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Employment

Implementation of Sick-leave Law Frustrates Employers

By BusinessWest Staff August 25, 2015

Not Feeling Well

When Massachusetts voters approved a law mandating paid sick leave for a vast swath of workers, many employers worried about the expenses and legal issues the new law would raise. While the final version of the law, which went into effect on July 1, smoothed over some of those concerns, anxieties remain, over issues ranging from higher operating costs to strained employee relations to the potential for abuse.

As new laws go, this one is causing employers to feel … well, a little sick.

“I would say many are confused and anxious,” said Mark Adams, director of HR Services for the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast (EANE), when asked about member reaction to Massachusetts’ earned-sick-leave law, which took effect on July 1.

“They’re frustrated as well, in the sense that many of our members who have been doing the right thing, that already have paid sick-leave benefits, have had to unwind many aspects of that to come into compliance with some of the finer points of the law. There are some components built in that have given employers pause.”

At its heart, the law requires businesses with 11 or more employees to offer 40 hours of paid sick time per year. Companies with fewer than 11 employees must still provide 40 hours of sick leave, but it can be unpaid.

“We’ve done a number of briefings to educate companies, and for a lot of them, especially for companies that operate in multiple states, this has been particularly challenging,” Adams said, noting that many businesses with existing sick-leave policies must revamp their payroll systems and handbooks — mid-year, no less — to comply with the new law.

“They’ve provided this benefit all along, with favorable feedback from employees, and it costs time and effort to retool to meet the requirements,” he went on. “Then, you look at things being put forward on the federal level that would apply to federal contractors, a potential executive order that might require federal contractors to pay sick leave. If that ever comes to fruition, it would make it even more complicated to try to comply with both federal and state law, and you’re creating this ever-evolving patchwork of regulations on a benefit that, for many companies, they apply across the board. It makes it harder for many businesses that have been trying to do the right thing all along.”

Attorney Susan Fentin, a partner with the Springfield-based employment-law firm Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., agreed with that assessment.

Susan Fentin says employers worry about the potential of employees abusing the new law, especially because workers are protected from employer retaliation for asserting their right to paid sick time.

“Most of our clients offer some form of paid leave,” she told BusinessWest. “The problem with the sick-leave law is, it expands the types of issues that somebody can take leave for; you’re not only allowed to take leave because of your own illness, but because of the illness of a parent, spouse, or parent in law. You can also take leave for medical or dental appointments, and to travel to and from these appointments. That’s obviously a need for many employees, but it’s generally not permissible under most employee sick-leave policies.

“So it’s an added burden,” she went on. “Perhaps a justifiable one, given the demands of society; individuals do have family members who are ill and need medical attention. But it’s nonetheless a burden on the employer.”

Attorney Olga Serafimova, an associate with Royal LLP, said the Northampton-based employment-law firm was peppered with questions leading up to July 1, as many clients were scrambling to adjust their policies, but it has been “dead silence” since, as though employers are holding their breaths and hoping they’ve instituted the changes correctly.

“Really it was smaller businesses that didn’t have leave policies previously that were affected the most,” she said. “A lot of those businesses fluctuate between 10 and 11 employees or around that number. For them, it’s an added expense.”

The attorney general’s office, she noted, did address many employer concerns in its final regulations, tightening up rules concerning sick-time accrual, employee justification for time off, and other details. “Of course, many businesses still feel it’s way too broad, way too generous, and a financial burden. And for smaller employees, this will have more of an impact.”

Potential for Abuse

That issue of justification for time off — in other words, the doctor’s note — is one element of the law that has employers on edge, because of its potential to breed abuse. The draft regulations stated that employees are not required to produce proof of illness until the time off exceeds 24 hours.

“For a part-time employee, that could mean more than a week, depending on how long the shifts are,” Serafimova said. “In the final regulations, it was changed to 24 consecutive hours or three consecutive days, even for part-timers. That was something the attorney general’s office picked up on and adjusted.”

The three-day rule, however, promises to be irksome to many employers, Fentin said.

“Previously, if an employee had an unplanned absence, the employer might have said, ‘I need a doctor’s note for that.’ Now the employee isn’t required to get a doctor’s note until, at minimum, a three-day absence.

“We represent management, so we’re always a shade cynical,” she went on. “The potential for abuse is pretty high with this law, the way it’s been drafted. Some changes to the draft regulations made it a little more palatable. For instance, now, the minimum amount of time you can use is an hour, so you can’t walk in 15 minutes late and say, ‘I was sick.’

“Of course,” she noted, “you can walk in an hour late and say, ‘I was sick.’ The employer would just have to forgive that. Frankly, somebody could take every Friday afternoon off all summer long because of so-called ‘medical appointments.’”

Serafimova noted that some employers might opt to provide 40 hours of sick time right at the beginning of employment, instead of having it accrue gradually, so they don’t have to change their payroll systems. “But that goes to the question about abuse. Giving one week up front creates the possibility for people to use it up and move on to the next business.”

This is especially true for employers with seasonal or temporary employees, she added. “As much as it sounds like it would make things simpler, [front-loading sick time] wouldn’t be a benefit for many employers. It saves them some money in adjusting their payroll systems, but they may end up paying anyway to people who are only there for a short period of time and take their sick leave, then give their notice. The requirements are so broad, there’s little limitation on how you can use sick leave. Businesses have had to really think about what is the better option.”

Click HERE to download a PDF chart of the region’s Employment Agencies

On top of that, Adams said, the law might turn out to be an employee-relations minefield for businesses that had existing sick-leave policies in place.

“Many companies are dealing with employees who might have false expectations based on what they’ve heard in the media, who think they’re getting more benefits than they’re accustomed to, when really, that’s not the case,” he explained. “These companies have already been providing fair and competitive benefits, but now they’re dealing with angst from employees who aren’t getting anything additional — but, frankly, never asked for it.”

Serafimova agreed. “Some employers who had a paid-time-off policy in place opted to reduce it and make 40 hours of it sick leave,” she said. “So people who were previously offered three weeks vacation time, saw that changed to two weeks vacation and one week sick leave. Unfortunately, while that keeps the expenses of the employer the same, the perception in the workforce is that they lost a benefit, and that creates discontent and morale issues. A lot of businesses are struggling that that decision.”

It’s just one way, Adams said, that “a law aimed at a small segment of businesses has created burdens for a large number of them.”

Navigating a Minefield

A large number indeed, to hear Fentin tell it.

“The way this is written, it’s the most generous, but, from an employer perspective, the most draconian, most burdensome sick-leave law in any state in the country — including California, which says a lot.”

Where it becomes dangerous for employers and not simply burdensome is in the law’s anti-retaliation language, and the potential for lawsuits if an employer tries to infringe upon a worker’s leave rights — or even the perception of infringement.

“They said they would not come down on employers for a while, give everyone some time to work out the bugs,” she said, regarding communications from the attorney general’s office. “That was encouraging. How long that lasts, we don’t know. All it takes is a couple of employees filing complaints.”

Serafimova said her clients, too, are anxious to see how issues play out.

Olga Serafimova says the attorney general’s final regulations addressed some initial concerns about the sick-leave law, but many businesses still find the measure burdensome.

“The final regulations say you can discipline an employee who commits fraud or abuse, that people cannot use sick leave as an excuse to come late to work. At the same time, the law says you can’t punish an employee for exercising sick leave. What is abuse to one side may be the exercise of their rights to another. To me, this sounds like future litigation waiting to happen.

“We’re going to wait and see how that plays out because, again, it is enforced by the Attorney General’s Office, and if there’s any basis [for a complaint], they will proceed to investigate. On one hand, that’s good for someone who’s fighting over their sick time at work. But, at the same time, it opens the proverbial floodgates for anyone who’s not happy with their employer for any reason.”

And while defending against a complaint could be expensive for an employer, it’a free for the employee, she added. “Ultimately, it falls on the employer to defend against a meritless claim, because there’s absolutely no barrier to filing a claim, not even a $5 filing fee.”

That’s why it’s important that human-resources staff train managers in how to handle leave requests in this new environment, Serafimova said.

“If I come up to the employer and say, ‘I’m not feeling well today. Can I go home?’ I have asked for job-protected sick leave,” she explained. “Now, if I am late three times in one week, or say, ‘I’m not feeling well, can I go home?’ an untrained manager might say, ‘oh, not again, I’m going to discipline you.’ But, with the job protection this law provides, you can’t do that anymore. If people aren’t properly trained, it could lead to trouble for the employer.”

Fentin has been sharing similar advice. “We like keeping clients out of trouble; that’s much easier than defending them when they get in trouble,” she told BusinessWest. “We want them to do the right thing. We’re all on the same page.”

Still, she added, “we’re really in the weeds here. This is going to be a problem for employers for a long time going forward. Although a lot of my clients have made changes, they’re waiting to see what happens.”

That’s true with EANE members as well, Adams said. “Eventually, it will become easier to manage, but until we get through this transition, we’re going to see considerable frustration and confusion for the foreseeable future as companies continue to come to grips with the law.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Stiff Penalties Await Violators of Retaliation Provisions of Wage Act

By BusinessWest Staff August 25, 2015

Employment Sections

Beware Section 150

By PETER VICKERY, Esq.

Peter Vickery

How much could an employer end up paying for violating the anti-retaliation provisions of the Wage Act? Much more than you might expect.

A recent case in Worcester Superior Court involved an employer that fired an employee over her request for unpaid wages in the amount $3,750. To come close to the damages the court awarded the employee, multiply that figure by 50.

The name of the case is Wessell v. Mink Brook Associates. The plaintiff, Mary Ellen Wessell, served as the business manager for a home-restoration company called Mink Brook, whose president is Robert Stone. Wessell’s annual salary was $50,000. In late 2011, Wessell told Stone she believed one of his employees was stealing from the company.

In January 2012, Stone (who seems not to have shared her suspicions) demoted Wessell and installed as business manager the very employee Wessell suspected of stealing. Two months later, Stone refused to issue Wessell her paycheck. When they met — in the presence of Wessell’s new superior, whom she had accused of stealing — Stone accused Wessell herself of stealing, and fired her. At that point, in March 2012, the amount due Wessell in wages and unused vacation time was $3,750.

A little over two years later, in January 2014, the trial judge told the jury, “if you find that Ms. Wessell was terminated unlawfully from making a complaint regarding the Wage Act, then she is entitled to damages of the amount she would have earned if she had not been wrongfully discharged from the date of her termination, forward to this date.” The final damage award, after factoring in the termination-to-trial period (and deducting the $54,000 Wessell had earned elsewhere after her firing from Mink Brook) and then trebling the figure: an eye-watering $187,111.38.

Affirming the decision, the Appeals Court held that “an employee terminated by an employer for asserting a wage right may recover damages stemming from the termination … [which] may include earnings from the date of termination up to trial.” So the employer is liable not only for what it should have paid prior to termination but also for everything the employee would have earned during the years between termination and trial, minus whatever the employee actually earned elsewhere in the meantime.

That could be a sizable sum. It certainly was in Wessell v. Mink Brook Associates.

In arriving at this decision to affirm the judgment, the Appeals Court interpreted three sections of the Wage Act: Sections 148A, 27C, and 150. Section 148A begins, “no employee shall be penalized by an employer in any way as a result of any action on the part of an employee to seek his or her rights under the wages and hours provisions of this chapter.” It goes on to provide that any employer that fires or otherwise discriminates against an employee who has sought his or her rights “shall be punished or shall be subject to a civil citation or order as provided in section 27C.”

According to the defense, this language should limit the range of penalties available against Mink Brook to the civil and criminal sanctions described in Section 27C, and rule out the possibility of an award for back pay. The court rejected this argument, pointing to Section 150, which reads, “an employee claiming to be aggrieved by a violation of sections … 148A … may … institute and prosecute … a civil action for injunctive relief, for any damages incurred, and for any lost wages and other benefits … An employee so aggrieved who prevails in such an action shall be awarded treble damages, as liquidated damages, for any lost wages and other benefits and shall also be awarded the costs of the litigation and reasonable attorneys’ fees.”

So, although Section 27C imposes certain penalties, those penalties are not — contrary to the defense’s contention — exclusive. They could only be exclusive if the Legislature had not enacted Section 150 as well. But the Legislature did enact Section 150, whose clear and unambiguous language enables an employee to obtain “treble damages … for any lost wages.” Does that term ‘lost wages’ include back pay? Yes, said the court.

In a nutshell, if an employee rightfully complains about owed wages, and the employer responds by firing her, the employer had better hope that the fired employee finds another (highly paid) job, and fast. Even better, at the risk of stating the obvious, employers should refrain from retaliating against employees to whom they owe wages.

Finally, it is worth noting that Section 150 also applies to the earned-sick-time law, which went into effect at the beginning of July (see related story, page 28). This means employers violating any aspect of the new law face the prospect of treble damages and attorneys’ fees. For example, the sick-time law does not allow employers to ask for a doctor’s note if an employee has been out ‘sick’ for less than 24 hours. Demanding a doctor’s note in those circumstances could amount to interfering with, retraining, or denying the exercise of that employee’s rights, as could using the absence as a ‘negative factor’ when conducting a performance evaluation or when considering promotion, discipline, or termination.

Certainly, the attorney general’s sick-time regulations permit employers to seek verification if they suspect abuse of the law in some situations. But those situations are quite narrow in scope. For example, if an employer has “reasonable suspicion” that an employee aged 17 or younger is misusing sick time, the employer can seek verification from a parent or guardian. And an employer may discipline an employee of any age who is “exhibiting a clear pattern of taking leave just before or after a weekend, vacation, or holiday.”

But if the party night of choice happens to become, say, Monday instead of Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (behavioral norms having been known to adapt to changes in a legal regime), may the employer take disciplinary action upon observing a clear pattern of calling in sick on Tuesday mornings? Not under the current regulations, and not without casting a wary glance over the shoulder at Section 150.

Peter Vickery, Esq. is an employment-law specialist based in Amherst; (413) 549-9933.

Major Changes to Overtime Compensation Rules Expected

By BusinessWest Staff August 25, 2015

Employment Sections

Raising the Stakes

By JOHN GANNON

John S. Gannon

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that will impact payroll considerations for a majority of businesses across the country.

The changes will guarantee overtime pay for almost all employees making less than $50,440 per year in base rate pay, regardless of job duties or title. The changes are expected to take effect in early 2016.

FLSA Overtime Rules

Employees may be classified as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime compensation requirement — meaning they are not entitled to time-and-a-half when working more than 40 hours in a week — if they meet one of the FLSA’s exemptions.

The most commonly relied-upon exemptions are the ‘white collar’ exemptions, which apply to executive, administrative, professional, and outside sales employees. Exempt employees must meet the “primary duties” test for each exemption, and need to be paid at or above the minimum salary threshold, which is currently $23,660 per year ($455 per week).

There are narrow exceptions to the minimum salary threshold for certain professional employees and those working in outside sales. Other than those exceptions, employees who are paid less than the minimum salary threshold must be paid an overtime premium if they work more than 40 hours in a workweek. The FLSA also requires more rigorous record keeping when tracking the hours worked and compensation of non-exempt employees.

Minimum Salary Threshold Set to Double

Last month, the DOL released a proposed rule that would increase the annual minimum salary threshold to $50,440 ($970 per week) in 2016.

Businesses expected an increase in this salary threshold, although perhaps not to the $50,440 level. In March 2014, President Obama had directed the secretary of Labor to modernize the FLSA’s overtime rules for white-collar workers because those rules did not reflect the reality of the modern economy. According to the president, millions of Americans lack the protection of overtime compensation because of the outdated regulations.

The new minimum salary threshold represents the 40th percentile of weekly earnings for full-time salaried workers, according to data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In its proposed rule, the DOL explained that it has increased the salary level only seven times — in 1940, 1949, 1958, 1963, 1970, 1975, and 2004.

“The lapses between rulemakings have resulted in salary levels that are based on outdated salary data and thus ill-equipped to help employers assess which employees are unlikely to meet the duties tests for the exemptions,” according to the department.

The DOL estimates that almost 5 million workers will no longer qualify as exempt based on the new salary level. Notably, the DOL also proposes automatically updating to the minimum salary threshold annually so that it does not become outdated in a few years.

The DOL plans to publish a notice with the new salary level at least 60 days before the updated rates would become effective.

No Changes to Exempt Duties

The proposed rules do not alter any of the white-collar job duties, or otherwise change the exempt-duties tests. There was speculation that the duties tests would be modified to ensure that more managerial employees, in particular those who are ‘working supervisors,’ would be entitled to overtime. This did not happen; however, the DOL is soliciting questions from the public about how best to alter the duties tests.

Next Steps

Although these are only proposed changes, which must go through a public notice-and-comment rule-making process, we anticipate little if any changes to the new proposed minimum salary threshold. Those who are interested in submitting comments should visit www.regulations.gov and reference rule Identification Number 1235-AA11. The public has until Sept. 4 to comment.

Employers should start budgeting for these changes now. Some options include:

• Increasing base salaries to $50,440 for those employees who work any overtime, to preserve exempt status, with plans to increase incrementally every year. This is the easiest solution, but might not be in everyone’s 2016 budget;
• Keep salaries the same and start paying time and a half when employees making less than $50,440 work more than 40 hours a week. This is another quick fix, but could be problematic if you anticipate the employee will work a lot of overtime;
• Limit or eliminate overtime opportunities for employees earning less than $50,440. This option involves careful planning to be sure you have sufficient labor power to meet business demands. Employers who go this route may have to hire more workers; or
• Establish your employees’ current hourly rate, and reduce that rate in 2016, taking into consideration anticipated overtime costs. This option may net good results from a budgeting perspective, but will certainly impact employee morale.

If you need assistance planning for the FLSA overtime changes, contact employment counsel for guidance.

John S. Gannon is an associate with Skoler, Abbott &; Presser, P.C., and practices in the firm’s Springfield office. Since joining the firm in 2011, Gannon has defended employers against claims of discrimination, retaliation, harassment, wrongful-termination claims, as well as actions arising under the Family Medical Leave Act and wage-and-hour law. He also has experience with lawsuits seeking to enforce restrictive covenants and protect trade secrets; (413) 737-4753;[email protected]

Ground Floor

By BusinessWest Staff June 30, 2015

Employment Sections

Carpet-cleaning Venture Advances HRU’s Mission

Zerorez’s Luis Cerrano (center) demonstrates the company’s equipment for Sue Mastroianni, board member of the Gray House in Springfield, and HRU president Don Kozera.

When Human Resources Unlimited (HRU) decided that its core mission — training and placing people with disabilities in meaningful jobs — would benefit from partnering with a national franchise, carpet cleaning didn’t seem like the most exciting option.

“We looked around the country and found there were few not-for-profits owning franchises, and then we set up specific criteria around what we hope to achieve, how much revenue we need, how much risk we’re willing to accept, and what the tradeoff is between profits and mission,” said Don Kozera, HRU’s long-time president.

The agency wound up looking at 600 chains, then took a harder look at 60 of them, before narrowing its search to three that fit the organization’s criteria. One of those was Zerorez, a carpet-surface cleaning company based in Salt Lake City with a national presence — except in New England.

“What attracted us was its patented ‘green’ approach to cleaning,” he said of Zerorez’s innovative use of what it calls “empowered water” (more on that later). “And if you can innovate in carpet cleaning, you can probably innovate the world. It’s also a technology-based company. With this phone in my hand, I know where all the vehicles are, if their machines are on, how much we booked today, where those leads came from … I know exactly what’s going on.”

But there was some hesitancy based on the perceived lack of a ‘wow’ factor. “People said, ‘really? Carpet cleaning? Don’t we want to do something more exciting?’ But the more we investigated it, the more we talked to franchises across the country and sat down with the owners and looked at their technology, looked at the environmentally friendly detergents being used, that there was a social cause, it made sense.”

So HRU opened its first Zerorez franchise in Holyoke in March, with more likely to follow. “We have a bigger strategy,” Kozera said. “We have the rights to the Hartford and Boston markets. We didn’t do this to own one franchise; we did it as a strategy of revenue generation and job development. It’s solely owned by HRU, but it might not be solely owned in the future; it depends on how much capital we need for expansion plans.”

None of this, of course, answers the question of why Human Resources Unlimited, which trains and places clients in some 120 area businesses and has started and closed myriad businesses of its own to achieve the same goals, embraced the franchise model. Simply put, Kozera said, it’s because HRU eventually wants to do some franchising of its own.

Active Intent

It starts with a program HRU created called Move to Work.

“It’s a platform designed to help people who have been out of the workforce — chronically unemployed people, not just people with disabilities. It’s a unique approach that uses physical health, emotional health, and financial health to create a healthy, productive worker.”

The concept is explained by the program’s original title, the admittedly clunkier Changing Habits and Transforming Lives. It takes principles not typically applied to job training, including exercise and physical fitness, and meshes them with conventional job training and the ‘soft skills’ — communication skills, personal work habits, etc. — so in demand by companies.

“With most people who are chronically unemployed, the data will show they’re physically not healthy, emotionally not healthy,” Kozera said. “Of course, being unemployed for a long time can lead to bad habits and losing self-esteem.”

Move to Work, he went on, “was originally to better our services. If people exercise for 20 to 40 minutes at 60% to 80% of their maximum heart rate, their ability to learn and retain information is greatly increased for up to four hours. That’s a scientific fact. So every one of our sessions starts with that.

“But, really, the foundation is our soft-skills training program,” Kozera explained. “Employers in this area are saying, ‘we cannot find qualified workers — at any level.’ The Federal Reserve did a report on Springfield five years ago that really outlined those issues. Companies said, ‘what do we need? People who come to work on time, with a good social skill set. We’ll train them on what we do technically. But we need those types of people.’”

So Move to Work was developed as an eight- or 16-week course to build those skills while incorporating the benefits of exercise for greater mental focus. Recently, HRU applied the program at Tech Foundry, a nonprofit that trains high-school students for information-technology jobs.

Having demonstrated its value, Human Resources Unlimited would like to turn Move to Work into a national model. And that’s something the agency has never before attempted.

“Our goal is to bring this new model into the marketplace as both an innovative program and something that can earn money,” Kozera told BusinessWest. “But it’s not easy to do. How can we raise enough revenue to support the expansion of that model?”

The answer was another question. “It’s taking a self-replicating model to the marketplace, and who does that? Franchises. They take a brand and replicate the brand. Through this confluence of activities, we said, ‘well, if we’re going to learn more about the replication and expansion of a brand into a national model, where else to learn from than franchises?’ So we started looking around, saying, ‘maybe we can start a franchise and look at owning franchises as a way to support ourselves and learn how to be a franchisor of Move to Work.’”

Workplace Legacy

A company like Zerorez is certainly new terrain for HRU. But doing things a little differently has long been the agency’s bread and butter.

Realizing that many employers didn’t believe people with developmental disabilities could work in complicated job environments, Human Resources Unlimited — then knwn as the Carval Workshop — was created in 1970 to be the vocational training center for Belchertown State School residents and provide employment opportunities for residents of the facility.

Zerorez recently donated its services to clean high-traffic areas of the Gray House to demonstrate its work and help another mission-driven organization.

It has expanded and evolved over the years, now offering a broad range of services, from assistance for individuals moving from public assistance to the workplace to a ‘day habilitation’ program called Pyramid for people with developmental disabilities; from commercial endeavors, of which Zerorez is the latest, to a series of so-called ‘clubhouses’ that provide members with a supportive environment where they can get specialized assistance with vocational skills and transition into good jobs at area companies, as well as increasing their participation in the community.

Kozera, who joined the organization in 1980 as fiscal director before moving into the president’s chair, said Zerorez is a good match for HRU because of it’s mission-driven approach to cleaning.

“Zerorez uses technology that was borrowed from the oil-cleanup industry,” he explained. What the national company calls ‘empowered water’ is actually electrolyzed and oxidized to create an environmentally friendly cleaning solution.

Traditional steam cleaning, the company notes, uses heated water mixed with soaps, detergents, and toxic chemicals that are injected into the carpet under pressure, which soak the carpets, pads and backing. Even though some of the soap, dirt, and water are removed, a considerable portion of this mixture remains embedded in the carpet. As the carpet dries, the detergent attaches to the carpet fibers and acts as a magnet for dirt and other substances. Empowered water, on the other hand, is applied to carpet fibers by a patented high-pressure spray system that loosens embedded dirt and removes it.

Zerorez cleans rugs, tiles, wood floors, furniture, counters … basically anything that people walk on, sit on, or work on, Kozera said. The primary market is residential, although it has commercial clients as well.

“We haven’t burst on the market,” he added, noting that the Holyoke franchise, which boasts three trucks and four employees to start, had 37 clients in May and is on track for 50 in June. But in the long run, Zerorez’s established structure and recognized name will help the local office succeed and, importantly, grow its roster of employees and fleet of trucks.

“What has a higher rate of success in business, Joe’s Burger Shop or McDonald’s? With a franchise, there’s a system, a proven model, there’s support. Other franchisees are amazing about sharing everything they know. They help each other. I don’t know how many networks are like that. They tell us what’s successful, what’s not successful. It’s a nice family created by the franchisors.”

Kozera said franchisors wanted HRU to commit to more than one market, adding that, overall, franchised businesses are more often sold to corporations than individuals these days. “You can’t buy just one; you have to buy three, so you have to have $2 million just to enter the market.”

At the same time, national networks have become more willing to sell franchises to nonprofits, while nonprofit boards, which tend to be conservative in their risk taking, like the security of partnering with a known commodity.

Furthermore, “Zerorez has a 90% retention rate in an industry that probably has a 10% retention rate,” Kozera said. “The other appealing part of this is that every customer has to rate us … and if they don’t rate us at least 9 out of 10, we fail.” The idea, he added, is to leverage great customer service into customers for life, one floor at a time.

Destination Unknown

Kozera knows that nothing is a given in any industry. “Any time you open a business,” he said, “the reality is, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

But if it succeeds, the Holyoke Zerorez office — the first of what might be several across the region — will benefit HRU in three ways, by generating revenue, providing an education in franchising the agency can apply to Move to Work, and, of course, providing jobs for clients.

“It has a call center, and we place a lot of people in call centers at multiple locations; that’s a skill base many of our members have, and they’ve been very successful at that job,” he said, adding quickly, “we’re not creating jobs that don’t exist. We have one technician for one van; we’re not going to put two people there just to create a job.”

As for Human Resources Unlimited in general — which recently moved to a larger headquarters in Springfield — a (slowly) strengthening economy is ramping up demand for qualified workers at all kinds of companies, which can only benefit clients.

“We want to use these franchise concepts throughout the whole business, not just Zerorez,” Kozera said, referring mainly to the key factors of consistency and trust that drive consumers to known brands.

“We want to apply that to everything we do. We don’t have a whole lot of experience in business to business. But the sales process and the marketing process are things that will help us organizationally because human services — in particular placement organizations — don’t invest a lot in marketing and sales. We invest a lot in human capital; we just don’t measure it well.”

HRU’s first franchise business could help change that, while creating cross-learning opportunities across the organization that, hopefully, help more individuals find work.

And that, more than anything, is what makes carpet cleaning exciting.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Collective Thoughts

By BusinessWest Staff June 30, 2015

Employment Sections

Supreme Court to Weigh Claims of ‘Class-action Abuse’

By PETER VICKERY

Peter Vickery

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take a case concerning the scope of two kinds of mass employee lawsuits against employers — class actions and a similar procedure created by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) called collective actions. If the justices tighten the standards for certifying class actions and collective actions, it would come as a relief to companies with large numbers of workers — and a major setback for the law firms that target them.

So the plaintiffs’ bar and employers alike are watching and waiting for the outcome in Tyson Foods Inc. v. Bouaphaeko, one among a host of overtime cases that two class-action law firms, Smith & McElwain and Kenney McCafferty, have brought against the food company.

