Reserve Call-Up Makes for Workplace Uncertainty

Carol Sauder, a program manager for systems integrator Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, Pa., has lost two of 39 employees in her unit to the call-up of National Guard and armed forces reservists, and faces the loss of 10 more. "We're coping with it," said Sauder, whose unit provides technical support for the Coast Guard in Martinsburg, W.Va., and Groton, Conn. Sauder has been redistributing staff rather than hiring temporary replacements for her absent employees, whom she expects will be gone for 30 to 90 days. "The rest of the employees are pitching in and doing duties that are not their normal duties ? and working some extra hours," she said.The call-up of National Guard and armed forces reservists is creating similar dilemmas for other government contractors. They must figure out how to cover for workers called to duty, what level of benefits and salary to provide the workers while they are away, and how to plan for their return ? all without knowing how long the reservists will be gone.The problem is especially acute for information technology contractors specializing in defense, because many of their most valuable employees previously served in the military and belong to the reserves. At Nextira Federal LLC in Fairfax, Va., for example, one employee has been called away for six months to a year, and three other reservists are waiting to get their orders to report for duty. The economic downturn, which has softened the market for telecommunications workers, could make it easier for Nextira to recruit temporary help, but managers still will struggle to find workers with security clearances, said Les Wallace, director of business development and marketing. "The people with those clearances are the ones subject to recall," he said. The reservists' departure will have an immediate impact on the 100-member staff, Wallace said. Managers at the networking solutions firm will do some rescheduling and will consider hiring temporary staff in the short term. President Bush authorized the Pentagon to call up 50,000 reservists after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. So far, more than 27,000 reservists have been called to assist in Operation Enduring Freedom, a mission to rid the world of terrorism. Employers have not faced a call-up of reserves since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Then, military action lasted three months. "In the Persian Gulf War, we didn't have very large numbers of people who actually fought who were not in the military when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Were this conflict to continue for some period of years, you will have people fighting who were not in the military, reserves or National Guard Sept. 11. That may be a very different experience for a lot of employers," said Frank Casey, a partner in the labor and employment law practice of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP in Washington.The Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act of 1994 requires employers to continue health care coverage for the first month of duty for both reservists and civilians who enlist. After that, it requires employers to extend medical coverage for up to 18 months at the employee's expense. It also requires employers to reinstate returning employees in the same jobs or similar ones with the status, pay and benefits they would have attained had they not been absent for military service. The law allows employees to make up missed contributions to qualified retirement plans, such as 401(k) accounts, and requires employers to make up missed matching contributions, but it does not require employers to pay any salary to employees while they are absent for military service.An Oct. 4 Webcast about reservist law, sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management of Alexandria, Va., was evidence of employers' concern about these responsibilities. The Webcast drew 1,200 participants, three times more than a typical Webcast, said spokesman Frank Scanlan. Demand for the Webcast was so high, in fact, that phone lines could not accommodate everyone who wanted to participate, Scanlan said.So far, most federal contractors have been redistributing staff rather than hiring temporary replacements for reservists. Many employers also are providing benefits that go beyond what federal law requires. For the first 180 days of emergency leave from Unisys, for example, reservists receive all benefits, such as health insurance, as well as differential pay, which makes up the difference between their military and civilian earnings. According to a recent survey of 51 employers representing approximately 500,000 full-time employees, 47 percent of employers said they would provide full medical benefits to reservists for some period of time. Twenty-two percent of employers offering full medical coverage said they plan to do so for at least five months and, in some cases, for more than nine months.In addition, 60 percent of employers said they plan to make up the difference between reservists' regular income and their military pay for at least some period of time that reservists are called away from their jobs. Washington human resources consulting firm Watson Wyatt & Co. conducted the survey.If Chris Samulski, a 27-year-old senior software engineer, is called to National Guard duty, his military pay will be about half of his salary from Robbins-Gioia LLC of Alexandria, Va., where he works on an Air Force contract. He expects his tour of duty would last six months to a year."Luckily, I work for a company started by former military officers" that encourages military service, Samulski said. Robbins-Gioia provides differential pay to reservists for up to six months, a benefit Samulski called "extremely nice.""This is one of the ways we like to reward our folks who continue to serve. We would not want to penalize them in any way," said Pierre Monacelli, vice president of operations at the program management services firm. The company also continues reservists' health insurance for up to a year. Of the company's more than 500 workers, 14 are members of the National Guard or reserves. Three have been called to duty so far. Richard Murdock, a senior group and health care consultant with Watson Wyatt in Stamford, Conn., attributes employers' generosity to a sense of patriotism. The extra benefits represent a minimal cost to employers so far, he said, because reservists are a small part of their total work force. "It's not a lifetime commitment. It's not a medical plan that you're going to have to live with for many years and will affect every employee," he said.Most challenging, employers said, will be keeping jobs open for the reservists' return. "Our No. 1 resource is our people. It's very difficult to have something open when they come back," Monacelli said, because the work doesn't stop when they're away. Like Unisys, managers at Robbins-Gioia will distribute reservists' work to other staff members before hiring temporary workers. At Robbins-Gioia, Samulski is preparing for possible deployment by briefing others about his work. The firm offers contingency planning services, so its staff is perhaps especially qualified to plan for unknown events. They know how to prioritize tasks, identify functions that won't work with the absence of key personnel and implement plans to fix those single-point-failures. They also know how to establish repeatable business processes that make it easier to move personnel around an organization."The environment we're in is very flexible," Samulski said. "We're not single-threaded to the point that any one person's loss will affect work negatively. If you don't have one point of failure, you're in a good environment to deal with change."So far, employers are optimistic about their ability to provide benefits to reservists and continue business as usual, but that could change, Murdock said."I think employers will have to continue to monitor what their promises have been," he said. "We are in difficult economic times. Businesses will begin to see what their expenditures are and reassess them ? not for a while, though."