent.

Obviously, employers haven't gotten the message either. Company policies are out of sync with current knowledge about employee productivity. More than 91 percent of companies surveyed had disciplinary policies for using too many sick days. Forty percent of hourly workers have no sick day benefits. With so many people living from paycheck to paycheck, staying home because of the flu is not likely to happen. Management takes some responsibility for the rash of presenteesim. As one manager told me, "I expect my employees to get their butts out of bed and get in here."

What can an employer do to prevent the flu from wiping out employee ranks? Re-think your sick pay policy. Both absenteeism and presenteeism cost an employer. Understand the impact of each on productivity and decide if is better for sick workers to come to work or to stay home? Think long-term effects, including the impact on the cost of health care. If you choose to protect the healthy worker and maintain productivity, make sure your sick day benefits don't encourage workers to come to work sick. The hero worker who manages to punch in for a full day's work, despite illness, needs to be discouraged from coming in at all costs.

Encourage all employees to practice good hygiene (See "Coping with the Flu."). Promote hand washing, discourage contact with sick workers, and keep doorknobs, desks, phones, keyboards, and computer and office machines clean with disinfectant wipes. University of Arizona researchers tracked disease-causing bacteria and germs in the office and found that there are 400 times more germs present at a workplace desk than on a toilet seat in the bathroom down the hall. A little prevention and proactive strategy could maintain a productive workforce along with a healthy bottom line.

Jac Fitz-enz, universally acknowledged as the father of human capital benchmarking, began his session at the HR Technology Conference and Exposition just a few weeks ago by pulling a pen from his coat pocket and holding it up so everyone in the standing-room-only audience could see. "Here's a piece of equipment," he said. "Let's watch it add value." He stood for a moment holding the pen as the silent room watched. "Nothing's happening," he said. "That's because it can only add value when somebody who knows how to use it properly picks it up and uses it."

Fitz-enz used the example to underline what he says top-level management is finally coming to understand: Human capital, expertly aligned to the business through careful deployment of workforce analytics, is the greatest "value-add" of all.

While The Chrysalis Corporation can't help irradicate the flu, we do help businesses and organizations identify the right benefits and value-added incentives to help recruit the best employees and retain them. To speak with one of our consultants, call 229-257-0665.

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3. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #276 to #280.
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Presenteeism isn't about pretending to be ill to avoid work or surfing the Internet when you should be preparing a report. Presenteeism is productivity loss resulting from real health problems.

Fact #276: Depression set U.S. employers back $35 billion a year. (Source: JADA)

Fact #277: Arthritis, headaches, and back problems cost U.S employers nearly $47 billion a year. (Source: JADA)

Fact #278: The total cost of presenteeism in the United States is more than $105 billion a year. (Source: American Productivity Audit)

Fact #279: On-the-job productivity loss resulting from depression and pain is roughly 3X greater than absence-related productivity loss attributed to these conditions. (Source: American Productivity Audit)

Fact #280: Allergies, which affect rougly 25% of the U.S. population during the spring and fall seasons cause a productivity loss of 7 percent among workers.

Do you sit on a program committee for your local civic, business or professional association? "The Perfect Labor Storm" is the perfect topic for meetings, conferences and keynotes. Schedule Ira Wolfe today. Find out what's ahead in employment trends and how it will affect career opportunities, education, quality of life issues and more. Call 717.656.4632 for more information.

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Order your copy today - $7.95 includes no shipping costs for limited time only. Follow this link to learn more:
http://www.perfectlaborstorm.com

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4. Tips You Can Use - Background Checks.
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To provide our clients with one-stop shopping for employee evaluation from pre-employment to career succession, we are very pleased to introduce our new partnership with Information Architects, a leading provider of Employment Screening and Background Investigations. IA's premier background screening solution utilizes a state-of-the-art web based interface to provide you with the fastest, easiest, and most customizable ordering/delivering platform in the marketplace today.

If, like Pinocchio's nose, each lie a candidate told on his/her resume or during the interview became immediately apparent, business owners could easily weed out employees who cheat and deceive. So, how can you tell if an employee is lying about their work experience, education, criminal record or even if they are who they say they are?

