Contemporary Performance Issue Essay -- essays research papers fc

A Contemporary Performance Issue   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Commuting is a perfect example of a contemporary performance issue, â€Å"traffic congestion can steal valuable time from employees’ personal lives† (Wells par. 1). The typical employee is concerned with the time lost in commuting to work and not spent at home with their family. The family could be spouse, children, pets, parents, siblings etc.†¦If your everyday lifestyle started with the concern and time wasted just for commuting to and from work, you already started the day with a strike against you. In the past, this was not an issue with the employer. The employer was concerned with what they had control over at the workplace, if you had other problems, leave them at the door. Lately, it has been pointed out that more can be done for the employee in the field of Human Resources (HR). For example, instead of open parking for everyone at the work place, initiate a preferred parking area for those using some type of car pool. This encourages a social environment to and from work, as well as relieving some employee stress. If all of the employees are in some type of rotating pool, then an extra load of stress is being relieved from some of the employees all of the time, or all of the employees some of the time. Either way you look at it, you can hope to see an increase in concentration and performance. As an added incentive, â€Å"The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), enacted in June 1998, allows employers to offer workers either cash or tax-free reimbursements for parking, mass transit fares and van pooling expensesâ€Å" (Wells par. 3). This is further enhanced for the employer since the Clean Air Act of 1990. There are about 100 metropolitan areas that mandate air quality goals by reducing vehicle emissions that cause pollution. Some states like California have districts that require employers with 250 or more employees to adopt clean air measures to include trip-reduction programs. All of this results in employees no longer being concerned with traffic or parking or fuel expenses. This is an attractive incentive for retention and also as a recruiting tool. The advantages of adopting a strong program as part of an overall benefits package are clear. Here are some examples of how some organizations have put this to use: ? Bethesda, Md.-based Calvert Group Ltd. estimates that it cut emp... ...’ flex schedules. A third of the companies surveyed by Mercer, up from just 6 percent as recently as 1993, offer employees the option of working at home, with modem-equipped computers linking them to the office. More than a fifth say they are considering such a program. Retailer J.C. Penney, for example, has found that home-based telecommuters are the answer to its on-call operations. Recruited in-house from the company’s telemarketing staff, the part-time workers are supervised by phone, e-mail and twice-monthly visits. Prediction: Between 7.5 million and 15 million workers will telecommute three to four days a week by 2002, according to projections by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (Wells par. 5). I think that with today’s traffic congestion, both the employee and the employer would benefit by having some type of incentive that is geared to commuting. HR is no longer just at the work place. Maybe it never was. Today, we can find all sorts of programs as incentives for the work force. Are they new or are we just no longer thinking in the box? Works Cited Wells, S. J. (1999), â€Å"Using rush hour to your advantage.† HR Magazine, March 1999.