Big Ideas and Hard Times - Can the Possibility Go Together

We are currently in a period that we can reasonably call hard times - we're in a recession in fact.

"Some of the most powerful and lasting management methods were launched during tough times, when companies needed new ways to manage costs and grow.

Here is a look back at some of the biggest ideas over the past 100 years." Jena McGregor, Business Week.

What innovation or big idea are you working on to add to the list? Thanks Peter Roche for this.

When Workforce Planning Meets the Talent Shortage Myth

You don’t hear much about the “Talent Shortage Myth” anymore.

Just a year ago, you could hardly turn around without bumping into overhyped media coverage about how the baby-boom generation was going to be retiring en masse and how this was going to create a huge talent shortage for American business. I didn’t buy this notion then, and of course, that kind of BS is completely laughable now given what has happened to the economy.

In fact, a lot of baby boomers want to stay on the job longer these days given what the recession and economic downturn have done to their IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. These are people are a lot like me—boomers who want to work as long as they can, or at least until age 70 so they can maximize their Social Security payout.

But in an odd twist, a lot of boomers are now retiring unexpectedly, and “Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers,” according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.

“Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, [Social Security retirement] claims have been running 25 percent ahead of last year,” the Times story adds, and “that compares with the 15 percent increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.”

This shows you just how hard it is getting a fix on where workers’ heads are and what they might do, and it makes long-range workforce planning extremely difficult. In fact, just last December, a CareerBuilder survey found that 60 percent of workers older than 60 said they planned to postpone retirement and stay on the job.

What has changed, of course, is the economy. While I believe the CareerBuilder survey accurately captured the mood of boomers wanting to continue working back in December, it clearly didn’t anticipate the huge plunge in the economy and job losses in the first quarter of 2009. Yes, a lot of older workers want to keep working, but what do you do if you lose your job, can’t find a new one, and have the Social Security retirement option available?

If you are in that kind of fix, you do what most people would do: You take the retirement money and run, even if that’s not what you planned or wanted to do.

Here’s what is going on, the Times story indicates: “Many of the additional retirements are probably laid-off workers who are claiming Social Security early, despite reduced benefits, because they are under immediate financial pressure, Goss and other analysts believe.” And, the story adds, “The ramifications of the trend are profound for the new retirees, their families, the government and other social institutions that may be called upon to help support them. On top of savings ravaged by the stock market decline and the loss of home equity, many retirees now must make do with Social Security benefits reduced by as much as 25 percent if they retire at age 62 instead of 66.”

This just goes to show you how ridiculous it is trying to make broad-brush assumptions—like baby boomers retiring in a huge wave—given how unpredictable the economy can be. And it just shows again that no matter what part you play in the workforce—employer, manager or down-in the-trenches employee—the smart thinking in this economy continues to be pretty simple: Always hope for the best, but make certain that you prepare for the worst.

So what talent drought? Are you one of those that still think this?

Taking the Pulse

When was the last time you as the senior HR person in your organization held a meeting with the rank and file in your organization? Taking the pulse of your organization is extremely important to make sure your HR strategy is working within the rank and file. 

As a senior leader, I held meetings with employees, no more than six(6) at a time to discuss what was going right in the organization and what was going wrong or missing the mark. Why six you ask, well, I only had six seats in my office. I lead every meeting with the following statement, "this is your meeting to vent, commend, criticize, or otherwise and that it was a safe harbor for them". I also told them that the success of these meetings depended on the confidentiality they entrusted with me. I can tell you that there were a lot of good solid suggestions on how the business was run, what could be fixed, enhanced, etc. 

As you may recall these meetings were much like the Skip Level Meetings that GE ran throughout their businesses. The best ideas and direction comes from the employees. 

I am sure if you are in touch with the business that you are running such meetings and if not then you are missing the mark on what your overall responsibility is as an HR leader. Email me 

wgstevens2@gmail.com on what you have done or doing in our organization and I will post it on my blog. 

Interesting Analytics on HR Changes

In the most recent Workforce issue it had some interesting statistics that relate to the economy and how businesses have reacted. The one statistic that troubles me is the number of companies that have pared their training budgets. I hope this statistic does not mean they are placing less emphasis on leadership development. So here are the statistics:

Hiring freeze - 72%

Layoffs/reductions in force - 72%

Organizational restructure - 49%

Mandatory shutdown or furlough - 41%

Reduced workweek - 22%

Salary freeze - 60%

Salary reductions - 21%

Reduced employer 401(k) match - 22%

Eliminate/reduced training - 42%

I am sure each HR leader has been deeply involved in these decisions but I can only hope that the training and development budgets were the last resort change. If you want to keep your people don't forgo training.