Mass lawsuits are costly to defend, which means employers often settle them prior to trial rather than take the risk of going to a jury. When the other side is receiving help from state and federal agencies, the incentive to settle is even greater. But before one of these lawsuits can move forward, a judge has to certify it as a class/collective action.

Certifying an action has a dramatic impact on the lawsuit’s value and, consequently, on a company’s competitiveness and productivity. So the standard for determining whether to grant or deny certification is something that matters a great deal to companies that might find themselves in the crosshairs of mass employee lawsuits.

At issue in the Tyson cases is the amount of compensation that the company should pay its employees for the time they spend donning and doffing protective gear and walking between the locker room and the production line. Tyson pays its clerical workers ‘punch to punch,’ i.e. from the time they punch the clock in to the time they punch out. But it pays production-line workers according to ‘gang time,’ i.e. the time they are actually at their work stations while the line is moving. It does not keep track of how much time each employee spends donning, doffing, and walking, but generally pays an additional four to seven minutes per shift to cover these activities. In the last few years, it has been paying more.

Tyson started paying donning-and-doffing time after a Supreme Court case involving its corporate predecessor, IBP, made clear that this was legally necessary.

Tyson compensates its workers for donning and-doffing at the regular rate of pay. But according to the plaintiffs, under FLSA and state wage-and-hour laws, the company should be paying them overtime (time and a half). In some cases, the plaintiffs enjoy the support of the U.S. Department of Labor, which files amicus briefs to bolster the employees’ argument in favor of overtime. Given the large numbers of current and former employees, the difference is enormous. So far, the donning-and-doffing lawsuits have cost the company millions of dollars in jury awards and settlements.

Sometimes Tyson wins, and sometimes it loses. For example, in two separate cases, Acosta and Gomez, juries awarded combined damages of $24 million. In contrast, in another pair of cases, Guyton and Lopez, which concerned the very same issues — whether donning, doffing, and walking required overtime — juries found in favor of Tyson, and sent away the plaintiffs and their lawyers empty-handed.

With such unpredictable jury results, it is no surprise that Tyson sometimes opts to settle, as it did in a Tennessee case for $7.75 million and another in Georgia for $32 million. But in Bouaphakeo, the jury’s reliance on a controversial formula has prompted Tyson to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs in Bouaphakeo are hourly workers at Tyson’s Storm Lake, Iowa pork-processing facility, which employs approximately 1,600 people. The class-action lawyers wanted to include all hourly workers at the facility in the class, but the court limited membership to workers in the kill, cut, and re-trim departments. Employees in these three departments have to wear various kinds of protective gear depending on the nature of their work, e.g. hard hats, steel-toed boots, hair/beard nets, ear protectors, gloves, aprons, belly guards, and scabbards. Those who use knives have to dip them in sanitizer at the start and end of each shift. How long an individual takes to don and doff (and dip) depends on the gear.

In the Gomez case, the plaintiff’s expert witness, Kenneth Mericle, a labor economist and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, School for Workers, testified that, by his calculations, based on analysis of video footage, the workers spent 25 to 29 minutes donning and doffing. Even though Tyson presented no expert testimony of its own to counter Mericle, after listening to his answers on cross-examination, the jury found that the donning-doffing time was closer to six minutes.

This is a significant divergence in view of the number of workers involved and the amount of money at stake. Nevertheless, in Bouaphakeo, the plaintiff’s expert witness used Mericle’s time-studies as the basis for calculating damages. Again, the jury found that the donning-doffing time was just a fraction of what Mericle’s statistics claimed, awarding damages of less than half the amount the plaintiffs claimed they were entitled to receive.

When the Court of Appeals denied Tyson’s request for rehearing, Justice Beam dissented, noting that “giving the best gloss available to the plaintiffs under the evidence they themselves adduced, well more than one-half of the certified class of 3,344 persons have no damages whatever, and the balance have markedly lower individual damages that are now virtually impossible to accurately calculate.” And this constitutes the nub of Tyson’s argument to the Supreme Court: for class/collective actions, there needs to be a way to determine individual damages so as to avoid the practice of ‘trial by formula,’ which the Supreme Court disapproved of in the 2011 case of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Duke.

Tyson argues that the use of Mericle’s statistics amounted to trial by formula. Because of the range of differences between class members, plus the fact that some class members sustained no damages at all, the district court should not have granted class/collective action certification in the first place, said Tyson. The question, as the company presents it, is whether a trial court should be allowed to certify a class/collective action (1) if the court determines liability and damages with statistical techniques that presume all class members are identical to the average observed in a sample, ignoring the differences among individual class members, and (2) when the class contains hundreds of members who were not injured and have no legal right to any damages.

Tyson and allies such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would like the Supreme Court to answer ‘no,’ so as to make it harder for cases to qualify as class/collective actions. They characterize the slew of actions against Tyson as class-action abuse, and probably interpret the fact that the court has taken the case as an encouraging sign. Arguments are scheduled for the fall term.

Peter Vickery is an employment-law attorney in Amherst; (413) 549-9933.

Lessons from the Abercrombie & Fitch Case

By BusinessWest Staff June 30, 2015

Employment Sections

Failure to Hire Muslim Woman Was Religious Discrimination

By KIMBERLY KLIMCZUK

Kimberly Klimczuk, ESQ.

It is well-settled that employers may not discriminate against employees or applicants on the basis of religion. On June 1, the Supreme Court ruled that Abercrombie & Fitch unlawfully discriminated against applicant Samantha Elauf when it failed to hire her because she wore a headscarf.
Abercrombie & Fitch maintains a so-called ‘look policy’ for all employees in order to project a particular image across all of its stores. The policy specifically prohibits employees from wearing “caps,” because, according to the company, they are too informal for Abercrombie & Fitch’s image.

Elauf, a practicing Muslim, wore a headscarf in observance of her religion. She applied for a position in an Abercrombie & Fitch store and wore a headscarf to her interview. Heather Cooke, the assistant manager who interviewed Elauf, rated her according to Abercrombie & Fitch’s applicant-evaluation system and determined that she was qualified to be hired. However, Cooke was concerned that wearing a headscarf would violate the company’s prohibition against caps.

The look policy does not include a definition of the term ‘cap,’ so Cooke asked her district manager, Randall Johnson, whether Elauf’s headscarf would violate the look policy. She also told Johnson that she believed Elauf wore the headscarf because of her religion. Johnson told Cooke that all headwear, including Elauf’s headscarf, would violate the look policy, and he told Cooke not to hire Elauf.

Elauf filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued Abercrmbie & Fitch on her behalf, alleging that Abercrombie had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it refused to hire Elauf. The district court for the Northern District of Ohio found in favor of Elauf, but the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, holding that an employer cannot be liable for failing to provide a religious accommodation until the applicant or employee provides the employer with actual knowledge of her need for a religious accommodation.

Abercrombie had argued that, because it hadn’t known for sure that Elauf wore the headscarf for religious reasons, and therefore didn’t know whether she would need an accommodation, it couldn’t be liable for religious discrimination.

The Supreme Court disagreed, pointing out that Title VII makes it unlawful for employers to fail to hire an applicant “because of” her religion, which includes religious practice. The court noted that, unlike other anti-discrimination laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII does not include any knowledge requirement. Rather, Title VII prohibits discriminatory motives, such as, in this case, the desire to avoid potentially having to accommodate a religious practice.

The court also clarified that an applicant only has to show that her need for accommodation was a “motivating factor” in the decision not to hire her. The court found that was the case here, stating that “the employer at least suspected that the practice was a religious one. Its refusal to hire was motivated by the desire to avoid accommodating that practice, and this is enough.”

Abercombie argued that Elauf could not demonstrate a discriminatory motive because its look policy is neutral — it prohibits all headwear, religious or otherwise. However, the court pointed out that Title VII does more than require that religious practices be treated no worse than other practices; it gives religious practices favored status, requiring employers to accommodate religious practices unless doing so would create an undue hardship.

Because the Tenth Circuit dismissed the case on other grounds, the Supreme Court did not discuss whether allowing Elauf to wear a headscarf would be an undue hardship for Abercrombie, but the court ordered that the case be sent back to the Tenth Circuit for a ruling on that issue.

So what can employers learn from Abercrombie & Fitch’s mistakes? First, employers should not jump to conclusions about applicants’ need for religious accommodation, and, if they do, they cannot simply decide not to hire an applicant based on that conclusion. Rather, employers have an obligation to explore whether a religious practice can be accommodated.

Here, for example, Abercrombie could have hired Elauf and then, if she asked to be allowed to wear her headscarf at work, decided whether it could accommodate that practice in light of its look policy. Another option would have been to inform Elauf during the interview of Abercrombie’s look policy and to determine at that point whether allowing Elauf to wear a headscarf would create an undue hardship for the company.

Although the Abercrombie decision does not signify any change in religious-discrimination law, it serves as an important reminder to employers of their obligations under the law.

Kimberly Klimczuk is a partner at the management-side labor and employment firm Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C.; (413) 737-4753; [email protected]

Hire Calling

By BusinessWest Staff June 30, 2015

Employment Sections

A chart of area employment agencies

Click HERE to download the PDF chart

The Here and Now

By BusinessWest Staff May 5, 2015

Employment Sections

Do Employers Have to Tolerate Attendance Problems Under the ADA?

By ERICA E. FLORES, Esq.

Erica Flores

Today, just about any physical, mental, or emotional ailment will likely qualify as a ‘disability’ under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), giving rise to a growing number of requests by employees for workplace accommodations. And, increasingly, such accommodations implicate what is perhaps the single most fundamental requirement of any job — attendance.

So how can Western Mass. employers best position themselves for potential ADA litigation when considering an employee’s request for an attendance-related accommodation? A recent decision out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit offers some helpful guidance.

Jane Harris worked for Ford Motor Co. as a resale buyer of raw steel for auto parts. At first, her performance was strong, but it quickly began to decline, and by her final year at Ford, she ranked in the bottom 10% of her peers. Harris’s poor performance was due largely to her poor attendance, which was related to her disability — irritable bowel syndrome.

Harris disclosed her condition to her supervisor, and Ford approved a series of accommodations. First, Ford granted Harris a flexible schedule, allowing her to work four 10-hour days per week and telecommute as needed. Despite this flexibility, Harris’s attendance was irregular and unreliable, and she failed to perform the core objectives of the job.

Ford next provided Harris with workplace reporting guidelines and then allowed her to telecommute both during and after core business hours. Harris’s attendance problems continued, however, and she finally requested permission to work from home permanently up to four days per week.

In response to the request, Harris’s supervisor and two HR representatives met with her to discuss the essential functions of her position. They identified 10 different essential responsibilities and discussed her ability to accomplish each of those duties from home. Harris admitted that she could not complete four of her duties from home at all — including attending meetings with suppliers, attending internal meetings, and creating price quotes — and Ford concluded that Harris also could not effectively perform four of her other duties from home.

Accordingly, Ford denied her telecommuting request as unreasonable, but proposed two alternative accommodations — moving Harris’s workspace closer to the restroom or transferring her to a position better suited for a flexible telecommuting arrangement. Harris declined these offers and instead filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which took up her case and filed a lawsuit against Ford on her behalf.

Ford won the case both in the district court and on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The court agreed with Ford that a trial was not necessary, finding that regular and predictable on-site attendance was an essential function of Harris’s job, and the accommodation she requested was unreasonable because it would have eliminated that essential function.

Although Harris disagreed that her physical presence at work was necessary, the court noted that an employee’s definition of the essential functions of her position is not valid when it is based solely on her personal viewpoint and experience. Although Ford allowed other resale buyers to telecommute, those employees telecommuted no more than one set day per week.

And, finally, there was no evidence that improved technology eliminated the need for Harris to participate in face-to-face interactions. In short, regular, on-site attendance was an essential function of Harris’s job because it was “job-related, uniformly enforced, and consistent with business necessity”; there was no accommodation available that would have allowed her to perform that essential function; and Ford had acted in good faith by maintaining an interactive dialogue with Harris and trying to accommodate her illness.

The Sixth Circuit’s opinion provides useful guidance for employers who may face requests for attendance-related accommodations.

Most importantly, employers must be able to clearly articulate the essential functions of each and every job in their workforce, including the attendance requirements. Those essential functions should be documented in written job descriptions that are provided to new employees at the time of hire and updated as job duties change.

Additionally, employers who make flexible schedules, telecommuting, or other alternative attendance arrangements available (upon request or through a policy, for example) should consider developing specific eligibility or other criteria designed to ensure that such arrangements do not impede the effective performance of the other essential functions of each position.

If employers do this homework ahead of time, they will be in a good position to handle a request for an attendance-related accommodation and will be able to better assess whether that requested accommodation is reasonable, whether it would instead eliminate an essential attendance requirement, and whether any other reasonable accommodations might be available.

Erica E. Flores is an attorney at Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C ., which exclusively represents management in labor and employment matters. She has successfully defended employers before state and federal courts and administrative agencies. In addition to her litigation practice, she regularly advises clients with respect to day-to-day employment issues, including decisions regarding adverse employment actions and litigation avoidance. This article is not intended as legal advice related to individual situations. If your business is facing a specific legal problem, consult your labor and employment counsel for legal advice and planning; (413) 737-4753; [email protected]

Star Search

By BusinessWest Staff May 5, 2015

Employment Sections

United Personnel Engages in Professional Matchmaking

Jennifer Atwater says partnerships are at the foundation of United Personnel’s 30-year history of success.

“We don’t just put bodies in jobs; we do much more than that. We take a proactive role and partner with our customers so both they and our job seekers can meet their goals,” said the company’s vice president of operations. “Employers often tell us they need a candidate who can hit the ground running, while job candidates can be so anxious to find employment, they say they are willing to take whatever we have available.

“But it’s important for us to talk to the employer in depth to get to the bottom of what they really need,” she continued, noting that these meetings often reveal that the position the customer wants to fill entails responsibilities not included in the job title or description. “It’s also important for us to extrapolate a job candidate’s strengths from their résumé, pare them down, and make sure the work environment will be a good fit for their personality and what they want to do.”

In 1984, Mary Ellen Scott and her late husband, Jay Canavan, opened the job-placement agency in Hartford, under the moniker United Temporary Professional and Industrial Staffing. Five years later, they moved to Springfield, where they quickly were recognized for their ability to provide local companies with staffing and employment solutions. Today, the business operates in three locations — the others are in Easthampton and Pittsfield — and continues to be run by family members.

Although Jay is deceased and Mary Ellen has retired (she serves as chairman emerita of the board), their daughter Patricia is president, and daughter Andrea also sits on the board of directors.

The company’s professional job-matching service has led to a bevy of long-time and new clients who include sole proprietors that need someone part-time, manufacturers in need of temporary employees throughout the year, and businesses seeking to fill permanent positions. And United has done well despite the ebb and flow of the economy over the past three decades. Business is currently booming in its offices, which employ a total of 30 people.

“As the economy improves and things pick up, many of our customers find they need an extra pair of hands, but are not yet ready to commit to a full-time employee,” Atwater told BusinessWest, adding that, over the past year or two, the number of companies using United to fill full-time positions has risen. Overall, the company placed and paid 2,700 employees last year, and 303 were hired full-time by the businesses where they were placed.

She noted that many companies don’t have a job recruiter, and the responsibilities of advertising, sifting through résumés, and interviewing job candidates often interfere with efficient operations when added to a busy employee’s schedule.

“It can also be difficult for businesses that need temporary employees to keep pace with ever-changing employment laws,” she said, noting that United’s commitment to staying knowledgeable and keeping clients informed about changing legislation sets them apart from other job-placement agencies.

Atwater cited progressive discipline as an example, and said firing temporary employees is not as simple as it was years ago.

“The mentality toward temporary staffing has changed. In the past, if the employer didn’t like a temporary worker, they could demand that the agency find someone else. But today, more goes into the equation; we don’t want to run into a situation where an employee feels they have been treated unfairly,” she told BusinessWest, noting that United makes sure laws are followed to avoid accusations or lawsuits claiming discrimination.

Complex Formula

United Personnel has grown considerably since its early beginnings.

The agency opened a second office in Northampton in 1994, then moved to Easthampton when it outgrew its space there. However, that branch will soon move back to Northampton in a building the company purchased on Brewster Court to accommodate its increasing client load.

A third office also opened in Pittsfield three years ago after Canavan contacted area business owners and determined there was a need for their services in Berkshire County.

In addition to finding temporary workers for employers who need to fill a position for a pre-determined period of time, the agency also does ‘temp-to-hire’ placements in which they put people in temporary jobs that can lead to full-time positions.

“It gives the person a foot in the door so they can see what the climate of the company is like, and lets the employer assess the person’s skills and see whether they can fulfill the duties they need them to accomplish,” Atwater said.

United also provides direct hires, which range from administrative assistants to executive positions such as human resource managers, chief financial officers, and sales directors. “We do all the vetting and have a wide database of candidates to choose from,” she noted. “We advertise for the positions through our website, MassLive, and social media.”

However, after a preset, limited number of candidates are selected, the customer typically conducts its own interviews and makes the final determination as to who will get the job.

And United spends a considerable amount of time with each client before they search their database to find a qualified applicant. Atwater said company representatives visit customers and speak with them at length, as well as view the environment the new employee will be working in. “It’s important because not everyone wants to be in a cubicle or at a company with more than 20 people.”

The firm also delves deeply into what the employee will need to do on a daily basis. “Companies have called us saying they need someone to answer the phone, but when we meet with them, we discover the person also needs to be able to work with Excel and Outlook. We spend a long time at their business so we can fine-tune exactly what they are looking for,” she continued.

The selection process for job candidates begins when they fill out an application. After it is reviewed, they are contacted by phone, and if United feels they can help them find employment, an interview is scheduled at one of its branches to get more information about what the person does best, their job history, and what they are seeking.

“We also look for skills that are transferable because they may be able to transition into a new industry,” said Atwater. “For example, United has had great in-house success hiring people with sales backgrounds, as our jobs are fast-paced and customer-oriented.”

After a placement is made, United continues to solicit feedback from the customer to ensure things are going well, which can be especially important in manufacturing, where a diverse range of skills can be required.

Atwater said it’s reassuring for customers to know that United’s phones are manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to handle any problems that might arise. A staff member is available until 9 p.m., and after that, a live answering service takes over. If a temporary employee calls in sick, they are expected to call in and notify United as well as the firm they are working for.

Atwater added that it’s important for both the employer and employee to be happy. “If someone is going to spend eight to 12 hours a day in a position, they need to like what they are doing.”

Careful Screening

The partnerships United Personnel forms extend into the community. Indeed, its employees are actively involved in nonprofit organizations, and many serve as ambassadors at their local chambers of commerce or are members of Northampton Young Professionals or the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield.

“Every employee also has a professional-development plan which they draw up with their manager. It insures that they continue their training,” said Atwater, adding that it is critical for them to keep up with changes in employment law, such as the Right to Know Act for temporary workers, which was passed last year and requires employers to give industrial job candidates specifics in writing that include their rate of pay, work location, and job duties.

Canavan is active in at least 11 local nonprofits, and the combined efforts of her employees allow the agency to stay in tune with local workforce needs while networking and solidifying relationships.

The agency also supports organizations including Girls Inc., the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, and the Berkshire Community Foundation, and has sponsored events and nonprofits including the Outlook Legislative Luncheon, Go Red for Women, Dakin Humane Society, Springfield Bright Nights, Dress for Success, DevelopSpringfield, the Springfield Public Forum, and more.

Although the groups United Personnel works with have changed over the course of three decades, its services have always been in demand.

“When the economy is poor and our customers have to lay people off, they need temporary help because they still have to produce the same amount of product,” Atwater said.

Once the economy shifts into a higher gear, however, temporary employees may be able to transition into full-time jobs. “Our job is to work with customers, figure out their needs and provide them with the most qualified job candidates,” she continued. “We want everyone we serve to be happy.”

Which involves a very specialized type of matchmaking that requires knowledge and insight far beyond the skills listed on a résumé.

Decisions, Decisions

By BusinessWest Staff May 5, 2015

Employment Sections

Recent SJC Rulings Reject Efforts to Constrain Employers

By PETER VICKERY, Esq.

Peter Vickery

In April, the State Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued two important employment-law decisions. In both cases, the SJC rejected arguments that would have further constrained the ability of employers to run their businesses flexibly and efficiently.

The first relates to the Tips Act (M.G.L. c. 149, §152A) and should come as good news to restaurateurs and bar owners. The second case involves the independent-contractor law (M.G.L. c. 149, §148B), and, although it concerns the highly regulated field of Boston taxi cabs, the way the SJC interpreted the statute may help businesses in other fields rebut the legal presumption that any given individual performing a service is, by default, an employee.

The case about tips, Meshna v. Scrivanos, concerned a Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee that adopted a no-tipping policy. In Massachusetts, employers have to ensure that employees receive their tips by the end of the day or in their next paycheck at the latest. Violating the Tips Act can have drastic consequences: having to pay restitution plus 12% interest, and criminal penalties ranging from hefty fines to one year’s imprisonment (for a first offense).

To avoid both potential liability under the Tips Act and the administrative costs of dividing up tips among the employees, the franchisee adopted a policy of prohibiting tips altogether. In addition to telling employees not to accept tips, the employer put up signs for customers stating “no tipping” and “thank you for not tipping.”

Prior to the Meshna case, two Superior Court justices and one federal district court had ruled no-tipping policies lawful under the Tips Act. Nevertheless, some current and former Dunkin’ Donuts employees, all of whom earned at least the minimum wage, filed suit in Superior Court alleging that the no-tipping policy violated the law.

The Tips Act provides that no employer “shall demand, request, or accept from any staff employee, service employee, or service bartender any payment or deduction from a tip or service charge given to any such staff employee, service employee, or service bartender by a patron.” The employees and the Labor Relations and Research Center at UMass Amherst (which filed an amicus brief) argued that the words ‘deduction from’ are flexible enough to mean ‘prohibit’ — i.e. no employer shall prohibit an employee from receiving a tip.

Not so, said the SJC. When it enacted the statute, the Legislature’s intent was to bar employers from deducting or retaining tips that customers had given to the waitstaff. Making it unlawful for restaurant and bar owners to keep or skim tips is not the same as forbidding employers from trying to prevent customers from tipping in the first place. A no-tipping policy simply does not violate the statute. And so long as the owner clearly communicates the policy to customers, if they still leave money behind, the servers do not have the right to claim that money as theirs. The employer is not breaking the law by keeping it or giving it away.

The take-away for employers? If you have a no-tipping policy, make sure that you get the message across to your customer clearly.

In the second case, Sebago v. Boston Cab Dispatch Inc., the issue was whether licensed Boston taxi drivers were independent contractors or the employees of the defendants (taxi-cab license owners, radio associations, and a taxi-servicing garage). Three drivers, together with the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, argued that the separate defendants really constituted one monolithic industry, a sham designed to evade the strictures of wage and overtime laws.

The SJC disagreed, holding that the various entities were not all one and the same and that “distinctions in services within the taxi-cab industry as a whole are not illusory, but quite real.”

Much of the court’s decision revolves around the municipal rule that regulates taxis in Boston, namely Police Department Rule 403, which establishes four possible business models for cabs. One permissible model allows the owners of medallions (taxi licenses) to lease their medallions to drivers at a flat rate, not a percentage of the fares. This was the model at issue in the Sebago case: the drivers paid the medallion owners a fixed amount rather than a cut of their takings.

Rule 403 requires parties using that business model to sign a City of Boston Hackney Carriage Shift Lease Agreement, which includes an optional independent-contractor clause. Under the independent-contractor clause of the city-mandated contract, the drivers are free to operate anywhere they choose, and to pick and choose which radio dispatches to accept. As the SJC noted, drivers “may lease taxicabs and medallions from whomever they wish … each day of the week, they may lease from a different owner, each using a different radio association… earn as much as they are able and need not accept a single dispatch.” Moreover, the statutes governing workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and income-tax withholding all exclude taxi drivers operating under flat-rate leases from the definition of ‘employee.’

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs argued that they were employees. This is because, under Massachusetts default rule, the onus is on the defendant to rebut the presumption that an individual is an employee, and this can be done only by clearing three distinct hurdles. The defendant has to prove that:

(1) the individual is free from control and direction in connection with the performance of the service, both under his contract for the performance of service and in fact;
(2) the service is performed outside the usual course of the business of the employer; and
(3) the individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business of the same nature as that involved in the service performed.

The Sebago case hinged on the second factor, i.e. whether the service that the drivers provide is outside the usual course of the defendants’ business. That depends on whether the service is necessary to that business or merely incidental to it. So is taxi-driving necessary or incidental to the medallion owners’ business? Incidental, said the SJC. The medallion owners are in the business of leasing medallions, something that is “not directly dependent on the success of the drivers’ endeavors.”

At first blush, this interpretation of the term ‘usual course of the [defendant’s] business’ may appear a stretch. How can cab drivers be merely incidental to — rather than necessary to — the business of a company whose sole raison d’être is the leasing of taxi licenses? After all, without the drivers, the medallions would be worthless. In fact, this was the approach that the Superior Court judge took in denying the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

But the SJC said that the judge’s reasoning “proves too much.” Taken to its logical conclusion, it would mean that “all lessees would be deemed presumptive employees of their lessors.” Instead, the SJC stated that the second prong (the ‘usual course of the business’) does not include all aspects of the business.

The nutshell for business owners? First, Sebago arose in a unique regulatory environment involving city-prescribed contracts governing the leasing of city-issued licenses. Second, the courts remain vigilant for Rube-Goldbergian contractual arrangements involving several legal entities designed to evade the Wage Act. But with those two caveats, business owners operating several connected but distinct entities should remember that individuals claiming to be employees rather than independent contractors must establish — and not simply assert — that the several entities are merely alter egos.

If the companies are not organized as part of a ruse but are legitimately separate, the courts will be more likely to define the ‘usual course of the business’ narrowly, to the benefit of the business owner. So, while the Massachusetts independent contractor remains an endangered species, it is not yet extinct.

Peter Vickery practices law in Amherst; (413) 549-9933; www.petervickery.com

Progress Comes Marginally

By BusinessWest Staff May 5, 2015

Employment Sections

Paternity Leave Becomes Law in Bay State — but Hold the Applause

By Valerie Vignaux, Esq.

Massachusetts has officially recognized the importance of paternity leave.

On April 7, the Bay State updated its Maternity Leave Act, expanding it to include time off for fathers. The new Act Relative to Parental Leave, with its more inclusive title, offers both men and women eight weeks of unpaid leave from employers with six or more employees. Such leave is available for the birth or adoption of a child, or for the placement of a child under the age of 18.

Qualified employees must be full-time workers and have passed their employer’s probationary period, not to exceed three months, and must provide two weeks’ notice of their intended leave. Two parents at the same job are limited to a total of eight weeks between them.

Employers, upon the new father’s return, must restore him to the same position, or one similar (with an exception if there is a similarly qualified individual who had been laid off). Employers may not reduce the father’s benefits because of leave taken — no reduction in sick time, vacation, seniority, or pay, for example — but that time off can be discounted in calculating such benefits.

Businesses may grant a longer leave. In such cases, these job protections cease at the end of eight weeks only if the employer informs the employee in writing before the leave is taken. Any violation of this act is a violation of Massachusetts anti-discrimination laws.

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) remains in place with time off for mothers and fathers alike, but is applicable only to employers of 50 or more. This act provides for 12 weeks of unpaid leave for full-time employees of one year or more.

This extension of Massachusetts law to provide for fathers is a step in the right direction. Massachusetts, after all, has a reputation for being a state with progressive policies (e.g., it was the first in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage). Consider, however, the affordability of unpaid leave for the 99%. Whether eight weeks or 12, mothers or fathers, how many new parents have the luxury of forgoing a paycheck for any stretch of time?

California, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia stand alone in the U.S. for offering paid family leave to both men and women. Globally, the U.S. is an embarrassment: out of 185 countries, the U.S. is one of only three that do not offer national paid maternity leave (the other two are Oman and Papua New Guinea).

For perspective, Iran offers 12 weeks, the Democratic Republic of Congo offers 14, and the United Kingdom offers 40 weeks of paid maternity leave. The U.S. and Massachusetts offer none. Further, there are 70 countries that offer national paid leave. Iceland provides three months, Finland six weeks, and Kenya two weeks. The U.S. and Massachusetts offer none.

Some may laud Massachusetts for moving toward a more family-friendly policy, expanding the rights of new fathers, and protecting employees of small businesses. Certainly this movement is preferable to the status quo. But any celebration should be tempered until true progress is made, in this state and the nation, toward the support of an employee’s responsibilities at home.

Valerie Vignaux is an associate attorney with Bacon Wilson and a member of the firm’s Estate Planning and Elder Law team. She assists clients with all manner of estate planning and provides representation for guardianship and conservatorship matters. She has also served as Superior Court clerk to the justices of the Massachusetts Trial Court; (413) 781-0560.

Getting the Jobs Done

By BusinessWest Staff February 24, 2015

Employment Sections

TWO Program Is Honored for Closing Workforce Skills Gaps

“The economic imperative for aligning the workforce needs of Massachusetts with the needs of students attending community colleges is powerful and growing. Massachusetts is at a crossroads in its capacity to compete — and the ability of its residents to fully participate in the current economy and the rewards that employment brings. For the Commonwealth to flourish going forward, a high priority must be placed on training the workforce that is needed by the industries that are driving the Massachusetts economy. That responsibility falls squarely on the Commonwealth’s public higher-education system, most predominately the 15 community colleges.”

That was one of the more hard-hitting bits of analysis and commentary contained in a blistering 2011 report issued by the Boston Foundation, a document that essentially called out the state’s community colleges for not doing enough to help train a workforce to meet industry needs, while making some controversial suggestions about how to bring about change, such as a centralization effort that would do away with local boards of trustees at the schools.

Bill Messner — now, as then, president of Holyoke Community College — remembers his reaction to that report. His initial response was that its authors didn’t do enough research — at least when it came to the schools west of Worcester — and missed some key evidence that community colleges in the 413 area code were, in fact, being imaginative and somewhat effective in efforts to close so-called skills gaps within the workforce.

Bill Messner says the Boston Foundation report in 2011 caught the attention of area schools and prompted initiatives like TWO.

Still, Messner and others, like his counterpart at Springfield Technical Community College, Ira Rubenzahl, chose not to shoot the messenger — although they were highly critical of those suggestions to centralize the community-college system and put it under one board — and heed calls from the Boston Foundation, as well as the Commonwealth Corp. (which issued its own report with similar findings at that time) to do more to partner with businesses and workforce-development agencies to properly align their training programs with the specific needs of industry sectors.

So it was with a large dose of pride that HCC and STCC learned that, together, they had won the first Deval Patrick Award for Community Colleges, named after the former governor and funded by the Boston Foundation, for work undertaken through a program called TWO (Training & Workforce Options), an acronym that is now resonating throughout the local business community.

The cash prize, to be split by the schools, is $50,000 — a small amount, especially when budget cuts of nearly 10 times that number were announced by the Baker administration for both schools the same week the award was presented. But the rewards go well beyond the money (which will go into both schools’ general operating funds), said both Messner and Robert LePage, vice president of Foundation and Workforce Training at STCC and the school’s TWO point person.

Indeed, the award will bring recognition to the program, said LePage, adding that with that exposure might come support from other state agencies as well as more participation among area businesses and thus more progress in combatting regional workforce issues.

“Recognition from a group like the Boston Foundation is the kind of endorsement that can get others to invest in you — I hope this is something we’re able to leverage,” he explained. “People want to see a good return on their investment, so I’m hopeful that this will bring some eyes to Western Mass., prompt others to appreciate the work we’re doing here, and cause people to say there are things happening here that they can adopt.”

In many ways, the Boston Foundation report validates TWO’s mission and underscores the success stories authored in its first three years, said LePage, adding that there have been many of them.

For example, TWO has partnered with Baystate Health to create a regional ICD-10 (medical coding) incumbent worker training academy and is working with regional employers to launch an advanced hospital medical coding academy that will prepare workers for the many changes coming to that important realm within healthcare. Meanwhile, it has worked with MassMutual and a host of other employers to develop a new advanced call center and customer service certificate, a program that has succeeded in placing a number of individuals in jobs within that emerging sector.

Meanwhile, TWO has taken the lead in training individuals for the gaming industry that will soon become a force in this state through the creation of the Mass. Casino Careers Training Institute.

For this issue and its focus on employment, BusinessWest looks at how TWO has managed to impress far more than the Deval Patrick Award judges and, in the process, has enabled more individuals to join the workforce and helped area businesses thrive.

Work in Progress

Increasingly, Messner noted, groups such as the Boston Foundation are creating cash awards, like those attached to the Deval Patrick Award, as incentives to prompt groups and individuals to respond to their various initiatives and calls for action.

And in many instances, such tactics are working, he said, adding quickly that, with the Patrick Award, there was little fanfare, and many administrators at the state’s community colleges, himself included, were not even aware of the award until a call for applications was issued last fall.

The much more profound incentive to respond to the 2011 report and others like it, said Messner, was a recognized need for a regional response to a skills gap that goes a long way toward explaining still-high regional unemployment rates at a time when many businesses are struggling mightily to fill key positions — a phenomenon that has in some ways stifled economic growth.

“While we didn’t agree with everything in the report, it certainly got our attention,” said Messner, using ‘we’ to mean both community colleges. “And we responded accordingly with TWO.”

Slicing through the 2011 Boston Foundation report and summing up its main points, the authors’ main contention then was that the state’s community colleges were not working collaboratively (or working enough) with employers, industry groups, and workforce-development-centered agencies to identify needs, close skills gaps, and create opportunities for those challenged in their attempts to enter the state’s knowledge-based workforce.

So TWO, which was already in its formative stages when the report came out, was designed to change that equation, create a host of partnerships, and incorporate a far more proactive approach to workforce issues and challenges than what existed prior to the program’s existence.

TWO’s mission — and its operating philosophy — are summed up nicely in this passage from the joint application submitted by HCC and STCC for the Deval Patrick Award:

“Prior to community college reforms, the two colleges often worked in a reactive form and in competition with one another,” the application authors wrote. “This often led to an inefficient and duplicative approach to workforce development and employer engagement in Hampden and Hampshire counties. With the formation of Training and Workforce Options, the two colleges have formed a cohesive and proactive sales and training approach and have effectively broadened the reach of both colleges. TWO has provided HCC and STCC a stronger and unified voice and further positioned the colleges to provide a deeper and wider leadership role in serving regional workforce needs that serves as a catalyst to support economic-development success.”

It has assumed this leadership role through engagement with the business community and agencies ranging from area Regional Employment Boards to one-stop career centers to economic-development-related agencies to identify needs and develop programs to address them.

Through its so-called ‘business-discovery model,’ LePage said, TWO has met with more than 200 businesses in five key industry sectors — financial services/customer service, healthcare, hospitality and culinary, IT, and manufacturing — to validate employer needs.

Bob LePage says the Deval Patrick Award will garner recognition for TWO, prompting more participation and attempts to emulate its success.

And program partners run the gamut, from major employers such as MassMutual, Baystate Health, Smith & Wesson, Six Flags, and MGM to smaller operations such as Mustang Seats, the Three Rivers-based company that makes replacement motorcycle seats for Harley Davidson, Honda, BMW, and other brands, and Ludlow-based Chemi-Graphic, which manufactures nameplates, labels, and other products for a wide range of customers.

Input from these businesses has helped spawn several direct responses in the form of new programs and training initiatives.

At Chemi-Graphic, for example, TWO has provided a host of services, from assessing workforce needs to direct training programs to advice on how to secure state workforce-training grants, said LePage, adding that the manufacturer is in many ways representative of the businesses TWO was created to assist.

“They’re the kind of company we’re looking for, because they have 50 to 60 employees, so they’re not large enough to have a training arm, per se,” he explained. “And they have a niche business, one that’s doing well, but is now facing the retirement of all those Baby Boomers, and they need to replace those workers. They’re really what we’re looking for — we want to help as many of those small and mid-size companies as we can because they are the heartbeat of this region.“

Answering the Call

Overall, TWO’s most profound impact has been with closing those aforementioned gaps between the skill sets that the current workforce possesses and the skills that are needed within certain industries and for specific jobs.

Two of the better examples of how TWO has operated are the ICD-10 incumbent worker training academy and the advanced call center and customer service certificate.

ICD-10, as that name would suggest (at least to those in the industry), is the 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, or ICD, said Jason Pacheco, a senior workforce-planning consultant for Baystate Health. And it represents a significant change from ICD-9.

“ICD-9 has around 9,000 or 10,000 codes, while ICD-10 has roughly 60,000 codes,” he explained, adding that this nearly exponential increase is projected to generate a decrease in productivity — primarily because it already has in countries where ICD-10 is being used. As a result, said Pacheco, healthcare providers and medical practices will either have to bring on more employees or outsource more work.

To widen the pool of potential job candidates, TWO is partnering with Baystate, the Regional Employment Board of Hampden Country, and other players on worker training initiatives that have, to date, involved more than 50 companies.

“The concept to fill the gap in the labor pool was to come up with a development program,” said Pacheco. “What Training and Workforce Options has been able to do is work with those two community colleges to help align the students and their curriculum toward flexible workforce arrangements that meet employers’ needs.”

And that’s just one example, he said, of how Baystate and others in the healthcare sector have partnered with TWO to identify and close gaps involving several specific positions, including sterile-processing technicians, medical lab technicians, pharmacy technicians, and others.

That list includes call-center employees, he went on, adding that Baystate is one of many area employers, large and small, that have participated in the Advanced Call Center & Customer Service Training program.
To date, three cohorts of students have produced more than 55 graduates, with roughly 80% of those individuals placed in companies like MassMutual, PeoplesBank, Health New England, and many others, thus meeting a growing need for such specialists.

“There are quite a few call centers in the region if you start to add them up, and they’re across many sectors of the economy,” said Nick Fyntrilakis, vice president of Community Involvement for MassMutual, which has hired several of those graduates. “And a growing challenge for everyone with a call center was finding qualified applicants; different companies have different needs, but there are some foundational pieces that run across the whole spectrum.”

TWO, working in conjunction with those employers and the Regional Employment Board, developed a curriculum, identified solid candidates for the program, established a call-center simulation center, and developed a formal employer-engagement process to improve student placement, he went on, adding that these various steps have all helped ensure success and sum up what the program is all about.

“To us, that’s the kind of work that community colleges were designed to do,” said Fyntrilakis. “That’s what they were built to do — to plug into the workforce needs of the community and tailor programs that identify people that have a skills gap or require additional training or education, and then help connect them to those careers.”

And that’s exactly the type of work that the state’s community colleges were not doing, at least according to the Boston Foundation.

Bottom Line

Messner told BusinessWest that, while he had confidence in the joint submission for the Deval Patrick Award, he wasn’t exactly expecting the two Western Mass. schools to prevail in that competition.

“I was more than a little surprised by this, because we assumed that the Boston Foundation, being a Boston foundation, might be inclined, especially for this first award, to stick closer to home,” he said, adding quickly that, beyond geography, he wasn’t surprised by the choice.

That’s because of TWO’s quickly amassed track record and the promise to add to its portfolio of success stories.

The Deval Patrick Award might help with all that, and, as Messner, LePage, and others mentioned, that’s a far bigger prize than a pair of $25,000 checks.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Where the Heart Is

By BusinessWest Staff February 24, 2015

Employment Sections

O’Connell Care at Home Tries to Keep Up with Soaring Demand

Danielle Lord says home care is in demand, and so are qualified home-care aides and nurses.

Growing up in Holyoke, Fran O’Connell lived with an extended family, including an elderly aunt and grandfather. In those days, the family took care of each other, in sickness or health; no one had heard of home care.

These days, as owner of O’Connell Care at Home in Holyoke, he helps other families take care of their loved ones at home, away from institutional settings, through a broad range of home-care services, in addition to nurse-staffing services for a variety of clients.

Almost three decades after he launched the enterprise in 1987, O’Connell continues to see steady growth in his business, and explosive growth in the home-care industry — growth that’s being held back only by a national shortage in qualified home health aides. That’s because, as people live longer than they used to, and with their caregivers and children (often one and the same) more aware than ever of the care options available to them, demand for home care and other nursing services is only expected to increase.

“Really, there’s such a need in the community for home care,” said Danielle Lord, the company’s vice president of operations, who essentially runs the company’s day-to-day activity. “As the population of Baby Boomers age, more want to stay at home — or where they’re currently at, maybe assisted or independent living — rather than go to a nursing home.”

Lord came on board in 2007 and has seen significant change since then, including a move to larger quarters on Bobala Road in Holyoke; the company plans to move again this year, from Holyoke to Springfield. In addition, it opened a South Deerfield office last year.

“We opened that office to better serve the Franklin County and northern Hampshire County areas. While doing that, we decided to move our Holyoke office to Springfield to better serve Hampden County and southern Hampshire County,” she explained. “Business has tripled in the last five to seven years. We are really growing; there’s such a need in the community. We still could probably grow more, but home health aides and qualified home healthcare workers are so in demand right now.”

That’s the key issue right now for home-care companies — one O’Connell is addressing through an ambitious array of job fairs, recruitment efforts, and in-house training, all with the goal of keeping more Western Mass. seniors living safely and happily at home.

Fertile Ground

Before starting the firm, Lord said, O’Connell was a nurse practitioner who had taken care of his own grandfather at home. After earning his nursing degree from Columbia University in 1984, he returned to Holyoke and discovered that several of his friends had caught the entrepreneurial bug and were opening their own businesses.

While most nurses worked at specific settings, such as hospitals, he simply incorporated himself and started selling himself as a nurse. “If someone needed a nurse for the day, or someone got out of the hospital and needed a private-duty nurse, I did that,” he explained. “Word got out quickly, and I couldn’t do every shift, so I started bringing in friends, and before long I had 10 people subcontracting for me.”

Someone pointed out that O’Connell was essentially running a temp agency, so he took the next step and employed his fellow nurses, and the business was on its way.

“There weren’t home-care services out there in the ’80s, so it started really as a staffing business, then gradually turned to home care,” Lord said — a shift that began when O’Connell started getting calls from the Holyoke Visiting Nurses Assoc. and other organizations that service seniors.

O’Connell found he loved home care, and went on to earn his master’s degree in nursing in 1996 and was later certified as a family nurse practitioner.

Home care encompasses myriad services, Lord said, from basic household help to medication management to transport to appointments. “Primarily, it’s all your activities of daily living, the things you need to do to stay at home. We do homemaking and meal preparation, help people get up, get dressed, take a shower, toileting, all those sort of things.”

Home-care companies typically offer a wide range of time commitments as well, she added. “It’s everything from two hours once a week to help get someone groceries, to around-the-clock care because someone can’t be left alone, for dementia or hospice, or someone who wanders and can’t be left alone. It’s really such a broad spectrum.”

And it’s not just the client who benefits from home care, she added, but their family as well. “We help people figure out how to stay home, where they want to be, but also support other family members. Especially if the husband or wife is declining, we can help the spouse, help the family around the house, make sure they’re not getting overwhelmed.”

The staffing piece of O’Connell Care at Home — such as its contract work with Highland Valley Elder Services and various VNA organizations — is different in some ways, Lord said. “We’re still doing home care in those situations, but they provide the clients and have care plans already written. If an adult day service needs a nurse, we’ll try to staff a nurse. On [student] field trips, we’ll provide a nurse for the day. If a VNA has somebody on vacation and they have higher census and need home health aide, we’ll provide that. So, yes, we do some staffing, but it’s primarily home care.”

Transportation is another facet of the company’s service. “That’s all private pay — we’ll take somebody to the doctor or a family event on the weekend or around the holidays,” she explained. “We’re very busy with that around Christmas; people call us and ask, ‘can you transport my mother to Christmas dinner and then home?’ We have a wheelchair van for that. It’s a popular service around those times.”

Training Days

In fact, all O’Connell’s services are becoming more popular, which keeps the pressure on to continually add more talent. That’s easier said than done, with Forbes and U.S. News & World Report both listing home-care aide as one of the most in-demand jobs in coming years. Simply put, there aren’t enough bodies to meet the need.

“We recruit all the time, and we frequently have job fairs for people interested in the job,” Lord said. “The need for home health aides hinders our growth. Other companies are dealing with the same thing; they’re all looking for qualified workers. I think that’s across the board. We’re fighting now with hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living, independent living, home care, nursing homes. But we’re willing to train our own people. If someone has an interest, we’ll train them. We want to put the best person out there to care for clients — the kind of people I’d want to take care of my own family.”

The reason strikes at the heart of why home care is so important, she went on. “We want to make sure families feel their loved ones are safe at home. We write a care plan for the people we take care of. We learn what this person likes, doesn’t like, and decide who’s the best person we can send. We try to match their interests and send someone they can form a relationship with. Home care aides can take care of people for years, in many cases. They become a really important part of the family and increase their quality of life.

“We’re not perfect at it,” she was quick to add. “We’re honest with people that the first person you get may not be a perfect match, but we’re going to find you someone you end up clicking with — someone they’ll look forward to seeing each day.”

Lord said O’Connell mainly hires people who have been trained as home health aides or CNAs, “but if there is somebody who has other kinds of experience and thinks this is something they want to do, someone who’s caring and compassionate and really wants to take care of older people — because we primarily do elder care — we can offer some training to get them up and running, to become a home health aide.”

Beyond the basics, though, “we’re looking for someone reliable, with good common sense, someone who’s going to get there in a snowstorm,” she went on. “We want someone really caring who considers the needs of their clients and really wants to take care of them and do what’s best for them. They care about the people they’re taking care of.”

O’Connell says he takes pride in seeing people come work for him as CNAs, then go on to get PN or LPN degrees and return as nurses. He stressed that it’s not an easy job, but as a career path, it can be rewarding and — important for job seekers these days — stable.

Lord agreed, and said families appreciate the stability of a reliable home-care nurse or aide.

“We do a lot of training and have a lot of supervision,” she said. “We meet the family, write a care plan, and try to be really thoughtful. We’re trying to make good matches and keep people where they should be — and improve their quality of life.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Apply Yourself

By BusinessWest Staff February 24, 2015

Employment Sections

A chart of area employment agencies

Click HERE to download the PDF chart

Statute with Limitations?

By BusinessWest Staff February 24, 2015

Employment Sections

NLRB’s Joint-employer Campaign Provides Some Food for Thought

By PETER VICKERY

Is a franchisor liable for the labor practices of a franchisee? Are they joint employers? No, not according to the law. The franchisee is the employer, not the franchisor. But you would never guess that from the attitude of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Together, these two agencies are trying to foist labor-practices liability onto parties whose business models are predicated on its absence.

Peter Vickery

The joint-employer concept is a creature of the common law, which is a flexible thing, evolving on a case-by-case basis to meet society’s changing needs. But some areas of law achieve a certain degree of stability, which makes life in general (and business in particular) more predictable. One such area of settled law is the relationship between franchisees and the people they employ.

For more than three decades, the NLRB and the courts have applied the principle that the franchisee — not the franchisor — is the employer of the individuals who work in the franchisee’s place of business. If a franchisor actually exercised significant control over the terms and conditions of employment — such as hiring and firing decisions, rates of pay, day-to-day supervision, and scheduling — the story would be different. In the absence of that control, franchisees and franchisors are not joint employers.

But now, the NLRB is pursuing charges against franchisors for the alleged labor practices of franchisees, asserting that they are joint employers.

Certainly, a franchisor has to involve itself in aspects of a franchisee’s operations in order to police and protect the brand. Depending on the provisions of the intellectual-property agreement, this can entail monitoring and instructing a franchisee’s employees with regard to quality control. But that kind of involvement, no matter how deep, does not constitute significant control over labor relations. Nevertheless, the NLRB asserts that it does.

The first targets in the board’s crosshairs are McDonald’s and Browning-Ferris Industries. The goal is to make it easier for unions to organize fast-food employees and temporary workers hired by staffing agencies.

Just to be clear, the law has not changed. In 1982 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit articulated the sufficient-control standard, and two recent rulings from California reiterated the point that franchisors and franchisees are not joint employers. The rules governing how the NLRB defines the term ‘joint employer’ are the same as well. What has changed, however, is the identity of the NLRB’s general counsel. In November 2013, President Obama appointed Richard Griffin, formerly general counsel to the International Union of Operating Engineers, which represents not only workers in construction and petrochemicals, but also in service industries. As the NLRB’s legal chief, Griffin made the decision to go after McDonald’s Corp.

Those who agree argue that the NLRB board is doing no more than meeting its “responsibility to adapt the [National Labor Relations] Act to the changing patterns of industrial life,” as Supreme Court Justice Brennan put it in the 1975 case of NLRB v. Weingarten. There is no doubt that Justice Brennan, the champion of the ‘living Constitution,’ wrote those words. What is in serious doubt is whether Congress can delegate to an executive agency the power to ‘adapt’ a statute. The Constitution vests the legislative power exclusively in the legislative branch. If Congress wants to adapt a statute to the changing patterns of industrial life, it — and it alone — is free to do so.

By launching complaints against franchisors on the basis of joint-employer status in the face of settled law, the NLRB is taking a tack similar to the one some commentators have described as the sue-and-settle approach. Rather than go through the cumbersome process of adopting new rules and regulations, some agencies and their allies in the economic areas they regulate (their de facto constituents) prefer a faster route.

The sue-and-settle approach involves agencies collaborating with advocacy groups to achieve a policy objective by leaning on businesses until they agree to the group’s demands, bypassing the rule-making process. Together, the advocacy group and the agency accomplish via a consent decree what they could not have accomplished through the statutorily mandated regulatory route, replete with notice, review, public input, and political accountability.

What the NLRB is engaged in with its joint-employer campaign is a variant on sue-and-settle. While Mr. Griffin embarked on the case against Browning-Ferris, but without pausing, the board invited public comment on its new definition of joint employer. One of the supportive comments came from the EEOC, which seems to welcome the prospect of expanding the range of potential defendants subject to its jurisdiction in discrimination cases. If the NLRB and EEOC succeed, the ramifications will extend well beyond the fast-food and staffing sectors.

Peter Vickery practices law in Amherst; (413) 549-9933; www.petervickery.com

Non-compete Agreements

By BusinessWest Staff October 7, 2014

Employment Sections

It Appears That These Contracts May Be Here to Stay

By PETER VICKERY, Esq.

Peter Vickery

There have been no TV specials, live re-enactments, or commemorative stamps, but the fact is, this year marks the 600th anniversary of Dyer’s Case, the first recorded legal decision about a non-compete agreement.

It did not go well for the employer, John Dyer. He was asking the court to enforce the agreement against his former apprentice, a young man who (in exchange for Dyer forgiving a loan) had promised to refrain from setting up his own shop for six months after the end of the apprenticeship. Not only did the judge rule for the young apprentice, he added that Dyer himself ought to go to prison for trying to stifle competition.

While Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has no plans to jail employers who draft them, he would nevertheless like to make non-competes a thing of the past.

Six centuries after Dyer’s Case, the goal of non-competes remains the same: to help employers protect their businesses by temporarily preventing ex-employees from aiding, or becoming, the local competition. As in 47 other states, these contracts are legal in Massachusetts (with a few exceptions for particular professions, discussed below) so long as they are reasonable in terms of time and territory. Patrick wants to change that, but so far the Legislature has refused to go along. At the end of the last session — after legislators passed his economic-growth bill, minus the section that would have banned non-competes and rewritten the trade-secrets law — the governor said he would try again. What is at stake, and how would victory for the governor affect businesses in Massachusetts? Read on.

What Are Non-compete Agreements?

Non-competes have survived because creating intellectual property is like training an apprentice: it takes time and money. In business, our motive for investing such resources is profit, and most of us would not invest if other people could simply walk off with our profits.

Patent, copyright, and trademark law harness the profit motive by protecting most — but not all — forms of intellectual property. Trade-secrets law helps plug the gaps. Even after revealing a trade secret to an employee, an employer can retain some of the secret’s value via contracts, such as agreements not to disclose and not to compete.

If an employee with access to your trade secrets (e.g. customer data, expansion plans, and marketing strategy) quits and walks straight into a job with your nearest rival, you have reason to worry. Mindful of this possibility, some employers use non-disclosure agreements to prevent their trade secrets from falling into the hands of the competition. By signing non-disclosure agreements, your employees promise not to divulge confidential information to their new employer.

But how can you, the former employer, looking across the street at your ex-employees happily chatting away with your nemesis, be absolutely sure that they are abiding by this commitment and not using your information against you? As a practical matter, you cannot, at least not without resorting to electronic surveillance, which would likely generate many more difficulties — big ones, involving lawyers and judges — than it would solve. This is why non-competes are helpful.

Compliance with a non-compete agreement is easier to verify than compliance with a non-disclosure agreement. Although you may not be able to find out what your ex-employees are saying, you will find it comparatively easy to find out where they are working. So, to borrow a theological term, the purpose of the non-compete is to ensure that your employees avoid the occasion of sin, i.e. circumstances that entice or incite wrongdoing on their part.

Waiting for the harm to occur and then suing for damages would make little sense. After all, the most effective way to protect commercially valuable confidential information is to stop the harm from happening in the first place. Therefore, the typical non-compete allows the employer to ask a judge for an injunction prohibiting ex-employees from going to work for the local competitors or setting up a rival enterprise of their own.

But non-competes cannot go as far as some employers might wish. To imagine an extreme example, if the law allowed permanent, worldwide non-competes, ex-employees would be unable to pursue their livelihoods or start new businesses, commerce would stagnate, and the consumer would suffer. So to balance the employer’s interests against those of both the employee and society as a whole, the Massachusetts courts have gradually narrowed the purpose, geographic reach, and duration of non-competes.

This is how the Supreme Judicial Court has summed up the law: “a covenant not to compete is enforceable only if it is necessary to protect a legitimate business interest, reasonably limited in time and space, and consonant with the public interest.” In addition, the court will not enforce an agreement if, after signing it, the employee’s job undergoes substantial changes.

Each case is different, and the reasonableness of time and territory will depend on the particular facts, as will what sort of job changes are substantial, but one universal principle applies: if the agreement’s purpose is merely to prevent ordinary competition, the court will not enforce it.

There are at least five hurdles an employer has to jump over before a court will enforce a non-compete:

• The agreement must protect a legitimate business interest, e.g. trade secrets and good will;
• It must be reasonable in duration, e.g. up to two years;
• It must be reasonable in geographic scope, which depends on the extent of the employer’s business. The court might uphold a worldwide ban for a genuinely worldwide enterprise, but not for a business whose market extends only 50 miles from its store;
• The competition must be direct, i.e. for the same customers; and
• If the employee’s compensation or responsibilities change, the employee must sign a new agreement.

There is one more hurdle regarding current employees. If an employee is already working for the employer at the time she signs the agreement, the employer will have to provide her with separate consideration, meaning a benefit that is something more than the job itself, such as extra money. Otherwise, the non-compete is unenforceable.

As well as these significant hurdles, Massachusetts law prohibits non-competes for certain professions, namely physicians, nurses, broadcasters, licensed social workers, and attorneys. And the courts are inclined to relax the terms of non-competes that try to restrict the employment of financial advisors and brokers.

Even with all those caveats and provisos, non-competes make obvious sense for established companies. And therein lies the tradeoff dilemma for policymakers. A rule that protects existing businesses is also a barrier to entry, standing in the way of newcomers. If policymakers want to protect current jobs-makers, the environment will be less welcoming to insurgents. Conversely, if they want to create an ideal climate for startups, they will almost certainly hurt existing businesses and the people they employ.

