The SHRM Big Show begins in less than a week as 15,000+ HR professionals descend on Orlando to hear about the latest in human resource management.  Unless you are a HR professional living under a rock, the topic du jour(s) will be the new SHRM certification being introduced....you won't be able to escape it.  SHRM will have 3 straight days of sessions dedicated to the topic.  HRCI, while banished from the conference, will be holding a Monday night event at EPCOT to share there insights.  Vegas has put better odds of snow occurring during the four days in Orlando than Hank Jackson NOT discussing certification during the opening session.  I fully expect that SHRM will hand out an HR action figure called "Certy" to attendees at their booth in the exhibit hall.

Never has so much attention been paid to an issue that has so little impact on the day-to-day functioning of HR.

I wish a modicum of attention was paid to these issues instead:

1.  Sleep

Did you hear about the accident that nearly killed TV star Tracy Morgan?  It was the result of a Walmart truck driver who had gone more than 24 hours without sleeping.  According to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, "drivers feel pressure from their employers to drive more than 60-70 hours a week with insufficient rest."  Further, Congress is attempting to make regulation of truck driver rest even more lax:

Days before Morgan's accident thrust trucking safety into the news, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved legislation that would undo rules that only went into effect last year that mandated certain rest periods for truck drivers. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill that would suspend a regulation that truck drivers rest for 34 consecutive hours, including two nights from 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM, before driving again.

Issues involving sleep are not limited to the trucking industry.  As a parent of 15-month old twins, getting 6+ hours of uninterrupted sleep is a luxury.  The impact of less sleep is huge:



Instead of certification, we should be discussing how the profession can assist employees in ensuring they are properly rested so they may perform at a more productive level.

2.  Wage Theft 




According to the New York Times,

When wage theft against low-wage workers is combined with that against highly paid workers, a bad problem becomes much worse. Data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute show that in 2012, the Department of Labor helped 308,000 workers recover $280 million in back pay for wage-theft violations — nearly double the amount stolen that year in robberies on the street, at banks, gas stations and convenience stores.

Moreover, the recovered wages are surely only a fraction of the wage theft nationwide because the Labor Department has only about 1,100 wage-and-hour investigators to monitor seven million employers and several states have ended or curtailed wage enforcement efforts.

This is a huge black eye for the profession, and we should be discussing how to minimize this occurrence.

3.  A Living Wage



My wonderful blogging colleagues at SHRM14 are putting together a little charity event on Sunday night to raise money for No Kid Hungry.  It truly is a worthy endeavor.



At the same time, how much discussion is going into their Congressional representatives cutting funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families?  Or, eliminating unemployment benefits after a certain period of time, even when unemployment remains high.  Each contribute significantly to childhood hunger.

Recently, Seattle passed a minimum wage increase of $15 an hour.  Given HR's role in setting compensation, what influence, if any, should they have to address the impact of wage stagnation?

For many of us, there just isn't enough hours in the day.  Pressures to keep up with work deadlines, taking care of the kids, and, in this modern technological world, being mobile means being on call 24/7, and something has to give.  This usually means less hours of sleep, followed by copious amounts of coffee, Diet Mountain Dew, and 5-hour Energy Drinks.

Now, better living through chemistry strikes again with the new drug, Modafinil.

The newest wake-up pill has all of the benefits of caffeine and amphetamines with none of the down sides. It has elicited so few complaints of side effects from users -- they claim it has no side effects at all except for the occasional slight headache -- it's the closest thing to a miracle the pharmaceutical world has seen since Viagra, if Viagra didn't sometimes cause blindness, heart attacks and five-hour erections. It's called modafinil, and it's FDA-approved to treat narcolepsy. But the drug has gained a dedicated off-label following as a "lifestyle drug." Doctors all over the country are reporting record numbers of sudden narcoleptics showing up in their waiting rooms. (As it turns out, you can get diagnosed as a narcoleptic online.)

Unlike caffeine, which floods the body with dopamine (and the accompanying crash when it wears off), Modafinil has all the benefits of a cup of coffee, without the negatives.

One of the most mysterious things about modafinil, even in view of its multi-pronged, targeted approach to sleep avoidance, is that it appears to trigger no "sleep debt." People who stay awake for a day or two on modafinil report no need to catch up on sleep when the dose wears off. They can just sleep the usual seven or eight hours and get back in the game. People who take amphetamines typically need to sleep for half a day when the high wears off.

So, what will be the impact on the world of work if such a drug becomes more common place?

• Will there be an expectation for salaried individuals to put in 18-hour days?
• If people work longer hours, will that push unemployment even higher, as the need for more labor decreases?

Would you take Modafinil if it became available?

In the most recent ESPN- The Magazine,  Peter Keating highlights a study on sleep by Stanford researcher Cheri Mah, who explored the question, does extra sleep boost athletic achievement?

Over three seasons, from 2005 to 2008, the scientists looked at 11 Stanford basketball players.  For two to four weeks, the Cardinal kept to their normal schedules.  Then for five to seven weeks, they watched what they drank, took daytime naps and tried to sleep for 10 hours every night.  After increasing their daily rest, the players sprinted faster and said they felt better in practices and games.  Their aim got better too: Their three-point shooting humped 9.2 percentage points, and their free throw percentage increased by nine points.

What is responsible for this improved performance?  According to Keating:

Some of our genes act as internal clocks and release hormones according to cycles called circadian rhythms, which are triggered by darkness and light and alternate over 24-hour periods.  When we mess with these rhythms by not getting enough sleep, our metabolism of glucose (which gives us energy) declines, and our level of cortisol (which causes stress) increases.  Further, sleeping for longer stretches is naturally anabolic: During deep sleep, our bodies release growth hormone, which stimulates the healing and growth of muscle and bone.  So while it's possible to push through a lack of sleep during any one day, proper sleep helps athletes in two ways.  First, it boosts areas of performance that require top-notch cognitive function, like reaction time and hand-eye coordination.  Second, it aids recovery from tough games and workouts.

 HR professionals could glean a couple of insights from this study.  First, despite our best laid plans, our training, incentives, and motivation will likely have muted impact if employees are coming in tired.   Further, instead of stocking our refrigerators with Mountain Dew and 5 Hour Energy Drink, and keeping the coffee pot brewing, we would be better off setting up a number of nap rooms.