ORC Sightlines

June 2004

Managing Employee Relations in India

India has become a favorite location for off-shored facilities, and Indian vendors have captured a significant segment of the outsourced work generated by US- and European-based companies. India offers a large potential workforce of English-speaking college graduates. The economy is fairly liberal, there is a long tradition of rule-of-law, and the government has been actively courting this type of foreign investment.  Even so, companies that locate facilities in India or outsource processes to Indian service providers face some critical employee relations challenges. These were the subject of discussion at a recent meeting of ORC’s Labor and Industrial Relations Advisory Group (LIRAG).

Dr. Sumita Raghuram, Associate Professor of Management Systems at Fordham University, reviewed the Indian ER climate with participants, reminding them that India is a collectivist society in which extended families and social networks are very important. Consequently, establishing relationships and building trust are key success factors for foreigners operating in the country. This is especially true since the country’s labor relations law makes it very easy for unions to gain the right to represent employees, without the necessity of winning approval from a majority of the unit’s workforce.

Participants with operations in India confirmed that, despite the fact that Indian employees of their companies are well paid and enjoy good working conditions, union avoidance is still an important concern. Their union avoidance activity, one company noted, is less about fighting organizing campaigns than it is about educating local managers about good employee relations practices. All agreed that the challenges facing employers with call centers or similar operations in India were basically the same as those at home—making high stress, high volume work with little opportunity for advancement attractive enough to stem high turnover while maintaining corporate values and quality standards.

For more information about offshore labor relations or about ORC’s labor relations networks, contact Tom Connors (212-719-3400).

Exciting New Technology, Potential New Hazards

Nanotechnology—the science of manipulating materials, devices, and processes at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular levels—is considered of such importance to our nation’s future that the government has set up an entity just to monitor its development and coordinate response among the various other agencies that touch or are touched by it in some way. The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a federal R&D program established to:

  1. conduct R&D to realize the full potential of this revolutionary technology;
  2. develop the skilled workforce and supporting infrastructure needed to advance R&D;
  3. better understand the social, ethical, health, and environmental implications of the technology; and,
  4. facilitate transfer of the new technologies into commercial products.

As nanotechnology finds its way into more products and processes made and used by companies, members of ORC’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Group will be increasingly concerned with toxicity and health risks that may be associated with occupational nanoparticle exposure. At the group’s quarterly meeting held earlier this month, OSH members discussed a five-year multidisciplinary study recently begun by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to further our understanding of these potential occupational health concerns. This field is so new and the potential hazards so different from those industry is accustomed to handling that OSH professionals will need to keep close watch on developments as time goes on.

For more information on nanotechnology, see the NNI web site at http://www.nano.gov. To discuss its occupational safety and health implications, or to learn about ORC’s OSH Networks, contact Frank White (202-293-2980).

NESNet to Explore Employer Security, Liaise with Government

Security issues have risen to the top of every major corporation’s priority list. The magnitude and complexity of the issues, particularly for a global enterprise, can be enormously challenging. Obtaining, integrating, and communicating reliable and useful information, developing effective strategies and processes to assess risks and protect the business and its employees, and coordinating with government agencies at all levels are of paramount importance.

Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc. (IRC), a not-for-profit research organization and the founding parent of ORC Worldwide (ORC), is establishing a new network of leading employers to provide a forum for sharing effective practices on a broad range of security issues. The principal goal of the National Employer Security Network (NESNet) is to make sure American companies have the knowledge and resources to implement effective integrated, cross-functional security strategies and emergency preparedness plans. The network will examine and develop best practices and will work with the federal Department of Homeland Security to develop a program of interventions, both proactive and in response to regulatory and other national policy initiatives as they arise.

IRC has commissioned ORC to manage NESNet. ORC has already sponsored three groundbreaking meetings in this field, twice partnering with the Brookings Institution and once with a select group of major employers, that have demonstrated the value of establishing a network. On July 21-22, ORC will host NESNet’s inaugural meeting at its Washington, DC, offices. The agenda will focus on understanding the threats facing business today, the federal government’s homeland security priorities, and initiatives affecting industry.

In addition to helping network participants shape their own responses to critical issues, NESNet will act as a proving ground for a cross-industrial, cross-sector approach to the nation’s security issues. IRC, with ORC’s assistance, will evaluate the most effective ways to develop and share best practices among the many affected private and public sector stakeholders and will try to identify the best methods for industry and federal and state governments to collaboratively develop national security policy and guidance and communicate it promptly to the business community.

For more information on employer security issues or on NESNet, please contact Frank White (202-293-2980).

Employee Networks—Policies and Practices

Employee networks, also called affinity groups or resource groups, provide a support structure for employees sharing common interests or issues while helping employers recruit, retain, and develop their workforce. ORC conducted a survey of members of the Workforce Opportunity Network to learn about how leading companies are managing employee networks.

Types of Networks

The most common types of groups active in responding companies include those for women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics, but companies also report having groups for gays and lesbians, parents, single or adoptive parents, people with disabilities, men, veterans, generation X, returning expatriates, recent college graduates, and Vietnamese. Eighteen percent of responding companies permit religious networks, while about half say they specifically disqualify groups that promote particular religious or political positions. All the companies refuse to charter groups whose agendas promote exclusion of other employees and most also say they do not permit networks whose purpose is to oppose other groups.

Guidelines

Most responding companies with affinity groups have developed guidelines that address questions about the groups’

Company Support

Most of the responding companies train employee network leaders. All the companies say they provide some level of annual funding, ranging anywhere from $1000/network to over $20,000. Some base the amount of support on the size of the group and some on annual budget requests made by the group.

For more detail on the survey findings or to discuss issues arising out of affinity groups, contact Liz MacGillivray (401-847-7877).

ORC Resources: Exceptions to Expatriate Policy

If your organization is plagued with requests for exceptions to your expatriate policies, see Lynne Molnar’s article in the ORC Reading Room. Published in the Spring 2004 issue of International HR Journal, the article suggests a process for controlling exceptions while maintaining reasonable flexibility and a set of criteria for making decisions on requests. To talk further about this issue, contact Lynne (212-852-0364).

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