Corporate Response to Reserve Components' Call-Ups - Fortune 500 companies respond to survey on Reserve employees - Brief Article

For the past 11 years, ROA has written annually to the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies, soliciting information on corporate policy when Reserve and Guard employees are called to emergency active-duty.

In its most recent request for policy updates, ROA pointed out that "doing more with less has become the military's modus operandi in recent years. The standard applies to the active forces and equally to the Reserves when called up for emergency duty," the letter explains, and then asks: "When these Reservists and Guardmembers are your company employees, what is your corporate response to their needs during emergency call-ups?"

The Questions Asked

The Fortune 500 CEOs were asked to respond to the following questions:

* Does your company provide salary and/or pay differential health and life insurance benefits for employees called to emergency active duty?

* Are benefits provided for dependents?

* If provided, for how long a period?

* Is the same policy applicable to the employee who volunteers for emergency active duty?

* Will the employee return to the same or like job; or is response uncertain?

Replies summarized for 119 companies on the next pages represent 67 new responses and 52 reprints from previous years. On the charts, as well as in this write-up, asterisks indicate responses from prior years.

Of the companies listed in this year's survey, 11 provide full salary; 11 give salary plus differential; 53 offer differential; three list payment variations; 30 provide no salary or differential; five initiate ad-hoc policies or have no standing policies; and five respond that they "do not participate in surveys.

Where full salary is provided, the most generous packages are granted by #69 Duke [*] Energy, full salary for up to one year; #19 TIAA-CREF [*] full salary for eight month; #29 Merrill Lynch [*] and #151 Anheuser-Busch, full salary for unspecified periods.

The Companies That Lead

Where differential is provided, the best coverage is offered by the following: #6 IBM, #251 Bank of New York Co., #266 FPL [*] Group, and #459 Carolina Power & Light for the duration; #78 Bristol-Myers [*] Squibb and #310 Rohm & Haas for up to 18 months; #190 Northrop Grumman and #403 Hershey Foods for one year; #334 *Corning, one year for Bosnia and Desert Storm; and #124 Eastman Kodak for nine months.

Among the 10 companies that offer a combination of salary plus differential, the most generous are provided by #3 Exxon Mobil, with salary for two months and differential for duration of call-up; #170 Eli Lilly, [*] salary for one month and differential for up to 12 months or as determined by company; #155 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, salary for two weeks and differential for 12 months; #454 LG&E [*] Energy, salary for three months and differential for three months; #236 Unisys. [*] salary for one month and differential for six months.

An Overview of Benefits

The following summarizes the four major benefit categories:

* Among the 11 companies that provide full salary, one offers it for one year; one for eight months; seven for from 10 days to two months; and two for unspecified durations.

* Of the 11 companies where salary and differential is provided, the breakdown is as follows: Salary for two months and differential for duration; salary for one month and differential for up to 12 months; salary for two weeks and differential for up to 12 months; salary for three months and differential for three months; salary for 45 days and differential decided case by case; salary for one month and differential for six months; salary for one month and differential for two months; salary for one week and differential for two months; salary for two weeks and differential for one month; salary for two weeks and differential for two weeks; salary for one week and differential for two weeks.

* Of the 53 companies that offer pay differential, four provide for the duration; two for 18 months; two for one year; six for indefinite or unspecified periods; one for nine months; 12 for six months; nine for three months; two for two months; seven for one month; and eight for from five days to three weeks.

* Of the three companies with payment variants, #211 Sunoco [*] provides three months of differential then family allowance for the duration; #58 BellSouth [*] offers three months of differential then an additional three months for dependents; #254 Unicom [*] gives three to six months' allowance equal to one-half base monthly pay.

Editor's Note: For related information regarding emergency call-ups of Reservists and Guardmembers, please refer to "Reserve Forces at a Crossroads," on page 11.

(*.) Company reply was to a prior-year ROA Fortune 500 survey.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Reserve Officers Association of the United States
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group