We came across an interesting blog yesterday over at Interns Over 40 which is a blog dedicated to helping skilled workers over the age of 40 find a new career.  The post we read with great interest and thought we would pass along was this one – 6 Lies We Tell Ourselves About Job Interviews which was a guest post from Michael Neece of www.interviewmastery.com.

I will let the post speak for itself about the six reasons, all which we agree with completely.  Its a very well written post and provides some great insights that essentially identify how talented people can become over confident about their abilities.  This is something that isn’t uncommon for the members of our community who are looking for reliability engineering jobs.

However, what really struck me in the post was this tidbit:

17-to-one is the ratio of job interviews to job offers during a recession. During a recession, the average applicant will interview for 17 different opportunities before he/she gets one job offer. When job openings are plentiful and candidates are in high demand, the ratio drops to 6-to-1, meaning it takes only 6 interviews to get an offer during the good times.

17 interviews to get a job in a recession versus 6 during normal times.  This statistic alone is disheartening, but it only tells part of the story.  If your a reliability engineer or PdM professional who has been looking for a job, think about how many jobs you’ve applied for before you even get to an interview!  Assume its a 5:1 ratio of applications/interview.  In good times that means you applied for 30 openings to find your job; in this economic climate that means you might have to apply for 85 jobs to get one!

That is a lot of time and effort expended to find a job, never mind the time it takes to prepare for each interview and the time allocated to the interview itself.  You can see how finding a job quickly becomes a job.

The fourth step to increasing asset reliability is to create effective departmental KPI’s (key performance indicators).  It has been said that results that can’t be measured, can’t be managed.  Or stated another way, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.  The maintenance function and asset reliability function must be measured by effective KPI’s to be effectively managed.

Anecdotal evidence to prove this assertion can be tried in your facility.  Gather some pertinent maintenance data and post it in graph form.  Only let a few people in the department know what the data means.  They can transmit the data by way of the grapevine communications that exist.  Continue to post updated data weekly for a month to six weeks.  The data, simply because it is being measured and communicated, will trend in the positive direction with no other effort.

KPI’s that are the most valuable make sense not only to maintenance personnel but to operations and production personnel.  The KPI’s also need to be leading indicators showing outcomes that will result in less asset reliability.  If KPI’s are structured properly, interdepartmental relationships and effects on maintenance strategies will be seen.  Resource utilization will be indicated.  Operations managers will understand value provided by maintenance and be more favorable toward maintenance investment.

KPI’s found to be valuable include:

• Resource utilization efficiency
• Work order backlog broken down by the types as noted in the previous blog
• Start-up OEE
• Proactive/reactive work mix
• Work orders due/overdue
• Reliability work backlog
• Reliability work on time completions percentage
• Financial KPI’s

Effective KPI’s are covered in more detail in a free white paper entitled:  “Maintenance Managers in Pursuit of World Class Performance” at www.bin95.com/Maintenance-Managers.htm

Over at msnbc.com there is a new article discussing how bad credit can impact your ability to find a job.  As the post notes, employers are increasingly using credit checks in their hiring decision making process.

Companies are not required to tell you if they’ve run a credit check and whether or not it impacts their decision to offer a job.  Consequently, no solid numbers are available as to how often bad credit impacts a hiring decision.  However, some anectdotal information is available.  According to the post:

“But a recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management found that many employers use credit checks to screen job candidates. Of the roughly 100 employers who responded, 60 percent said they checked credit histories for some or all job applicants. That’s up from 43 percent in 2004 and just 25 percent in 1998.”

The reasons for the review vary and are obviously utilized higher for senior executives and for positions that have financial responsibility.  That being said, its clear that employers are checking because they want to see how reliable and therefore responsible the potential employee is.  The thinking goes that if you can’t pay your electric bill, how we can trust you to show up on time and do your job?

Credit checks will likely to grow as employers are increasingly requiring more and more data about the people they hire.  What will prove challenging for many is the reality that many otherwise qualified people will lose a job opportunity because they were impacted by the great recession.  With job growth continuing to lag, we may find ourselves in a vicious cycle that feeds on itself.

Over at CNN/Money, Fortune posted a great column on whether or not it makes sense to become a consultant after a layoff.  Its a fantastic question to ask, given the challenges of finding a permanent job in this economy.

At NextUp Careers, we’ve seen a significant increase in the discussion regarding the use of temporary staff and independent contractors.  While Reliability Engineering and Predictive Maintenance have always had its share of contractors, its becoming increasingly clear that this may no longer be an exception, but may become an expectation.  In discussing the potential for hiring, many of the company’s we have talked to have indicated a strong desire to have a variable workforce available to it.

