Organizational Justice: A Core Competency for Catholic Colleges and Universities

by Gary L. Miller with Guest, Jed Babbin

Over the next few years, workforce trends will create new management challenges. For instance, many surveys show that employee engagement levels are at record lows.  Once the job market begins a solid recovery, these low engagement levels could translate into turnover.  At the same time, record numbers of older workers will be retiring.  As a result of these trends, the challenge to recruit and retain talent will intensify. Central to any effective management response will be considerations for organizational justice.

I’m using the term “organizational justice” to refer to employees’ perceptions of fair treatment as influenced by, among other things, a manager’s style.  Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal reported last June that business schools are beginning to “…teach ‘soft skills’ – such as accepting feedback with grace and speaking respectfully to subordinates – that companies say are most important in molding future business leaders.”

As one example of how this might pertain to Catholic colleges and universities, consider the rise in the number of credit hours taught by adjunct faculty, a general pattern in higher education.  Relatively recently, some have asked if these contingent faculty are being equitably paid.  This question has been felt more acutely at some institutions as adjuncts have attempted to organize with fairness being the rallying call.  At first glance, the contentious issues appear to center around compensation, but as I have read about these situations, there seems to be another underlying issue – respect.  Could it be that these justice concerns are fueled by issues independent of actual compensation?

To provide some background on organizational justice and its significance to many of today’s management challenges, I am being joined in this column by Jed Babbin.  Jed is currently completing his doctoral dissertation at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and developing a managerial training program to teach soft skills related to organizational justice.   

Jed, to launch us into this discussion, please give us a little background about the origins of organizational justice as a topic of management research.

While its roots are grounded in philosophy as well as literature, and most recently law, organizational justice is a relatively new field of research. Only in the past few decades has it become a serious topic of research in both psychology and management. The current empirical research of justice in the workplace can be traced back to John Stacey Adams’ Equity Theory in the 70s, which involves an individual’s comparison of effort and rewards with the effort and rewards of another.  This led to the study of perceptions of distributive justice which studied outcomes, such as the equitable allocation of rewards such as pay and bonuses.  Distributive justice also covers consistent and equitable application of punishments for workplace infractions. From this early research, a number of other drivers of justice perceptions have been identified.

When I think about justice, it’s definitely about the outcomes. What are these other drivers and how might they relate to the adjunct issues that I mentioned above?

Perceptions of justice have also been shown to be influenced by how employees are treated on a day-by-day basis. Research performed by Bies & Moag as early as 1986 showed that the extent to which employees feel they are being told truthful information and treated with respect clearly affects the degree to which they report management is  “just.”  These sorts of perceptions relate to procedural justice and interactional justice, subcategories of organizational justice.  As another example, managers who are rude to subordinates or lie about knowledge of higher level decisions tend to be seen as unjust.  Such treatment by managers has been shown to affect employees’ overall feelings of just treatment by the employer as well as affect their health. Supervisory training can be an effective way to change behavior and improve outcomes as shown in a study by Greenberg. In this study of hospitals that implemented pay cuts, he found that nurses whose managers had training in interactional justice experienced far less insomnia than those with untrained supervisors.

Perceptions of injustice can also be affected by a lack of information. An abundant volume of research shows that it is extremely important to provide people with detailed information about how reward decisions or potentially negative outcomes are made.   An earlier study by Greenberg found that the communication used to inform employees of an impending pay cut affected how many workers resigned and the rate of theft by those who stayed.  Some of the research related to this aspect of organizational justice – informational justice –is cited at the end of this column. Research has shown that other important drivers of fairness perceptions include consistency in decision-making and whether or not expressed concerns are given serious attention.

Jed, does the research show that these drivers are as significant as outcomes when it comes to influencing perceptions of just treatment?  Are they as significant as, say, actual pay levels?

Yes. The research shows that these drivers can be as substantial in influencing perceptions of organizational fairness as actual outcomes.  Remember that we are talking about perceptions, not necessarily reality.  A management decision might be considered unfair due to a simple failure to adequately communicate all of the important information.  For instance, going back to Adam’s Equity Theory, a person may compare his or her own effort at the office to a colleague who moves slower and wonder why she gets more rewards, not knowing that she often puts in additional hours from home. 

I would suspect that most managers with responsibility for adjuncts, particularly at Catholic colleges and universities, treat them fairly well. 

While I can’t speak directly to your statement, note that even well-intentioned managers can be perceived as unfair and disrespectful.  Many people think that managing “fairly” is intuitive; but it’s not. For instance, a perception of injustice can be derived from a manager failing to consider an employee’s opinion.  This oversight could likely drive negative perceptions regardless of whether or not the opinion was acted on.

What makes a high level of organizational justice a rather difficult goal to achieve on a widespread basis is that managers almost always tend to view themselves as fair, even when their subordinates disagree.  Many managers who are considered unfair by others simply lack of an awareness of how their behavior is perceived.  Further, they may not recognize the importance of soft skills they need to develop and often do not realize that there are best practices in this area. For these reasons, I feel that training managers in some of these skill sets could be highly effective.

Going back to the adjunct faculty topic, in many institutions, there has been a steady growth in the number of adjuncts over the past several years often without the development of corresponding policies, communications, and management training programs to properly manage this new employee population.  Could justice issues arise from this type of situation?

Definitely. Merely the absence of proper and thorough communication of the processes, and of the outcomes of the processes that are in place to ensure fairness, could result in perceptions of injustice. Again, research has shown us that it’s the perception more than the actual outcome that influences employees’ attitudes and their behavior. That is, attitudes are formed by what employees perceive the situation to be.  Therefore, sufficient and accurate communication is definitely important to avoid misconceptions.  If, however, the underlying processes are missing, thorough communications can only go so far.

By the way, all of the items you mentioned – communications, policies, and management training – are important tools for promoting organizational justice and distinguishing an employer from competitors while potentially contributing financially.

That being said, as far as I know, there has as yet not been any research on the relationship between organizational justice and contingent faculty perceptions of fairness.  However, a large volume of other research shows a relationship between the factors we discussed above and employees’ health and behaviors, such as theft, innovation, absenteeism, and litigation.  Some of this research is cited below.  Given the research findings, it is reasonable to conclude that using the above-mentioned tools to promote respectful treatment of employees could be effective in higher education. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that non-government sector turnover is increasing. Does any of the research show a connection between turnover and organizational justice?

Yes, multiple studies have shown this connection between turnover and organizational justice.  Most applicable is a hotel chain that found its hotels where employees had the highest perception of organizational justice had not only the lowest levels of turnover, but also the highest customer satisfaction.

Jed, do you have any other comments, especially as pertains to adjuncts?

For those interested in learning more I would recommend reading Greenberg’s 2009 article listed below.