BACKGROUND CHECKS. Sixty-one percent of the human resource (HR) professionals surveyed said they find inaccuracies in résumés after carrying out background checks. (Source: SHRM Background Checks/Résumé Inaccuracies online survey, 2004)

Services include:

Employment Verification
Criminal Records Search
Civil Records Search
Workers Comp Search
SSN Verification
Credit Reports
DMV Reports
Bankruptcy Search
Degree Verification
Professional License Verification
Drug Screening

To Learn more about background checking, follow this link:

http://www.ia.com/perceptre/affiliates/chrysalis.asp

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5. SMILE! When you think about the differences between work and prison, maybe prison isn't so bad...
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...considering 1 out of every 130 people will serve prison time at some point in their lives (Fact #177 - The Perfect Labor Storm).

IN PRISON.......You spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell.
AT WORK........You spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.

IN PRISON.......You get three meals a day.
AT WORK........You get a break for 1 meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON.......You get time off for good behaviour.
AT WORK........You get rewarded for good behaviour with more work.

IN PRISON.......A guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK........You must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON........You can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK.........You get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON.......You get your own toilet.
AT WORK........You have to share.

IN PRISON.......They allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK........You cannot even speak to your family and friends.

IN PRISON.......All expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK........You get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from you salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON.......You spend most of your life looking through bars from inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK........You spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON......There are wardens who are often sadistic.
AT WORK.......They are called supervisors.

IN PRISON.......You have unlimited time to read e-mail jokes.
AT WORK........You get fired if you get caught.

Source: lotsofjokes.com

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6. How to Hire High Motivation Employees.
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It is finally here - The How to Hire The High Motivation Employee audio series. Six 30-minute CDs - more than three hours of interviews - guide a manager through each section of the TotalView(tm) Assessment System, complete with examples and stories you can use to hire the right employee, ask the right interview questions, and build the best teams. Why TotalView? It is simply the best job matching and employee evaluation system on the market today.

The first CD begins with an overview of the TotalView(tm) Assessment System and explanations of each of the Abilities scales. The second CD focuses on Motivations and Interests. And CDs three through six discuss the four major personality traits and eight sub-scales in detail.

As a thank you for reading The Total View newsletter, we're offering the complete audio series for only $197 (valued at $257)

Order How to Hire The High Motivation Employee, follow this link:
Click Here

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7. What Would You Do if You Could Get Inside The Head of Your Customers?
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Have you ever imagined how valuable brutally honest feedback from your customers would be to your company or organization? I'm talking about no B.S. feedback about how your customers REALLY feel about your products, services, and support. What would it be like if your clients provided you with suggestions that actually increased your profits and bottom line and eliminated the "hit and miss" approach to sales and marketing? Stop imagining and start knowing!

The easiest and most cost-effective way to get this information is to conduct a survey. A survey eliminates the psychological pressure for clients to tell you what they think you want to hear. Some people, regardless of how unhappy they are with a product or service, refuse to voice their dissatisfaction with a company because it makes them feel uncomfortable. They simply "vote with the feet" and tend to go away without you ever knowing the reason why. The end result -- you lose business without ever knowing the reasons why. Surveys neutralize a potentially awkward and uncomfortable situation for clients by providing a way for them to provide you with honest and direct feedback in an anonymous manner.

We have taken all the stress and hassles out of creating, deploying, inputting, and analyzing survey results.

Contact us today to learn about about real-time e-mail and web based surveys. No more hassles with entering results and creating presentations. Let us do the work for you. We can help you write, set-up, distribute (electronically), process and present in less time for less cost than you can imagine.

For more information about the survey solutions we can provide you with, including our Rapid Survey Option, follow the link below and type "Surveys" in the comment box. You can also contact us by phone at: 229-257-0665:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/contact_us_surveys.htm

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Contact Information:

The Chrysalis Corporation
2001 Hammock Drive
Valdosta, GA 31602
229-257-0665

To learn more about The Chrysalis Corporation, visit:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com