As an example, one company recently explained to us that for every five reliability engineers they will hire this year, only one of them is likely to be a full-time position.  This is a significant change in their business model and one partly driven by what they saw happen in the past year and a half.  As this video attests, freelancing may become a way of life for more Americans than ever.

As this trend becomes to gain momentum, we anticipate that it will have a significant impact on reliability engineers and predictive maintenance professionals

What do you think?

Earlier this week, Industry Week published their latest salary survey.  As industry goes, so goes the demand for reliability engineering jobs and predictive maintenance professionals.  The survey, which can be found by clicking here paints a mixed picture of the job market and the potential for salary increases.

Some key findings from the study:

• 22% of respondents indicated that their salary actually dropped last year; another 44% reported that their salary was frozen. In the previous years survey, only 4% said their salaries dropped and only 27% said they were frozen.
• Despite compensation concerns, 25% of respondents reported that they were very satisfied with their job and another 45% reporting that they were satisfied.

According to an expert quoted within the survey, this may indicate that employees are generally happy with the total value proposition provided by their job – benefits, salary, flexibility, career path, etc.  Of course, it may also mean that people are just happy to have an job and that once the economy turns, the march for higher salaries will commence again.

In monitoring the salaries posted for the reliability engineering jobs and predictive maintenance jobs on our board, we have noticed that they have remained pretty consistent from our past reviews.  It appears, at least for the time being that salaries have found an equilibrium.  This isn’t to say that reliability engineering professionals wouldn’t like to earn more, its more a reflection that both employers and employees have, at least for the moment found a common ground for value.

What have you seen for salaries and compensation trends?

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the definition of “Reasonable Factors Other than Age” (RFOA) under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The proposed rule attempts to address issues raised by recent cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, namely Smith v. City of Jackson and Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab.

In Smith, the Supreme Court held that the RFOA test is the appropriate standard for determining whether a practice that disproportionately affects older individuals violates the ADEA. The RFOA provision of the ADEA provides that actions that have an adverse impact on older individuals will not violate the statute as long as the adverse impact “is based on reasonable factors other than age.”

In Meacham, the Supreme Court held that an employer defending against a claim of disparate-impact age discrimination bears the burden of both producing and proving reasonable factors other than age that caused the disparate impact. In doing so, the Court overruled the employer’s argument (and the previous decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals) that plaintiffs in an ADEA case have the burden of showing that the adverse employment action was not based on reasonable factors other than age. The Court held that, since RFOA is an affirmative defense, it is the employer’s burden to prove that RFOA existed, not the employee’s burden to show that RFOA did not exist.

In light of these decisions, the EEOC proposes to revise its regulations to clarify the scope of the RFOA defense. Specifically, the proposed revision:

* explains that a “reasonable factor” is one that is objectively reasonable when viewed from the position of a reasonable employer under like circumstances and is a factor that an employer exercising reasonable care to avoid limiting the employment opportunities of older persons would use;
* explains that whether a particular employment practice is based on reasonable factors other than age turns on the facts and circumstances of each particular situation and whether the employer acted prudently in light of those facts;
* provides a list of specific factors to be considered in determining whether a particular employment practice was reasonable, including: 1) whether the employment practice and the manner of its implementation are common business practices; 2) the extent to which the alleged reasonable factor is related to the employer’s stated business goal; 3) the extent to which the employer took steps to define the factor accurately and to apply the factor fairly and accurately; 4) the extent to which the employer took steps to assess the adverse impact of its employment practice on older workers; 5) the severity of harm to older individuals; and 6) whether other options were available to the employer and the reasons the employer selected the option it chose;
* provides that the RFOA defense may only be used if the practice was truly based on an objective non-age factor;
* sets forth the following factors relevant to determining whether a factor is an objective non-age factor: 1) the extent to which the employer gave supervisors unchecked discretion to assess employees subjectively; 2) the extent to which supervisors were asked to evaluate employee based on factors known to be age-based stereotypes; and 3) the extent to which supervisors were given guidance or training about how to apply the factors and avoid discrimination.

Before adopting final regulations, the EEOC will consider comments on the proposed rule until April 19, 2010. You may submit comments to the EEOC through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov; by faxing your comments to (202) 663-4114; or by mail addressed as follows:

Stephen Llewellyn, Executive Officer
Executive Secretariat, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
131 M Street, N.E.
Washington, DC 20507

The Connecticut General Assembly is considering legislation that, if passed, would allow employees to file discrimination and harassment claims directly in state court thereby circumventing the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities altogether. The law presently requires that all discrimination and harassment claims are filed with the CHRO first. If an employee wants to pursue her claim in state court, she must then wait until 210 days have elapsed. Only then can the employee request a release of jurisdiction from the CHRO to sue in state court.

