Benefits November 20, 2006

Organizational Change is Increasingly Disruptive

November 20, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - More than 80% of executives say that the pace of change is speeding up in organizations all over the world, and seven out of 10 say their organizations experienced disruptive change during the last year, according to a new global survey commissioned by American Management Association (AMA) and conducted by the Human Resource Institute (HRI).
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According to a press release on the survey, when asked to compare disruptive change (defined as severe surprises or unanticipated shocks) in their organizations today with disruptive change over the previous five years, about 37% said their organizations had experienced more shocks and surprises, compared with only 19% who said there were fewer and less-frequent shocks and surprises.

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The extent to which a change is viewed as disruptive depends on how agile and resilient the organization is, according to the release. The AMA/HRI survey found higher performers tend to be both more agile and more resilient than lower performers. Additionally, compared with their lower-performing counterparts, higher performers view themselves as having superior change abilities at the individual, team and organizational levels.

The survey found the most important factors driving organizational change are expectations of customers and vendors, new products and services, and technological and process changes.

“The actions of corporate leaders and managers can raise or lower the level of corporate agility and resilience. Functional silos, excessive decisionmaking steps, norms of conformity, restricted flow of information, cumbersome infrastructures and deafness to any ideas but our own-these are some of the ways that an organization’s management team creates a sluggish company unable to work with change,” said Edward Reilly, President and CEO of AMA, in the release.

A full survey report can be read here .

Compliance November 17, 2006

Judge Reinstates Job for Woman Refusing Sunday Hours

November 17, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A Missouri woman who was fired from a public library for refusing to work on Sundays was reinstated to the staff assistant position she had held for 12 years.
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A federal jury ruled in the woman’s favor in May, finding the library had discriminated against her on the basis of religion, the Associated Press reports. She was awarded $53,712 in lost wages, and last month a judge ordered that she be reinstated to her staff assistant job.

After the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) determined Connie Rehm had a legitimate claim, the library attempted financial settlement, but Rehm refused because she wanted her job back. Rehm called the library position a “gift from God” because it allowed her to serve her community, the AP said.

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The Rolling Hills Consolidated Library fired Rehm in 2003 when it adopted Sunday hours and she refused to work on that day.

“What price is my religious freedom? What is it worth?” Rehm said, according to the AP.   “It’s not a matter of displaying the Ten Commandments. It’s being able to live the Ten Commandments, and that’s what my employer was asking me not to do.”

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