The Case for Banning Non-competes

Patrick would like Massachusetts to follow California, where non-competes are illegal. Much of the lobbying has come from groups that believe the switch would encourage more innovation, making Massachusetts more like Silicon Valley.

Non-competes came into the crosshairs in the 1990s when academics started to blame them for discouraging startups. In 1994, AnnaLee Saxenian, a graduate of Williams College, Harvard, and MIT, credited Silicon Valley’s “culture of mobility” with enabling the rapid transfer of knowledge, and compared it unfavorably with the “buttoned-down” culture of Route 128 in the Boston area. Five years later, Ronald Gilson, a law professor at Stanford Law School, published an article that pointed to non-competes as the explanation for the success of Silicon Valley compared with Route 128. Gilson said that it was the presence of non-competes in Massachusetts and their absence in California that lay at the root of the different cultures.

Several scholars have buttressed this idea, claiming that non-competes impede entrepreneurship and job growth. For example, Matt Marx and Lee Fleming, the authors of Non-compete Agreements: Barriers to Entry… and Exit? (2012), found evidence of a “brain drain,” with talent moving from states that enforce non-competes to states that do not.

Patrick’s proposal is based on this notion. Specifically, he wants the Legislature to repeal Sections 42 and 42A of General Laws Chapter 93 (which allow damages and injunctions for the unlawful taking of trade secrets) and create a new Chapter 93K, a Massachusetts version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA). In a nutshell, the thinking behind the governor’s proposal is that ditching non-competes and adopting UTSA will help make Massachusetts more like California, increasing our allure for new, innovative, hi-tech enterprises.

Who Wants to Keep Non-competes?

Established, larger businesses tend to oppose the governor’s plan. Some report that confidential-information theft is common, not rare, and that abolishing non-competes would make it harder to deter the practice. More fundamentally, these employers sense that the bill threatens existing jobs without guaranteeing new ones. The promised gains are merely possible and general, whereas the losses are highly likely and specific.

Even some people who believe that non-competes impede startups recommend caution. For example, Marx and Fleming agree that non-competes “are responsible for a general exodus of talent [and] are driving away some of the best and brightest.” But they also point out the absence of some important data, and warn that there is still no “definitive answer regarding whether non-compete enforcement is a net positive or negative.” Clearly, when weighing the merits of a far-reaching policy proposal such as banning non-competes and signing up to UTSA, legislators need to bear in mind what we do not know.

But they should also look at what we do know, starting with two simple facts. First, 46 states have adopted UTSA in some form. The exceptions are Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. Second, 47 states enforce non-competes, and those that do not are California, Montana, and North Dakota.

So we know that (1) most states have a version of UTSA on their statute books and (2) most states enforce non-competes. This makes it difficult to determine how big a factor non-competes and UTSA are in encouraging innovative startups. Complicating matters further, in recent years several states have modified their non-compete rules. Idaho and Louisiana made it easier to enforce them, Oregon and New York made it harder, and Georgia moved closer to the Massachusetts approach. But, keeping these analytical challenges in mind, we can learn something valuable by looking at recent economic indicators and league tables of innovation and competitiveness.

One useful indicator is the unemployment rate. Looking at the states where non-competes are illegal, North Dakota’s rate is 2.8%, Montana’s is 4.7%, and California’s is 7.4%. Our unemployment rate in Massachusetts is 5.6%, higher than North Dakota’s and Montana’s but lower than California’s. The most likely explanation for the lower unemployment rates in Montana and North Dakota is not the absence of non-competes but the presence of a booming energy sector. And the fact that the unemployment rate is higher in California than in Massachusetts suggests that banning non-competes would not, in and of itself, boost our overall job growth.

Most of the states with UTSA — which are most of the states in the U.S. — have higher unemployment than Massachusetts. Of course, so do New Jersey and New York (non-UTSA states), which indicates that UTSA is not a determinative factor either way.

League tables of competitiveness and innovation tell a similar story. The Beacon Hill Institute’s 2013 State Competitiveness Index ranked Massachusetts top of the league, with Texas in ninth place and New York 26th. California came in 29th and New Jersey 41st. As for the two states (other than California) where non-competes are illegal, the index gave second place to North Dakota and 36th place to Montana. Non-competes do not seem to be outcom-determinative, at least according to the way the Beacon Hill Institute measures competitiveness.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s 2013 State Entrepreneurship Index ranks North Dakota first and California second, which would seem to support the contention that states without non-competes are more entrepreneurial than those with them, until you notice that, only two years before, California placed 11th, which was the ranking Massachusetts received in 2012, while New York held third place throughout. Between 2011 and 2013, the legal status of non-competes remained stable in California, Massachusetts, and New York, so any claim that this index proves non-competes stifle entrepreneurship falls flat.

Another index reinforces the lack of a connection, namely the 2014 State New Economy Index from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which factors innovation capacity into its calculation of economic dynamism. On the one hand, California (where non-competes are illegal) ranks third, ahead of New York and New Jersey (where they are allowed). But, as for the two states other than California where non-competes are illegal, the index ranks North Dakota 36th and Montana 39th. The state winning first place? Massachusetts. Again, the presence or absence of non-competes fails to predict a state’s standing in the innovation rankings.

In summary, the UTSA states include many with high unemployment and low innovation, which suggests that UTSA is not a key ingredient to prosperity. Similarly, the states that enforce non-competes include some that lead the nation in terms of innovation, and some that bring up the rear. What we do know is that, so far, no one has been able to offer clear and convincing proof that banning non-competes and enacting a version of UTSA would lead to greater innovation and more jobs.

The Future of Non-competes

If Patrick or his successor should decide to rejoin the battle, legislators would have to consider the costs to present employers as well as the putative benefits to employers yet to come.

They might also consider some innovations of their own, such as expanding the motley list of vocations where non-competes are forbidden — currently physicians, nurses, broadcasters, social workers, and lawyers. Even though those professions cannot be subject to non-competes, they seem to thrive regardless. For example, nobody is complaining about a lack of lawyers in Massachusetts (or anywhere else).

On the other hand, the amorphous nature of the tech sector makes it difficult to draw lines around. The Legislature learned this lesson last year when it imposed, and then repealed, a tax on “computer-system design services.” Trying to define the kinds of high-tech jobs that would qualify for new exemptions from non-competes could become a legislative drafter’s nightmare.

Unless and until proponents can offer persuasive evidence that banning non-competes would create more jobs than it would destroy, this particular species of contract looks set to celebrate its 601st birthday — and maybe many more.

Peter Vickery practices law in Amherst; (413) 549-9933; www.petervickery.com

Buying Life Insurance for Employees

By BusinessWest Staff October 7, 2014

Employment Sections

Tax Rules Make This Practice More Complicated Than Many Think

By CATHERINE CURRY, CPA

There are many reasons why an employer might buy life insurance for their employees: employee benefits, succession planning, buy/sell agreements, and debt protection, to name a few.

There are just as many ways to arrange the life-insurance contract, regarding the policy owner, beneficiary, and payment of premiums. As an employer, purchasing a life-insurance policy for an employee may seem pretty straightforward at first glance.

However, there are a number of tax rules that should be considered when purchasing these policies, as tax laws vary depending on the specifics of the life-insurance policy.

One of the most common types of employer-purchased life insurance is a group-term life-insurance policy that covers all employees. This is often used as part of the employee benefits package. Generally, the employer pays the entire premium for the group, but the employee gets to specify their own beneficiary on the policy. The life-insurance benefit is usually a multiple of the employee’s salary (i.e. one, two, or three times their annual salary).

The company and the employee need to keep in mind that, based on IRS uniform premium cost tables, the employee must include in gross income the cost of any insurance benefit in excess of $50,000 provided by the employer. This income inclusion is usually achieved by an adjustment to the W-2s at year end or when an employee terminates employment.

Companies might also purchase a life insurance policy on a specific employee or group of employees. These specific policies may have the company as the owner and beneficiary.

There are several reasons why a company would choose to insure the life of an employee. The person may be a key individual within the organization, and the insurance proceeds could be used for recruiting and/or the salary of a replacement, if necessary.

Life-insurance policies may also be used to provide supplemental funding in a buy/sell agreement or business-succession plan. Life-insurance policies are even sometimes used as supplemental funding for outstanding debt guaranteed by an officer/employee.

Over the past several years, there has been a lot of buzz about employer-owned life-insurance policies because there have been some recent tax-law changes. The general tax rule is that premiums for life insurance, where the company is the beneficiary, are not deductible. Premiums on policies where the employee names a family member as beneficiary are a taxable fringe benefit.

This benefit is includable in their W-2 and deducted as an employee benefit on the company’s tax return. Generally, life-insurance proceeds are not considered taxable income if collected upon death. However, if the policy is surrendered early, then the proceeds are taxable to the extent they exceed the premiums paid. Corporations must also consider any AMT preferences regarding life insurance in their ACE calculation.

The IRS has instituted new rules on documentation and reporting of employer-owned life insurance policies issued after Aug. 17, 2006. Here are some of the specifics:

Documentation

• Notice and consent requirements must be completed before the contract is issued.
• The employee must be notified in writing that the employer intends to insure the employee’s life. The notification must state the maximum face amount of the life-insurance contract to be issued.
• The employee must provide written consent to being insured and acknowledge that such coverage may continue if the employee were to terminate employment.
• The employee must be made aware that the employer will be a beneficiary of any proceeds paid under the terms of the contract. Usually this consent is prepared by the insurance agent, but it is important that a company retain a copy in its files.

Reporting

The IRS has issued Form 8925, Report of Employer-owned Life Insurance Contracts, which is now required to be filed with the employer’s business tax return. Information required for Form 8925 (on policies issued after Aug. 17, 2007) includes:

• Total employees;
• The number of employees with employer-owned life insurance contracts (with ‘employees’ including common-law employees, officers, directors, and highly compensated employees);
• The total value of all employer-owned life insurance contracts; and
• The number of contracts that do not have employee consent.

It is imperative that companies make their tax preparer aware of the existence of any of these policies. Proper completion of the documentation and reporting process is required to ensure that any death proceeds of an employer-owned life-insurance contract are received income-tax free.

Failure to comply with the mandated documentation and reporting requirements could result in the proceeds from these contracts, in excess of premiums, being considered taxable income, and the increase in taxes could be severely detrimental to the company, negating the original intent of supplemental funding.

Your tax advisor should be able to help you ensure that you have adhered to all of the necessary requirements, and also assist with any prior filings which may be required if information had been inadvertently omitted from prior-year tax returns.

Companies may also enter into life-insurance contracts called split-dollar life-insurance arrangements. These contracts are usually for specific employees, particularly higher-level employees, where this arrangement becomes part of the overall compensation package. The employee is generally the policy owner, and the company will generally pay the premiums for such policies.

In this instance, the employee chooses their beneficiary. The tax rules around recognizing the expense and benefits of these policies changed for policies issued after Sept. 17, 2003.

There are two different calculations required for taxing split-dollar life-insurance arrangements: an economic-benefit approach and a loan approach. If the employer pays the premiums, the premium payments are treated as a loan, with interest accruing until repaid at death or surrender.

The economic benefit arises from the employee’s interest in the current life-insurance protection. The nuances of these approaches can get complex, but a trusted tax advisor or insurance agent can assist with the details of these arrangements.

If a company is considering the purchase of life insurance for its employees, for any of the varied reasons, they should take the time to consult with their insurance agent and tax preparer to ensure the contracts are structured for maximum tax effectiveness.

Catherine Curry, CPA is a tax manager with the Holyoke based public accounting firm, Meyers Brothers Kalicka; (413) 322-3544; [email protected].

Maximum Potential

By BusinessWest Staff August 12, 2014

Employment Sections

Sunshine Village Provides Opportunities for Clients, Solutions for Employers

Gina Golash Kos says Sunshine Village has made a significant difference in the lives of individuals with disabilities.

Gina Golash Kos says Sunshine Village gives people with disabilities the opportunity to fulfill their potential, become independent, and learn valuable work skills.

“People’s lives are better today because of a dream conceived by a small group of parents in 1967 who wanted to create a warm, welcoming organization to help their children and other people with disabilities,” said Kos, the agency’s executive director. “That dream was and is Sunshine Village, and today the organization helps people find employment, make friends, and do things they never thought they could.”

The agency serves 400 adults age 22 and older, and has formed close ties with many local businesses that augment their employee base with trained workers who are available on a temporary, seasonal, or permanent basis.

“It’s a win-win situation because people with disabilities get the opportunity to work and businesses get great employees who show up on time and do the job correctly,” Kos told BusinessWest.

She added that using Sunshine Village as a subcontractor is cost-effective because it pays for traditional employee-related benefits and its employees are prescreened, trained, and overseen by a supervisor who accompanies them to the worksite each day.

“We typically meet with the employer, tour their operation, talk to them about the work they need done, and help them determine how we can help them save time and money through group or individual placements, before we assign people to a job,” Kos said.

Last November, Callaway Golf Balls Operations Inc. in Chicopee hired a six-person team from Sunshine Village to help fulfill a number of orders. “We put them on the assembly line and also had them label and unpack golf balls,” said Georgia London, Callaway’s maintenance, repair, and operating buyer and parts-crib supervisor. “They were here for six months, and we grew to love them. They showed up every day smiling, ready for the next challenge, and their smiles never diminished, no matter what we asked them to do. I was impressed and amazed by how conscientious they were and by their focus on quality. It was an excellent situation, and as soon as business picks up, we will hire them again.”

Kos said people who work for Sunshine Village are happy to be given the opportunity to earn a paycheck. Although some might not be able to meet the demands of a workplace on their own, the supervision they receive allows them to be successful.

“The workers we place are proud to do jobs that others might find repetitive or boring,” Kos said. “So many people with disabilities want to work and have the chance to prove themselves, and with our support, they are able to meet employers’ expectations and often exceed them.”

For this issue and its focus on employment, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Sunshine Village and its strong track record of providing opportunities for its clients and solutions for area employers.

Work in Progress

The village became a reality 47 years ago, thanks to the efforts of a group of parents whose children had disabilities. Under the direction of P. Joseph Casey of Chicopee, they procured 13 acres of donated land and built their program.

“They started with a nursery school and playground,” Kos said, adding that Sunshine Village soon grew to include three large buildings and a ballfield. “Over time, it went from a grassroots organization led by parents to a well-respected, sophisticated organization led by a board of directors.”

Sunshine employees (from left) Colleen Brosnan, Jonathan Gelula, and Richard Klisiewicz say their training center prepares people to work in industrial and commercial settings.

The agency employs more than 200 staff members, and its annual operating budget exceeds $10 million, which comes from federal and state money, boosted by private funding and proceeds from an annual fund-raising golf tournament.

Services provided by clients range from packaging to document preparation, catalog assembly, custom display assembly, box folding, labeling, collating, shrink-wrapping, clamshell and blister packaging, liquid pouring, and more.

Many begin their careers by working in the Employment Services Division’s integrated training center on the Chicopee campus, which prepares individuals to work in industrial and commercial settings.

“It’s a hub where we help people find jobs,” Kos said, adding that individuals with and without disabilities are trained alongside each other and fulfill orders that companies outsource to the facility.

The jobs can range from redoing work that was done incorrectly, such as removing inappropriate stickers and replacing them with the right ones, or removing products from boxes that were packed incorrectly, then repacking them. “We support a lot of manufacturers,” she added.

Sunshine Village also has a federal contract, and its employees maintain and clean all of the buildings and hangars at Westover Air Reserve Base. In addition, some perform other janitorial work, such as dusting, vacuuming, and emptying wastebaskets at local companies.

In addition, Sunshine Village opened a Community Based Day Service last month to allow individuals to find their own jobs while enhancing their professional skills through internships and volunteer opportunities, while enjoying an array of social and recreational activities.

Kos says the unpaid internships give people the opportunity to experience different types of jobs and work environments. “It’s important because some individuals are not sure what they would like to do,” she explained. “They may enjoy sitting and working quietly or prefer a fast-paced environment with a lot of other people around them.”

The volunteer work is also helpful. “Our clients have helped local churches with cleaning and spent time in local food pantries, at the Chicopee Public Library, and in the Thomas J. O’Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center,” Kos said. “Volunteering is a great way for people to get ready for their first job and give back to the community.” She added that groups planning nonprofit events are invited to call Sunshine Village if they need volunteers.

Expanded Horizons

In addition to its Employment Services Division, Sunshine Village offers a Day Habilitation Services Program, which runs year-round and helps people acquire the skills they need to become productive members of their communities. It is a medically based model with offerings tailored to meet each individual’s strengths and needs.

“Physical, speech, and occupational therapies are incorporated into music, culinary, art, and sport therapy programs,” Kos said. “People might work on gross motor skills in music therapy or fine motor skills in art therapy. Music therapy helps them communicate and express themselves while they have fun and socialize with others. They also learn to prepare food in our culinary program and participate in yoga and tae kwon do classes in our sports program. We focus on developing functional life skills, improving coping strategies, and increasing independence.” Adaptive devices and equipment are also used to maximize each person’s potential.

Jonathan Scytkowksi and Samuel Whittle fill out job applications with help from Miguel Colon.

These programs are conducted at a variety of locations. In addition to providing services at Sunshine Village’s main campus on Litwin Lane in Chicopee, the agency also operates community-based sites in Three Rivers, Westfield, Springfield, and Chicopee Falls, said Kos, adding that the organization receives a great deal of support from the community.

The golf tournament, for example, allows the agency to pay for improvements to its buildings, new technology, and holiday parties, as well as adaptive equipment and extra supplies, she noted.

Meanwhile, the Chicopee Elder Council 69 of the Knights of Columbus and Fairview Council #4044 have made generous donations to the agency, and many businesses provide ongoing support. “We are very fortunate to have so many people helping us,” Kos said.

As a result, Sunshine Village’s programs continue to grow. “We’re developing a day program specifically designed to meet the needs of people with autism-spectrum disorders,” she noted. “We want to help them live independent lives by promoting social and daily living skills and improving communication.”

The program is still in the planning stages, but the demand for it is clear. “Autism is a growing problem, and during the last year we have talked with our funding sources, local sources, and parents to determine the types of services that are needed,” Kos said.

People employed by Sunshine Village are proud that, since 1968, all of the organization’s programs have received the highest level of accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities. “And the most recent accreditation, which was highly complimentary, was completed in April,” Kos told BusinessWest.

Bright Prospects

Sunshine Village has made a significant difference in the lives of individuals with disabilities.

“Everything we do, which includes the people participating in services, our experienced and caring employees, our innovative programs, and our effective outcomes, is a realization of our founders’ dream,” Kos said.

“We serve so many people who are truly happy, and we are proud of our history and what we achieve day by day,” she went on. “Our partnerships are growing and will continue to expand, which allows us to help people find jobs while providing employers with good employees. So we are confident about the future of our organization, because our success is sustained by compassion and enthusiasm and realized through strategic planning and effective leadership.”

Decisions, Decisions

By BusinessWest Staff August 12, 2014

Employment Sections

Three Recent Rulings Issued by the MCAD Are Ones to Remember

By PETER VICKERY

Is a worker who had a heart attack ‘handicapped’ in the legal sense of the word? Is a manager handicapped even if he can work nine hours a day, five days a week? Can a professor win $200,000 in emotional-distress damages without presenting any medical records as evidence? According to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), the answer to all three questions is ‘yes.’

Our Commonwealth’s fair-employment-practices law, Chapter 151B, prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, ancestry, or handicap. The agency that has the job of adjudicating complaints under that law is the MCAD. If the MCAD finds probable course, the case goes to a public hearing. If the losing side appeals, it goes to the full commission. Either side can seek judicial review of the full commission’s decision.

Although the MCAD is not a court, its opinions influence the way judges interpret the statute. The judiciary tends to defer to the MCAD’s view of the scope and meaning of Chapter 151B — not always, but often enough. So when the full commission issues a decision, it matters.

Three of the decisions that the full commission issued over the past 12 months provide employers with some useful pointers about the legal presumptions and interpretations MCAD’s hearing officers use, and the potential cost of not knowing what they are. In all three cases, the hearing officer awarded the employee damages for emotional distress, the full commission affirmed the award, and it took at least five years from filing the complaint to the commission’s final decision — in one case, nine years. In addition to those commonalities, each of the three decisions is noteworthy in its own right.

Glynn v. Massasoit Industrial Corp.

One of the key questions in this case was whether the employee had a handicap. Chapter 151B defines a handicap primarily as “a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities of a person.” In the context of the statute’s ban against discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, and national origin, a reasonable reader could infer that the Legislature meant to prohibit discrimination against people with lifelong (or at least lengthy) disabilities.

But the way the MCAD interprets the word, an ‘impairment’ does not have to be permanent to qualify as a handicap. Even a temporary impairment may qualify, as in the case of 74-year old Mr. Glynn, who suffered pneumonia and a heart attack leading to a one-month hospital stay. Glynn’s employer terminated him, allegedly for his failure to show up at work or to call in.

A supervisor testified that the company had not known the reason for Glynn’s absence. But the testimony the hearing officer found more credible was that of Glynn’s daughter-in-law, who said that she had visited the workplace twice to explain about the pneumonia, heart attack, and hospitalization.

The hearing officer took into account Glynn’s 22 years of service with the company, his age, plus the difficulty of finding another job at age 74, and decided that he deserved compensatory damages of $54,600. Based on Glynn’s testimony about how he felt after losing his job (lost, lonely, and disappointed) she awarded him $35,000 for emotional distress. As well as affirming the damages, the full commission ordered the employer to pay almost $52,000 in legal fees and costs. In total, the company had to pay just under $142,000. This six-figure price tag should help serve as a reminder that even temporary ailments can constitute a handicap.

The MCAD has a duty to construe Chapter 151B liberally, which as a practical matter tends to help employees and hurt employers. The Legislature wrote this liberal-construction rule into the text of the law, but there are some equally important rules that do not appear in the statute itself. They have emerged through the common-law process of judges applying the law to individual cases.

Anderson v. UPS

One such rule, which employers may think of as a thumb on the scales in favor of employees, made its presence felt in Anderson v. UPS, namely the broad presumption in favor of finding individuals disabled.

A manager asked his employer to reassign him to the day shift because working 12-hour shifts at night exacerbated his bipolar depression and anxiety disorder. Noting that Mr. Anderson said that, despite his condition, he could work nine hours a day, five days a week, the company determined that he was not legally handicapped and refused to engage in a discussion with him. Instead, it terminated him. This was a mistake, and quite an expensive one.

In combination, the statutory liberal-construction rule and the judge-made presumption in favor of finding individuals disabled tilted the scales heavily against UPS. Applying those two principles, the MCAD hearing officer found that Anderson was handicapped, and that UPS should have realized as much on the basis of the medical records describing his symptoms in detail, plus his lengthy hospital stays.

Because Anderson was handicapped in the Chapter 151B sense of the word, the MCAD held that UPS should have engaged in an interactive dialogue about providing reasonable accommodations. The failure to do so led to an award of approximately $575,000 in damages (including $125,000 for emotional distress), $8,000 in costs, and legal fees of $90,000, for a grand total of $673,000.

Anderson v. UPS shows that, even if an employee can put in a full working week, the employer should not conclude, on that basis alone, that the employee is outside the definition of ‘handicapped.’ That employee may still be entitled to Chapter 151B protection as a ‘qualified handicapped person,’ triggering the employer’s duty to engage in a good-faith, two-way discussion about reasonable accommodations.

Lulu Sun v. UMass Dartmouth

Liberal construction and the presumption in favor of deeming employees disabled are legal principles that affect the cost of day-to-day decisions in the workplace. The third case, Lulu Sun v. UMass Dartmouth, highlights the impact of another rule: the deference that the full commission accords to the hearing officer’s decisions about witness credibility.

In this case, a professor filed two complaints against her employer, UMass Dartmouth. One alleged that the university had denied her promotion on the basis of her gender, race/ancestry, and national origin, and the second alleged retaliation. The professor prevailed at the hearing, and, in addition to awarding damages, the hearing officer ordered UMass to promote her to full professor, pay a civil penalty of $10,000, and undergo training.

UMass appealed only the civil penalty, the training, and the emotional-distress award, which amounted to $200,000. At the root of the emotional-distress award was the hearing officer’s assessment of the credibility of the professor and her witnesses (the professor’s father and two faculty members) regarding her sleeplessness, timidity, a rash on her hands and legs, and her loss of both weight and verve. The hearing officer stated, “the vivacity, confidence, and vigor the complainant exhibited prior to the events at issue are hard to square with the fragile and wan woman who presented herself for public hearing.”

Pointing to the dearth of medical evidence, UMass challenged the emotional-distress damages. But the full commission upheld the $200,000 figure and awarded attorneys’ fees of almost $425,000.

It is important to note that the commissioners do not rehear the case, so they are not in a position to see the witnesses in the flesh. Instead, in a rule that works somewhat like a presumption, they defer to the hearing officer. As it noted in Lulu Sun, the commission shows “great deference” to the hearing officer’s decisions about the credibility of witnesses, the weighing of disputed issues of fact, and the assessment of damages. So unless it concludes that the officer’s decision was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise unlawful, the commission will affirm that decision.

The main lesson of this case is simple: live testimony matters. The physical appearance and demeanor of a complainant-employee and the way witnesses comport themselves under questioning are factors that the hearing officer will take into account, both in deciding liability and calculating damages. Because the full commission will defer to the officer on these matters, employers would be wise — particularly when sums in the half-million-dollar range are at stake — to treat MCAD hearings as make-or-break events.

Bottom Line

In summary, these three cases help remind employers that: (1) hearings matter, and persuading the full commission to overturn the decision of the hearing officer is an uphill battle; (2) the MCAD can — and does — award damages for emotional distress, sometimes six-figure sums; and (3) even before judicial review, the amount of time likely to elapse between the employee filing the complaint and the full Commission rendering a decision may be upward of five years.

Sometimes, of course, this last point redounds to the employer’s advantage, so long as management and counsel alike prepare themselves for a marathon, not a sprint.

Peter Vickery, Esq., practices law in Amherst; www.petervickery.com

A Word on Employee Handbooks

By BusinessWest Staff August 12, 2014

Employment Sections

Beware Some of the Many Costly Mistakes Employers Make

By Kathryn S. Crouss, Esq.

Kathryn S. Crouss, Esq.

Employee handbooks communicate employers’ expectations to employees. While such manuals are not required, they are recommended.

Having formal, written procedures in place will reduce the possibility of confusion regarding company policy, thereby enabling employers to spend less time, energy, and money explaining rules and regulations.

Handbooks also serve as good references regarding applicable federal, state, and local law, which lessens employers’ exposure to litigation. As such, it is good practice to be cognizant of the current laws in force, make note of any changes or new developments, and adjust policies accordingly. The best advice regarding employee handbooks is to develop a good organizational style, so that the handbook is user-friendly, and avoid using overly broad or narrow language.

Some suggested topics to focus on include:

Sexual Harassment Policy

Employers can be held liable for sexual harassment on the part of their employees in certain circumstances. If an employer is found to have been aware of sexually harassing conduct from one co-worker to another, and did not act reasonably to prevent it, the employer can be held liable for the behavior. For this reason, employers are well advised to adopt a policy against sexual harassment.

The policy should include a description and examples of sexual harassment, provide a description of the process for filing a complaint, and state that it is unlawful to retaliate against someone for filing a complaint. Employees should be required to sign an acknowledgment of their understanding of the policy, which employers should keep in each employee’s personnel file.

E-mail and Internet Use Policy

A good employee handbook should include a comprehensive e-mail and Internet use policy. Recent case law suggests that employers may be liable for the conduct of their employees when they use the company’s e-mail and Internet connections. However, courts also recognize that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace.