The new legislation also would significantly extend the timeframe for filing discrimination and harassment cases in state court to two years. Presently, the statute of limitations for filing a claim at the CHRO is 180 days. To read the full text of the bill, click here. We will be sure to provide updates as developments with the bill occur.

The third step in asset reliability involves streamlining of the work order system. In most highly reactive maintenance situations the work order system is ignored. Many work orders can be ignored and left open for months to years. Since the CMMS is very efficient at storing work order information, it is not uncommon to find this situation in many organizations.

Work order types must be identified. Rules must be made that defines how these work orders will be processed by the CMMS system and ultimately scheduled by the maintenance department. Examples of the types of work order groups that might be created are as follows:
· Safety and environmental work orders
· Reliability enhancing work orders
· Miscellaneous work orders that can be completed during production
· Project work orders
· Other miscellaneous work orders that have no effect on asset reliability
The summation of the individual group backlog equals departmental work order backlog.

Rules for each type of work order need to be created so the CMMS system will calculate/update the original priority based upon time the work order has been left open. When the priority number for each work order reaches a certain priority level, it either becomes due or overdue. It might only take 2 or 3 days for a safety or environmental work order to reach this level. Reliability work orders might take only slightly longer. Reliability work orders could include PM’s, PDM’s, TPM’s, PDM repairs, PM repairs etc. Naturally other work orders that are project or miscellaneous would move much more slowly.

Making work order prioritization serviceable is highly important. The goal is to be able to create a prioritized work order backlog from the CMMS work order input. Completing this prioritized work order backlog in the prioritized sequence should yield the best plan for maintaining asset reliability. If the proper data has been input into the CMMS system and all prioritization performed properly, asset reliability should increase by working the backlog in a disciplined manner.

Maintenance scheduling becomes disciplined. Execution is no longer a guessing game. Asset reliability becomes a function of disciplined execution.

Prioritized work order back logs should be posted weekly so individuals that have created work orders can track work order movement. Another advantage to this system is that since all work order priorities are increased based upon time left open in the system, all work orders will eventually become a high priority. Those work orders in the past, that never got completed because they did not affect reliability will eventually be completed in the long term.

Perfecting this system will yield better asset reliability. It will be highly unlikely having work orders to perform a repair to prevent a breakdown trapped in a system with no visibility.

Simultaneous with the launch of the IRS’s new initiative on worker misclassification, Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office announced, just this past week, that it reached settlements in four separate misclassification cases. In each of these cases, the Attorney General’s Office claimed that restaurant delivery companies had misclassified their drivers as independent contractors when they should have been classified as employees. Because of this misclassification, the Attorney General’s Office opined that these workers were deprived of certain wage/hour protections as well as other benefits that employees enjoy, such as unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation benefits and health insurance.

Beginning last June and continuing into the present, the Fair Labor Division of the Attorney General’s Office has ramped up its enforcement efforts, particularly with regard to misclassification. Specifically, the Attorney General’s Office has targeted various meal delivery companies in Massachusetts, focusing their investigations on the companies’ classification of workers.

The companies under investigation may have decided to settle their cases with the Attorney General’s Office to avoid the extremely steep penalties misclassification creates. Indeed, misclassification leads to the automatic imposition of triple damages under the Massachusetts Wage Act regardless of whether it was deliberate or accidental.

The AG’s full press release can be accessed at www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagopressrelease&L=1&L0=Home&sid=Cago&b=pressrelease&f=2010_02_01_restaurant_settlement&csid=Cago

The recently-proposed FY 2011 budget for the Department of Labor requests $117 billion in funds, including $13.9 billion in “discretionary funding.” Although the $117 billion request is less than what the DOL received last year, the DOL has requested $1.7 billion for worker protection programs, up 4% from last year.

The DOL’s proposal includes a plan to hire at least 350 employees, and more than half of them would work in investigations and enforcement. The DOL has expressed a commitment to increasing its efforts in several areas, including Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) compliance and worker misclassification. In fact, the proposed budget includes a request for $25 million for a joint initiative between the DOL and the Treasury Department to combat misclassification of employees as independent contractors. This initiative proposes to add an additional 90 employees in the DOL’s wage and hour division as well as 10 employees to support litigation efforts by the Solicitor of Labor. The OFCCP intends to hire additional staff as well to maintain its aggressive investigation and enforcement efforts.

While some praise the administration’s efforts to enhance worker protection programs, others have suggested that, given the current state of the economy, these programs may unjustifiably burden and punish employers. It will be interesting to see how the DOL’s proposed budget compares to the budget that eventually is approved by Congress. We’ll be sure to provide updates as developments occur.