Proactive Business or Passive Alignment: Human Capital and the Role of Government

Proactive Business or Passive Alignment: Human Capital and the Role of Government

Recently in Canada, a Federal Member of Parliament said this year (June 2014), a conservative at that, stood up and commented something that was not only sexist but considered way out of line and out of date when referencing women not being as ready for work like a man because they have to change diapers and drop kids off at school. A member of the opposition, a leader of a party herself is not only that, she’s a lawyer herself so you can imagine what this was like when he referenced why there aren't as many female judges in Canada. (www, Margret Wente, Globe&Mail, June 2014, http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2465937388/) So this brings me to my next article. Business people ask questions like, who do we vote for when a governing party says it’s going to fix the economy? How does it make sense when they don’t include entire sets of people in certain jobs? Does government make a great regulator? Why do Canadian Right Wing Party's take credit for a better economy when nothing other than the natural evolution of economies scale rules are the only thing which took effect after a recession? Beyond Peter MacKay (Tory MP), there are actual sexist and racist business on the mass scale which are Canadian firms which kill the same opportunities for a wide range of entry to mid level possible

employees - Ifthe government is cracking down on Temporary Foreign Workers, why not crack down on unfair hiring practices across the board? In fact, in Canada, I know of places which either won't or have never had the chance to, hire ethnic men who wear turbans, have beards but allow baseball caps for male servers and have beards or, where they won’t get uniforms to escape responsibility like in the case of restaurants with half naked young women chosen to work there for their looks (even if they have never worked as a server or even if there work is less than decent). Look at the number of food and service sector chains, owned by Canadians where female servers & hostesses of this set are encouraged the dressing in high heels & mini-skirts and/or tight fitted clothing as way of exploiting young women into selling their bodies for tip money rather than focusing on food & customer service. Worse, in Canada, they won’t hire your daughter in some food and service jobs if she’s over weight and/or in the minds of hiring management, unattractive (www, The Toronto Sun 2011/2012,http://www.torontosun.com/life/2011/03/17/17656191.html ). These are not one or 2 places in town –these are massive chain establishments who give rise to workers coming into the business platform who worked in these places taking their sexist, racist and redneck attitudes into the regular business world and just being a hassle to manage and deal with. The worst of this situation is that Canadian consumers passively don’t care or can’t see the negative effects on the economy over the long term while government does not care to crack down on these places.Canadian tax dollars for social programs and unemployment should not go to workers who can’t get work at the bottom level, for jobs which require little or no experience because, they’re overweight, hiring management does not find them attractive or any other reason which does not govern their skills and work ethic.Long term effect –the most capable and talented are thrown to the curb and the cost of social programs needs more tax dollars because people who needed to get into the work force could not get in at the bottom level. In Canada, the federal government, video-taped a set of non-white workers in several McDonald's and claimed there are too many “Foreign workers” taking Canadian jobs. It all started, the Tory Government in power says, when a woman was let go of her job and the employer hired color people –who to this day, I have no idea if they were or were not Canadian citizens themselves. With the government videos offood and service workers the problem was that the ‘color’ people in the videos were mostly Canadian Citizens! Yeah that’s right, well they caught maybe 3-5 people in Canada which caused an up roar and McDonald's CEO got a phone call and he said “That’s Bullshit” (www, CBC, 2014,http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mcdonald-s-canada-ceo-calls-foreignworker-controversy-bullshit-1.2621151 ). I'm not a fan of temporary workers but if someone

Canadian is not getting a job at the bottom end, my argument is crack down on several areas where the hiring practices of employers are killing opportunity like in the previous example of hiring based on looks then dressing young women to look like they're selling their bodies. I’m a right wing economic thinker myself –every morning I pledge my Free Enterprise thinking and my goal to see a free economy to the American Dream. I say hire the best people, for a fair wage to work the best work for as many hours as they wish as pertains to full time, part time, contract and seasonal work regulations –then in the long and short term add to their lives. The American Dream is all about the kid at the end of the street, regardless of race or gender or religion or whatever - going from ordinary to larger than life. This problem of Foreign Workers is some sort of panic scenario but they sold the country off to Foreigners anyway - what difference does it make - we're shipping out raw goods to be made by foreigners anyway. We got bigger things to panic about than a handle full of minimum wage food and service sector workers handing out burgers and coffee to make ends meet. In Canada, since 1991 or so we had a push from our Right Wing parties to get into government then nearly kill a resource rich Canada in other sectors for everything but oil, then ship the oil out to have us buy it back from foreign places for the retail price in containers which have labels which say the same was made in another country. It’s so bad, that you can only get paid really well in Alberta and with the current election in Ontario, we could finally see a balancing of economies here as well. They killed entire sectors and did not come to aid in other sectors which needed help like lumber. I’m pro oil, I’m anti oil or nothing, and - I’m dead against short term employment and I'm not understanding why they targeted a handful some fast food employees based on the colour of their skin - plain racist!