A good e-mail and Internet policy will clearly outline the employer’s expectations regarding Internet and e-mail usage in the workplace, to avoid conflict between the two competing interests. Such a policy should:

• Inform employees whether personal use of the Internet or e-mail is permitted. It is advisable to prohibit all personal use of Internet and electronic mail on company time and equipment.

• Advise employees that their Internet and e-mail activity is monitored.

• Inform employees what uses of e-mail and Internet are prohibited.

• Develop an easy process for employees to report mistakes or violations.

• Provide employees with information regarding the consequences of violating the e-mail and Internet use policy.

As with an employer’s sexual harassment policy in a handbook, employers are advised to require employees to sign a statement acknowledging receipt of the policy.

Other Topics to Include

The handbook should explain that eEmployee health benefits may be continued at the employee’s expense for up to 18 months after a voluntary or involuntary termination (for employers with 20 or more employees) through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). At the state level (often referred to as mini-COBRA), Massachusetts continued coverage is available for the same amount of time for employers with two to 19 employees.

A good handbook will also address workers’ compensation, at-will employment, anti-discrimination policies, sick and personal days, vacation time (Massachusetts employers are not required to pay terminated employees for unused sick or personal days, but unused vacation time is considered wages and must be paid upon termination), the Family Medical Leave Act, access to personnel files (in Massachusetts, employees have the right to access their records within five days of submitting a written request), and jury-duty leave (in Massachusetts, if an employee is scheduled to work for three months prior to the jury duty, he or she is entitled to regular wages for the first three days of jury-duty leave).

Avoiding the Contract Trap

Employers should include a clause in the handbook stating that nothing in the handbook constitutes an employment contract. Courts now find that an employee handbook can be construed as an employment contract, binding the employer to certain obligations. For example, an employer’s failure to adhere to a handbook policy regarding progressive discipline may be used as evidence of an improper termination.

Therefore, it is critical that employers be familiar with their own employee handbook and ensure that its practices conform to the stated policies. It is also important that the language in a handbook is flexible enough to allow employers to alter and adjust such policies as needed. Consequently, employers are urged to invest some effort and carefully draft their employee handbooks to reflect their business needs.

To prevent an employee handbook from being considered a contract:

• Retaining the right to unilaterally modify the contact;

• Do not negotiate any terms of the handbook with the employee;

• Make sure the handbook provides only guidance to employees regarding the company’s policies;

• Make sure the handbook never states a term or length of employment;

• Call special attention to the handbook during the hiring process; and

• Do not require that the employee sign the handbook.

If you need assistance with drafting or reviewing your employee handbook, you are urged to contact an attorney or an employment specialist.

Kathryn S. Crouss, Esq. is a member of Bacon Wilson’s litigation department and handles all aspects of civil litigation, including employee- and management-side employment-law litigation, personal injury, and domestic-relations litigation; (413) 781-0560; baconwilson.com/attorneys/crouss

Get a Job

By BusinessWest Staff August 12, 2014

Employment Sections

A chart of the region’s employment agencies

Click here to download the PDF

Class Action

By BusinessWest Staff June 3, 2014

Employment Sections

Tech Foundry Aims to Build a Skilled Workforce — and More

Delcie Bean, president of Paragus Strategic IT and founder of Tech Foundry.

Paragus Strategic IT, by any measure, is one of the Pioneer Valley’s recent success stories, a fast-growing technology firm that’s getting set to move into a brand-new building in Hadley, having long outgrown its current location.

In fact, said its president, Delcie Bean, the firm would like to grow even faster, but that’s not always possible, because of the difficulty finding the right talent. It’s a story other business owners have been telling as well.

“We have been struggling with staffing for a long time, as has everyone else in the area,” Bean said. “We thought it was just us because our requirements are so stringent, and that’s why we’re having trouble hiring people. But it turns out everyone is looking for the same people but can’t find them — MassMutual, Baystate, Health New England, and smaller places like MassLive, Mobius, and Entre. They’re all having the same problem — they can’t hire. And that impedes growth, it impedes service, it impedes research and development.”

So, about a year ago, Bean started writing down ideas to tackle the problem — on a napkin. “I still have that napkin somewhere,” he said. “I wrote what the problem was and how we can go about solving it.”

The problem, in very specific terms, is that most people applying for available jobs, with IT firms and in other industries, lack not only the necessary skills, he noted, but also a certain level of professional acumen. “They don’t know customer service, they don’t know how to fill out a résumé or cover letter, they can’t interact with people well or write a business-formatted e-mail. Even the ones who have the technical skills, we can’t hire them because they aren’t ‘people people,’ they aren’t professionals — they’re not employable.”

“It’s not just a problem in the IT sector,” he reiterated. “Many sectors in Massachusetts are saying the same thing; they can’t find entry-level employees who come to the table with professional skills. We’ve seen it in precision manufacturing, financial services, healthcare — a lot of the sectors we work with say they have the same problems.”

From those napkin scribblings, however, emerged a possible solution, an ambitious workforce-development program Bean calls Tech Foundry. The goal of the new nonprofit, which will soon complete almost $500,000 in fund-raising for a one-year pilot project, is to train unemployed and high-school-age individuals and match them with the very precise needs of area companies.

“A lot of existing workforce-development programs use a broad-based curriculum, with all the kids learning the same stuff in the same way, then demonstrate what they know by taking tests,” he said. “I had some very frank, open conversations with the community colleges, and they admitted what they’re doing well and where they can improve. They admitted that, in many ways, they’re not equipped to handle what some sectors are asking for.”

The ambitious, innovative Tech Foundry is seeking nothing less than a game change when it comes to training workers and keeping them in a region that has been bleeding talent for a long time. It’s an idea with ramifications for not only education and workforce development, Bean said, but overall economic growth in the region as well.

Badges? We Need Badges

And it all begins by earning badges.

Backing up a little, Bean interviewed a number of companies about their needs and asked them to be very specific. “Customer service? What exactly does that mean? So I asked for 15 things they want applicants to know how to do. Same thing on the technical side — they say they want someone proficient in Excel, so I made them explain exactly what they want them to do in Microsoft Excel.”

Delcie Bean describes the Tech Foundry space, still being completed and furnished, as “Googlesque.”

Tech Foundry distills these specific needs into badges students in the program can earn by learning the designated skills, not unlike in the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. “This badge means they can do these 25 things in Microsoft Excel. If people want them to do other things, there will be another badge we’ll call Intermediate Excel, or Excel 202.

“It allows us to have a common language between employers and people training future employees,” he continued. “Everyone will be on the same page. Right now, we’re misaligned, and this forces us all into one set of agreed-upon skills as we define what each position needs.”

The core idea of Tech Foundry, then, is to use those very specific badges to match job seekers with available jobs.

“We built what we call an engine — a real-world, scalable, real-time model for delivering education,” Bean said. “Say Paragus wants to hire two people. We’d log onto the engine and post the job and a list of badges associated with that position. Then we’d specify when we plan to hire, how many we want to hire, a couple more criteria, and hit submit.”

The end result, he told BusinessWest, resembles not so much a traditional want ad, but something more akin to a manufacturer placing an order for an item: “I say, ‘here’s the part I need; here’s my specific timetable,’ and that part is delivered to me.”

Meanwhile, students in the program will see these requests come up on the engine and get a feel for what they need to accomplish to find the ideal career. “They become aware of market demand and can tailor their education to meet that demand. Maybe a position opens up, and you have 80% of the badges already. You say, ‘I like that company, I like the pay, and I know what I need to do to get where I need to be for them to hire me,’ and you focus your time on getting the remaining badges.”

One of the critical aspects of the program, for many, will be the way it bypasses college debt for those who don’t need a degree and makes college more affordable for those who do.

“We’re going to show kids how to get a $40,000 job right out of high school — to earn a living wage,” said Bean, who famously launched his company when he was 14 and bypassed college to focus on growing it.

While some of the careers Tech Foundry graduates achieve won’t require a college education, he noted, for those that do, many participating companies are expected to offer tuition-reimbursement plans for night school, weekend study, or an online degree. “Why not get your professional education on someone else’s dime? Your education is tailored to the career path you love, you’re doing the work and getting a paycheck at the same time — you’d be crazy not to do it.”

Starting Young

Bean envisions an engine where hundreds of Tech Foundry graduates are seeing precise company needs in real time and constantly making matches. In fact, Bean would like to target four or five groups of career seekers — unemployed people, veterans, young people with some college experience who dropped out, high-schoolers, and — possibly — parolees trying to get a fresh start after jail time. But he can’t serve all those groups right off the bat.

“We decided to pick one for the pilot, and that’s high-school kids,” he said, noting that the initial idea was to teach them job skills, confidence, and professionalism over several years. The problem is that a pilot of 100 students over four years would cost between $3 million and $5 million in personnel and other resources, and Bean thought it unlikely that he’d secure that level of funding for an unproven concept.

So, instead, he’s launching a one-year pilot program involving 25 teenagers, all entering their senior year of high school this fall. It will cost $482,000, most of which has already been raised — mainly with small donations, although larger ones, like $50,000 from MassMutual and $125,000 from an anonymous donor, helped a great deal.

The pilot will essentially be an accelerated version of the program, with the 25 students — who have already been chosen from around 100 applicants — taking part in a six-week curriculum starting July 7 and running through mid-August.

When school starts in the fall, Tech Foundry will essentially become an after-school program, with the participants studying there five to 10 hours a week until graduating in the spring. After that, they will be placed among 15 companies that have committed to participating in the pilot.

“That will be the proof of concept we use to fund-raise, to show that we’re economically viable,” he said, before scaling the project up to 100 participants at a time, from the different demographics he mentioned. Teachers have already been hired, as well as an executive director and director of operations.

Tech Foundry has leased the ninth floor of Harrison Place in downtown Springfield and spent $40,000 renovating it to resemble a Silicon Valley workspace, with brightly colored paint and carpeting and what Bean called “a funky-cool café and weird furniture. It’s a very creative and engaging place. It’s Googlesque.”

Speaking of Google, Bean is thinking big when it comes to the regional economic-development potential of his new enterprise. He noted Cambridge’s tech explosion convinced companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, as well as a number of smaller firms, to set down roots there and generate a critical mass of growth. “They produced 10,000 new jobs in three years. Those are insane numbers, crazy numbers. But it’s been done elsewhere — Raleigh, Austin, New Orleans, Denver … it’s happening all over the country.”

But it only happens where there’s a skilled workforce, because the big players are desperate for talent, he said. And the presence of a Google or Microsoft will help the region retain the talented graduates from UMass and other regional colleges who have been packing up their degrees and leaving for better, higher-paying opportunities than are available here.

“That will solve what people thought was the original problem, the brain drain,” he explained. “We’ll be able to keep UMass graduates because they’ll be able to work at these brand-name companies right here.”

Pieces in the Valley

The catalyst for achieving all that, Bean stressed, is a skilled workforce.

“We all know we have a low cost of living here, tons of infrastructure, a great lifestyle, access to the outdoors — we have all these assets,” he said. “But without a catalyst, we can’t sell those assets. That’s what Tech Foundry is trying to do, to build that catalyst.”

In fact, he added, Greater Springfield has the potential to become an even more promising hub than those other cities he mentioned. “We’re right between Boston and New York, we have an airport in Hartford, we have the computing center and low-cost electric in Holyoke … this is a phenomenal region.”

He believes Tech Foundry will be the first step in keeping more talent in a region with so much to offer. For promising high-school students and eventually others, the project may prove to be a vital link to a lucrative, satisfying career.

“They’ll see the data in real time,” Bean said. “They will know what the market demand is, and they’ll know, in very specific terms, what they need to do to get to the level they need to get that job.”

And, like other local businesspeople who have volunteered to be part of the training starting in July, he’ll be right in the middle of it, teaching some of the classes himself.

“I’m excited that I get to work with these kids,” said someone who understands youthful ambition better than most. “I’m so passionate about this.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Helping Companies Get IT

By BusinessWest Staff June 3, 2014

Employment Sections

FIT Solutions Creates a Strong Niche Within the Staffing Industry

Jackie Fallon says her company has achieved steady growth through its focus on the specific needs of both the clients it serves and the candidates it places with those firms.

Jackie Fallon says her expertise lies in the realms of technology and staffing, but she also has a background of sorts in marketing, experience that didn’t effectively “kick in,” as she put it, when she went about naming her company, FIT Solutions.

The first word is an acronym that blends her last name with the sector she specializes in — Fallon Information Technology — while the second amounts to what Fallon believes the company provides to both the businesses it serves and the individuals it places with those clients; she calls them candidates. Meanwhile, she does a lot with that word ‘FIT,’ as evidenced by the slogan on her letterhead — ‘Providing IT Resources That FIT Your Business.’

Unfortunately — and this is probably a sign of the times — many jump to the wrong conclusion. “A lot of people think we’re a fitness company, and we’re not, obviously,” said Fallon with a laugh.

Despite this confusion, Fallon is nonetheless making a name for herself in a challenging subsector within the broad staffing industry — helping companies of all sizes, but especially small to mid-size enterprises, find the IT personnel they need to enable their ventures to operate effectively in an increasingly technology-driven world.

It’s challenging, she said, because, despite some attractive benefits to being in IT — the pay is generally good, and work is, for the most part, still plentiful — not enough young people are getting into the field. She speculated that the bursting of the dotcom bubble early last decade and the exporting of considerable work overseas to India and other spots may have prompted parents to steer their children toward other vocations.

Those attitudes are changing, Fallon went on, but finding a good quantity of candidates remains a problem. Meanwhile, there’s the matter of quality, or effectively matching candidates with clients. And that can be a challenge, because many small business owners and managers simply don’t know what they need when they set about finding IT help.

“Small to mid-size companies rarely hire an IT person,” she explained while pinpointing her company’s bread and butter. “And when they do, human resources has no idea what to look for; he or she is given a list of specs and technical jargon they don’t understand. So they look to us as an extension of their internal HR department.”

By excelling in that role, the company has made broad inroads in several sectors, including higher education — UMass, Bay Path, Mount Holyoke, and other area schools are clients — as well as healthcare, with Health New England and Accountable Care Associates among those FIT has served, and manufacturing, with Dalton-based Crane & Co. which makes the country’s currency, among the company’s many repeat customers.

As it marks 10 years in business, FIT, which serves the Western Mass. and Northern Conn. markets, continues to grow and expand that client base because it has been able to correctly anticipate and decipher those aforementioned needs and, as the slogan says, provide solutions that fit.

That phrase applies not only to the companies FIT serves, but also the individuals it places, she went on, noting that the company goes to great lengths to make sure the fit is good for both sides of the equation, because if it isn’t, neither party will benefit.

For this issue, BusinessWest looks at how this company has carved an effective niche within the local economy, and at where it — or IT, as the case may be — can go from here.

Technically Speaking

Fallon didn’t want to name the large IT-staffing company she worked for at the start of the last decade. But she did want to talk about how it conducted business.

“I didn’t like the way they treated clients or their candidates,” she said, referring, again, to the two constituencies in this industry. “It was all a numbers game, and it was about quantity versus quality and trying to make the candidate take as little as possible so they could make a higher hourly profit.

“I just didn’t like that, but from that experience, I learned a lot about the staffing industry, I learned that I liked dealing with people, which I’ve known all along, and I had enough technical knowledge to be dangerous,” she went on. With all that in mind, she decided she was ready to go into business for herself with a company that would do things differently.

Backing up a bit, and retracing the steps that prompted her to launch her own venture, Fallon said she graduated from Western New England University and was hired by IBM, starting as a word-processing secretary. She moved on to be a systems engineer on the company’s AS 400 product line, working primarily on the sales side, installation of equipment, and training people on how to use it.

She did that for more than a decade before accepting an offer to join one of her clients, software maker DataProfit, in the mid ’90s. There, she started the company’s hardware division and ran it until not long before the company went under in 2001. She described it as a great learning experience that also enabled her to make some connections that would serve her well in the years to come.

As DataProfit’s struggles mounted and its demise became increasingly apparent, Fallon segued into the staffing side of the IT industry, working for that aforementioned large player focused on numbers. In 2004, she decided to go out on her own with a venture that would take a personal approach to staffing and put the emphasis on quality, not quantity.

From the beginning, her company has focused primarily on small to mid-sized companies — ventures that are generally big enough to have IT staff as opposed to outsourced help, but not big enough to have their own recruiting departments — although MassMutual, ING, and other large corporations are also on the client list.

FIT handles permanent placement, temporary staffing, temp-to-hire scenarios, outsourced recruiting, and other services, and provides clients with a wide range of personnel, including chief information officers, project managers, web developers, application developers, business and system analysts, database designers and administrators, and help-desk and technical-support personnel.

“We do direct hiring — people will call and say, ‘we want to hire someone; help us find the right person,’” she explained. “But we also do pure contract work — someone needs three developers for a project for six months — and also temp-to-hire.”

Finding qualified individuals to fill these various positions has, as she said, become an ongoing challenge.

“There are a lot of openings for candidates,” Fallon explained, “because there are not enough young people getting into the IT sector to make up for the ones we’re losing to the retirement side.

“There are many reasons for this,” she went on. “I think the parents of these young people became wary after the dotcom bust and the outsourcing to India and told their kids they didn’t want to get into this field because their jobs would be eliminated. But that sentiment couldn’t be further from the truth — we’re seeing a lot of companies come back onshore because of the issues they’ve had outsourcing offshore.”

Overall, FIT owes its success in this niche to knowing its clients and understanding what they want — and don’t want — when it comes to IT personnel, and consistently providing solutions (there’s that word again).

“Clients want to look at me as an extension of their company,” she explained. “And you really need to get to know them. You need to know what kinds of people they like and what kinds of people they don’t like; if it’s a quiet office, you can’t send in someone who’s loud and boisterous. And if you take care of your clients, they’ll take care of you.”

Looking ahead, Fallon said FIT Solutions is ideally situated for continued, and perhaps profound, growth.

Indeed, she noted the company doesn’t have any direct competition in this market, although some players have tried to enter the field and failed to gain a foothold, primarily because of those aforementioned challenges. Meanwhile, information technology continues to change, improve, and be an ever-growing part of doing business, which makes this work somewhat recession-proof.

“Even in the downturn, we were still very busy because there were IT projects that had to be done,” she explained. “Companies took the contract route because they couldn’t afford to bring people on full-time, but they still needed their projects done.”

But while FIT could, in theory, grow to the size of Fallon’s former employer, she is opting for what she called “smart growth,” which will leave her with the size — and mindset — to effectively serve clients.

The Bottom Line

While some people may mistakenly believe Fallon’s venture is a fitness company, most business owners now know the name, the acronym, the mission, and, most important, the track record for success.

And as FIT Solutions moves into its second decade of serving clients and candidates, it is more determined than ever to live up to both words in that name.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Where the Jobs Are — and Where They Will Be

By BusinessWest Staff June 3, 2014

Employment Sections

Larry Martin says the numbers in the most recent report from the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development concerning employment by sector in Hampden County paint a fairly accurate picture of the local economy, and what’s likely to happen over the next several years.

The statistics, updated every two years — a new report is due out at the end of this year — show that, overall, employment is expected to increase roughly 8% between 2010 and 2020, with growth projected for several key sectors, said Martin, director of Business Services and special project manager for the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County. But they also show some declines that reflect changes within specific industries, and shifts in where and how products are manufactured (see accompanying chart).

In the former category are some of the county’s long-time stalwarts when it comes to employment, including healthcare, projected to increase nearly 17% by 2020, education (up 8%), finance and insurance (up 20%), and administrative and support services (up 24.6%).

Meanwhile, some sectors that had been in decline show signs of progress. These include the broad category of manufacturing, which is projected to increase roughly 12% (although some sub-categories within that sector are expected to see declines, such as paper manufacturing, which is projected to drop 40%), as well as construction, which is expected to increase more than 15%.

Martin attributes this to a surge in infrastructure work in the region, as well as continued new building within sectors such as higher education and individual institutions such as UMass Amherst, which is in the midst of a building boom.

On the other side of the ledger, several sectors are projected to see declines, in a reflection of regional, national, and even international trends. These include crop production (projected to fall 12.1%), government (down 12.2%), retail trade (down 4.5%), real estate (down 3.9%), and publishing industries (down 6.7%).

While Martin told BusinessWest that he considers the numbers fairly accurate, they do not reflect the planned construction of an $800 million in Springfield’s South End by MGM. If it is built as planned, the facility will certainly alter the projections for the category called amusement, gambling, and recreation industries (projected to see an 18% increase), and it could influence the future of a number of other industry groups as well, from transportation to retail to industry groups in the broad category of hospitality.

— George O’Brien

Cruise Control

By BusinessWest Staff January 14, 2014

Employment Sections

REB’s New Director Wants to Build on Recent Momentum

Dave Cruise says one of his priorities is to continue the employment board’s tradition of innovation in tackling regional workforce-development issues.

Dave Cruise’s desk — or, more specifically, what sits on it — speaks volumes about his work with the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, and also his work ethic and his passion for putting other people to work.
Sitting in one corner are a few “toys,” as he calls them, including a plastic device (a tracheal tube of sorts once made by Mitchell Machine in Springfield), as a well as a small plastic castle tower, complete with an interior staircase, that are there as reminders of the many different types of products made in this region and of the high degree of precision involved with such work.
There’s also his personal pair of safety goggles, given to him by officials at Hoppe Technologies in Chicopee, which have been put to great use over the years as Cruise has carried out his assignment as project director of the REB’s Precision Manufacturing Regional Alliance Project, as well as a pair of earplugs, which haven’t been used much at all, by his recollection, because he likes to listen.
And then, there’s the paperwork.
It covers all but a few square inches of desk, credenza, and connecting leaf that is home to his computer monitor. It has become the stuff of legend in this agency, and Cruise can readily joke about it.
“People who know me would say my desk actually looks pretty clean today,” he said with a laugh as he talked with BusinessWest on the last day of 2013. “It may look cluttered, but it’s organized; I know where everything is, trust me.”
Hopefully he can say the same thing in a few weeks after he moves everything next door, to the much larger office assigned to the REB’s president, a post he officially assumed late in the afternoon on Jan. 2 as Bill Ward closed the book on a more-than-30-year stint at the helm of the agency.
Cruise’s new desk will likely become even more cluttered than the old one because there is much work to do in the weeks and months ahead — and for the time being, he won’t be naming a new project director of the Precision Manufacturing Regional Alliance Project.
“I’m going to be very careful about what our budget looks like moving forward into FY 15 so that we have the resources to be able to do what we need to do here. Before I add staff, I want to make sure we can sustain that staff,” he explained, adding that, while he’ll be keeping some of his former responsibilities with that program, he’ll also be parceling others out to different staff members.
In the meantime, he will also be leading the work to draft a new strategic plan for the REB. The previous, three-year document sunsetted at the end of the year, he explained, adding that, under normal circumstances, a new one would certainly have been in place by now, but the search for a new director — and Ward’s insistence that his successor be involved with writing a new plan — changed the timetable.
Cruise will bring to his new position a wide range of experience in workforce development and education, including a lengthy stint as director of the Mass. Career Development Institute (MCDI) and a host of assignments with Springfield Public Schools, as well as some specific skills and management techniques he’s developed over a 45-year career.
“My training has always been in workforce development, so I feel very comfortable moving from what I would describe as a sectoral initiative in manufacturing to seeing that sectoral initiative as part of the REB’s broader mission around workforce development and job creation,” he explained. “I’m excited about the opportunity to come into this work; I believe I can add some value to work we’re doing here. Bill has been a pioneer, and I hope to build on what’s been accomplished. The platform is there, and my role is to come here and move that work to the next level.”
For this issue and its focus on employment, BusinessWest talked at length with Cruise about his new assignment and also about the many challenges facing both employers and those looking to join the workforce.

Moving the Pile
Cruise said that he was not initially a candidate for the president’s position when Ward officially announced he would be stepping down early last summer, primarily because he considered much of the work he was doing with the region’s manufacturing sector to be unfinished business. And he wanted to finish it, or at least stay with it.
But things changed as the search commenced, reached a point last fall where a few finalists were interviewed, and was then expanded, he explained.
“I had given it some thought during the initial process last summer, but didn’t get engaged at that point,” he explained. “I continued to give it some thought both personally and professionally when the process was expanded. I sat down with my family and talked about the work ahead, and decided to become an applicant.
“I was very much involved in the work I’m doing in manufacturing, and I’m very committed to that assignment,” he went on. “I realized that, going forward, that work is part of a broader body of work being done here at the Regional Employment Board, and that I could probably bring that work to the level that I wanted to by being in a position to influence, manage, and direct the work from a different perspective and bring some different resources to it.”
Thus, Cruise will add another line to a diverse résumé with a number of stops, all involved, in one way or another, with the broad ream of workforce development.
He started in 1967 at Springfield’s Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical High School, where he taught English until 1973, before moving to MCDI.
He first served as supervisor, overseeing training programs for unemployed adults and youth, while also analyzing labor-market trends and assessing needs within specific sectors of the economy. He was named director in 1980 and managed the now-closed agency through one of the busiest periods in its history, managing a staff of more than 150 and training up to 550 people in day and evening division programs.
From MCDI, he moved on to Springfield Public Schools, where he served as director of Occupational Education, director of personnel, chief operations officer, and finally executive director of Human Resources.
He then worked briefly as a consultant before being tapped by Ward to be program manager of the Literacy Works of Hampden County initiative from 2004 to 2006, and then the Precision Manufacturing Regional Alliance Project.
Over the past seven years, Cruise has been putting those goggles, if not the earplugs, to good use, visiting area precision manufacturers, assessing their needs, and developing programs to put more workers in the pipeline. Among the many initiatives that have occupied his time — and space on his desk — have been efforts to introduce young people to the manufacturing sector and convince both them and their parents that it is a field with a future, not just a glorious past.
One of the more recent endeavors, launched just last fall, is a pilot program called Pathways to Prosperity in Advanced Manufacturing, or simply ‘Pathways,’ which puts ninth-grade students at West Springfield High School on a career pathway that will eventually take them to Springfield Technical Community College and then, hopefully, employment with one of the many manufacturers desperate for qualified help.
The program, which started with 40 students, involves a number of partners, ranging from the REB, STCC, and the high school to several employers in West Side and Agawam (among them Advance Welding, Hayden Corp., Ben Franklin Design & Manufacturing, and Atlantic Fasteners), as well as the Eastern States Exposition, NUVO Bank, and the Bates Fullum Insurance Agency.
Cruise counts the ability to create and sustain such partnerships as one of his greatest strengths, and he said it’s one of many skill sets he will need as he goes about the task of guiding the REB as it carries out a rather broad mission.
Overall, he views his primary job description to be both innovator and facilitator when it comes to the REB’s many initiatives.
“We have a very talented group of people here. They work very hard, and they’re very dedicated to the mission of the REB,” he told BusinessWest. “They understand the vision, the values, and the purpose of the organization. My job is to be a resource to them and provide them with the tools they need to take their work to the next level.
“My goal is to strive toward operational excellence,” he went on. “I’m very committed to making sure that we do quality work that will respond to the business needs of the companies in the area, but that we also keep focused on our commitment to the customers, the clients that we’re here to serve.”

