Communicate the commitment - Between the Lines - Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act

You've chosen a career in human resources. And unless you're practicing your profession at the Pentagon, you probably don't think of yourself as part of this nation's military effort.

But that might change--soon. As "Gearing Up for Active Duty" in this issue points out, employers should be preparing for what could be the largest reserve deployment in U.S. history. If we go to war with Iraq--and by the time you read this, we might already be there--300,000 National Guard and U.S. Armed Forces Reserve members will likely be called to active duty. Most of them are civilians with full-time jobs.

You've read the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. You understand its statement of the obligation to preserve jobs, benefits, and rights to promotion, even if employees are in Baghdad or Kabul for months on end. Perhaps your company is like EDS and United Parcel Service, which have decided to go beyond the letter of the federal law by offering supportive salary and benefit policies for reservists on active duty.

But not everyone in corporate America has gotten the word about the USERRA, let alone understands why a company would go the extra mile for active reservists. So while your corporate communications department would love to promote the company's patriotic efforts in press releases, and the CEO dreams of receiving the Secretary of Defense's Freedom Award at a Washington luncheon, trouble can be brewing in the ranks.

As you'll read in our story, a 1999 Defense Department study found that 31 percent of employers didn't know there were any laws protecting reservists. And even among those companies that knew of the law, reservists said they had to endure hostile attitudes about their duty. They were encouraged to quit the reserves. Others said they'd been denied medical benefits when they returned from duty, or were forced to use vacation time for military duty. Those two items, by the way, violate the USERRA.

You see what can happen. At the top, everyone's gung-ho. But the middle of the company is lashing back. Sources told Workforce writer Fay Hansen that the problem is rooted more in ignorance than malice.

So as you set your reservist policies, ask yourself: do your line managers fully understand the company's obligations under USERRA? Have you helped them to see why the company would make bottom-line sacrifices to support reservists? More important, has anyone in HR stepped up to help line managers find a realistic way to cover the work that still has to be done? Just imagine the rancor that is triggered when a manager suddenly finds she's been deprived of a key employee. And imagine how it grows when she's told she'll just have to find some way to spread the work around to other employees (who probably are working 2.5 jobs already, thanks to the recession). Will her heart brim with patriotic pride? Not likely. She's not the one who gets applauded at the Washington luncheon, after all.

Thomas Paine castigated summer soldiers and sunshine patriots. A company that waves a flag at the top without reinforcing that commitment with everyone in the organization is just as bad.

COPYRIGHT 2003 ACC Communications Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group