A related example to the previous paragraph where the "doors" seemed closed to opposition and having to learn to work with open "doors" with all parties for the greater good of everyone comes from home. In 1973 my mother, a 4’11” Indian woman with a grade 10 education from India came home from work frustrated and tired having worked 8-10 hour shifts in a clothing factory for some $4/hour wage. My father is an overly educated scholar who does not like a lot of attention and takes pride in reading reference materials and such for both work and himself. My father sat down with my mother, her union regulations books in hand and the laws which govern free enterprise here in Canada and together they went through the books for some years. Over those years, she educated herself, took courses, participated in seminars & even took dad

(right wing thinker himself) to Florida for a union conference in the ‘80s. In 1980, my mother became the Union Local Board member than a President of a major downtown local. A worker one might of under estimated was a contributing member of a Fortune 500 employer and her co-workers for more than 16 years –not only that, she herself was someone who took an interest in economics and business to understand & work within to see how this volatile relationship could benefit her co-workers and the corporate infrastructure of the multinational firm she worked in as a seamstress to see that the two worked well together. So move some 35 years or so into the future, where the previously mentioned Conservative Party of Canada MP went on about a sexist rant during a Canadian government Senate Debate in this June 2014. His name is Peter Mackay and he also brought to senate an attempt to legalize prostitution. Federal Conservative Party MP Peter Mackay has missed more than 20 of the most progressive Chief Executive Officers in the Fortune 500 are women (told mom that one of them is an Indian woman in fact and she didn't look surprised) –many from a wide range of cultural backgrounds, CEO'd women, married with kids I’m sure. (In fact I have listed them below after my last paragraph). More women CEOs in the Fortune 1000 are married and have children, vs. the national average.

Above - Countesy of Fortune.com (www, Reference,http://fortune.com/2014/07/08/womenceos-fortune-500-1000/, CarolineFairchild) My larger point is this, government doesn't change economies –in fact Free-Enterprise with some government policymoves economies and economies move in evolutionary

steps themselves. For example, 1981 or so President Ronald Regan established the Recession Recovery Act to help America out of a recession. With that came the Regan Commission and a US economy which set the example for other nations while retaining and building manufacturing, distribution, retail, marketing, sales and so forth. Then 7-8 years later, then again 7-8 years later –we had recessions. I think it’s a good idea for people to realize that we need to foster human capital to be the best they can be for themselves and for our economy. Human resource professionals already talk openly about all sectors so we don’t justify deficiencies with retaining and hiring practices which are not good for anyone but to find ways in which equal opportunity exist for qualified workers to build stronger economies. I’m not saying that I think one country has it better than the other, I think the Canadian Free Enterprise Model needs some serious changes and government needs to wake up. There are many successful Canadian zero to hero success stories but after hearing this government MP go off, I tended to look at just one other sector rather than find many examples from other sectors as well where things are not allowing for our economy to grow in an unlimited fashion because of the perceptions employers have on gender, race and religion or other barriers to free enterprise. Here’s a list of the CEO’s in the Fortune 500 from the WallStreet Journal Website for people to look at and reference to when someone’s placing limits on your daughter or telling your boys who should do what and where. The Free in Free Enterprise for stands for Freedom for a reason –don’t need Michael Porter to tell us that!

Author: Randeep Dosanjh ARightsReservedwithanyreferencetothisarticleinwholeorinpartwiththeconsentof theAuthor: RandeepDosanjh Countesy of the Wall Street Journal (www, Reference,http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2014/03/07/meet-the-women-ceos-of-the-fortune500/Interactive byRaniMolla/TheWallStreetJournal ) Countesy of Fortune.com (www, Reference, http://fortune.com/2014/07/08/women-ceosfortune-500-1000/, CarolineFairchild) FemaleCEOsintheFortune500arelistedbelow: PatriciaA.Woertz Archer Daniels Midland Co. EllenJ.Kullman E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. DeannaM.Mulligan The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America

CEO Since: April 2006 CEO Since: January 2009

CEO Since: July 2011

SheriS.McCoy Avon Products Inc.

MaggieWilderotter Frontier Communications Corp.

MegWhitman Hewlett-Packard Co.

CEO Since: April 2012

CEO Since: November 2004 CEO Since: September 2011

DeniseM.Morrison Campbell Soup Co.

CEO Since: August 2011

GraciaC.Martore Gannett Co. Inc.

CEO Since: October 2011

JacquelineHinman CH2M Hill

PhebeNovakovic General Dynamics Corp.

CEO Since: January 2014

CEO Since: January 2013

LynnJ.Good Duke Energy Corp.

MaryBarra General Motors Co.

CEO Since: July 2013

CEO Since: January 2014

IreneB.Rosenfeld Mondelez International Inc. KathleenM. Mazzarella Graybar Electric CEO Since: June 2012

CEO Since: June 2006

HeatherBresch Mylan Inc.

DebraL.Reed Sempra Energy

VirginiaRometty International Business Machines Corp.

CEO Since: October 2012

IleneGordon Ingredion Inc.

CEO Since: May 2009

MarillynHewson Lockheed Martin Corp.

CEO Since: January 2013

IreneB.Rosenfeld Mondelez International Inc.

CEO Since: June 2006

UrsulaM.Burns Xerox Corp.

CEO Since: July 2009

CEO Since: January 2012

IndraK.Nooyi PepsiCo Inc.

CEO Since: October 2006

CEO Since: June 2011

CarolM.Meyrowitz TJX Cos.

MarissaMayer Yahoo Inc.

CEO Since: July 2012

CEO Since: January 2007

SusanM.Cameron Reynolds American Inc.

CEO Since: May 2014