Though I will be looking to train managers rather than adjuncts, I am looking to test my training next year. The application of my research is actually to develop a six- hour training module that would be tailored to the organization and delivered over two days.  It will be for first-line managers and use a number of practical exercises where participants will practice using some key ideas from my research. I would not charge for training, but only require the organization to cover the minimal associated costs.  

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The title of this column suggests that organizational justice should be a core competency for Catholic colleges and universities.  In Centesimus annus, the Blessed Pope John Paul II states that “the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavoring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society” (35).  While Catholic colleges and universities are not business firms, they can serve as models for employers of what it means to be a “community of persons” working together “at the service of the whole of society.”  To the extent that organizational justice research can point to practical ways to increase management effectiveness as well as perceptions of fairness and community cohesion, it deserves serious consideration.   Additionally, the research findings suggesting a relationship between organizational justice measures and employee health suggest that there are also considerations for colleges and universities that are implementing wellness programs.

The opinions expressed in this column are ours alone and do not represent the opinions of DePaul University or the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

References

Bies, R. J., & Moag, J. S. (1986). Interactional justice: Communication criteria of fairness. In R. J. Lewicki, B. H. Sheppard, & M. Bazerman (Eds.), Research on negotiation in organizations (pp. 43-55). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millenium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425-445. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.425

Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(5), 561-568. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.75.5.561

John Paul II.  (1991). Centesimus annus: To His Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate the Priests and Deacons Families of Men and Women religious all the Christian Faithful and to all men and women of good will on the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum 1991.05.01.  Retrieved from Vatican: The Holy See website:  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html

Greenberg, J. (2009). Everybody talks about organizational justice, but nobody does anything about it. Industrial And Organizational Psychology: Perspectives On Science And Practice, 2(2), 181-195. doi:10.1111/j.1754-9434.2009.01131.x

Korn, M., and Light, J.  (2011, June 7).  On the lesson plan: Feelings.  The Wall Street Journal.  Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com   

Simons, T., & Roberson, Q. (2003). Why managers should care about fairness: The effects of aggregate justice perceptions on organizational outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 432-443. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.432

We invite our readers to respond to this column through our blog at http://hr-forum-ccu.blogspot.com/.

We also invite you to post links of your mission statements as well as HR and compensation philosophy documents on our blog if you would like to share them with our readers.  This will permit a fuller discussion of how mission and CST can influence the employment process.  Also, please let us know if you would like us to link to any of your institution’s documents.

March 20, 2012

Higher Education, Mission and Undocumented Students

With this column by guest author Dr. Elizabeth Collier we begin to examine one of our nation’s most contentious issues: how we respond to immigration into the United States. We begin with Professor Collier's introduction of Catholic Social Teaching on migration and its impact on the core constituents of our colleges and universities--the students we teach. In the future we will explore how Catholic Social Teaching’s view of immigration impacts Human Resources and the culture of a Catholic university or college. We are pleased to welcome Professor Collier as author of this column. She is Assistant Professor of Business Ethics in the Brennan School of Business at Dominican University. Her teaching and research interests include Business ethics, Catholic social ethics and U.S. immigration law and policy.

Craig B. Mousin

Higher Education, Mission and Undocumented Students

Catholic institutions of higher education have a treasure trove of resources to draw from when considering how to concretely and practically live out their mission in the world. Catholic social teaching (CST) is one of these resources. Most often, when CST is taught or called upon for guidance, the focus of the lecture, book or discussion is on the foundational concepts of the teaching: human dignity, common good, preferential option for the poor, the three types of justice, solidarity, and the principle of subsidiarity. Although these concepts form the core from which much more specific reflection and writing on particular issues is drawn, rarely are people aware of the more in-depth development and reflection on particular topics.

One relatively unknown, but robust area of teaching within CST is on issues related to migration. The Catholic Church has developed a body of teaching and a network of direct ministries for people who are away from their homes for almost any reason—foreign students, refugees, internally displaced peoples, nomadic peoples, those who work with the circus, airlines or trucking companies, victims of human trafficking—anyone who is voluntarily or forcibly “on the move.” Additionally, various institutions within the church work for law and policy changes at local, national or international levels, in accordance with the official body of teaching that has developed on migration over the last half century.

The teaching itself is grounded in the many stories of migration and hospitality in Scripture, the long-standing ministerial tradition of the church to give hospitality to those away from their home, and in the development of official, modern Catholic social thought. Specific Catholic teaching on migration can be briefly summarized in the five rights enumerated in Strangers No Longer, a pastoral letter written by the U.S. and Mexican Catholic bishops in 2003: 1. People have a right to find opportunities in their homeland. 2. People have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families. 3. Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders, except when this control is exerted merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth. More powerful economic nations…have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows. 4. Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection. 5. The human dignity and human rights of undocumented migrants should be respected. (para. 34-38). An additional schema used by the bishops, coming from John Paul II, is the process of communion, conversion and solidarity. If I answer the call to show hospitality to the migrant and enter into relationship with the migrant, I will have a conversion experience. This experience will further my commitment to and relationship with the migrant and with God, resulting in a commitment to be in solidarity with those on the move. This is part of the journey toward salvation: communion, conversion and solidarity.

Four of the rights enumerated above relate to one of the most contentious areas of public discourse in the U.S.: undocumented migration. The public rhetoric on this issue usually follows one of two paths. Proponents of migration tend to focus on the push/pull economic and labor factors that result in people seeking work in the U.S. even though there are often no legal means of doing so, which results in migration without legal permission to enter or to work. Those on the other side who want to restrict migration usually focus on the fact that the person broke the law when they entered without permission—they are “illegal aliens” in this view. Restrictionists believe that this shows disrespect of the law, which is detrimental to the respect of our overall legal system.

As seen above, CST does believe that states have a right to regulate their borders. This right comes with a caveat though. The concept in CST of human dignity places the human person in a position that precedes the state. The rights and dignity of the human person, his/her flourishing, and the systems that support or deny that, are at the center of the moral deliberation. CST looks at the many facets of undocumented migration and reflects on these complex realities in light of the whole of CST. How is human dignity realized or diminished? Are the laws governing this just? What is the impact on the many sending and receiving communities involved?

At the federal level many complex immigration bills have been proposed during the last five years, but none have passed both houses of Congress. Because neither side in the debate sees much hope for reform at the federal level, local initiatives have proliferated. Much of the media coverage of these initiatives has focused on places where anti-immigrant groups or people with financial interests linked with the prison industrial complex have provided resources to state and local communities for passage of laws and ordinances restricting almost any contact with a person who is undocumented. There are, however, many unreported, or underreported, stories about the work of many on behalf of the undocumented, particularly young people whose parents brought them here when they were children.

