Are You Ready for the Employee Free Choice Act?

It’s coming, and probably within the next twelve months!  Employers should use this time to assess your current work culture, policies and practices and to address anything that may make you vulnerable to unions.  
Become a talent organization. Be proud of your people, and make them proud of you.  Employers who actively invest in the ongoing learning and development of their people are far less likely to experience regrettable turnover or be vulnerable to union organizing.  Why?  The people don’t need a union to force the employer to invest in them.  The need to keep learning and to be continually challenged is even more critical with the Gen X and Millennials than was ever the case with the Baby Boomers.  This is just good business.

Conduct an informal employee survey and follow-up interviews with a representative sample. It’s very common for top management to be completely unaware of what the employees really think or feel.  Sometimes the smallest things become the biggest issues, but attentive employers can spot these opportunities and implement reasonable solutions while increasing their credibility with the employee population.

Review your policies, procedures and practices to ensure that they are all compliant with current labor law.  In 2009, there have already been quite a few changes made to existing legislation, and failure to be compliant is a distinct vulnerability.

Institute lawful union avoidance measures.

Communicate actively to your employees, and let them know you’re listening to them. Employees who feel that they have a voice and are truly heard by their employer do not need to bring in a union to speak for them.

Train your managers and supervisors. An employee’s direct report has the greatest ability to affect his/her level of satisfaction with the job and the company.  It doesn’t matter what the owners or top management do unless the managers and supervisors are speaking and behaving consistently throughout the company.

Look at your selection procedures. The people you hire should be compatible with your work culture, values and practices.  Even more importantly, the people you hire should be right for the job – their background, experience and competencies should be well matched to the job requirements.  If not, they are destined to be disgruntled, dissatisfied employees or, in other words, a unionizer’s dream.

If you don’t know where to start or how to work through this To Do List, get someone to help you.  But doing nothing is like camping out in the backyard during a hurricane.  There’s only one outcome you can rationally expect.