Business Trends

Is Obesity a Disability?

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Ruling Could Spur Hiring Bias Against Obese Workers | workforce.com

If obesity is included under the ADA, it would likely be narrowly defined to exclude a condition that is the result of a person’s lifestyle.

While there have been few cases like the one in Indiana, the growth of obesity in the workplace may lead to more workers’ compensation or discrimination cases.

If the courts recognize obesity as a disability, millions of obese Americans could potentially claim discrimination. About two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and 27 percent—about 72 million—are obese, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A doctor concluded that Childers’ back recovery was “doomed to failure” unless he lost weight. After physical therapy worsened Childers’ back pain, his doctor recommended back surgery.

The company argued that Childers’ weight constituted a pre-existing condition for which it was not responsible.

Citing a precedent in a case involving a longtime smoker, the court ruled differently. It said the employee’s pre-existing obesity, combined with his back injury and subsequent weight gain, formed a new work-related “single injury” the employer was responsible for treating.

Outsourcing is Not a Four Letter Word

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I read this online Business Week article and I thought I was reading about myself.  If I were to add my thoughts, I’d add:

  • Live where you want to live (provided you have a decent Internet connection)
  • Enjoy flexibility of schedule
  • No corporate politics or non-productive meetings
  • Meet and work with interesting intelligent humans
  • Enjoy a different kind of stress.

Outsourcing Benefits U.S. Workers, Too – BusinessWeek

For the project workers who log in to oDesk every day to create their own job with decent pay, outsourcing is a wonderful thing—be it in Wyoming or New Delhi. Some have been forced from full-time jobs but many simply prefer to go it alone or to work with small groups. Scarred by a barrage of layoffs in recent years, these workers like the control over their lives and diversity in the source of paychecks.

Employer Provided Training – What Training?

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Copied shamelessly from Workforce Training Management e-newsletter.

METRICS
Formal Training Hours Consumed per Learner, by Industry, 2007 and 2008
Bersin & Associates reports that the drops in formal training hours from 2007 to 2008 is not necessarily a bad thing. “For smart companies, this means that they are cutting programs that are generic, low value and under-utilized,” analyst Karen O’Leonard writes. “We have talked with several organizations that are now carefully scrutinizing the value of their learning programs, some by employing cost-benefit analyses to their initiatives. Their analyses have led them to cancel some programs that were costly to run and offered relatively low value.”
Industry

2007

2008
Pharmaceuticals 35.3 25.2
Banking/finance * n/a 20.2
Manufacturing 29.4 19.5
Business services/consulting n/a 19.1
Telecommunications 31.7 18.9
Banking/financial services & insurance * 28.0 18.8
Insurance* n/a 16.8
Retail 14.0 15.3
Technology 21.9 14.3
Health care/medical 24.0 14.1
* In 2007, small sample size required that insurance industry results be combined with those of banking and financial services. For 2008, there was a large enough sample of banking /financial services and insurance companies to break them out. The individual industries’ data are shown, as well as the combined category.
Source: “Corporate Learning Factbook,” 2009, Bersin & Associates