Catholic colleges and universities have a long history of serving immigrant populations. For some, that was the impetus behind their founding. Having taught at three Catholic universities in the Chicago area, I can attest anecdotally to the number of students who discussed the priority their immigrant parents placed on them attending a Catholic university. In the last several years Catholic universities around Chicago have worked on several different initiatives that relate to college-age students who are undocumented, but who have the skills and aspirations for education and a better life for their families. Catholic university presidents joined other institutions in supporting an Illinois Dream Act, designed to provide private scholarships and resources that will support undocumented students who want to pursue a college degree. Financial, academic and institutional support were given to graduate students in law and social work, and undergraduate students, all from different Catholic universities, for the development and implementation of a conference designed to educate their peers on immigration law, in depth Catholic teaching on migration, and training in advocacy efforts. (It exceeded expectations, with several hundred faculty, staff and students attending.) Universities have provided scholarships for those who would, if they were able to legalize, obtain access to college, but who are not presently eligible for federal student loans. Trustees, presidents, administration, staff and faculty have provided moral and other types of support for these students, including those who are arrested for non-violent protest. These are only a few of the many ways in which these institutions embody CST on migration. These activities also engage the participants in the deeper process of communion, conversion and solidarity described above.

Such support is not without significant risk. In light of the challenging economic conditions and the competitive college market, publicly engaging in support of a vulnerable, relatively voiceless group of people who are vilified by groups with extensive resources, could potentially cost an institution in everything from applications for admission to development opportunities, depending on how the media portrays such activities and the position of applicants, donors and others on migration issues. The mission of these universities calls them to nothing less, however. These activities are only a few of the many ways in which Catholic colleges and universities embody the tenets of Catholic social thought in the wider community and fulfill their mission and tradition.

Dr. Elizabeth Collier

August 29, 2011

The presence of immigrants at our universities and colleges will lead to questions regarding employment of students and immigration law’s employment compliance requirements. In subsequent columns, we will return to some of the issues raised by the intersection of Catholic Social Teachings and immigration law. In the meantime, we invite you to respond to this column through our blog at http://hr-forum-ccu.blogspot.com/ . We look forward to your responses.

We invite you to post links of your mission statements as well as HR and compensation philosophy documents on our blog if you would like to share them with our readers. This will permit a fuller discussion of how mission and CST influence the employment process. Please let us know if you would like us to link to any of your institution’s documents.

The opinions expressed in this column are ours alone and do not represent DePaul University’s or Dominican University’s.

You may find the link to Strangers No Longer at:

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/strangers-no-longer-together-on-the-journey-of-hope.cfm

If you would like additional information on the history of the DREAM Act and state responses, see, Michael A. Olivas, The Political Economy of the DREAM Act and the Legislative Process: A Case Study of Comprehensive Immigration Refortm, 55 Wayne L. Rev. 1757 (2009) at:

http://www.law.uh.edu/ihelg/ab540/Olivas-political-economy.PDF

Human Costs and Moral Challenges of a Broken Economy

In keeping with the spirit of Labor Day, you can read the U.S. Bishops’ Labor Day Statement at:

http://www.usccb.org/about/domestic-social-development/upload/Labor-Day-2011.pdf

Is It Just the Horns of a Dilemma?

Rev. Craig B. Mousin

When we started these columns on Mission and Human Resources, we assumed that although our particular institutions possess distinctive Missions based on particular histories and founding principles, all were grounded in Catholic Social Teaching (CST) that resulted in shared understandings of how our institutions approached labor and employment issues. Developed over hundreds of years, CST has responded to and helped shape the relationship between employers and employees throughout the world. With the birth of the Industrial Revolution, masses of peasants moved to the cities and faced backbreaking work under intolerable conditions that led to injury and early death. Fueled in part by the expansion of laissez-faire theories of economics and the transformation of work from farm to factory, Catholic scholars and writers addressed issues of a living wage and asserted worker rights to join associations to help balance power in the workplace. The European revolutions of the mid-19th Century frightened many with the fear of chaos and further bloodshed. Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum sought to balance the rights and hopes of workers with the need for economic development in offering guidance past the violence of the century.

In the United States, leaders such as Msgr. John Ryan helped reinterpret CST into the political life of this nation raising up the idea of distributive justice and minimum wage protections early in the 20th Century. Ryan’s work helped introduce the justice principles of Rerum Novarum into the many progressive policies of the New Deal. In the latter part of the 20th Century papal encyclicals addressed the Catholic response to the major ideological battle between communism and capitalism, fostering the common good through alternative strategies not raised by the competing forces of the Cold War. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops weighed in with Economic Justice For All again reinterpreting the encyclicals through the lens of democratic capitalism of the United States. In that pastoral letter, the bishops supported the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining recalling Pope John Paul II’s conclusion that unions were an “indispensable element of social life” while adding, “no one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself.” At the end of the 20th Century, St. John’s law professor David Gregory could confidently report, “For more than a century, the Catholic Church has been the world’s most eloquent and consistent voice for the rights of workers. In the contemporary era of the transmogrifying workplace, and in cyberspace’s global village, the social teaching of the Catholic Church remains the timeless, and most timely, beacon for fundamental human dignity.” (footnote omitted)

But when a world-wide recession dominating the first decade of the 21st Century combined with increasing unemployment as jobs migrated across national boundaries undermining long standing industries, the national debate became polarized as governors and legislatures attacked public unions challenging the very right to bargain collectively. Yet the relative absence of voices raising CST in this national debate raises a question whether Gregory’s sanguine 20th Century conclusion merits credence in this new day. Is CST robust enough to guide Catholics and their institutions in responding to these new challenges? Silence or neutrality seems to have taken its place. In reporting on the arguments raised by New Jersey Governor Christie’s challenge to his state’s public unions, one national news story only mentions “Catholic” in noting that Christie’s children attend Catholic schools, with nary a mention of whether CST informs his decision making. Within Wisconsin, Milwaukee’s Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki released a letter noting that the Church has long favored the right to organize, followed by a letter confirming the position by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Both letters acknowledged that unions also have a responsibility to make sacrifices if so required by the common good. Madison’s Bishop Robert C. Morlino responded that each side had important equities to support its claim to the common good, but the debate comes down to choosing the proportionality of the sacrifice required by those in the union who have expectations of the contracts they have lived by versus the sacrifice of the entire population given the economic crisis the states find themselves enduring. He added, “As Catholics, we see both of these horns of the dilemma as good, and yet the current situation calls many of us to choose between these two goods. Thus the WCC [Wisconsin Catholic Conference] has taken a neutral stance….”

Certainly, CST does not preordain a simple answer to the horns of this dilemma, but more important, CST does not limit the debate to be boiled down to a simple choice between these two options. Instead of permitting the complexity of CST to necessitate simplifying the choice to proportionate sacrifice, why not call upon that very complexity to explore why the Church has historically stood on the side of workers to organize? Instead of abdicating the field, why isn’t the debate more fully exploring why the Church has come to favor workers’ associations and whether those circumstances remain valid? Where are the voices in the academy explaining how the Church came to this position, why it continues to do so, and what principles help one’s conscience determine an appropriate response to such a complex problem?