Parts of the Whole
Cruise expects a new strategic plan to be ready for the REB’s quarterly meeting in March, if not sooner. When asked about what will likely be in it, he said it will continue to focus on the many aspects of the REB’s mission and priorities such as youth, literacy, education, and especially innovation.
That last term essentially defined Ward’s lengthy tenure as REB president, he went on, and the agency must continue to exude that quality if it is to meet the region’s many workforce challenges — and secure the public and private funds that will be needed to carry out those assignments.
“I’m committed to the notion of innovative ideas,” Cruise explained, adding that this is an important companion piece to one of the REB’s primary assignments — collecting workforce data. “It’s going to be very important to look at some of the work being done by the REB that I believe is innovative and seeing how we can scale that work up, not only across the region but perhaps across the state.”
Moving forward, he said there are several priorities for the REB that are both part of its mission and key elements for the new strategic plan. They include:
• Identifying new public and private funding sources, or, more specifically, combinations of both for various initiatives;
• Continuing and escalating programs involving literacy and, overall, the education and employability of adults;
• A focus on young people and making sure they have what Cruise called the “employability skills necessary in the 21st century,” work that involves everything from early childhood education to programs like Pathways;
• Work to deepen and broaden relationships with area businesses and industry groups; and
• Being an advocate for workforce development as economic development, or, as Cruise put it, “telling our story.”
Elaborating, he said that all of these concepts, or strategic initiatives, are interrelated, and as an example, he said that workforce-development-related agencies (like the REB) that have good data as well as innovative ideas about what to do in response to that information, and work aggressively to tell their stories, are better-positioned to secure funding for such initiatives.
“It’s going to be those organizations and those agencies that have good data, have good strategic plans, have a clear mission, and then have the talent to pull it off, that are going to be able to get funding moving forward,” he explained. “I’m very committed to operational excellence here at the REB; I want to make sure that we’re doing quality work and that our work defines us, because I believe that if we can make that case and share it with people, especially with this notion of innovation and innovative ideas, that money will follow.
“I don’t think you can go out today and simply make an ask,” he continued, referring to requests for state and federal funds that are in shorter supply than years ago, as well as private money from businesses and foundations. “You simply need to demonstrate that you can add value to what that ask is all about.”
As for that goal of deepening and broadening relationships with industry groups and specific businesses, Cruise said this assignment involves both telling the REB’s story and, more importantly, listening to what those in various sectors are saying about what they’re seeing today — and expect to see tomorrow.
“I want to deepen those relationships, but I also want to engage more business and industry in different sectors in the work we’re doing,” he said. “I’m going to try to spend a reasonable amount of time out in the community. I want to go out and listen and learn; I want to see how people who are familiar with our work perceive us, and for people who are not familiar with the work we do, I want to build a relationship and a partnership with them.”

Work in Progress
When asked about the particular strengths he believes he brings to the table, Cruise put “relationship building and partnership building” at the very top of the list.
“I’m a good listener, and I believe in convening and facilitating,” he said, adding that these are qualities that will serve him well as he goes about the task of not only continuing to carry out the REB’s broad mission, but also building a tradition of innovation.
He said he has the commitment — and the desk space — to carry out his new assignment.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

On the Clock

By BusinessWest Staff January 14, 2014

Employment Sections

Vacation Time Isn’t a Benefit If Workers Don’t Use It

Patti D’Amaddio says employees at area companies earn vacation milestones faster than they did a decade ago.

When it comes to vacations, Patti D’Amaddio said, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that employees are being offered more time off than in years past.
“It used to be that you earned two weeks after a year of work, but not so much anymore,” said D’Amaddio, director of Strategic HR Services at the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast. “A lot of companies are now giving time off during the initial period of employment, as opposed to waiting a year.”
Not only that, but EANE surveys show that the average employee in the region gets bumped up to three weeks off after five years on the job. “It used to be 10, but that’s come down.”
The bad news? Too many workers today are leaving vacation on the table, unused, because they feel like they can’t afford to take time off.
According to an online poll by Right Management, a division of ManpowerGroup, 69% of respondents did not take all their vacation time in 2013 — consistent with the 70% who reported the same in 2011 and 2012 — while just 31% said they maxed out their time.
“No question every company is doing more with less. They have to remain as competitive as they can with foreign countries. It’s not easy for businesses, and it isn’t easy for employees,” said D’Amaddio as she explained why employees might be loath to take earned time off.
“A company really has to look in the HR department, look at the numbers, look at the facts, and figure out what the utilization is,” she continued. “They need to ask, ‘are our people using their time? Do we have a problem or not? If so, is it a company-wide problem or a department problem?’ If the president of a company wants a culture that encourages people to take rest and relaxation, he has to know whether this is happening.”
Richard Goldstein, vice president of Benefits at MassMutual, said his company, one of the region’s largest employers, emphasizes the value of time off.
“We periodically send notes out to the managers, reminders to encourage their employees to take their time. And, for the most part, the people in my group do. I have a conversation with them around November — ‘make sure you take all your vacation time.’”
Many American workers aren’t hearing this message, or are choosing to ignore it. U.S. workers left an average of 12 vacation days unused this year, double the number from 2011, according to a survey conducted by travel website Hotwire. Some of these days can be rolled into the following year, but that’s no guarantee they will be used.
“Financial pressures often put a burden on travel plans, and this is causing an alarming increase in Americans leaving vacation days unused,” said Henrik Kjellberg, president of the Hotwire Group. “This is a trend I am hoping will soon change.”

All They Ever Wanted
What is changing is the way companies are structuring vacation time, D’Amaddio told BusinessWest. For one thing, fewer employers allow employees to take their entire allotment of vacation right away.
“A lot of companies have gone to the accrual formula, accruing time each month or each pay period,” she said, noting that this makes sense in Massachusetts, where employers are legally obligated to pay out unused vacation time as wages when an employee is terminated. “Instead of giving somebody two full weeks of vacation, then having them leave the next day, the accrual formula avoids that.”
Vacation laws vary substantially from state to state, she said. Connecticut’s employment laws don’t require companies to pay unused vacation time as wages, but they are typically required to honor their own handbook. So it comes down to how a policy is written.
“If a company says vacation time is not payable at the time of termination, it’s not payable,” D’Amaddio said. “Now, that doesn’t mean companies don’t often provide better benefits than the law requires. A lot of companies in Connecticut will pay out vacation, but they don’t legally have to.”
In addition to a shift toward accrued time off, she noted, many employers are beginning to blend vacation time, sick days, and personal days into one pot, simply calling it ‘paid time off.’
“Again, there are benefits for some parties, like people who are never sick,” she said, as well as people who don’t enjoy lying to their bosses. “Why make employees call in sick when their kid is sick? Or if they suddenly got tickets to the Patriots, and they have to schedule their vacation days in advance? This gives people more flexibility.”
In some cases, however, blended time off actually reduces the total package. In Goldstein’s 11 years at MassMutual, he’s seen the benefit program morph in some ways, but the time-off package has remained divided into different buckets.
“What we offer here is fairly generous,” he said, noting that new employees start with 15 days vacation — five of which can be carried over into the following year — plus five sick days and four personal days for unplanned absences. “Say you wake up in the morning and your kid’s sick; that’s an unscheduled day off.

Richard Goldstein says managers at MassMutual encourage employees to use the vacation time they’ve earned.

“It’s a pretty generous program, but you have to consider it in its entirety with retirement, medical benefits, and holidays,” Goldstein added. “There are bump-ups for longevity and seniority, but that’s what our new hires get.”
MassMutual, as an organization, has long expressed a philosophy of valuing work-life balance, and making sure employees take time off is one aspect of that, he noted. That can be difficult during peak times and major projects, but he doesn’t consider leaving time on the table to be a rampant issue.
“If we’re stuck on a big project, I’m sure the people working on those transactions can’t carve out a lot of time,” he told BusinessWest, “but for the most part, we encourage people to take time off.
“We don’t believe in making it mandatory,” he added. “As with anything in life, it’s all about balance between peak production times, with all hands on deck, and slower times. For the most part, it works. I personally think vacation is healthy, and I encourage my folks to make sure they’re not leaving days on the table. I think it’s important to recharge.”

Have to Get Away
Matt Norquist, general manager at Philadelphia-based Right Management, agrees that spending significant time away from work carries many benefits, including increased productivity.
“Every employee at every level should be encouraged to take time to re-energize, recharge, and relax to be more satisfied and productive on the job,” he said in a post on the company’s website. “The importance of vacation cannot be understated in today’s workplace when companies are doing more with less and adding workloads to their teams.”
According to Norquist, taking vacation time is a vital part of maintaining job satisfaction, and employees who take time off are more inspired and motivated to do their best work. “Ultimately, vacations contribute to engaged, loyal, and satisfied employee teams and build a positive workplace culture that not only reduces turnover, but also creates a stronger brand image in the market.”
The catch, Goldstein said, is that some employees never really stop working, even when they’re on vacation, because of e-mail and cell phones. “They never check out in today’s work world. With their remote devices, they’re always in tune.”
D’Amaddio cited one EANE-client company that requires every employee to take at least one full week off, and to shut off all e-mail and cell-phone access to work during that time. “That’s because there’s time off, and then there’s really time off,” she said. “Many people never shut down. When you’re engaged at work with smartphones and e-mail and everything else, you’re not really off.”
It all comes down to what kind of work-life culture an employer is really trying to create, she explained.
“The company and HR should really ask, ‘do we have a problem? Are our people using their time, or are a lot of people carrying it over? If they are, why? Is it just this year, or is there a history, and why? What kind of culture do we want to set?’
“If they want to set a culture stressing morale and work-life balance, they will want people to take vacation time,” D’Amaddio continued. “The culture is set at the top, whether that’s the top of the department or the top of the company.”
A major part of that is making sure department heads clearly express the importance of taking time off, she said. “And your HR department should be measuring the impact in terms of turnover and retention. Why are employees leaving? It’s great to have time off, but what if you can’t take it?”
If the tide turns and employees start taking more of the vacation time they’ve earned, she added, it will likely be the Millennials, the youngest generation in the workforce, who lead the charge.
“They want that. As Baby Boomers, we’re more willing to give up time, but Millennials are not going to be so inclined. So the paradigm is going to switch, and we need to understand that.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Hire Purpose

By BusinessWest Staff January 14, 2014

Employment Sections

Griffin Staffing Network Goes Extra Mile to Help Job Applicants

Should the MGM Springfield casino come to fruition, Nicole Griffin is ready to help staff the complex, as well as positions at other companies left open by people departing for casino jobs.

Like many people working in the broad realm of staffing and human resources, Nicole Griffin identifies employees as every company’s biggest asset.
But a moving experience several years ago involving a young boy changed her life, giving her deep understanding of just what is needed to create a true asset.
Griffin was participating in a MassMutual Community Responsibility event at Western New England University, and helping high-school students through a Junior Achievement (JA) employment-awareness program. She would spend the first day teaching students everything she knew — business etiquette, interviewing rules and tips, how to dress for success, and more. The second day was for mock interviews, and one of the students — told to dress appropriately for the occasion — showed up in jeans and a tilted ball cap, slouching himself in a chair.
Offering positive criticism, Griffin suggested that he might have chosen slacks and a button-down shirt, and left the cap at home.
“His response was, ‘look, lady, my parents don’t work, so I don’t know what that looks like,’” Griffin told BusinessWest. “The impact that statement had on me … he’ll never know. It was a pain in my heart, because that was his environment, and in order to be an example, you have to see an example, and he had never seen one.”
That’s when Griffin knew she had to do something more, because she understood there were many more people in that same situation, and unless they were provided with such positive examples, their opportunities for meaningful employment would be slim to none.
With that young boy always in the back of her mind, she exited MassMutual after 12 years as a financial underwriter, providing analysis, sales, and marketing for the company’s products, to work at a regional staffing agency, focusing on meeting the need that became apparent to her at that JA event — a need for helping people position themselves for success in the job market, and life.
That position, and two consultant businesses on the side, led her to launch her own venture, Griffin Staffing Network, last fall in Springfield’s South End, practically across the street from the site of MGM’s proposed $800 million casino.
Excited about the impact of that very large employer that she can help staff, as well as those businesses that may lose their current employees to the casino, Griffin is now the CEO of an agency for temporary, permanent, direct-hire, temp-to-hire, and executive-level positions, and offers placements in several fields, including administrative, medical, financial, professional services, hospitality, insurance, and information technology.
“My background in financial underwriting was really analyzing how much risk an applicant would be for a company, so I would look at their application, background, medical history, and evaluate that person based on a risk factor,” she said, adding that she’s doing pretty much the same thing in her new role in staffing.
Elaborating, she said there are risks associated with a company taking on an employee, even one from a staffing agency, and her assignment now is to reduce that risk, and her agency does so by giving back and helping clients become job-ready.
“To reach as you climb — that’s what my husband and I have always been told is important to do, because some people don’t; they reach a certain level of success and don’t give back,” said Griffin. “Once you succeed, you reach back and pull somebody else up with you.”
For this issue and its focus on employment, BusinessWest talked with Griffin about this notion of reaching as one climbs, and how she believes it will not only help in her efforts to grow her company, but also assist the region’s businesses as they struggle to fill openings in many sectors and at seemingly every level.

The Job at Hand
An MP in the Army National Guard, Griffin thought her future was in correctional or police work. But after marriage and having children, her priorities changed.
“I called a friend who worked at MassMutual and said, ‘can you help me get a job?’ And she said, ‘to be honest with you, I can get you the interview; the rest is up to you,’” Griffin explained. “And that stuck with me all my life because it’s true. And that’s what I want to do, get a person’s foot in the door; what they do with the opportunity is up to them.”
But after years of volunteering and working in human-resources positions, time and again she realized that for some, there was a need to acquire basic skills that they just didn’t have, or else opportunities they were given would end up in disappointment.
Still in her position at MassMutual, she attained qualifications as a certified interviewer and started her own small nonprofit, The ABCs of Interviewing. Griffin would consult with other nonprofits, companies, and individuals, helping them with interviewing skills, but many of the individuals were unemployed, and payment was an issue.
“I loved the interviewing-consultant work, but after that, there was nothing more,” she said, “and I knew I had to do something more.”
Her something more turned into a new position at an administrative and accounting staffing firm in the area, where she quickly learned that, due to company policies, there were potential employees that weren’t making the cut.
“They were falling through the cracks,” said Griffin. “They would come in, we would interview them, evaluate their skills, and then mark them ‘unemployable.’”
She saw that those same young kids at the JA program were now adults, and had the same issues. And no one was telling them, “you can’t consider capris and flip-flops professional attire,” said Griffin. “It was literally an eye-opener for many; they just didn’t know.”
Her current agency is an expansion of Griffin Consulting, permanent-placement firm for the insurance agency that she formed while working at the temp agency. Licensed with the Employment, Placement, and Staffing Agencies Program within the Mass. Department of Labor Standards, she obtained her certification as a Minority Business Enterprise/Woman Business Enterprise (MBE/WBE). That certification, a lengthy process in itself, was approved in November 2013, just a month after Griffin Staffing Network launched.
“Someone helped open the door for me at MassMutual,” Griffin continued. “I will do the same, so now, if someone comes into my agency and they are not job ready, I’m going to make sure they leave here with a skill they didn’t come in with.”
With two forms of placement experience, her business plan calls for a commitment to community by offering free workshops for applicants on Wednesdays to hone skills that are lacking. Griffin offers tips on the interview process, proper dress for an interview and at a particular job, and business etiquette, and she uses a consultant (who also donates her time) for résumé improvement, an important piece of this exercise that is often overlooked.
“Employers have one moment to glance at your résumé, and that’s the only impression you have,” Griffin noted, adding that the document must highlight skills and accomplishments, not simply list previous jobs, while also being concise. “So you have to make a good impression without a lot of words.”
As an applicant for an employment position comes in, Griffin reviews his or her skills, testing scores, and reference checks, and evaluates how much of a risk that applicant will be for one of her clients and, ultimately, her agency.
“We’re committed to finding the perfect match,” Griffin added. “I would never place someone at the agency with someone that I had not met with directly, because our model is that we are a business partner with the employer.”
Part of the process to engage new partnerships includes community involvement, something that has been embedded in both Griffin and her husband (Richard Griffin Jr., who works in the Springfield Economic Development Department). Once a week, she meets with a small-business owner to broaden her network, but also to give them feedback, based on her own experiences, and educate them about resources that they may not have known about.
“Yes, I’m giving back, but as a staffing agency, hopefully they’ll grow to need more employees, and that’s already happening,” Griffin added.
But her main focus is on individuals and on helping them realize their potential, be it as an employee or employer, she said, adding that this mindset helped spark creation of a new workshop she calls simply “Chasing the Dream.”
Scheduled for Jan. 18, it was inspired in part by commentary offered during the recent National Assoc. of Professional Women (NAPW) event staged in Springfield, where speakers, including keynoter Star Jones, a lawyer and one of the original co-hosts of ABC’s The View, focused heavily on dreams and what’s needed to realize them.
That workshop, to be staged at the agency’s 1145 Main St. location, will offer the steps and tools needed in a process that is informative, interactive, and fun, to aid attendees on their personal dream journey.

Opportunity Knocks
As for Griffin’s dream, her short-term goal is to increase the network’s name recognition and to grow the firm both regionally and nationally. With her foundation built, her ambition is to increase clients with entry-level and mid-level placement opportunities.
She sees the casino project as an opportunity for her business and many others, and for the region as a whole — “it’s a win-win for the City of Springfield,” she said — while acknowledging that there is considerable work to do across the region when it comes to making effective matches between employers and individuals looking to join, or rejoin, the workforce.
While Griffin does not know what became of that boy who changed her outlook on employment, she does know that there are still many more like him, and that simple fact drives her to continue to reach while climbing.

Elizabeth Taras can be reached at [email protected]

Get a Job

By BusinessWest Staff January 14, 2014

Employment Sections

A chart of area employment agencies

Click here to download the PDF

Big Picture

By BusinessWest Staff December 3, 2013

Employment Sections

Training & Workforce Options Takes Region-wide View

Bob LePage, executive director of Training & Workforce Options.

Bob LePage spends a lot of time talking to employers from many different sectors, from healthcare to hospitality; financial services to manufacturing. And they all have one thing in common — a need for quality workers.
He related a conversation he had with the head of an area manufacturing firm. “He said, ‘we have more work than we have capacity. And what’s the biggest capacity constriction? Lack of workers. If I could find them, I’d add a shift, I’d add another line. Our challenge is, we need more qualified workers, whether that’s taking assemblers and upscaling them to machinists or convincing young people that working in today’s manufacturing environment is not what your grandfather did.’”
One regional manufacturer, LePage added, is anticipating 300 to 400 retirements in the next five years. Simply put, “we can’t close the gap based on what’s coming out of high school.”
As the executive director of Training & Workforce Options (TWO), a partnership between Springfield Technical Community College and Holyoke Community College, LePage thinks about these issues all the time. The initiative was launched in 2011 to provide specialized contract training for a range of client businesses. But along the way, it has created sector-wide collaborations to help tackle workforce needs across entire industries.
“TWO grew out of a workforce assessment done by the two community colleges, which came together and decided there are a lot of opportunities to build collaboration between the two colleges, and opportunities for us to work collaboratively with the Regional Employment Board [REB]on supporting and building sector-based strategies.
“It’s come a long way,” he added. “We first had to develop staffing, planning, infrastructure, processes, procedures, how we’re going to do things.”
In the meantime, TWO has worked with the REB and others on developing workforce strategies on a sector-by-sector basis, he explained.
“If we use the example of healthcare, a year and a half ago, we started assessing what the medical coding needs were for the region,” LePage noted, because the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is replacing the current standard code sets in 2014, creating reimbursement challenges for providers.
Along with Kelly Aiken, the REB’s director of Health Care Initiatives, and about a dozen regional healthcare employers, LePage explained, TWO developed a partnership by which medical coding and billing students can transfer credits between colleges, and will also launch a training academy to help employers train their workers in the upcoming conversion.
“TWO came in and really provided the skill-assessment expertise we didn’t have before,” Aiken said, and not just in the coding realm, but in direct care as well. “Employers have said there’s either a mismatch between supply and demand, or the industry is changing so rapidly that we need to revisit and revamp career pathways. TWO has been instrumental in helping us collect data from employers and walk employers through the skill-assessment process so we can really understand where the gaps exist.
“I really look at them as a side-by-side partner,” she added, “to fill us in and help employers and training institutions figure out how to fill those gaps through regional and organizational strategies.”

Across the Board
Healthcare is just one of the many sectors TWO has a hand in, however. The partnership recently brought together a group of regional financial-services providers — banks, insurance companies, and others — to discuss workforce needs, and the end result is a new certification program to train people to fill financial call-center jobs.
“The first class of 17 students is going through an intensive training program and will hopefully be placed into jobs in January,” LePage said. “This was an industry-driven need.”
Returning to healthcare, yet another TWO initiative aims to help providers develop new systems to remove inefficiency and waste from healthcare — a major issue in these days of cost-cutting and accountable care. TWO has also worked with Wingate of Wilbraham, a skilled-nursing facility, by training workers in STCC’s simulation lab.

Kelley Tucky says MGM Springfield is depending on regional job-training efforts to build a 3,000-strong workforce in the city.

“It’s a way to assess their hands-on skills, a new way of looking at competence and how students can practically apply their skills,” he said. “Wingate had some very specific things they wanted to partner with us to test.”
And in the manufacturing realm, “we recently partnered with the Westfield Chamber to host a manufacturing workforce forum. We had manufacturers at Savage Industries host 10 or 12 companies around the idea of developing new regional programs for machine operators. In most cases, they might need one programmer but six or 12 operators. Our goal is to develop a new training program to allow us to provide on-site operator training.”
When thinking about the number of precision machinists approaching retirement, LePage said, the challenge is to create large-scale programs to develop the next generation.
“We’ve worked with a number of individual organizations — we might work with them on a multi-year training program, help them do organizational assessment, skills assessment, build a training program with them, and help them capture state resources to enhance the performance of employees.”
Such investments pay off, he noted. “Every dollar invested in support of manufacturing yields $1.64 return on investment in the first year alone. Every time you support labor-pool investment, your community makes money.”
TWO has engaged in similar strategy-building initiatives with area hospitality employers. “We partnered with the [Greater Springfield] Convention & Visitors Bureau on a formal needs assessment. What are the workforce challenges for the hospitality industry? We’re now starting to put together strategies to support their emerging needs, both culinary and front of house.”

Upping the Ante
The hospitality industry is only one of many sectors acutely aware of the probability of MGM Resorts International building a casino in Springfield’s South End, now that the proposal is the only viable casino plan for Western Mass. being considered by the state Gaming Commission.
“It’s highly likely this region is going to have to navigate 3,000 to 4,000 new jobs in the next 24 to 36 months,” LePage said. “TWO has taken the lead in partnering with the Gaming Commission to develop a workforce strategy to support the casino industry.
“We know, for example, that, if you want to be a dealer or in gaming, you have to pass a very specific set of requirements, and if you can’t pass them, you can’t work in a casino,” he added. And those requirements, he noted, could pose difficulties.
Kelley Tucky, vice president of Community and Public Affairs for MGM Springfield, agrees, saying her team has been working closely with the Mass. Casino Career Training Institute — which oversees employee regulations, licensure, and training — to ease some of the obstacles to employment.
“We’ve made our position known that we see the current CORI and SORI background-check requirements to be somewhat restrictive,” she told BusinessWest. “For instance, if we have someone working in the warehouse with a history of bankruptcy, it matters very little to us. Certainly, in a position where data is being handled or where there’s tremendous responsibility with money handling, you want those individuals to be vetted thoroughly, but we’ve heard from the one-stop career centers, the Gaming Commission, and others that they see some roadblocks already.”
Meanwhile, MGM has developed ties with the career centers and TWO to develop strategies for recruitment and soft-skills training, from interview and résumé-writing skills to language barriers. “Those are very important for us,” Tucky said. “We’ve built our reputation on providing an exceptional level of customer service. We gauge that from the minute an individual walks in the door for an interview. The more the one-stops train their clientele in those skills, the more confident we are that we’ll find the talent we need.”
However, the casino challenge extends far beyond MGM’s needs, LePage noted, as businesses in a host of sectors anticipate losing many of their own workers to the casino — for example, a bank teller who might want to be trained as a dealer or money handler — and having to refill those positions.
“We’re very aware of what’s going to be happening with the gaming industry,” he said. “If we want to have 3,000 new jobs in the region, we don’t want to subtract 1,000 jobs from other employers just by moving from one place to another. We have to grow 3,000 new workers throughout the region, but we have to develop strategies to fill multiple sectors, so there’s very little ripple effect.”
Take healthcare CEOs, he added. “The concern for them is culinary. They service a large number of people each day with food. And they currently have challenges hiring people. Add another 150 to 200 culinary jobs in the region, and they might have a bigger challenge.”
Tucky sees that sort of movement as an overall plus for the job market and the economic vibrancy of the region.
“Churn is good in terms of changing jobs, changing opportunities. It’s a good thing because people are exposed to additional career options — for instance, veterans returning from active duty, even the semi-retired. We offer jobs across the spectrum, and if we can attract a bright personality and they have the basic skills for the job, we will train for everything else.
“People see this as economic development for the region,” she continued. “It’s all about economic revitalization, and we’ve done a really good job being transparent. We see the benefits for Springfield and the Western Mass. economy, and we feel it’s a win-win.”
LePage agrees — if there’s an effective strategy in place that benefits MGM without disadvantaging other employers. “With the entry of a large employer into the region, we’ve tried to build partnerships across the region. No one organization can solve these regional workforce challenges.”

Mind the Gap
Casino or not, those workforce challenges are persistent, and the term ‘skills gap’ is nothing new to Western Mass. employers.
LePage noted that only about 78 in 100 teens in Greater Springfield make it through high school, but even if the rate was 100%, “we wouldn’t come close to meeting our workforce needs.”
That’s why TWO is so important — not only because it brings together the two colleges’ strengths, such as HCC’s English as a Second Language program and STCC’s Adult Basic Education initiatives, but because the colleges are bringing so many other voices into the conversation.
“What you see with all this collaboration is that there’s very little ego,” LePage said. “It isn’t what the colleges want done, it’s what industries want done. We’re listening to industries and hearing what they need and how they need it, and then saying, ‘OK, what can we do to solve this problem?’ That is the key to all of it; it has to be industry-driven. If you try to force change on industry, that’s not going to work. You’ve got to let those guys tell you what they need, then do the best you can to fulfill those needs.”
Aiken believes the effort has begun to bear real fruit.
“We love the fact that the community colleges are collaborating together,” she said. “We at the REB are all about collaboration, and they are a model for how community colleges and other institutions can collaborate together.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Stuck in Neutral?

By BusinessWest Staff December 3, 2013

Employment Sections

Neutrality Agreements Under the Gun at Supreme Court

By TIMOTHY MURPHY, Esq. and DAVID McBRIDE, Esq.
Unions have increasingly turned to ‘corporate campaigns’ to pressure larger employers not to resist efforts to unionize their workers. Corporate campaigns are concerted and sophisticated efforts to publicly embarrass for-profit and nonprofit employers among their stakeholders and within their communities so that they acquiesce to union demands.
What is happening now at Wal-Mart is a corporate campaign. These efforts have become more prevalent as unions’ traditional grassroots organizing efforts, especially at larger employers, have become less successful. For unions, the holy grail of the corporate campaign quest is the ‘neutrality agreement,’ in which the employer promises not to oppose unionization. The future of neutrality agreements lies in the balance as the Supreme Court is set to decide their legality.

Background
Neutrality agreements are promises between employers and unions about what employers will — or will not — do in response to a union-organizing campaign. While the terms of neutrality agreements vary, they generally consist of employer promises not to oppose unionization. Sometimes, such agreements also contain waivers of employee rights, like secret-ballot elections.
The effect of neutrality agreements is that employers stand on the sidelines while the union campaigns, usually without organized opposition, for employee support for unionization. Neutrality agreements are powerful tools that increase the likelihood of a successful union campaign.
However, federal labor law contains an anti-bribery statute (Section 302) which makes it criminal for an employer “to pay, lend, or deliver … any money or other thing of value” to a labor union that seeks to represent its employees, and prohibits unions from accepting the same. The purpose of Section 302 is to keep employers from tampering with the loyalty of union officials and to deter union officials from extorting employers.
A lawsuit was filed in Florida challenging the legality of neutrality agreements under Section 302. Martin Mulhall, who was opposed to unionization, sued his employer and a local labor union, claiming that the neutrality agreement they signed violated Section 302 because the employer’s neutrality and other cooperation constituted a ‘thing of value.’
The case wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where oral arguments were recently heard. The Supreme Court is very selective about the cases it decides, but it probably decided to review this case because several federal courts of appeals had disagreed on whether a neutrality agreement was a ‘thing of value’ under Section 302. The Supreme Court will now settle those disagreements.

