Author Archives: Adam Jacobson

About Adam Jacobson

Adam Jacobson is a former associate editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine.
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Working to Close the Gender Pay Gap

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U.S. government regulators at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are requiring all private companies with over 100 workers to provide information including their workers’ genders, race and ethnicity as it relates to compensation. The EEOC uses this information, in part, to measure any pay gaps between employees that could be based on these characteristics. The EEOC instituted the requirement in 2016, and it covers about 70,000 employers and 54 million workers.

The Trump administration halted the rule’s implementation in 2017, but advocacy groups sued the EEOC, and in April, a federal district judge ordered its reinstatement. The rule requires that employers submit information about employees’ median pay and hours in various positions within the company, from sales staff to executives, both full-time and part-time.

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The policy is intended to make companies confront the actual data about their gender and racial pay gaps, which they may be reticent to do. Former EEOC commissioner Jenny Yang said, “Right now, there’s a strong incentive to not look under the hood, because if you find problems, many feel they’re under an obligation to immediately fix it, so they’d rather not.”

Not all companies are so unwilling to address the issue. For example, Nordstrom announced that it had achieved full pay equity, but that it was still working to ensure an equal share of men and women in leadership and top-paying jobs.

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Intel also announced “full representation” in its workforce—that the makeup of their workers mirrors the available talent pool—and pay equity for male and female employees.

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At the same time, U.S. pension funds and investors are similarly applying pressure to companies over their pay gaps. The pension funds for the states of Connecticut, Minnesota and Oregon are reportedly pushing for companies to disclose information about the promotion and compensation gaps within their ranks, as are private investment firms. These investors see companies’ insufficient gender equality as a risk that affects their bottom line. Tobias Read, treasurer of Oregon, told the Financial Times, “Gender equality, if we are not paying attention to that as a risk, we are not living up to our fiduciary responsibilities.”

Investment firm Arjuna Capital has filed multiple shareholder proposals to the various companies it invests in, asking for them to disclose median pay information related to gender and race. In response, Citigroup disclosed that its female employees make 29% less than their male colleagues, and pledged to continue working to increase representation of women and minorities within the company. Famously, the firm State Street Global Advisors put a bronze statue of a small girl near the Wall Street bull to raise awareness of index funds of companies that have gender-diverse leadership. Reportedly, as a result of the publicity, hundreds of companies worldwide moved to add at least one woman to their boards.

Investors making decisions based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors has been a growing trend, as Risk Management reported in the May article “Getting Serious About ESG Risks.” As that article stated, investors have used their clout to make companies focus on issues like climate change, and start considering not only the affect that environmental changes have on the business, but also the effect the company’s operations have on the environment. These considerations are changing risk managers’ evaluations and calculations of their companies’ risk profiles, and slowly changing companies’ gender diversity.

A lack of gender equality in pay or representation can not only lead to reputational damage for a company, but companies that do not have diverse workforces at all levels can miss out on the innovation that diversity and inclusion can bring. And this does not just mean bodies in the room—it means actually listening to different voices from different groups of people.

Inclusion Does Not Stop Workplace Bias, Deloitte Survey Shows

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In Deloitte’s 2019 State of Inclusion Survey, 86% of respondents said they felt comfortable being themselves all or most of the time at work, including 85% of women, 87% of Hispanic respondents, 86% of African American respondents, 87% of Asian respondents, 80% of respondents with a disability and 87% of LGBT respondents. But other questions in the company’s survey show a more troubling, less inclusive and productive office environment, and may indicate that simply implementing inclusion initiatives is not enough to prevent workplace bias.

While more than three-fourths of those surveyed also said that they believed their company “fostered an inclusive workplace,” many reported experiencing or witnessing bias (defined as “an unfair prejudice or judgment in favor or against a person or group based on preconceived notions”) in the workplace. In fact, 64% said that they “had experienced bias in their workplaces during the last year” and “also felt they had witnessed bias at work” in the same time frame. A sizable number of respondents—including 56% of LGBT respondents, 54% of respondents with disabilities and 53% of those with military status—also said they had experienced bias at least once a month.

Listening to those who say they have witnessed or experienced bias is especially important. When asked to more specifically categorize the bias they experienced and/or witnessed in the past year, 83% said that the bias in those incidents was indirect and subtle (also called “microaggression”), and therefore less easily identified and addressed. Also, the study found that those employees who belonged to certain communities were more likely to report witnessing bias against those communities than those outside them. For example, 48% of Hispanic respondents, 60% of Asian respondents, and 63% of African American respondents reported witnessing bias based on race or ethnicity, as opposed to only 34% of White, non-Hispanic respondents. Additionally, 40% of LGBT respondents reported witnessing bias based on sexuality, compared to only 23% of straight respondents.