Pope Leo XIII saw the negative consequences when the state outlawed trade unions and prevented collective bargaining as one reason for attempting to balance power and permit engaged negotiations. Under CST, work is seen as essential to human flourishing, recognizing the dignity of each person. In employment situations of unequal power, organizing as a group helps further each individual’s ability to participate, thus encouraging his or her own development while contributing to the greater good. CST calls for collaborative pluralism and an array of “intermediary institutions” that collectively seek the common good. Unions are an indispensable part of that collaboration. Current debate suggests that public unions have too much power against weak politicians who give away the store, and thus, the argument goes, we need to reduce that power. Yet the solution posed by those Governors and legislatures seeking to take away the power, is to give the power back to those politicians to unilaterally set wages and conditions of work, even though it was the weakness of those very politicians to bargain responsibly that allegedly caused the problems the states now face. Moreover, that solution reduces engagement and dialogue, eliminating the potential for new ideas through additional voices at the table. CST encourages more voices to bargain responsibly in seeking solutions to the problem.

CST’s dedication to workers’ rights to organize recognizes that collective bargaining also reveals more benefits than just the bottom line of the contract payout. Encouraging participation of all workers through their unions leads to greater creativity, not only in the workplace, but in the work product enjoyed by the public. CST envisions the advancement of art and public goods that better all society.

CST critiques the alienation of workers where employees become commodities. When the public debate constricts to just the dollars saved by reneging on contracts, the workers become widgets, commodities to be traded, equal to the goods they produce, and rated simply by the dollars they are paid. Through collective bargaining, unions can negotiate for more than just benefits and seek conditions that dovetail with CST’s principles of the work environment as a place for human flourishing and service to the greater common good. This would seem especially important in the public realm where the negotiations involve more than simply the employer-worker relationship.

CST also emphasizes the integrity of a contract. Just because politicians were not the ones who negotiated the initial promises does not mean they can avoid the public obligation of past promises made. CST calls for more honesty than a shrug that times have changed.

CST’s discussion of a living wage reminds us that workers need to provide not just for their families, but also have savings to cover their needs when their age prevents them from working or sickness takes its toll. The current restricted debate of economic sacrifice of the few versus the many ignores the commitments made under contract to organized labor to help ensure their livelihoods upon retirement. CST can again enliven the debate.

Some scholars have pointed out that when unions were strongest in the 1940s and 1950s, our nations experienced the “Great Compression,” fostering the most equal society in terms of wages in our nation’s history. CST favors an orientation toward equality as vast income disparity denigrates dignity and disrupts the common good. If work helps humans flourish, the common good demands that all workers flourish. Equality in society furthers this important goal of CST. Today, however, in contrast to the peak of the Great Compression, at the very time unions are under their greatest attack, we live in one of the most unequal societies in our nation’s history. The bargaining power of unions helped provide more equality and social mobility that truly benefited the common good. Ironically, it is the generation of children that prospered during this time of the Great Compression that have since become the leaders who seek to dismantle the very institutions that helped make us a more equal society and gave them their ability to participate in public life.

The metaphor for neutrality is wrong. The traditional understanding of sitting upon the horns of a dilemma means that we face two questions, both with untenable answers. Choose either answer and one ends up impaled on a bull’s horn. CST breaks through the binary choice of conservative-liberal, pro-public union or anti-public union, economic efficiency or deficit. The answer is not simply dollars and cents. Surely CST encourages us to seek responsible bargaining by all sides, reexamination of work in the 21st century, how we provide for the aged and sick when work becomes impossible, and how to hold elected and administrative officials to the integrity of the contract. CST provides more intellectual resources for resolving these issues than to remain neutral regarding whose sacrifice is greatest. If we are to conclude with David Gregory that the Catholic Church remains vigilant in the defense of workers in the balance of the 21st Century, those of us in the academy should become collaborators and set forth the great strengths of Catholic Social Teaching to address these fundamental problems rather than remain as neutrals on the sidelines.

We invite you to respond to this column through our blog at http://hr-forum-ccu.blogspot.com/ . We look forward to your responses. We invite you to post links of your mission statements as well as HR and compensation philosophy documents on our blog if you would like to share them with our readers. This will permit a fuller discussion of how mission and CST influence the employment process. Please let us know if you would like us to link to any of your institution’s documents.

The opinions expressed in this column are mine alone and do not represent DePaul University’s.

March 9, 2011

Resources relied upon in preparing this column include:
David L. Gregory’s article, “Catholic Social Teaching on Work,” can be found at 49 Labor L.J. 912 (1998). His footnote 1 at page 912 lists many of the sources of CST on employment and labor unions.

Rerum Novarm can be found at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html
Economic Justice for All can be found at: http://www.osjspm.org/economic_justice_for_all.aspx. See paragraph 104.

The comment on Governor Christie was written by Matt Bai in “How Chris Christie Did His Homework,” The New York Times Magazine, February 27, 2011 at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27christie-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=mattbai

Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki’s letter on trade unions in Wisconsin can be found at: http://www.wisconsincatholic.org/Right%20of%20Workers%20Statement%20Feb%2016,%202011.pdf

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops letter in support of Archbishop Listecki, written by Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire, Diocese of Stockton, Chairman, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development can be found at: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2011/11-038.shtml

Bishop Robert C. Morlino’s statement can be found at: http://www.madisoncatholicherald.org/bishopscolumns/2083-20110224-column.html

John Ryan’s work includes Distributive Justice, The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth, (The Macmillan Co., NY, 1916). For a discussion of Rerum Novarum’s impact on United States policy, see Jonathan Alter, The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 98.
For a discussion of the Great Compression, see Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal, (W.W. Norton and Co., (2007), 38-39, 49.

Regarding the issue of income equality, see, Craig B. Mousin, Frédéric Ozanam—Beneficent Deserter: Mediating the Chasm of Income Inequality Through Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” Vincentian Heritage, Vol. 30, No. 1, 59 (2010), http://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol30/iss1/4/

Opportunities for Part-time Staff and Adjunct Faculty Created by Healthcare Reform

By Gary L. Miller

In the Summer 2009 HR and Mission Discussion Forum, Sister Carol Keehan, DC, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States wrote:

Catholic employers in particular should support a reformed [healthcare] system not only because of the economic consequences but because of the social justice implications. As a matter of human dignity, everyone is entitled to health care. Like any basic element of life, health care sustains us and should always be accessible and affordable for everyone—when they need it, where they need it, no exceptions, no interruptions.