Recruiting in the 21st Century

Well how are you recruiting today verses last year or in the past. Job boards are down and declining from the big revolution in the 90's. Board traffic is declining rapidly, the percentage of hires from boards are declining, candidates looking for jobs are frustrated with the overload of non-related searches and that is declining. 

So what is increasing? Social networking blog traffic, and the real staple of all recruitment personal referrals. So if you are stuck in the 90's using Monster, Jobster, Hotjobs, etc then you better start maximizing your recruitment strategy by joining and advertising on social networks, blogs that are business specific and user groups. You also need to do deep web searches using boolean logic, X-ray, and flip searches and strings. 

There are lots of other ways so if you are not utilizing the 21st century techniques then you need to get with it pronto. Recruitment 2.0 and next generation 3.0(soon to come) better be in your recruitment strategy and budget. 

Stop Your Best People From Walking When the Economy Recovers

Today, enough cannot be said about retaining your employees. When the economy turns around you will see people leaving and most of the time it is your star performers. The Hay Group article below identifies this trident issue (economy, money, advancement)

Increasing engagement means making greater use of non-monetary rewards. Providing better support for success involves looking for ways to remove those organizational hurdles that hinder employees during their working day. But it's crucial that organizations focus on two key concerns to retain and motivate their talent: increasing employee engagement and developing systems that provide better support for the success of their employees. Doing one without the other will not lead to effective employees who are ready to go the extra mile for the organization.


Retention of top talent is an important concern in both good times and bad. While a soft labor market may have depressed turnover rates in many organizations today, retention issues can be expected to surface once labor markets strengthen. Even in the present environment, options are still available to top performers. Savvy organizational leaders recognize that their best people work for their organizations because they want to, not because they have to, and treat them like 'volunteers' regardless of market conditions.


While compensation is often a factor for employees when they consider new employment, it is seldom the precipitating factor. Nonetheless, retention strategies commonly focus on compensation, for example, retention bonuses and stock options.


The downturn has made it more difficult to rely on pay to keep key people committed, so how should companies react?

To foster high levels of engagement, companies must make greater use of non-monetary rewards such as career growth opportunities, meaningful job designs, training, and recognition programs. For these measures to be effective, there must be a clear link between performance and rewards in the minds of employees. The best way to do this is to make sure there is clear differentiation in performance ratings between employees. Those differences in performance should be reflected in meaningful differences in pay and advancement prospects.

Our employee opinion research shows that high employee engagement alone does not guarantee an organization's effectiveness. What's missing is real employee enablement to position motivated employees to succeed. In fact, our findings suggest that while organizations in the top quartile on engagement demonstrate revenue growth 2.5 times that of organizations in the bottom quartile, companies in the top quartile on both engagement and enablement achieve revenue growth 4.5 times greater. But how do you ensure that you're doing the best possible job of enabling your employees? The first step is to make sure you're putting the right people in the right jobs, as employees in the wrong role can quickly become disillusioned and unproductive.

In deploying talent, leaders must consider both the requirements of the job and the employee's ability to meet them. They also have to think about the extent to which the job will draw upon the employee's distinctive competencies and make the most of them. It's also crucial to root out bad business practices, such as unnecessary or duplicated work, to ensure that work environments are supportive of high levels of productivity.

Create the right climate

Finally, organizations have to understand and manage the work climate. The benefit of a positive work climate is often underestimated, but our research shows that business results can vary by as much as 30 percent purely due to differences in the work climate created by a manager. We will provide further insights into how organizations can create positive work climates in one of our upcoming ‘rethinking reward’ articles.

Six steps to better engagement and motivation

In order to succeed in engaging and motivating employees, organizations should:

• ensure that there is a clearly communicated link between performance and rewards within the organization
  
• ensure that there is proper differentiation in performance ratings between employees


• root out bad business practices, such as unnecessary work and duplication, that can adversely affect employee enablement


• put the right people in the right jobs by focusing on job sizing and the kind of person that best fits the role


• monitor and improve the work climate within the organization by ensuring that leaders have the right competencies and management styles to motivate employees


• focus on non-monetary rewards such as career growth opportunities, development, and recognition programs
  

If you look back on the posts regarding retention (4/2/09, 3/5/09, 2/23/09, 12/15/08) you will see how important I think this issue is. Check it out.

The Importance of Leaders

There was a great article in USA Today yesterday (May 18th, Money section) by George Buckley, CEO of 3M. It is a quick read and for all HR practitioners it is important to take note. During these tough economic times Buckley says your company should focus on leadership despite the recession. He provides tips that are noted below:

• Don't promote leaders too quickly Give them time to reflect on their failures;
• Leadership cannot be planted in someone;
• Poor performers build resentment. Weed out the workplace garden before you fertilize;
• Leaders, too, need praise and not to be berated, and,
• Choices that rise to the top are either dandelions or chickweed, not roses.