While inclusion initiatives have not eliminated bias, Deloitte stresses that these programs are important and should remain. As Risk Management previously reported in the article “The Benefits of Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives,” not only can fostering diversity and inclusion be beneficial for workers of all backgrounds, it can also encourage employees to share ideas for innovations that can help the company, keep employees from leaving, and insulate the company from accusations of discrimination and reputational damage.

But building a more diverse workforce is only the first step, and does not guarantee that diverse voices are heard or that bias will not occur. Clearly, encouraging inclusion is not enough and more can be done to curtail workplace bias. And employees seeing or experiencing bias at work has serious ramifications for businesses. According to the survey, bias may impact productivity—68% of respondents experiencing or witnessing bias stated that bias negatively affected their productivity, and 70% say bias “has negatively impacted how engaged they feel at work.”

Deloitte says that modeling inclusion and anti-bias behavior in the workplace is essential, stressing the concept of “allyship,” which includes, “supporting others even if your personal identity is not impacted by a specific challenge or is not called upon in a specific situation.” This would include employees or managers listening to their colleagues when they express concerns about bias and addressing incidents of bias when they occur, even if that bias is not apparent to them or directly affecting them or their identity specifically.

According to the survey, 73% of respondents reported feeling comfortable talking about workplace bias, but “when faced with bias, nearly one in three said they ignored bias that they witnessed or experienced.” If businesses foster workplaces where people feel comfortable listening to and engaging honestly with colleagues of different backgrounds, create opportunities for diversity on teams and projects, and most importantly, address bias whenever it occurs, they can move towards a healthier, more productive work environment.

Governments Tackle Workplace Bullying and Harassment

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This week, South Korea enacted new legislation addressing “gapjil,” or bosses using their power to bully their employees. The measure criminalizes the practice of unfairly demoting or dismissing employees who have reported being subjected to bullying, imposing a three-year prison sentence or a 30 million won (approximately ,400) fine for the practice.

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Workplace harassment is common in the country, with two-thirds of workers experiencing harassment and 80% witnessing it, according to a recent government study.

South Korean advocacy groups like Gapjil 119, which operates a hotline for victims of abuse, have tried to fight against workplace abuses by cataloging and publicizing cases that range from employers forcing workers to pluck their grey hairs to serious violence and degradation. Several recent high-profile incidents have sparked a national debate over this conduct, including in late 2018, when videos emerged of Korea Future Technology CEO Yang Jin-ho and Marker Group CEO Song Myung-bin physically assaulting their staff members. Yang has been indicted, and Song is facing legal charges.

Experts say that South Korea’s culture of “chaebols,” or family-run conglomerates, has also enabled abuses because these companies lack external restraints on their executives’ behavior. Korean Air dynasty matriarch Lee Myung-hee was indicted in February for routinely physically and verbally abusing her staff, and Lee’s daughter, Heather Cho made headlines in December when she attacked two flight attendants for serving her macadamia nuts in a bag instead of a bowl, and demanded that the plane return to the gate. Cho was ordered to pay 20 million won (,000) to the flight attendants and served five months of a one-year prison sentence for violating aviation law.
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These and other incidents at the company even prompted a mass demonstration of Korean Air employees and the formation of an employee union.

Other countries are also attempting to address workplace bullying of this kind, similarly spurred by high-profile cases of abuse. This month in France, former France Télécom executives stood trial for overseeing an environment of workplace abuses that allegedly led to at least 35 employees committing suicide between 2008 and 2009. The company reportedly sought to downsize 22,000 workers, but could not fire them because they were state employees, so instead systematically harassed them to drive them out. Examples of this harassment included forcing employees to relocate multiple times away from their families or drastically changing their jobs. The case is awaiting judgment, but the company faces a possible fine of €75,000 (about $84,000) and the executives could serve a year in jail and have to pay additional fines themselves.

Additionally, Japan is attempting to address workplace “pawa hara” (or power harassment) as reports of workplace bullying and abuses have reached record numbers for multiple years in a row, according to the country’s Workplace Harassment Research Institute. The measures are partially in response to a government worker released an audio file of his boss, lawmaker Mayuko Toyota, insulting him and hitting him in the face and on the head. Toyota later resigned her post, and according to Kyodo News, was hospitalized for “her unstable mental condition.”