With the passage of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) last March, we are much closer to this goal of accessible and affordable healthcare for everyone. Colleges and universities that employ part-time staff and adjunct faculty may find this extension of coverage particularly pertinent. A survey conducted by the American Federation of Teachers found that only 28% of adjuncts report having health insurance provided through their college employer (Inside Higher Ed Online, March 22, 2010); this suggests that part-time employees at these institutions may be one source of the uninsured population.

When the PPACA-required state insurance exchanges become operational in 2014, many of those who are not currently eligible for an employer health plan and cannot afford an individual policy, or are denied insurance because of a pre-existing health condition, will find their situation dramatically improved. Through the state exchanges, they will have guaranteed access to comprehensive medical coverage with premiums that cannot be based on their health status. Additionally, those with family incomes at or below 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) will be eligible to receive premium subsidies. Those in the lowest income bracket eligible for government assistance with exchange-purchased insurance will pay a maximum premium of 3% of their household income with the balance being subsidized. As income levels escalate, the premium share required of participants gradually increases as a percent of household income to a maximum of 9.5%. For individuals and families at or under 250% of the FPL, government assistance will also be provided to offset plan out-of-pocket plan costs, such as deductibles and co-insurance.

Does PPACA fully resolve the health insurance access issues for part-time staff and adjunct faculty or must more be done? More must be done.

The Gap

Individuals with household incomes that exceed 400% of the FPL (roughly $46,000 for a single individual in 2014) will not be eligible for government-subsidized health insurance. Because part-time staff are typically paid on an hourly basis and adjuncts are frequently paid by the number of classes they teach, those part-timers who do the most work for their employers are also the most likely to become ineligible for the subsidy.

Having to pay the full premium for health insurance might not be too much of a problem for younger part-time employees, but it could be a challenge for older ones. For instance, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that in 2014, an exchange-purchased medical insurance plan for a single 35-year-old will run $3,962 annually in a medium cost region. However, because health plans on the state exchanges will be allowed to charge more for older employees, the full premium for a 55-year-old purchasing insurance on the exchange is estimated to be $8,495, not including out-of-pocket costs, such as deductibles and coinsurance.

So, in 2014, if a college or university only allows full-time faculty and staff into its group health plan, most of its part-timers will still be able to secure high-quality, well subsidized coverage through a state insurance exchange because the most that a subsidy-eligible individual will have to pay is 9.5% of his or her household income. Consider the 55-year-old we discussed above facing a premium of $8,495. Had this individual earned just a little less, say $45,000 (which is less than 400% of the FPL as of 2014) the premium would drop to a much more affordable amount - $4,275 - because of the government subsidy.

To re-cap, if a college or university does not provide group health plan coverage to part-time employees in 2014, most of them will still have access to affordable high-quality health plans through the state exchanges. However, those relatively few part-time staff and adjunct faculty with incomes that exceed 400% of the FPL may still have difficulty securing medical coverage.

The Challenge

What is a solution for a college or university that wants to close this gap without incurring the cost of covering part-time employees who have access to affordable high-quality coverage through a state exchange?

A Possible Solution

One possible solution is to create a separate group health plan for part-time staff and adjunct faculty who work at least a half-time schedule. This new plan would be designed like the type of plan on the exchange on which the government subsidy amounts are based (for those who are interested, this would be a plan that pays, on average, 70% of the cost of the covered benefits).

With most large employers, full-time employees pay a percent of the medical plan premium, usually 20 to 30%. The full-time plan would be unaffected and could continue to be structured in this way.

Those in the new part-time plan, however, would have different contribution rules. Their premium contributions would be based on a percent of household income, just as the premiums charged for insurance on the state exchanges will be based on a percent of household income. As stated above, for insurance purchased through an exchange, those in the lowest income bracket eligible for government assistance will pay a maximum premium of 3% of their household income with the balance being subsidized. As income increases, the premium required of participants gradually increases to a maximum of 9.5% of income. Also remember that the exchange subsidy is only available for those earning 400% or less of the FPL (roughly $46,000 for a single individual in 2014).

The percent of household income that would be charged for participating in the university part-time classification health plan would be a flat 10%. This is just slightly higher than the maximum premium of 9.5% required for insurance purchased through a state exchange.

Generally, PPACA does not allow employees who have access to an employer group plan to receive subsidized (both the premium subsidy and the cost-sharing subsidy) insurance on the state insurance exchanges. However, PPACA allows an exception for employees who have to pay more than 9.5% of their household income for employer coverage. Under the proposed plan, the premium cost for part-timers would be 10% of their household income; as such, eligibility for this new employer plan would not disqualify them from purchasing medical insurance through a state exchange and receiving the government premium subsidies discussed above.

The Outcome

With this new arrangement, most part-time employees would have to pay more for the university part-time plan (10% of income) than they would have to pay for insurance purchased through a state insurance exchange (remember that the maximum premium on the exchange is 9.5% of income and even less for lower-income individuals who would also be eligible for assistance with deductibles and co-insurance). The result: most part-time employees would not seek coverage in the university’s part-time plan because the exchange would be a better deal.

With this solution, the university would have a plan for those part-timers who need it; most typically, those who would not be eligible for subsidized coverage on the exchange. Recall the 55-year-old discussed earlier with an annual income of $46,000 facing an unsubsidized exchange premium of $8,495. The annual premium for this individual in the university’s plan by comparison would be much more affordable - $4,600 – putting healthcare within financial reach.

Why should a college or university make this effort to ensure that this small portion of their part-time employee population has access to affordable coverage? Given that these particular employees would be working at least a half-time schedule with many probably working closer to a full-time schedule, they are significant contributors to the colleges and universities where they are making this level of commitment. Moreover, because of the amount of work they are performing for their primary employer, even those with second jobs are unlikely to be making a level of commitment to their secondary employers that would qualify them for medical benefits. Beyond this, however, the new healthcare law envisions the federal government, state governments, insurers and large employers (those with more than 50 employees) all working together to achieve the important goal of near-universal medical coverage, a goal that serves the common good of the entire country. Because we know the government isn’t going to be helping these part-timers who fall in this gap, their access to health insurance becomes the responsibility of employers.

Although only a few part-time employees are likely to elect this special part-time health plan because of the required half-time commitment and because the subsidies make plans available through the state exchanges more attractive for those eligible for government assistance, the solution proposed in this column would nevertheless result in higher benefits costs for employers that currently do not extend affordable group medical plan coverage to part-timers. For this reason alone, some employers would reject this arrangement. However, I believe that most mission-based employers are interested in exploring ways to coordinate their internal strategies with PPACA’s vision of nearly universal healthcare coverage and will seize this opportunity created by the new law to help make healthcare “accessible and affordable for everyone—when they need it, where they need it, no exceptions, no interruptions.”