These are sage comments coming from a very hardworking and successful CEO. I believe that we do not do enough in business today to cultivate our leaders and weed out poor performers especially during downturns.

1 Year and Counting

Well, it has been 1 year since I started the InnovativeHRStrategy blog and I can say it has been so much fun. I have enjoyed imparting knowledge to people who view my blog and hope that my insights have helped them in their respective roles.

Thank you to all the thousands who have come to visit InnovativeHRStrategy, took part in the polls, and clicked on AdSense. I hope you will continue to hit the posts in the future. If you have any questions, issues you feel should be addressed please email me at wgstevens2@gmail.com or on Twitter at www.twitter.com .

Vision Brings Hope

Life is uncertain, unpredictable, and lately, just plain bizarre. Is it possible to find certainty in an uncertain world? Let me answer the question later in this article. Certainty can mean “a conclusion or outcome that is beyond doubt.” My experience has been that when we formulate visions in our minds we most times birth images and ideas of hope.

Is it contradictory to think that certainty can be found in the middle of uncertain times and social environments? Well, it depends on where you are looking for the indicators of certainty. Finding certainty in the midst of turbulent times is possible when one looks for it within, rather than without. My opinion is that this process begins calibrating your vision for the future. What is your compelling vision for your future? How would you like to see your future unfold?

What is a vision and why can it help bring some rest in the middle of unstable times? Vision actually means an image or concept in the imagination. In the science called parapsychology a vision is an image or series of images seen in a dream or trance, often interpreted as having religious, revelatory, or prophetic significance. When we take the purely positive viewpoint a vision is a beautiful or pleasing sight that we have constructed in our mind. Vision can further mean an idea, a mental picture or a vivid disclosure. The mind can achieve marvelous things, one of which is imagining a preferred future that consists of your most noble passions, dreams,
aspirations and images.

Try this. Imagine the happiest place, a time in personal history and the most peaceful scenario you can. It may be helpful to silence your mind, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Visualize a place, time and scene that make you feel peaceful, joyful and fulfilled. Write this visualization on a piece of paper nearby. This short description will serve later as a project for you in your mental health development.


Vision brings hope many times. How do I know this? Well, personally, each time a vision is forming in my mind, expectancy is emerging, as well. Vision and hope are word companions and work together to help us in overcoming certain negative thoughts and discouraging images in our minds. Look at some of the definitions of vision and hope:

Vision - Hope
A dream - Expect
An idea - Trust
A mental picture - Anticipate
An image - Wish
Visualization - Expectation
A revelation - Anticipation

To have a vision that brings about hope is not a magic formula. But much like optimism, vision and hope improve our mental health and our disposition. For instance, during the economic crisis of late, an idea came to my mind that probably would not have come under my normal work pace and multi-tasking lifestyle. Because there was a little free time and a little less action in my schedule, a great vision came to me, which formed into a great idea which caused me to anticipate how that could grow into implementation steps. This vision, then idea, brought me hope. Hopefulness makes a dreary day into a brighter day! Confidence and anticipation follow
closely behind vision and hope.

Hope is a powerful word and a more powerful thought. Nations and cultures with no hope have greater crime rates, lower economies and measurable unrest and underachievement. Conversely, nations and people with hope seem to overcome crisis after crisis, and change after change. Challenges seem to become incentives for accomplishment when people have hope. Hope never prospers when things are going well. It takes challenge, change and crisis for hope to flourish.

Vision and hope are actionable thoughts that need our attention to become energized. As a coach, I suggest that an on-going action plan helps you to clarify your visions and your hopes. These should be clear, achievable and time bound. Having visions and hopes to work towards brings the energy necessary to overcome the doldrums and the tendency to slide backwards in our development.

This week, attempt to write your vision and hope ideas in a journal or personal development plan. If you do not have a personal vision statement, then maybe start there. Include your long term, intermediate and short term goals that will get you to your vision. If you are not sure how to begin this, enlist an accountability partner or hire a coach.

This is a major excerpt from Dr. Rick Forbus's (Principle at TROVE) article on Vision & Hope.

My thoughts are if you have a vision you do not need a coach to execute it.

Executive Pay for Sustainable Performance

The recent financial crisis has exposed financial services companies that have not effectively managed risk. Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers, three titans that had weathered the Great Depression, World War II, and September 11, could not survive the current economic turbulence. In the aftermath of 2008, survivors must redesign risk management and employee rewards to ensure sustainable performance. Investors will increasingly require that executive pay be tied to sustainable performance measured by economic profit to take account of both total capital deployed and risk.