The Mulhall Case
Mulhall worked for a casino company, which entered into an agreement with a union, UNITE HERE Local 355, to:
• Provide Local 355 with employee contact information;
• Allow the union on company property so it could organize employees; and
• Remain neutral during the union’s organizing effort and conduct a card check instead of a secret-ballot election to determine whether there was majority employee support for the union.
In exchange, Local 355 promised that it would not strike, picket, or pressure the company, and would give more than $100,000 to help pass a slot-machine ballot initiative benefiting the company.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles federal appeals from Florida and surrounding states, ruled that Mulhall’s claim could go forward. It held that “organizing assistance can be a thing of value that, if demanded or given as payment, could constitute a violation of Section 302.” Local 355 appealed to the Supreme Court.

What Will Be Decided
The case is now teed up for the Supreme Court to decide whether neutrality agreements are legal. The question to be decided is “whether an employer and union may violate Section 302 by entering into an agreement under which the employer exercises its freedom of speech by promising to remain neutral to union organizing, its property rights by granting union representatives limited access to the employer’s property and employees, and its freedom of contract by obtaining the union’s promise to forego its rights to picket, boycott, or otherwise put pressure on the employer’s business.”
The Supreme Court oral arguments focused on whether the types of promises employers make in neutrality agreements are ‘things of value’ and whether Section 302 should apply to these types of agreements at all.
Based on the justices’ questions to the lawyers, the court was troubled by the union’s promise of $100,000 to pass the slot-machine ballot initiative to help the company in exchange for its neutrality. Mulhall’s lawyer argued that Section 302 bans any employer cooperation during union organizing campaigns not required by law. Local 355’s lawyer countered by arguing that neutrality agreements have been around for many years and promote labor peace, a goal of national labor policy. It is always hard to predict the outcome just from the justices’ questions, but a unanimous decision either way seems unlikely.

Biggest Labor Case at the Supreme Court in a Generation?
Neutrality agreements have become commonplace in union-organizing campaigns as the number of secret-ballot union elections have steadily declined, so the Supreme Court’s decision on their legality will have a dramatic impact on the future of union organizing.
If the Supreme Court decides that neutrality agreements are not a form of illegal bribery, it will boost union organizing by stamping the court’s approval on them. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court decides that neutrality agreements are illegal, unions will have to rely on the grassroots organizing campaigns of years past to recruit new members. Unions’ ability to engage in ‘top-down’ organizing through corporate campaigns then will suffer a serious — and maybe fatal — blow, and employers will be far less likely to cooperate during unionization efforts.
A decision is expected before July 2014. No matter which way the case comes out, it will impact employers and unions for years to come.

Timothy Murphy, Esq. and David McBride, Esq. are attorneys with Skoler, Abbott & Presser P.C., Springfield; (413) 737-4753.

Hour Problem

By BusinessWest Staff December 3, 2013

Employment Sections

Why An Addiction to Work Is Hurting Our Careers

By Dr. TASHA EURICH
Kmart’s recent decision to open its doors at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day sent shockwaves throughout the nation. Though bargain seekers were thrilled, many are questioning the retail chain’s decision. In recent years, such ‘Thanksgiving creep’ has inspired multiple protests from employees, with one petition calling it “inhumane and inconsiderate.”
Unfortunately, this problem doesn’t exist only in retail establishments around the holidays. Across all job types and industries, Americans are working more than ever.
According to a recent Workforce Management study, since the Great Recession, 55% of employees have seen their workload increase, and 27% say it’s doubled. The constant pressure to do more with less, coupled with the belief that being busy means we’re important, is creating an unsustainable pattern.
For many workers, taking time away from their jobs feels like an untenable luxury. Most European countries provide workers at least four weeks of vacation each year — Germany and Sweden are particularly generous with seven weeks. But a Center for Economic Policy and Research study reveals that 25% of U.S. employees don’t take any vacation at all — either because they don’t use their accrued time or their employer doesn’t provide it.
Why would anyone choose not to take the time away that they’ve rightfully earned? For many, fear is a factor — fear of missing out on promotions, topping the layoff list, being judged by bosses or co-workers, or the work that will inevitably pile up.
Certainly, anyone can work 50, 60, or 80 hours per week — and take little time off — if they choose. But as it turns out, there are some profound consequences. Here are just some of them:

1. Working too much makes us stupider.
Research has shown that long hours affect our brains. An American Journal of Epidemiology study followed British civil servants over five years to understand the relationship between long hours and brain functioning. Compared to those who worked 40 hours per week, participants who worked more than 55 hours showed poorer vocabulary and reasoning skills. In plain English, working too much actually makes us stupider.

2. Working too much makes us depressed.
Research has shown that long hours are also a significant risk factor for depression. A study published in PLoS ONE examined more than 2,000 workers in the United Kingdom over six years. They found that employees who worked more than 11 hours per day had more than twice the risk of depression than those who worked seven to eight hours per day. The relationship remained even when researchers statistically removed the influence of socio-economic factors, chronic physical disease, smoking, and alcohol use.

3. Working too much hurts our career advancement.
When people think about how to get ahead in their career, most have a ‘more is better’ approach. Just look at the hours worked at many law firms, tech companies, and Wall Street. However, more hours does not always equal better performance, and human beings have an upper limit for productivity on any given day. Somewhat counterintuitively, a 2006 Ernst & Young study found a positive relationship between vacations (i.e., fewer work hours overall) and performance; for each additional 10 hours away from the office employees took, their performance reviews were 8% higher the following year.

4. Working too much can actually kill us.
In August of this year, a 21-year-old Bank of America intern was found dead in his London dorm room. During the course of Moritz Erhardt’s demanding seven-week internship, he had pulled eight all-nighters in two weeks. Although Erhardt’s case is as rare as it is tragic, it drives home the general point that working too much is simply not healthy. Luckily, when we take time away, these effects are mitigated. For example, the Framingham Heart study (a massive longitudinal research program started in 1948) reported that when workers take annual vacations, their risk for a heart attack is reduced by 30% in men and 50% in women.

How to Take Time Off Without Paying for It When You Return
Hopefully, cashing in some of that vacation time feels more important than it did a just few minutes ago. But if the idea of taking time off still feels difficult or stressful, here are a couple of tips.
First, it’s okay to start small. Short vacations have positive effects similar to long ones. One study from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands found that even vacations of just a few days increased health and well-being. And because benefits from most vacations fade after five days, frequent, shorter vacations may actually be better. So instead of blocking off two weeks and paying for it when you return, try a long weekend every month or two instead.
Second, it’s OK to check e-mail a few times while you’re away. The above study also revealed that people who worked during vacations still showed increases in health and well-being, albeit smaller ones. For many workers, being able to check in at work eases anxiety. So, within the bounds of reason, go for it! Just don’t let things get out of hand, lest your spouse or partner lock your iPhone in the hotel safe.
Whether you’re being forced to work this Thanksgiving or not, the holidays are a great time to re-prioritize. It’s important to remember that family and friends are life’s true gifts. After all, on their deathbeds, few people are likely to say “I wish I had spent more time at work.”
So, for goodness sake — take some time off!

Dr. Tasha Eurich is the author of the new book Bankable Leadership: Happy People, Bottom Line Results, and the Power to Deliver Both. She also helps organizations succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams; www.bankableleadership.com.

Help Wanted

By BusinessWest Staff December 3, 2013

Employment Sections

A chart of area employment agencies

Click here to download the PDF

Access to Opportunity

By BusinessWest Staff October 8, 2013

Employment Sections

Website Offers Information on Healthcare Careers in Western Mass.

Peta Gaye Portee says www.westernmasshealthcareers.org is updated frequently, making it an invaluable resource for people accessing the healthcare job market.

When most students think about jobs in the healthcare industry, they imagine working in a hospital.
But the reality is that only 30% of healthcare employees in Western Mass work in a hospital setting. The rest are working in the community — in nursing homes, doctor’s offices, diagnostic labs, home-care businesses, or ambulatory healthcare services.
“Most students can only name about five healthcare careers — there are a lot of positions they aren’t even aware of,” said Kimberly Slepchuk, academic and career advisor for the Foundations of Health program at Holyoke Community College, as she listed jobs that range from medical assistants in doctors’ offices to pharmacy technicians and sales representatives who specialize in medical equipment and supplies.
“And although many people cite nursing as a career, there are 110 different types of nurses, which range from camp and school nurses to neonatal nurses, which is why it’s really important to delve into the possibilities,” Slepchuk added. “Most of these jobs came about after World War II and are team-oriented. For example, surgical technologists assist in the operating room, and one of the newest jobs is a sterile processing technician.”
And opportunities continue to grow. In 2008, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that by 2018 there would be 3.2 million new wage and salary jobs in the healthcare field — more than any other industry.
It’s possible for people interested in a career change to discover these positions by perusing national websites, but there has always been a missing link, as these sites don’t provide information about the local job market in Western Mass. — what types of jobs exist and how much the average person here is paid. They also fail to provide a listing of local schools with programs that lead to specific healthcare careers.
But, thanks to a newly launched website, www.westernmasshealthcareers.org, all that has changed.
“The new website is very, very helpful and important, because while students could get data about jobs in Massachusetts before, there is a huge difference between what is available in the eastern part of the state and here in Western Mass. in terms of jobs and salaries,” Slepchuk said.

Supply and Demand
The website was developed as a result of a collaborative effort. It is an initiative of the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County (REB), which teamed up with members of the Healthcare Workforce Partnership of Western Mass., with the goal of strengthening the region’s healthcare workforce and enhancing the quality of patient care.
“The idea for the website was generated by employers, educators, and community-based organizations with the express desire of letting people know what types of healthcare jobs and careers are available in the Pioneer Valley and where they exist on the continuum of care,” said Kelly Aiken, director of Health Care Initiatives for the REB. “Employers want people to know what kinds of skills they are looking for as well as the places where people receive healthcare. The website tells them about the positions that exist in different types of job settings, as well as the education and training needed for a wide variety of occupations.”
She added that it’s important for people to be aware of the rapid changes occurring in the healthcare field and the requirements needed to enter or stay current in different jobs. “For example, the language in medical coding is changing, and people who are interested in moving from a job as a medical biller to a medical coder need to know this.”
In addition, having a regional resource helps parents, career advisors, and people interested in making a career change determine whether investing in education for a specific position is worthwhile.
“The idea is to provide people with a regional resource about our community; there are jobs that exist across the continuum, and we want people to know what is going on here,” Aiken said. “It’s especially important because there are jobs going unfilled because employers can’t find qualified job seekers. Our employers have told us this time and time again.”

Kelly Aiken says jobs are going unfilled because employers can’t find qualified workers, and the new website will provide the kind of information needed to close that gap.

The website reflects an extraordinary amount of research.
“We hired Six-Point Creative Works in Springfield, and they interviewed myriad people in one-on-one sessions to find out what they were looking for,” Aiken said, adding that the interviewees ranged from high-school students to immigrants who had worked in healthcare in their countries and wanted to get back into the field, to adults looking to make career changes.
“Employers were also engaged in the website’s development,” she continued. “It was a very collaborative effort, and our partners have been very involved.”
The final result is a site that contains detailed information in sections that include ‘local careers,’ ‘career planning,’ ‘education and training,’ ‘news,’ and ‘partnerships.’
For example, a click on the button labeled ‘local careers’ gives people a choice of then clicking on more specific fields, including medical and dental, office and research, lab work and imaging, therapy and pharmacy, vision, speech, hearing, and diet.
Slepchuk said these groupings make it easy for people to learn about occupations available locally that match their interests, along with what the work involves and the time and/or money and education required for the positions.
A click on ‘medical, dental, and nursing careers’ shows that the highest rate of job growth is in home healthcare, that many of these positions involve working with the elderly, and as this population grows, medical, dental, and nursing professionals will need to understand the basics of geriatric care. It also highlights a growing focus on preventive and primary care and a move toward more patient-centered care.
Visitors also learn that strong science, math, and technology skills are needed to work in this career cluster and that it is becoming increasingly important for people in these positions to be able to relate to people of different cultures.
Aiken says this information is critical for students and job seekers.
“In addition, employers are telling us that they expect applicants to show a degree of professionalism,” she added. “Healthcare is all about customer service, compassion, and professionalism.”
The website also contains links to employer listings. “The idea is not to replicate resources, but to help people access career-planning tools,” Aiken said.
There are also ideas and information about how to finance education and where programs are offered.
“We just updated the medical-coding page to reflect current standards, and we also updated the medical-billing section to let people know about a new program being offered at Holyoke Community College,” said Peta Gaye Portee, program coordinator for the Healthcare Initiative Workforce program. “There is also information about foundation grants, state grants, Pell grants, and scholarships.”
Meanwhile, the news section keeps viewers up to date with breaking developments, such as a new partnership between Greenfield Community College and Endicott College, which will allow nurses with an associate’s degree to earn their bachelor’s degree without leaving Greenfield, as well as a new public health degree program being offered at American International College in Springfield.
There is also a ‘fast facts’ section, which Slepchuk says students find useful. For example, it states that there is a need for sterile-processing technicians and surgical technologists in this area.
Another facet of the website contains links to nationally recognized assessment tools and tests that people can take if they are exploring the idea of a career in healthcare.

Future Outlook
Aiken reiterated that the purpose of the new website is to introduce people to the types of jobs that exist, which ones are going unfilled in the area, and the training and education that local employers expect job applicants to have.
“People need to realize that healthcare is a 24/7 industry and understand the realities of jobs in the field,” she told BusinessWest, adding that logging on to www.westernmasshealthcare.org will give people a “flavor of what is going on in the region.”
Which is good news for anyone who wants to keep up with occupations, salaries, training, scholarships, and other opportunities in healthcare throughout the region.

Employ Ability

By BusinessWest Staff October 8, 2013

Employment Sections

NEBA Marks 30 Years of Breaking Barriers to Getting Hired

Jeannine Pavlak says NEBA’s success rate of placing individuals with disabilities in jobs is higher than the national standard for such efforts.

Fresh out of college in the 1980s, Jeannine Pavlak found her ideal job — helping others do the same.
“I had just graduated and wanted to do something in the social-service field. I was interested in many different avenues,” she told BusinessWest. “But at the time, in the early 1980s, employment was becoming a hot topic.”
She wound up interviewing with New England Business Associates, a then-new organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities — physical, emotional, behavioral, etc. — find employment.
“I interviewed with many different organizations, but NEBA was the only one — that’s not true now, but it was at the time — that provided individualized, integrated employment” for such individuals, she explained. “I’ve always had a belief that people can work — and should work — and this matched my own personal philosophy.”
She never left, and today serves as executive director as NEBA gets ready to celebrate its 30th anniversary with a party on Oct. 18 at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House.
Over those years, she has overseen the implementation of several innovative programs, including one that helps disabled people become entrepreneurs. But NEBA remains, at its heart, dedicated to matching employers with workers who have encountered a host of challenges to entering the job market. “It’s amazing when it happens,” Pavlak said. “It really changes people’s lives so much.”
Established in 1983, NEBA now serves more than 400 people annually — ranging in age from 15 to 68 — through employment, self-employment, skill building, and community-inclusion programs. But they’re not the only ones who benefit, she said, citing the organization’s positive effects on businesses and the region’s overall economic development.
“As a service provider, we recognize each individual’s unique gifts and talents and maximize these unique strengths in the workplace,” the company’s mission statement explains. “As a business partner, we understand the needs of employers and ensure a successful job match that enhances their bottom line. And as a contributor, we improve economic and community conditions by preparing and placing a talented source of workers eager to become self-sufficient and contributing members of their communities.”
The initial intent, Pavlak said, was to work with people with developmental disabilities who weren’t being offered employment because of their challenges. “We really originated to work with a small group of people to demonstrate that anyone, regardless of their level of disability, can be successfully employed.”
Since then, NEBA has evolved somewhat. “Now anyone who has challenges to entering the workforce, we help support,” she said, noting that the organization contracts with the Department of Developmental Disabilities, the Mass. Rehabilitation Commission, the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, the Department of Transitional Assistance, and local school systems for students transitioning from high school. NEBA is also a registered employment network through the Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work program.
“Many folks are just having trouble finding employment for a variety of reasons; they might not have a very high education, or might be the only one there for their child and not have any group of support.”
But NEBA is most well-known for its work with the disabled, and Pavlak is especially proud of how efficiently it achieves its goals, consistently charting an employment rate for people with disabilities between 85% and 92%. “The national standard is lower than that” for similar agencies, she noted. “We’ve always achieved higher that the national average, and we’re one of the top providers in Massachusetts.”

Individual Attention
The reasons for that success are myriad, Pavlak told BusinessWest. “Really, the biggest thing is, our services are individualized. We really get to know the person, and we also really understand what the employer needs. If we’re placing someone who doesn’t meet the employer’s needs or where the individual doesn’t want to be, it won’t be a successful match.
“So we make sure we’re matching people properly,” she continued. “We spend time with employers, finding out what are the greatest challenges to employing people and what positions have the highest turnover. The population we serve, they want to work, and historically, once somebody’s employed, particularly with a disability, they’re not looking to move on to a different job; they want that work. When we find them good job matches, they tend to be long-term employees.”
Many businesses are repeat customers, she added. Because NEBA has been doing this work for 30 years, “we have a lot of relationships we can call upon with different employers. And if they’re not hiring, they may give us a sense of who might be hiring. Employers know us, and they know we’re going to do what we say we’re going to do.”
That includes plenty of initial job preparation to make sure clients are ready for interviewing and have a résumé, among other soft skills.
However, once a client finds work, “employers are expected to train that employee like they’d train anyone else,” Pavlak said, but NEBA still sends a staff member in to reinforce that training, and if the employer wants to add more duties to the client’s job description, they can consult with NEBA on that as well. “Our goal is for their co-workers to be their natural support, as it is for all of us. But we check in monthly with the employer to make sure things are fine.”
Pavlak said their involvement with NEBA clients has been eye-opening for many companies, and some businesses are clearly more progressive than others when it comes to hiring people with disabilities.
“Certainly some employers have very clear policies promoting this; they want to hire people with disabilities,” she said. “But the majority of businesses haven’t had the opportunity to hire people with disabilities.
“There are a lot of stereotypes out there, like liability; people are fearful if they have disabled workers, workers’ compensation claims will increase,” she continued. “We help educate them that liability and workers’ compensation is based on past history and the jobs you’re hiring for, not whom you’re hiring. There was a study done by DuPont over 20 years showing that people with disabilities actually have fewer injuries on the job because they’re much more aware.”
Another plus is that NEBA clients seem to give a more predictable effort on the job than the workforce as a whole, she said. “I’ve had employers say to me, ‘the work is always consistent. Out of all my employees, the person placed by NEBA does the same amount of work every day.’ They say other employees might give 100% one day, just top-notch, and another day give 60%; they’re much less consistent with their work.”

Starting Strong
Clients of New England Business Associates are doing more than finding employment; they’re also starting businesses and creating jobs.
Much of that success is being achieved through the NEBA Business Development Center (BDC), which provides clients with the entrepreneurial training necessary to develop a business concept, write a business plan, and implement a business.
“The Business Development Center is my most exciting project,” Pavlak said. “That was set up to help people with disabilities start their own businesses. When we first started it locally, there weren’t a lot of resources available for people with disabilities to start their own businesses. We collaborated with the Scibelli Enterprise Center, and we were set up initially as a consulting center, but quickly turned into a business incubator.”
The BDC mentors participants in the day-to-day operation of a new business venture, introduces them to a network of fellow entrepreneurs, and helps them access resources like the Senior Corps of Retired Executives and the Small Business Administration.
Adam Anderson is one NEBA client who has launched and maintained a successful business, Wilbraham Web Design. He had an interest in working with computers but eventually found an affinity for web design and started learning about small-business ownership and attending business courses at Springfield Technical Community College. By the end of 2006, his first year in business, Anderson already had numerous clients.
Pavlak explained that such companies are able to keep accessing the incubator for training in various aspects of their business, such as marketing strategy, as they grow. “We really look at ourselves as part of the economic-development arm,” she said. “So far, we have started 35 active businesses, and out of these 35 businesses, they’ve had to hire 23 additional employees.”
She can point to hundreds of success stories over the years — both entrepreneurs and people who simply wanted to land a steady job — as reflective of how important NEBA is for job seekers frustrated by the barriers they encounter.
“It can be difficult to access the job market on a few different levels,” she told BusinessWest. “It certainly helps them to identify where their strengths lie and learn how to sell that to the employer. Everyone has something to give, and if we match them appropriately, it can be a real benefit to an employer. People struggle most with how they sell ourselves. For our clients, it’s even more difficult to do that.”
Meanwhile, some clients have to overcome their uncertainty about how employment will affect the disability benefits they already receive. “We have a certified work incentive counselor meet with them and show them exactly how work will affect their benefits, and it takes the fear away,” Pavlak said. “What happens, in most cases, is that they’re better off getting their employers’ benefits.”
One benefit that can’t be measured, of course, is the simple pride clients take in having their skills recognized and put to use in a well-paying job.
“It’s so uplifting to do this work,” she said. “It makes you feel good on so many different levels.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Landing Gear

By BusinessWest Staff June 18, 2013

Employment Sections

Colleges Work to Help Students Open Doors to Opportunity

Bay Path College’s Laurie Cirillo says the job market has improved, but there are still many challenges awaiting job seekers.

‘Marginal improvement.’
That’s the phrase one hears repeatedly from area college career-services professionals as they talk about the overall job market and the prospects for members of the class of 2013.
Roughly translated, those two words, or others used to convey the same sentiment, imply that conditions are certainly better than they were a few years ago, when, in the wake of the Great Recession, many sectors — including financial services, law, retail, and even healthcare — sharply curtailed their hiring, forcing many to stay in school or take jobs in fields other than the one they chose.
But while the skies have brightened slightly — moreso in the technical and healthcare-related fields than others — the job market is still challenging in many respects, said Laurie Cirillo, executive director of the Sullivan Career and Life Planning Center at Bay Path College. She noted that, while a large number (25% or more) of the school’s graduates go on to seek advanced degrees, those choosing to enter the job market are facing everything from stern competition — including many members of those classes that graduated during or just after the recession — to some lingering reluctance on the part of some employers to add to their payrolls.
“Given the fact that we have a positive job-growth outlook for the state, we’re preliminarily seeing our students have more success and find opportunities locally,” she said of the overall job market. “But there is a lot of competition for these opportunities.”
In this environment, said Cirillo and others we spoke with, candidates need any advantages they can get, and area colleges are becoming both diligent and imaginative in helping them find some.
These initiatives include everything from encouraging and creating experiential learning experiences — including internships, practicums, and co-ops — to networking events and career fairs designed to introduce students to employers, to programs providing help with résumé and interviewing skills.
Summing up these efforts, Jeanette Doyle, director of the Career Center at Springfield College, said they enable students to become better able to sell themselves to potential employers — a skill, or trait, that many need help with.
“Most students are too humble,” she noted, referring, generally, to how they respond to interviewers’ questions. “It’s always about selling your skills and qualifications. We have to remind them to go out and market themselves in the most positive light, and they have to remind themselves that they’re competing against other people for these jobs.”
Much of the focus today is on experiential learning, especially internships, which can bring a number of benefits for students and employers alike, said Candace Serrafino, interim director of Career Services at UMass Amherst, who noted that the school was recently ranked among the top 10 schools in the country by US News & World Report when it comes to students participating in internships.
For companies, she noted, interns can provide everything from technical skills to important generational perspective, to an additional hand when when many employers need one or more. For students, she added, they provide hands-on experience, insight into the working world, and an introduction to a company that might become an employer.

Jeanette Doyle says the primary objective of career center activities at Springfield College is to help students become more adept at selling themselves to employers.

“Every publication that we’re reading echoes the same message — that, in today’s market, students must have that career-related experience,” Serrafino said, noting that roughly 60% of the undergraduates at UMass do get some form of experiential learning experience, and, increasingly, they’re starting earlier in their college career. “Students are definitely getting that message.”
At Baypath, internships are required, said Cirillo, adding that, overall, the school has been successful in forging partnerships with area employers, such as Baystate Health, on a number of experiential learning opportunities that help prepare students for life after graduation.
For this issue and its focus on employment, BusinessWest talked with a number of area career-services professionals about both the state of the job market and ways colleges are working to open more doors for their graduates by making it easier to sell themselves to employers.

Degrees of Progress?
Those we spoke with said it will be perhaps six months or more before they’ll have anything approaching hard data on how well the class of 2013 is faring when it comes to entering the job market — and in their chosen field.
That’s when most surveys of graduates, revealing if, when, and where they’ve found employment, are compiled, said Maria Cokotis, career counselor in the College of Business at Western New England University. But she and others noted that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to warrant the use of the phrase ‘marginal improvement’ or words slightly more positive.
And that aforementioned evidence comes in many forms, from the number of employers taking part in career fairs staged over the past several months to the wide range of companies that are hiring — from Enterprise Rent-a-Car to Health New England to a host of retailers, such as TJX.
“There are signs that the job market has gotten better since last year,” said Cokotis, adding quickly that there are caveats involving those who have found success, These include the field in question, flexibility with regard to geography — meaning those willing to relocate, especially to larger urban areas — experiential learning, and being realistic when it comes to expectations and a willingness to accept something less than the ideal job if doing so will start a career down the right path.
“If someone’s in information technology and is willing to relocate, there are a lot of opportunities that will present themselves,” she said, referring to one field along the spectrum.
“It’s also important for students to focus on the first job not as the ultimate career move, but a first step in their career,” she continued. “They should be thinking about where they can go to develop and apply some solid skills that will provide a stepping stone to the next position that they want to go to. Sometimes, students have a very idealistic outlook as to what they want in their first job, but they have to look at the realities of building on experience that will begin to carve a career path.”

Maria Cokotis, a career counselor in the College of Business at Western New England University, says job seekers must be realistic in their expectations when it comes to that first job.

UMass Amherst’s Serrafino has also noticed an uptick in the job market, at least in certain fields.
“Anecdotally, what we’re seeing is that things are picking up slowly,” she said, putting some additional emphasis on that last word. “Certainly, some of the technical majors, such as our engineering students and our computer science students, are finding greater opportunities than our non-technical students, and our finance, operations, and accounting students are also faring well.
“We serve a lot of liberal-arts and sciences students, and for them, it’s a little softer market,” she went on. “But it certainly becomes firmer when a student has an internship or a co-op under their belt.”
Serrafino said that one of the more encouraging developments with regard to the market has been strong attendance among employers at the school’s four annual career fairs — one staged by the Isenberg School of Management, another for engineering students, the Alana fair (involving minority students), and the campus-wide Career Blast, staged in February, the largest of the events.
“We broke all records — the number of employers increased significantly, as well as the number of students participating,” she said, noting, as one example, that the engineering fair drew 91 employers and 1,350 students. A year ago, those numbers were 78 and 1,100, respectively. At the Career Blast, there were 141 employers and 2,000 students (most from UMass, but also others from surrounding schools). In 2012, only 98 employers showed up.
As impressive as the quantity of employers was the variety, she went on, noting that the list of participants included GE, ISO New England, Health New England, Liberty Mutual, Macy’s, General Dynamics, Hanover Insurance, and MGM Resorts International.
And while companies take part for several reasons — some are recruiting intern candidates or simply maintaining visibility, for example — many have been hiring this year.