The opinions expressed in this column are mine alone and do not represent the opinions of DePaul University.
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The healthcare subsidy amounts were derived using the calculator on the Kaiser Family Foundation website: http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx .The March 22, 2010 Inside Higher Ed article mentioned above is available here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/22/adjunct.

As always, we invite our readers to enter into this dialogue by sharing their thoughts and experiences, as well as their practical and effective solutions, on any of the topics we address in our columns. To facilitate this, we have a blog – http://hr-forum-ccu.blogspot.com/ - where readers can comment on this column or any of our past columns. Craig Mousin, who regularly co-authors this column with me, will post his comments on the blog. We hope you do as well.

Also, you may contact us directly via email with your comments and ideas for the column at hrforumccu@gmail.com. Finally, please consider joining our Linkedin group and participating in group discussions at
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=2491350&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr .

Becoming the New Operating System

HR and Mission
Gary Miller and Rev. Craig B. Mousin

We dedicate this column to the topic of Sustainable Development in Catholic colleges and universities and invite you to consider how we can further that critical goal in our work within Human Resources. We are honored to have as our guest columnist, Scott Kelley, Ph.D. Scott Kelley is Assistant Vice-President for Vincentian Scholarship in the Office of Mission and Values at DePaul University. Prior to his current position, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department and Research Fellow at the DePaul University Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. He is a co-author of Alleviating Poverty through Profitable Partnerships: Globalization, Markets, and Economic Well-Being (New York: Routledge 2009) and various articles on poverty alleviation, Catholic social teaching, Vincentian heritage, sustainability, and moral discernment.


Becoming the New Operating System

Scott P. Kelley, PhD

August 4, 2010

The environmentalist Paul Hawken issued a daunting challenge to University of Portland’s graduating class of 2009: “you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating … the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.” The notion of developing a new operating system succinctly captures many of the challenges facing higher education across the globe, a challenge most often addressed to the world’s elite universities such as Harvard, MIT, or Oxford. However, Paul Hawken’s choice to deliver this address to the graduates of a relatively small Catholic College in the Pacific Northwest is quite revealing. He may have known that Catholic higher education has “secretly” been working on this new operating system for decades.

A sober diagnosis of the situation we are in today – as humans living on planet earth – is deeply disturbing. Our professional colleagues in environmental science tell us by consensus that human-caused climate change is a reality, that our climate is on the cusp of entering historically unprecedented territory, that our pattern of resource consumption is fundamentally unsustainable, and that the consequences of the “old operating system” are likely to disrupt civilization in profound and drastic ways. As the global population continues its explosive growth, it will plateau some time around the year 2050 at roughly 9 billion people. Most of that growth will come in the mega-slums of the developing world, where hungry farmers and fisherman have come to eek out an existence. Considering that India has a middle class larger than the entire population of the United States, it is not difficult to imagine that if the current patterns of resource consumption continue unabated, we will need 3 to 5 planets to sustain it. Hawken is quite correct about the need for a new operating system, but as Albert Einstein warned decades ago, “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” In short, we need more than technological innovation – we need a new way of thinking about our challenges, our sources of meaning, our way of being.

Before looking into the new operating system itself, it is quite revealing to look at the kinds of people who develop operating systems – Bill Gates and Steve Jobs being the most notable. The usual story of Gates’ success is familiar: bored by Harvard, a young math whiz drops out of college to start a little company called Microsoft with his friends. But that is only a small part of a larger story, as Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers: the Story of Success. When Gates was in seventh grade in 1968, the mothers’ club invested money in a computer terminal that linked to a mainframe in downtown Seattle at a time when few college campuses even had computers. Gates began real-time programming only three years after some of the very basic computing infrastructure had just been developed; he had years of trial-and-error experience well before he set foot on Harvard’s campus. Although not from a wealthy family, Steve Jobs grew up in Mountain View, California and would drop in on evening talks given by Hewlett-Packard engineers, often staying after for a few questions and even requesting spare parts on occasion. He eventually got a job on an assembly line building computers, so he learned how to build them with his hands. Their stories indicate that in addition to their individual vision and talent, both innovators were exposed to and lived in communities of innovators. In short, innovation is mostly the fruit of cumulative and progressive adjustments over extended periods of time and less about the individual qualities of its pioneers.

Now back to the operating system itself. Paul Hawken’s desire for a new operating system is often captured by the umbrella term sustainable development, which has been around for some time. Concerned by the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development, the United Nations issued Our Common Future (aka, the Brundtland Report) in 1983 to explore development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Since then, many have argued that sustainable development must successfully address social, environmental, and economic growth (or people, planet, profits) without depleting natural capital for future generations.

Paul Hawken could have addressed his challenge to any of the four great shapers of culture: corporations, churches, governments, or universities. He may have chosen to address an institution of higher education because he believes, as do many of us, that higher education has the comparative autonomy, the intellectual freedom, and the necessary resources to grope its way toward a new operating system. Institutions of higher education – especially Catholic higher education - are privileged communities for this new operating system to be developed.

The notion of sustainable development is no stranger to the Catholic intellectual tradition or to the educational mission of Catholic Universities. Catholic social teaching, taken in its entirety, has long provided a coherent vision for meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. As Pope John Paul II noted in Ex Corde Ecclessie, Catholic Universities are “called on to become an ever more effective instrument of cultural progress for individuals as well as for society.” They do this, in part, by examining “a new economic and political order that will better serve the human community at a national and international level” (32). The intellectual vision for a new operating system, however, is not just an exercise of the imagination or a distant aspiration – it a collection of insights that come from practice.

Institutions of Catholic higher education must become sustainable learning communities themselves if they are to teach – and live out – the vision of Catholic social teaching. Toward the end of his life, Vincent de Paul began to write the Common Rules for the Congregation of the Mission long after the community had been living out its mission to serve the spiritual and material needs of the poor. He justified this pragmatic approach by noting that Jesus himself “put things into practice before He made them part of His teaching.” In the same way, institutions of Catholic higher education must become sustainable learning communities at their very CORE - through curriculum, operations, research, and engagement. As such, they also have an operational aspect to their mission that is a context for, experience of, and community witness to the vision of Catholic social teaching. Students exposed from a young age to concerns about social issues and the environment are looking for educational opportunities that will enable them to pursue meaningful careers to address them. Such opportunities are only possible in communities that live, breath, and speak the values that will form the new operating system.

Institutions of Catholic higher education are sizable economies. They employ, contract, purchase, invest, and participate in the global economy with considerable resources when examined collectively. Today there are nearly 220 Catholic colleges and universities with combined annual operating expenses of more than $14 billion and net assets valued at nearly $35 billion in fiscal year 2007. If such economies of scale were to carefully follow the principles of Catholic social teaching – to the best of their abilities – they can establish, test, adjust, and inspire innovation for creating this new operating system.

