The chart presents data collected by Financial Executives International and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in a survey conducted in late 2001. It shows the number of corporate chief financial offices surveyed that believe the new environment of risk makes it necessary to implement additional security measures to keep workers safe. The size of the business appears to be an important factor in augmenting the desire to implement such new security measures. The larger the firm the more likely it is to be in the process of implementing changes in response to the increased threat of terrorist attack.
What sorts of measures are being considered and implemented? Security measures are being beefed up across the board. Disaster plans and emergency response policies are being established or brought out of file cabinets and re-examined. Access to facilities is being limited or, in the case where passkeys were already in place, more strictly monitored. New and elaborate mail sorting processes are being implemented in mailrooms across the country. Business travel limitations and restrictions remain in place for many companies although the level of business travel has increased since coming to an almost screeching halt immediately after September 11.
The hiring process has been greatly affected in the period since September 2001. Pre-employment background checks are on the rise. Automated Data Processing Inc. (ADP) saw a 30% increase in the number of background checks that its Screening and Selection Services Division carried out in the 12-month period ending January 2002. It estimates that half of this increase is the result of post September 11, employer concern.
As employee screening and background checks increase, so too do concerns about infringement of privacy and profiling based on race or national origin. Federal and state laws prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of race and national origin, among others. Therefore, employers find themselves confronted with a growing tension between protecting employees while complying with civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. This tension, which is also being played out in the society at large, will likely continue as new security standards are established and implemented.
What is clear is that attention to the area of workplace security has been greatly heightened since the fall of 2001. New measures are being put in place to try and reduce the risk of future losses. The impact that all of these measures will have on the workplace in general is not yet clear. These are trends that we will all watch and attempt to gauge as the situation evolves.
Source: Safety Since 9/11: Are You Protecting Your Company Against the Real Threats?, an online newsletter published by the Institute of Management and Administration, February 1, 2002, page 1. The data on background checks are from: Joann S. Lublin, Check, Please, Who are those people working alongside you? Too often, nobody has bothered to ask. Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2002, page R11.
1 Victims of assaults by animals are almost always those in the agricultural work force. They are rarely lion trainers or rodeo clowns, as those of us with a vivid imagination might presume.
2 The year 2001 will prove an exception to this trend as the enormous death toll suffered on or as a result of the events of September 11 is calculated and becomes part of the national total of fatal occupational injuries for the year.
3 This subject is covered in detail in a study by Hugh Conway and Jens Svenson, published in the November 1998 Monthly Labor Review. See the source notes for a full citation.
4 Ibid.
5 The EEOC uses the term "resolved cases" to mean any case upon which it has ruled, regardless of whether or not a finding of reasonable cause was made. Here, we will use the term "resolved case" to mean a case or charge the EEOC has found to be based on a reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred.
6 The four statutes are, (1) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, frequently referred to as Title VII; (2) Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA); (3) Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA); (4) Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
7 This delay between filing charges and charge resolutions also explains why we chose to list disability-based cases starting in 1994. This category of discrimination was only established in 1992, and 1993 was the first full year in which charges based on disability were filed.
8 In this panel we will use the EEOC definition of the term resolved. Therefore, "cases resolved" include cases that were dismissed based on a lack of reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred.
9 This survey was conducted by the Society for Human Resource Managers and the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligous Understanding. For a full citation see the source note.
10 A statement allegedly made by Admiral John W. Snyder. See the source note for a full citation.
11 This statement was made by John Cloud in an article entitled Sex and The Law. See the source note for a full citation.
12 The case in question was Kolstad v. American Dental Association, 119 S. Ct. 2118 (1999).
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