Japan’s parliament voted in May 2019 to revise five existing laws and require companies to put mechanisms in place to prevent workplace abuses. The revisions also protect pregnant women and women who have recently returned from pregnancy leave from discrimination.

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Similar to South Korea’s new law, Japan’s new law would bar employers from firing or discriminating against employees who report harassment, and require consultation when employees make reports of abuses. However, unlike South Korea’s law, these revisions do not outline any punitive measures for companies and their executives if they violate the requirements.

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The government reportedly decided against fully banning “pawa hara” because lawmakers had difficulty defining which actions qualified as harassment.

Catastrophic Floods More Frequent in 2019

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Last week, after already experiencing heavy rainfalls and flooding, New Orleans was preparing for tropical storm Barry, expecting the storm to overflow or even breach the city’s levees. Flights in and out of the city were cancelled, as were concerts and other public events, as the city braced for catastrophe. Barry ended up narrowly missing New Orleans, and instead moved inland, drenching other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi and causing floods and mass power outages in those areas. It was yet another example of how major flooding has become a normal occurrence for many regions of the country, and by all indications, it is becoming worse each year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated in its report 2017 State of U.S. High Tide Flooding and 2018 Outlook that “The projected increase in high tide flooding in 2018 may be as much as 60 percent higher across U.S. coastlines as compared to typical flooding about 20 years ago and 100% higher than 30 years ago.” This prediction turned out to be accurate, as the United States saw massive flooding throughout 2018, including “sunny-day” or “high-tide” flooding that occurs during high tides outside of hurricane events.

In its recent report on 2018 high-tide flooding and 2019 outlook, the NOAA said that these floods’ median frequency in 2018 “reached 5 days, which tied the historical record of 2015.” Of the 98 observed locations along the U.S. coastline, 12 reportedly broke or tied their all-time records for high-tide flooding in 2018. And now, the NOAA is predicting that 2019 could be even worse.

The NOAA noted that high-tide flooding “is increasingly common due to years of relative sea level increases. It no longer takes a strong storm or a hurricane to cause flooding in many coastal areas.” The Union of Concerned Scientists has said that sea level rise is accelerating, that “sea levels in the U.S. are rising fastest along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico,” and that the primary reason for this sea level rise is climate change melting land ice and heating oceans.

According to the NOAA’s 2019 projections, it expects high-tide flooding along the U.S. coastlines this year to reach double the numbers from 2000. Additionally, “the Northeast Atlantic could see a 140% increase, the Southeast could see a 190% increase, and the Western Gulf of Mexico could see a 130% increase.”

Almost 40% of the U.S. population lives in coastal areas, and could be at risk from flooding effects. With the start of hurricane season, these dangers will only increase as storms batter the coasts. Even before Barry threatened, New Orleans faced massive flooding last week, while Pittsburgh contended with flash floods. And the week before, heavy rains left Washington, D.C. and surrounding towns swimming in water that overwhelmed the city’s storm water pipes.

These increasing floods mean serious losses for people, municipalities and businesses. The recent DC-area floods reportedly caused $3.5 million in damage to Arlington, Virginia county infrastructure alone. In March, a “bomb cyclone” hit Nebraska, with heavy rainfall causing damages totaling more than $1.3 billion. This figure includes $449 million in road, levee and other infrastructure damage, as well as serious damage to more than 2,000 homes and 340 businesses. Iowa also experienced flooding that caused water treatment plants to shut down, depriving two cities’ residents of fresh water. And across the Midwest, agriculture was also hit hard by flooding, slowing corn and soybean planting. The delay may decrease harvests by at least 8% and increase prices worldwide.

As Risk Management Monitor has previously reported, Texas A&M University at Galveston and the Texas General Land Office examined the 50-year impact of a major storm hitting Galveston Bay on the Texas coast near Houston, finding that major storm events that caused flooding would have huge secondary effects on the economy, both locally and nationally.

Various states, including those along the Mississippi River, have already enacted flood control measures like levees, dams and flood walls, but have seen this year’s increased flooding defeat these measures. Others have encouraged residents to purchase flood insurance to offset losses. But the increasing scope of future floods may mean that these steps are not enough. Though tropical storm Barry missed New Orleans, experts have still expressed concern about coming storms possibly “topping” the city’s levees, which could cause even more damage to the already-flooded city.