While operational missions cover many different activities, there are a few areas that deserve special consideration. The primary way that Catholic institutions live out their operational mission is through management practices and human resources. Catholic institutions must embody the values envisioned in Catholic social teaching if they are to educate, hire, develop, and retain the talented people who are essential for creating a sustainable learning community. The way we hire new employees, evaluate their work, and give them the freedom to develop new practices will not only contribute to the flourishing of each employee but will also enable management to be good stewards of institutional resources, all of which is consistent with Catholic Social Teaching and sustainable development. Like the forward thinking mother’s club that bought a computer for Bill Gates’ school or the community of HP engineers that inspired Steve Jobs - the new operating system will only be developed in a community that values developing one. In addition, by acting as contractors institutions of Catholic higher education can influence the development of new forms of the management-labor partnership that will preserve and enhance their sizeable workforces.

Just as worship space conveys the importance of liturgy and ritual, so too can buildings become public symbols of sustainable development and smaller carbon footprints without sacrificing function or utility – “the garages” within which software developers innovate. Resource conservation – from energy to water to paper – should be a hallmark of the sustainable learning community, where a renewed commitment to living simply should be a common experience for students, faculty, staff, and guests. The problem of climate change-induced displacement should serve as a stark reminder that the developed world’s massive carbon footprint stands on the necks of the poor.

Procurement is another important aspect of a Catholic institution’s operational mission, where purchasing choices – from coffee to computers – are important instances of a preferential option for the poor and for the creation of a just society in a globalized economy. Individually and collectively, institutions of Catholic higher education can make a significant impact on global supply chains by establishing consistent markets for things like Fair Trade products.

Lastly, investment strategies should reflect a commitment to the principles of Catholic social teaching. Recent research indicates that there is no trade off between socially responsible investing and financial performance, an argument that has long prevented endowment managers from considering it seriously.

Developing anything “new” – especially an operating system – rarely involves the discovery or creation of something totally foreign by a single visionary. More often than not, innovation is merely the identification of new applications and new uses for well-established concepts in a community that nurtures and cherishes them. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs exercised incredible imagination, but the intellectual spark and the physical material for their innovation already existed in their communities. The new operating system that Paul Hawken imagines should not be viewed as something adventitious to the mission of Catholic higher education, or some radical new innovation. Instead, the new operating system of the sustainable learning community should be viewed as a 21st century application of the Church’s best kept secret. As sustainable learning communities, institutions of Catholic higher education can serve as the garages where communities of innovators grope their way toward a sustainable future.



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Works Referenced

“The Unforgettable Commencement” address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009.

On the sober diagnosis of our current situation: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. New York: Melcher Media, 2006; Stuart Hart, Capitalism at the CrossRoads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems. New Jersey: Wharton School Publishing, 2007; Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin Books, 2005; Herman Daly, Beyond Growth. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996; Sachs, Jeffrey D. 2005. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press.

Developers of operating systems. Gladwell, Malcolm. 2008. Outliers: The Story of Success (Kindle Edition). Little, Brown and Company.

Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (aka the Bruntland Commission) available at http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm ; Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution available at http://www.natcap.org/

Four great shapers of culture: Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way Into The Future. New York: Bell Tower, 1999. On sustainability in higher education: David Orr, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect. Washington DC: Island Press, 1994

Pope John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclessiae available at
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_en.html


“He put things into practice before He made them part of His teaching” from the Common Rules of the Congregation of the Mission (May 17, 1658), available at http://via.library.depaul.edu/cm_construles/3/ ; Sustainable Learning Community and CORE: John Aber, Tom Kelley, and Bruce Mallory, the Sustainable Learning Community: one university’s journey to the future. New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009. Operational mission: Charles R. Strain, “In Service of Whom?: The Impact of Vincentian Universities' Institutional Investment Practices on Global Poverty” in Vincentian Heritage Journal (28:2), available at http://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol28/iss2/13/

“Sizable economies”: Richard Yanikoski, “Catholic Higher Education: the Untold Story” in Origins (39:36), February 2010.

Climate change-induced displacement: “But What Can I Do for You?” Archbishop Veglio’s Address to Conference of US Bishops, May 31, 2010 available at http://www.zenit.org/article-29422?l=english ; “Who’s under your carbon footprint?” St Francis pledge available at http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/the-st-francis-pledge/ ; Socially responsible investing: Fatemi, Ali, Iraj J. Fooladi, and David Wheeler. 2009. The Relative Valuation of Socially Responsible Firms: An Exploratory Study. In FranCois Lepineux & Henri-Claude de Bettignies (Eds), Finance for a Better World: The Shift Toward Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan Publishers.


As always, we invite our readers to enter into this dialogue by sharing their thoughts and experiences, as well as their practical and effective solutions, on any of the topics we address in our columns. To facilitate this, we have a blog – http://hr-forum-ccu.blogspot.com/ - where readers can comment on this column or any of our past columns. Also, you may contact us directly via email with your comments and ideas for the column at hrforumccu@gmail.com. Finally, please consider joining our group on Linkedin – Human Resource Management and Mission: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=2491350 and sharing your thoughts, experiences and solutions with the group.

We encourage your feedback to begin our collective attention to these issues. We would like to post links to your mission statements as well as HR and compensation philosophy documents if you would like to share them with our readers. This will permit a fuller discussion of how mission and CST enters into the employment process. Please let us know if you would like us to link to any of your institution’s documents.

Define Dignity: Catholic Institutions and Bullying in the Workplace

Rev. Craig B. Mousin

To read the research, bullying in the workplace throughout the United States has reached alarming proportions. Some claim that bullying impacts one in six workers. Research on faculty bullying leads to similar conclusions suggesting that the particularities of the academy nurture a thriving environment for bullies. In a recent article reviewing academic bullying, “Faculty Experiences with Bullying in Higher Education,” Loraleigh Keashly and Joel H. Neuman reported that “the rates of bullying seem relatively high when compared to those noted in the general population.” Nor is bullying unique to the United States as the European Union, and France especially, have explored solutions to tame harassing and demeaning treatment of employees. Workplace stress, absenteeism, and stifled initiative all may stem from bullying.

Based on Catholic Social Teaching, many mission statements of Catholic institutions find their grounding in human dignity to inspire education, service, and employment relations. The idea of ennobling the dignity of our co-workers resonates positively in mission statements, but to what end operationally if dignity remains isolated in the mission statement and unused as a management tool? Naming dignity as essential to a Catholic institution’s mission, but failing to define it as an operative part of employee relations may cause more damage than not including it within the mission statement in the first place. Does not honoring dignity while ignoring its trespass in the day-to-day administration of employees undermine institutional efforts to serve the common good?