Courses of Action
While the employment scene is brightening somewhat, entering the job market remains challenging, said Cirillo, adding that Bay Path, like other schools, is being aggressive in its work to help students better compete for jobs in their chosen field, and be prepared to succeed in those professions.
Internships and co-ops are a big part of the equation, she said, but the school goes further, with such initiatives as the Sullivan Center’s career and networking events that, as the name suggests, are designed to provide career education and networking opportunities customized to a major field of study. The sessions, staged throughout the spring, include keynote presentations, panelists discussing their careers, and structured networking.
There are sessions for legal studies, business, education, psychology, criminal justice, and science, said Cirillo, noting, for example, that speakers and panelists for the criminal-justice event included John Gibbons, U.S. marshal for the District of Massachusetts; Margaret Oglesby, assistant chief probation officer for Springfield District Court; Col. Timothy Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; and Lucy Sotto-Abbe, Massachusetts Parole Board member, among others.
Another somewhat unique program at Bay Path is a career-shadowing program in which first- and second-year students go out into the field and spend some time with people in the profession they’ve targeted.
“It gives that first-year student a chance to really define the difference between what a job is like in their imagination and what it’s like in reality,” she explained, using forensic science, with expectations created by TV shows such as CSI, as one example. “We also encourage students to interview professionals working in the field and find out what their career stories are, and thus learn how they got to where they are, what kinds of career competencies they think are important for people in that field, and what their daily life and challenges are like.
“Getting in touch with professionals and being able to career shadow helps that first- or second-year student crystallize, or develop some confidence in, their major early on,” Cirillo continued. “Or, it might prompt them to say, ‘I thought I wanted to do this, but I don’t, so now I’ll do this instead.’ Developing confidence in the major early on is important.”
Meanwhile, it’s important for the student to have confidence as they go about their job search and take on those first job interviews. And that’s why many area schools have created programs to help them tackle those assignments.
Such initiatives range from UMass Amherst’s ‘Resumania,’ program, a four-day blitz during which career-services staff members prepare and update hundreds of résumés, to a host of efforts involving the art and science of interviewing, to seminars on the effective use of social media in a job search.
At Springfield College, said Doyle, the school brings alums back on campus to talk with seniors about what they’ll experience during a job search, at their first interview, and after they’ve been hired. It’s part of a larger effort to take learning beyond the classroom, she said, and prepare students for the workplace.
As part of this initiative, career-services staff members, sometimes working with alumni, conduct mock interviews with students, asking many of the tough, behavioral-based questions that are part and parcel to interviews today, and, overall, preparing them for something unlike anything they’ve experienced.
“Sometimes, students are surprised — they’ll say, ‘I was there for six hours; I had no idea it was going to be like this,’” she noted. “It’s still an employer’s market — there are a lot of candidates, and for them to pick the best one, they have to do their due diligence. We just want to help students be ready.”
At UMass, assistance also includes something that Serrafino called “job-fair prep workshops.” There were roughly a dozen conducted over the past year, she said, adding that they focused on everything from proper dress and body language to the questions they can expect.
“We teach the students to be able to market themselves in a 30-second infomercial,” she explained, “and focus on such things as how to greet an employer and how to put their best foot forward in a few moments, and not go up to someone and say, ‘so, what kind of jobs do you have here?’”

Happy Landing
Time will tell just how well the class of 2013 fares with its efforts to break into the job market. As those we spoke with said, there are many signs they will do better overall than those in many recent classes.
Meanwhile, the task at hand for area colleges is to continue to be imaginative with programs to help improve students’ odds and, overall, open more doors.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Hire Purpose

By BusinessWest Staff June 18, 2013

Employment Sections

Johnson & Hill Builds on Its Reputation for Effective Match Making

Andrea Hill-Cataldo says job hunting has become a much more complicated process.

Andrea Hill-Cataldo knows how difficult it can be to match a job seeker with the right company. And a lingering recession — not to mention a more complicated hiring landscape — haven’t made things any easier.
“It’s so frustrating for candidates, sending résumés into this abyss, not hearing back. And for employers who are inundated with a hundred résumés, it’s hard to get back to every candidate,” said Hill-Cataldo, president of Johnson & Hill Staffing Services.”
“At one time, you walked your résumé into a company or did a nice cover letter with a nice presentation,” and that was sufficient, she noted. But now, with many companies relying on online applications, “you’re e-mailing your résumé, clicking here, clicking there. As a result, candidates apply for more positions, employers get more candidates, and it’s harder for everyone.”
That’s where a good staffing service comes in. “For us, we still have that personal touch. We’re meeting with candidates and advocating for them,” she told BusinessWest. “We also do a lot of career coaching; we advise them on their résumé, questions they should be prepared to answer, talk about the environments they want to work in, industries they’re interested in.”
Hill-Cataldo likes to talk about building relationships, not just with those seeking work, but with the employers Johnson & Hill has developed long-lasting connections with during the 18 years the agency has been in business.
“We have a team of people, some of whom have been here since the beginning,” she said. “It makes a big difference when our clients call, because we know their history, their culture. That’s a big value add. People like to do business with people they like and know and trust.”
Johnson & Hill has come a long way since Hill-Cataldo and her cousin, Michaela Johnson, launched it from the ashes of a former Kelly Services agency after that corporation decided to take back its privately managed franchises during the mid-’90s.
Johnson’s mother (and Hill-Cataldo’s aunt) had run that office for decades, building a solid reputation and a number of connections, and when she retired after her franchise closed, the younger pair felt they could continue the legacy, with Johnson providing the initial financial backing and Hill-Cataldo contributing “sweat equity,” she said.
“There were some key players who had been with the company for a long time, so we hired two key people and built a company around them,” she explained. “There was a great history there, established relationships of trust. We grew that and built on that.”

Changing Tides
Since those early days, Hill-Cataldo told BusinessWest, the agency has both evolved and expanded.
Geographically, Johnson & Hill has offices in Springfield, Northampton, and Pittsfield, but serves clients as far north as Greenfield, south into Connecticut, and east to the Worcester area.
Meanwhile, the company has shifted from a full-service job-placement service to one that focuses on administrative, accounting, and legal careers. “It makes a real difference when you focus and specialize,” she said. “We found business doubled once we decided to focus on niche businesses.”
The strategy helps Johnson & Hill to better understand the industries and employers they serve. “We really try to be big picture, looking at a long-term approach with clients, building rapport and trust, and putting a lot of time into getting to know their culture,” she explained.
“We stand behind what we do for them, and in turn, they come to trust us,” she continued. “We’ve had some unique opportunities beyond typical staffing services; they also trust us with training and workforce development. We have some very unique, long-standing relationships with clients we’re very appreciative of.”
Hill-Cataldo and her staff of 10 have witnessed a number of shifts in the way companies attract talent. One is an increasing reliance on the temp-to-hire concept, as opposed to direct hiring.
“Temp-to-hire is a great way to bring someone on and not commit, but it’s great for the candidate, too; it’s not a one-sided story,” she said, adding that, if it’s not a great fit, Johnson & Hill already knows the candidate and can hit the ground running to find him or her something else. And if the job works out, “both sides are informed and feel better about the match. It’s better to be on the same page when you hire someone.”
The role of an employment agency looms more important than before, too, especially for those — companies and job seekers alike — who are anxious about navigating an increasingly complicated employment landscape.
“Hiring has changed dramatically over the past five years,” Hill-Cataldo said. “I feel bad for smaller companies that used to just place an ad in the paper. Now, what do you do? What online source to you use? How do you find the best people, manage your social-media presence, and market for better candidates?
“You have to cast a wide net, and then you have to manage that,” she went on. “It’s not just combing through résumés and getting back to people. We find recruiting more difficult, and the Internet has made it even more difficult.”
For job seekers in particular, “it’s lonely for them sometimes,” she continued, adding that it doesn’t have to be. “Many employers hire differently now; they bring in temp-to-hire employees to see if it’s a good fit. And many work with services like ours; we make sure you’re being considered for as many positions as we can. We don’t charge a fee for candidates, and we advocate for you. It can be a real positive.”
Many employers are happy to partner with agencies to ease the burden of candidate searches while still casting a wide net. “Our clients are overwhelmed. They’re all doing more with less,” she said. “They’re trying to add next staff members or replace a staff member, but they’re overwhelmed by other responsibilities. With our help, they have the resources to really look at qualified candidates, rather than hundreds of résumés.”

Satisfying Work
With so many changes occurring in the employment field, the company participates in a number of local and national organizations to keep current, said Hill-Cataldo. “But, thankfully, meeting with clients, talking to clients all the time, that in itself is an education. We can draw conclusions from what we see out on the front lines.”
Many of the agency’s clients were affected by the Great Recession and its aftereffects, she noted, but the picture is improving. “We in this industry are used to ups and downs, and we’re coming out of another dip,” she said. “We’ve definitely seen an uptick recently … a slow climb out.”
But it’s not only job seekers who lost their employment during the recession that find Johnson & Hill’s services useful. “We also help people who have taken a break from employment to gain some experience and get back in,” she said, citing, as examples, those who choose to stay at home to care for an infant or a sick parent. “That happens, and that’s explainable, but now they need more skills, and it’s nice to help them build a bridge to get back.”
Whatever the case, “it’s really satisfying when people we’ve worked with find great situations,” she told BusinessWest. “And we feel really good about the companies we work with. We work with a lot of colleges and major employers. We consciously seek out certain employers, and we feel good when people take a job with them. We know they’ll have a good experience.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Burning Question

By BusinessWest Staff June 18, 2013

Employment Sections

What Does the Medical-marijuana Law Mean for Bay State Employers?

John S. Gannon

Last November, Massachusetts became the 18th state to adopt a medical-marijuana law after voters approved a ballot referendum. The law protects qualifying patients, physicians, and dispensaries from state criminal and civil penalties associated with the medical use of marijuana. Massachusetts employers are wondering how the new law will affect workplace drug policies and whether they will need to accommodate disabled employees’ marijuana use.
Here’s what they need to know.

Qualifying Use
The Massachusetts Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana statute paves the way for patients to use and possess marijuana for the purpose of treating “debilitating medical conditions, or the symptoms thereof.” Debilitating medical conditions include cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. In addition, a physician can certify that other conditions are sufficiently debilitating if the patient is suffering from conditions that substantially limit a major life activity.
Patients suffering from a debilitating medical condition can apply to the state Department of Public Health (DPH) for a medical-marijuana registration card by submitting a written certification from a physician with their application. The registration card verifies that the cardholder is a qualifying patient exempt from state criminal and civil penalties for marijuana use.

Matters of Policy
The big issue for Massachusetts employers is whether they need to alter workplace policies governing drug use in light of the new medical-marijuana law. By now, employers should be well aware of their duty to provide reasonable workplace accommodations to handicapped employees. Could an employer unlawfully fail to accommodate an approved employee if off-site marijuana use is not tolerated? What about an applicant who fails a pre-employment drug screen because of medical-marijuana use or who tests positive for drugs in a drug test after employment?
These thorny questions are not answered outright by the Massachusetts Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana statute or by recent regulations promulgated by the DPH.

Still Illegal Under Federal Law
It’s important to note that the use of marijuana is prohibited by federal law, which lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug and does not provide exceptions for medicinal use. State courts in other jurisdictions have relied on federal law in ruling that employers need not accommodate marijuana use, pointing out that the activity is still illegal under federal law.
Similarly, certain federal laws and regulations require particular employers to follow drug-testing protocols and implement policies aimed at maintaining a drug-free workplace. Because these federal laws pre-empt (or trump) state laws, employers should continue to follow these laws when it comes to enforcing drug-related workplace practices and policies.

A Reasonable Accommodation?
In Massachusetts, any challenge to drug-free workplace practices will likely take shape via the state anti-discrimination statute (Chapter 151B). This measure, along with federal law, prohibits discriminating against employees who are ‘handicapped,’ which is defined by law as being substantially limited in a major life activity. It’s safe to presume that an employee suffering from a ‘debilitating medical condition’ could be considered handicapped and entitled to a reasonable accommodation in the workplace.
The $64,000 question is whether accommodation requests connected to medical-marijuana use are reasonable.

Some Questions Answered, Others Not So Much
The Massachusetts Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana statute makes it clear that an employer does not have to accommodate on-site use of medical marijuana. So there is no need to allow employees to light up in the lunchroom or bring marijuana brownies to work. Even so, the law does not address off-site use.
Consider, for example, an employee who is suffering from a debilitating medical condition, perhaps cancer, and who has been approved to use marijuana to help control nausea associated with treatment. Should that employee be allowed to come in late a few days a week because of the off-site marijuana use? It’s possible that such an accommodation might be reasonable under state law, even if the employer has a zero-tolerance drug policy.
What if the employee is subjected to drug testing and tests positive because of his medical use of marijuana? In other jurisdictions where these issues have arisen, courts have ruled that the employer did not have to excuse the use of an illegal drug, and it’s possible that a Massachusetts court would agree. But because this law is new and untested, it’s difficult to predict how a state court or administrative agency would handle these issues.
The only safe play is to check with employment counsel before taking any adverse employment actions for drug use against an employee who is registered to use medical marijuana.

John Gannon is an attorney at the management-side labor and employment firm Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C.; (413) 737-4753; [email protected]; www.linkedin.com/in/johngannonesq

Get a Job

By BusinessWest Staff June 18, 2013

Employment Sections

A chart of employment agencies in Western Mass.

Click here to download the PDF

Learning From a Distance

By BusinessWest Staff March 12, 2013

Employment Sections

Online Education Programs Are Undergoing Rapid Change

Debbie Bellucci says that 12% of the credits sold at STCC are of the online variety.

John Wells teaches a course in Information Technology Strategy at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. But his students don’t spend their time listening to lectures. Instead, they access that information online and use classroom sessions to discuss complex projects or cases, he said.

The associate dean for professional programs is just one of many college and university professors taking advantage of technological advances in what has become known as the ‘flipped classroom’ — a form of blended learning that encompasses technology to leverage learning, so a teacher can spend more time interacting with students.

“There’s been a huge movement of change over the past five years, and the way people deliver content has improved dramatically as instructors and students get more comfortable online,” Wells said.

An example of advancing technology is a pilot program at Isenberg for students taking online courses. They are participating in live lectures and interacting with students in traditional day classes via the computer, and if they aren’t available when the class meets, they can watch the captured portion later. “We’re seeing a constant melding of online and offline courses, and we plan to expand the pilot program in the fall,” Wells told BusinessWest.

Integration exists in many degree programs, and at Springfield College, students in the Physical Therapy program take online courses while they are engaged in off-campus clinical fieldwork. “It allows them to discuss their clinical experiences, receive mentoring and enjoy a much richer environment than was possible in the past,” said Jean Wyld, vice president for Academic Affairs. “Discussions can include students from across the country, and everyone joins in the discussion forum.”

She added that it’s a virtual version of everyone getting together at the end of the workday to talk about what happened. “It’s a great addition to our program.”

So, although the two entities — online classes and on-site classes — still exist, the boundaries are beginning to blur, while the benefits and disadvantages of distance learning are becoming clearer as the number of online course offerings expand.

“Online education is a great idea, but traditional education is faced with the dilemma of having to meld the two types of learning. And schools like ours are offering more online courses because the market wants it,” said Christopher Hakala, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Western New England University.

That market includes a diverse group of students, and some are definitely more suited to distance learning than others. But for all students, accessing educational information via the Internet is a valuable tool.

“In the future, online learning at work will play a major role for our graduates, so we want them to learn how to do it well,” said Wyld, adding that the typical 2013 faculty member is using electronic resources to support their teaching. And since many students are mixing online and traditional classes, their skills are growing, along with a set of best practices for online learning being developed at institutions of higher learning.

But it doesn’t take advanced skills to begin, and even those who are almost computer illiterate can participate.

“If you can write an e-mail and attach a word document to it, you can take a distance course,” said Debbie Bellucci, dean of the School of Continuing Education and Online Learning at Springfield Technical Community College. “People think of them as technical, but they aren’t. You don’t need to be a computer programmer or a techie. And they are very popular — 12% of all of the credits we sell are distance credits. Students are taking some courses online and some on-site. They are not buttonholed into one method, and it affords another option for people to complete a degree.”

For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at the world of online classes and what students need to know about this type of learning.

Bevy of Benefits

Christopher Hakala says one of the biggest challenges facing educators today is successfully melding traditional and online methods of learning.

Wells said many UMass students take online classes in the summer to accelerate matriculation. “They can take a lighter load during the semester and fill in the gap over the summer, which many students feel comfortable doing, especially if they are working part-time. In fact, it can be a huge advantage for people who are putting themselves through school by working.”

Another benefit is that the courses allow every student to voice their opinion via discussion boards. “In a regular classroom, everyone may have their hands up, but then you run out of time, so they can’t contribute their thoughts,” Wells said, noting that both instructors and students tout the forums as an online advantage.

Bellucci agrees, and says it can be a real bonus for shy students due to the sense of anonymity. “No one is staring at you, so people feel safer. And for those who are not good at responding on the fly, it gives them time to think about their answers.”

Flexibility is another advantage, especially for those who commute. “Students can take regular classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays; work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and do the rest online,” Wells said.

Hakala concurs. “Convenience is a factor, and students can access material when they need to. Plus, online courses allow us to reach people who might not otherwise be able to take classes,” he said.

In addition, learning on one’s own timetable can allow a student to do an internship and still graduate on time, which can prove beneficial to their future career.

Vana Nespor, dean of Online and Adult Studies at Bay Path College in Longmeadow, said the school has a Saturday degree program that many women take advantage of, especially since a blended course format is available. “Some say their employers have told them their job will be in jeopardy if they don’t get a degree, while others want to move up the career ladder,” she explained. “And although many love face-to-face classes, we are seeing more and more students who like the convenience of taking courses from home.”

She added that Bay Path has received grants that allow it to incorporate advanced technology in all of its classes, including occasional live video chats with instructors.

“The new wave of online courses is exciting and very interactive and gives students the opportunity to build community through Facebook, YouTube, and social media,” she continued. And since online classes include students from around the world, “it opens discussion to a much broader society than if the majority of people in the class came from Western Mass.”

It also allows students to finish degrees who can no longer attend classes on campus. Nespor said Bay Path had a traditional student two courses shy of graduation who needed to return to Africa and was able to complete her degree due to online offerings.

However, Belluci said online courses are not open-ended, and students do face constant deadlines. But they still have a certain amount of freedom. “Some people will work for six hours at one sitting, while others like to do it in smaller pieces. It’s all related to their learning style.”

Plus, there is no lack of social interaction. “We hear that many online students get to know each other better than they would in a classroom because there are no time barriers,” said Belluci. “When you are in a three-hour class, there isn’t time to really talk to anyone. But in most online classes, the first assignment is to introduce yourself, which is not done in a regular classroom.

“A student might spend a whole semester not knowing who the person sitting next to them is or what they do,” she went on. “But online, people form great bonds because they have each other’s e-mails. And faculty members tell us they know more about their online students than the students in their classrooms.”

Drawbacks Exist

Although benefits abound, there are disadvantages, and cost can factor into this because some institutions charge more for online courses, and others don’t include them in the price of full-time tuition.

But perhaps the most critical issue is whether the student is suited to this type of learning. “Older students who are returning to school tend to be better at online learning because they are usually more self-disciplined. It’s a matter of being able to manage your time efficiently,” Hakala said.

Wyld agrees, citing a study of 40,000 students released last month showing that students who are academically unprepared for college may not only fail to benefit from online classes, they may actually be hurt by digital instruction.

“Students need to have strong study skills and a solid high-school foundation to complete college-level online courses. It’s not a great fit for all students for a host of different reasons,” she explained. “Some do much better with face-to-face interactions in regular classes.”

Wyld said the ideal candidate is “a very focused, self-disciplined person who has very good time-management skills. Flexibility is the hallmark of online learning, but students still need to meet the same outcome, and an online learner must go to class.”

Wells advises people to choose their online courses carefully. “If a class is very experiential, don’t take it online,” he said. “Putting concepts into practice is more conducive to face-to-face learning.”

In addition, not all professors are adept at using technology to teach. “Some are very good at it and can turn readings, discussions, and PowerPoint presentations into a good learning experience, while others simply give students assignments and don’t provide them with structure,” Hakala said. “Professors have a long history of in-class experience to draw upon, but sometimes fail to anticipate issues that happen online.

“In a classroom, you can respond rapidly to feedback, but online it’s staggered,” he continued. “And many professors who have been in the classroom for 20 or 30 years have never taken an online course, so they don’t see it from both sides. However, we are getting better at it and moving towards standardization as we develop best practices.”

Wyld concurs. A recent study at Springfield College showed that its typical online student is a woman in her 30s taking classes to advance her career. “Many of them have a job and a family. And the success people have really depends on the quality of the experience. It has to be very interactive to be successful, which depends on the professor and the course design,” she said, adding there is a clear distinction between online courses at non-accredited institutions and those that are accredited.

Final Grade

Although the options to earn a degree are expanding thanks to online options, “there are deadlines, and the assignments are not open-ended, so students who engage in distance learning have to be very self-motivated,” Bellucci reiterated.

But the horizon has few limits. “The world of online education was clumsy when it started. But it has become highly interactive and very engaging, and instead of feeling isolated, students are building a community online and helping each other,” Nespor told BusinessWest.

“This is a going to be a great decade because technology is becoming so sophisticated and we can do things we couldn’t do before,” he went on. “It just gets better and better every day.”

A Smart Move

By BusinessWest Staff March 12, 2013

Employment Sections

Cambridge College’s Move Downtown Increases Visibility, Accessibility

Terrie Forte shows off the computer lab in Cambridge College’s new location in Tower Square.

Terrie Forte says there were a number of motivating factors behind Cambridge College’s relocation from Cottage Street in Springfield into former retail space in Tower Square, in the heart of downtown.

There was the desire to upgrade and modernize the facilities at the Cottage Street location, she said, noting that they had been in use for more than 20 years and had been carved out of former industrial space not exactly suited for higher education. And there was a need for both more immediate space and room for likely expansion of this school that serves mostly working adults who need graduate or undergraduate degrees to advance their careers.

But the overriding motivations were the need for both more exposure and better accessibility, factors that have been verified since the doors to the new facility opened several weeks ago.

“The most interesting thing we’ve learned in this relocation process,” said Forte, director of the school’s Springfield Regional Center, “is that, even though we’ve been in the area for 20 years, many people don’t know about us and what we do. But it shows us just how much potential we have here.”

Indeed, Forte has already noticed an uptick in inquiries from prospective students, especially younger individuals looking for degree-completion options — one of the school’s many realms of service.

“What we’ve seen is a lot of younger people coming in, just because of the new location,” she said. “And generally, they will come to us for degree completion.”

And while the new location appears to be already paying dividends for Cambridge College, the move is also benefiting the long-struggling Tower Square.

For starters, space that had been dark for more than a decade (since former tenant U.S. Factory Outlets moved out) is now vibrant again. And the presence of students, faculty, and administrators on the ground floor of the retail and office complex is breathing some new life into the facility.

“Every time I go down the escalator and see those windows [adorned with the Cambridge College logo], it puts a big smile on my face,” said Fred Christensen, senior property manager for CB Richard Ellis, which manages Tower Square.

The new Springfield Regional Center includes 18,000 square feet of space fronting Boland Way, compared to 16,000 in the Cottage Street facility. The new location features 14 classrooms (six more than the school had previously), complete with daylight and motion sensors for all lighting, ergonomically designed chairs, smart boards, ceiling projectors, and other high-tech elements that make instructors’ jobs easier while enhancing the learning experience.

The move took more than two years to plan and execute (somewhat longer than initially expected), but it already appears to be a smart move, in more ways than one, with the school gaining valuable exposure from its Main Street address, as well as much greater accessibility off nearby I-91.

School of Thought

Turning back the clock roughly three years, Forte said senior administrators at Cambridge College had reached the conclusion that, while the Cottage Street location was still in some ways adequate, a larger, more modern, more accessible location was needed if the Springfield center, one of six located across the state, was to grow.

“Being the first regional location for the college over 20 years ago, we were the one most in need of an upgrade,” explained Forte. “But once the college decided they would make the investment, it was the question of, ‘where do we do it?’”

Many locations in the city were considered following strong response to a request for proposals issued by the school, she told BusinessWest, adding that the Tower Square site most effectively addressed the college’s needs and concerns.

“Not only could we provide them with a large, contiguous space and exterior street exposure,” said Christensen, “but the parking component was a big factor in terms of keeping their students safe.”

Forte agreed. “The average age of our students is 38, and they are adults in career transition,” she explained. “Some don’t have cars, or they’re busy parents who require flexible schedules, so most of our class time is nights and weekends, and safety, from the very beginning, was absolutely my number-one concern.”

Overall, the new location will enable the Springfield center to better attract and then assist the many constituencies it serves, she went on, noting that Cambridge College caters to a diverse population of adult learners for whom higher-education opportunities may have been limited.

In this tight job market, she noted, employers can be somewhat demanding, and that means that many job seekers will need additional skills or degrees to advance in their chosen field or move into a new one.

“We’re seeing many people who find themselves unemployed or underemployed and are looking to change that, and what’s great about Cambridge College is our rolling admission policy,” said Forte. “There aren’t any barriers; you get here, and you prove yourself.”

To emphasize that point, she referenced one of the school’s newest offerings, called the Portfolio Program. It allows students who have already been working in the human-services field, for example, to earn a degree in that course of study.

The most appealing aspect of the program, Forte explained, is that work-life experience is taken into account, and while most students still have considerable work to do to earn their degree, attending a rotating class schedule is not necessary; meeting periodically with the advisor is. Essentially, the Portfolio Program is customized for each student, based on what skills and experiences he or she has gained over time.

“It’s definitely not an easier path by any means,” she said, “but for some of our students, it does allow them to not have to go to class.’”

Currently, Forte said, the college serves approximately 300 adult students and employs 50 faculty members, 10 of whom hold administrative posts. The school offers graduate-degree programs in education, management, and counseling and psychology, many of which lead to licensure and certification. Undergraduate degrees are also offered in human services, management, and multidisciplinary studies.

— Elizabeth Taras

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Recent SJC Rulings Reject Efforts to Constrain Employers

Paternity Leave Becomes Law in Bay State — but Hold the Applause

TWO Program Is Honored for Closing Workforce Skills Gaps

O’Connell Care at Home Tries to Keep Up with Soaring Demand

A chart of area employment agencies

NLRB’s Joint-employer Campaign Provides Some Food for Thought

It Appears That These Contracts May Be Here to Stay

Tax Rules Make This Practice More Complicated Than Many Think

Sunshine Village Provides Opportunities for Clients, Solutions for Employers

Three Recent Rulings Issued by the MCAD Are Ones to Remember

Beware Some of the Many Costly Mistakes Employers Make

A chart of the region’s employment agencies

Tech Foundry Aims to Build a Skilled Workforce — and More

FIT Solutions Creates a Strong Niche Within the Staffing Industry

REB’s New Director Wants to Build on Recent Momentum

Vacation Time Isn’t a Benefit If Workers Don’t Use It

Griffin Staffing Network Goes Extra Mile to Help Job Applicants

A chart of area employment agencies

Training & Workforce Options Takes Region-wide View

Neutrality Agreements Under the Gun at Supreme Court

Why An Addiction to Work Is Hurting Our Careers

A chart of area employment agencies

Website Offers Information on Healthcare Careers in Western Mass.

NEBA Marks 30 Years of Breaking Barriers to Getting Hired

Colleges Work to Help Students Open Doors to Opportunity

Johnson & Hill Builds on Its Reputation for Effective Match Making

What Does the Medical-marijuana Law Mean for Bay State Employers?

A chart of employment agencies in Western Mass.

Online Education Programs Are Undergoing Rapid Change

Cambridge College’s Move Downtown Increases Visibility, Accessibility

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