We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
John Bredehoft ponders the question in his post, A steering wheel desk – where do you draw the line between personal and corporate responsibility?
Under discussion is a portable desk you can set up while in the driver’s seat. The illustration at Amazon makes it clear it fits over the bottom of the wheel and would make turning impossible even if you could handle dumping everything on your lap.
Mentioned back in November that a number of restaurants and hotels are thinking of cutting their staff back to 29 hours or less to avoid the upcoming requirement to provide full-scale health care to staff working 30 hours or more.
The Wall Street Journal reports in their article Health Law Pinches Colleges (behind paywall) that colleges are moving in this direction as well.
Several colleges mentioned are reducing the class load for adjunct professors so they will be working below the 30 hour cutoff this year. That means the colleges won’t have to either provide health care or pay a penalty.
Ignored in policy setting discussions is the likelihood that people will change their behavior in unexpected ways to go around a costly or burdensome or intrusive new policy. The latest of many examples is from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal – Health-Care Law Spurs a Shift to Part-Time Workers.
I will work up an example to show why companies would consider this.
It seems that in order to avoid a major increase in costs, many employers are thinking about reducing their staff’s hours to less than the number of hours where health insurance coverage is required.
The article mentions several companies moving in this direction: Continue reading “Unintended consequences – reducing employee hours to avoid cost of health insurance coverage”