Many argue that it does not. Instead some contend that remaining competitive today necessitates strong management that might be misinterpreted. Sports metaphors adorn management styles. “Nice guys finish last” has generally been attributed to former Chicago Cubs Coach Leo Durocher. (Although allegedly aimed at the opposing team, Durocher’s Cubs have now passed over a century without winning the World Series, suggesting even sports metaphors may be improper guides.) Should toughness on the athletic field translate into the workplace? In a competitive global world, where margins rule the day, do we need the acute edge of the driven manager squeezing all out of the workforce to remain at the top of their game? The competitive manager may elide into the bullying manager when the game is on the line.

Such unfortunate manager transformations may occur or remain unresolved because bullying is so difficult to define and prove. Federal and local laws have assisted management in understanding the parameters of illegal discrimination or harassment based on protected categories, but bullying becomes harder to define absent a protected category. Most researchers emphasize repeated mistreatment by one or more employees aimed at a specific employee as the core of bullying. If additional employees target a vulnerable employee, their conduct becomes a subset of improper conduct called mobbing. The power a manager has over an employee’s career, especially in employment at will workplaces, makes it difficult to discern when the manager demanding accountability crosses over to repeated mistreatment of employees, at least according to those who claim that developing anti-bullying policies are too difficult.

As modern management seeks greater productivity through reliance on technology with fewer employees, demands on all employees increase. Denial of bullying precludes accurate demarcation of the line distinguishing the demanding manager from the demeaning manager. Human Resources professionals seem to know conduct that meets the definition of insubordination when an employee acts out against a manager, thus meriting termination. When a manager exploits the power of position to constantly demean an employee, however, do those same leaders possess similar tools to address bullying? We certainly know it when physical violence crosses the line, but what of the daily communications in the workplace? Although physical violence also crosses into potential criminal behavior, addressing non-physical violence must also be a priority. Human history has revealed that violence over the mind and spirit can damage a person as much as physical pain.

In addition, the difficulty in actually witnessing the alleged bullying or mobbing, the fear of reporting bullying, the difficulty in assessing the truth from two conflicting assessments, the difficulty in discerning if a one-time harsh word implicates a greater concern and reveals a pattern and practice of harm, all increase the challenges of addressing the problem. The academic world faces particularly complicated issues. Some of its greatest strengths tend to work against mitigating faculty bullying. Keashly and Neuman pose the following dilemma: “collegiality and autonomy are critical for academic freedom and the work of the academic, yet these norms are interpreted as preventing action to address what faculty view as problematic behaviors that, in turn, create a climate of noncollegiality, hostility, and incivility, increasing the likelihood of bullying and mobbing.” Given such parameters, developing an anti-bullying procedure that protects all parties faces extensive challenges.

Dignity also requires fairness in procedures to protect against false claims and a rebound mobbing against alleged bullies if charges are not managed properly. Mary Rowe, Linda Wilcox and Howard Gadlin remind us that workplaces need training in conflict resolution to provide managers with the tools necessary to demand accountability without straying into bullying behavior or discouraging employees from reporting bullying behavior. Fair procedures that encourage reporting, but accord fair treatment to all parties, discourage false claims, and provide incentives to seek win-win solutions are required. Rowe, Wilcox, and Gadlin suggest implementing informal solutions such as Ombuds Offices which offer safe harbors for both employees and managers to explore options that serve the employees and the mission. Finally, they propose all parties should expand their curiosity to research why bullies exist so that the environment can be modified to eliminate the sources of bullying while protecting the valuable contributions of all.

Addressing bullying in the workplace may further prove the value of Catholic Social Teaching with regard to employment. One General Counsel and Director of Human Resources at a for-profit corporation reported that he worked with a senior manager who seemed indispensable to the company’s success. Unfortunately, that senior manager persistently bullied and humiliated subordinates. When the senior manager was finally terminated, the relief in the business was almost palpable; it seemed like a huge rock had been lifted from everyone’s shoulders. And most surprising, employees at all levels in the company, particularly middle managers, suddenly flourished and brought new ideas and programs to the workplace once freed of fear of the demeaning boss. Catholic Social teaching encourages developing the full human potential of all workers. In furthering the dignity of each colleague in the workplace, the environment then encouraged the flourishing of the human spirit and human capability.

Mission matters. Keashly and Newman’s review of bullying literature reveals that an “organization’s culture and related climate play an important role in the manifestation of hostile behaviors at work.” Defining dignity’s operational role in the workplace may serve to counteract bullying that might otherwise be tolerated. Finally, if defining bullying proves too difficult, what Martha Nussbaum suggests in another context, may be helpful for those seeking to increase mission’s impact on the cultural climate. In writing about justice, she recommends “we need to have some sense of what it is to respect human dignity, of what treatment human dignity requires from the world, if we are to be clear about what treatment violates it.” If we move from the world stage to the employment context, what does it mean to honor the dignity of employees? What treatment of human dignity may we expect from a Catholic employer? By starting with defining what works to foster dignity, it may become clearer what actions by managers or co-employees may violate dignity and offer solutions how to mitigate bullying in the workplace.

We invite you to respond to this column through our blog at http://hr-forum-ccu.blogspot.com/ to help define dignity in the workplace. What must we expect from each other to honor the dignity of all employees? We look forward to your responses.

We invite you to post links of your mission statements as well as HR and compensation philosophy documents on our blog if you would like to share them with our readers. This will permit a fuller discussion of how mission and CST influence the employment process. Please let us know if you would like us to link to any of your institution’s documents.

The opinions expressed in this column are mine alone and do not represent DePaul University’s.

June 8, 2010

Resources relied upon in preparing this column include:
The paper reviewing research on faculty bullying by Loraleigh Keashly and Joel H. Neuman, “Faculty Experiences with Bullying in Higher Education,” can be found in Administrative Theory & Praxis, March 2010, Vol. 32, No. 1, 48, 50, 59, 60.
Information on the extent of bullying including the one in six workers statistic can be found in Gary Namie and Ruth Namie, The Bully at Work, What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job, (Naperville, Il, Sourcebooks, 2003), 11.

The website http://www.workplacebullying.org/ (accessed on June 7, 2010) contains information on efforts in 17 states to legislate safe workplace laws that seek to define bullying behavior and control bullying against employees.

Mary Rowe, Linda Wilcox, and Howard Gadlin make their suggestions in “Dealing with—or Reporting—‘Unacceptable’ Behavior (With additional thoughts on the ‘Bystander Effect’)” found in the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association, vol. 2, number 1, 2009, 52, 54, 62-3.

For a discussion of bullying in the European Union and France, see Claire Stievenard’s “France’s Approach to Workplace ‘Bullying’” in Workforce Management, http://www.workforce.com/section/03/feature/27/06/88/index_printer.html
(accessed on June 7, 2010).

Martha C. Nussbaum’s quote on justice and dignity can be found in Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, (Cambridge, Ma, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 277.