Nope. You don't sit in on HR meetings or know people who work in HR for several major Houston companies. We've even taken out from the HR literature references to retiring with medical benefits for the few new hires who actually walk in the door.
Originally Posted by gnadfly
Just goes to show that most businesses are run on gut feel, ignorance and fear and good management practice, facts and numbers have gone out the window in a hurried rush to get "nimble". I consult at many of the largest financial, insurance and healthcare companies in the country and world along with the largest software and consulting companies and 95% of their operations, particularly IT are pretty much run totally seat of the pants as little fiefdoms for anyone who had a sponsor and mentor and could make it that far up the corporate ladder no matter if they did a good job or not.
I often point out to my clients that the top companies in many verticals train their employees extensively and the response I usually get is "when we are at the top we will too". They just don't get it and the general attitude is, "if we train anybody they might leave" except at the few really well run companies. Management, including top management is generally so poor across industries these days that it is a wonder that most companies stay in business at all (and many don't in fact).
BTW, the Affordable Care Act was not passed to help companies make profits in the quarterly short run (the only thing American companies care about these days), it was passed to help the middle class and workers stay healthy so there was not a lot of lost productivity and people didn't lose their homes and retirement when they had health issues because, WHEN MAIN STREET DOES WELL, WALL ST. and everybody else does well too, but not the other way around. Maybe it isn't a perfect law or the absolute best way to do that, but it IS a START after 80 years of trying (even by Richard Milhouse Nixon that damn socialist - look it up). If big business had its way it would suck all the wealth out of the middle class and move to Switzerland or Monaco or wherever leaving the U.S.A. in shambles all for a few quarters of quarterly profits and a bunch of big bonuses. Henry Ford got this and all his competitors vilified him for it. The decade following WWII had the greatest expansion of GDP in the history of the world and the middle class grew and prospered even with up to 90% to tax rates (not that I would recommend that today), but we have forgotten that and are going to destroy our middle class and democracy to have a plutocracy where the top 1% will flee the country eventually with all their wealth leaving just a shell and not caring one whit. Look at the trends since the 80's and what don't you get about that?