Despite unprecedented fiscal and monetary interventions by governments and central banks, the global economy remains highly volatile. Uncertainty in markets persists because investor and creditor trust has been breached in a way that has not been experienced in generations. While governments, central banks, and regulators have taken aggressive actions to combat the painful symptoms of 'frozen credit' and 'toxic assets,' they are reactive, insufficient, and have long-term inflationary consequences. Resolution can only occur by addressing the root causes of the breach in trust.

A concentration of risk

Although the current financial crisis may be the broadest and most severe in many years, financial emergencies requiring government intervention have been a pattern in the sector. In the recent past we have seen Russian and Latin American sovereign debt defaults, the reinsurance spiral and Lloyds of London failure, the collapse of Long Term Capital Management (whose principals were supposedly the experts on risk!), and the US savings and loans debacle. The common factor in these crises was the concentration of risk in a few areas that appeared to be producing high returns, without providing adequately for the possibility of a disaster. The concentration of risk often has been disguised by the recycling of the same risks among industry players. Reward programs that pay out a substantial proportion of nominal profits (or even of revenues) have operated to encourage this process, as short-term revenues and nominal profits tend to be highest from the highest risk investments – for so long as the risks do not materialize. Even companies that recognized the risks were afraid to change their reward systems for fear of losing out in the war for talent.

The transparency challenge

Post 2008, investors are demanding from management greater transparency, accountability, and long-term performance sustainability than ever before. But transparency in financial services is a difficult goal to attain. Financial instruments are pioneered daily, and it is difficult to adequately describe the complexities of a single transaction, let alone a diverse global portfolio. The credit default swap market illustrates the problem, as it took the dramatic and sudden decline in the housing market to expose the riskiness of the assets. Timeliness is challenging (as we witnessed in 2008) because asset values change on a tick-by-tick basis. Determining the impact of a single change in the bid/ask spread of a highly leveraged asset can be misleading if not presented with great care. The continuing debate on marking to market centers on this issue, and is further complicated by the significant claims attached to any one asset at any point in time.

Finally, the issue of risk-adjusted performance in financial institutions is difficult since there are three categories of risk in financial institutions – credit, market, and operating risk. While Basel II has provided a useful standard for 'value at risk' and 'risk-adjusted return on risk-adjusted capital,' even the savviest investors can find these calculations difficult to interpret. Furthermore, transparency and timeliness are critical to these measures having any utility at all from an investor perspective. For example, highlighting in the 2009 Bear Stearns annual report that the company was overly leveraged by credit default swaps would not be of much use.

Keeping reward in context

Reward systems have certainly contributed to the problem and need to be radically overhauled. However, changing reward so that executives suffer if there is a financial crisis is not the whole solution. Financial crises are infrequent, so they only affect the executives in place at the time; they are also generally (almost by definition) not anticipated, so the possibility of a collapse tends not to affect executive behavior. Therefore, in addition to changing rewards:

• Financial services companies need to improve their risk assessment and to ensure that they are not betting the company on a single investment or on investments that are likely to be correlated in an economic or financial crisis. Given the long timescales, this has to be a governance and regulatory responsibility, not driven by reward - although part of top executive reward should be for doing this well.



• Companies also need to build up reserves against the inevitable losses from time to time, as insurance companies do. Arguably the excess of the risk-adjusted required return over the risk-free rate is an 'insurance premium' that should be reserved against future losses, not paid out in bonuses (or dividends).

Achieving risk-adjusted reward

Executive rewards must be based on measures of corporate performance that take account of the risks to shareholders' capital inherent in the business strategy. Notwithstanding complexity, investors will no longer be satisfied with the 'too complicated' excuse on risk-adjusted performance management.

Corporate performance must be assessed based on a broad framework of interrelated metrics that influence current expectations. To succeed, the framework must first and foremost be economically sound. The 'performance mathematics' must ensure that as levers are pressed, expected values are achieved and perceptions influenced accordingly. Second, it must be comprehensive and balanced. As Drucker reminded us, 'we manage what we measure.' History is replete with pay-for-performance issues stemming from improvement in 'measured' revenue growth offset by 'non-measured' expansion in assets or risk. And finally, it must be easy to implement. If it cannot be readily understood and tracked by all stakeholders, it will not work.

The two measures that should be used to tie executive pay to performance are total shareholder return (TSR) and economic profit (EP). TSR is the best de facto measure of long-term corporate performance, despite the difficulties of defining a peer group to measure relative performance and the potential impact of short-term price fluctuations.

EP is fundamentally the return on capital deployed net of its risk-adjusted cost. It is an essential measure because it ensures that return is calculated in the context of both the scale of capital deployed and its inherent riskiness. While this is a more complicated calculation for financial services companies since these companies are essentially 'spread' businesses, EP is superior to other metrics like earnings per share (EPS) and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) since these do not consider risk and capital deployed.

However, TSR and EP must be managed through a performance framework. Exhibit I is an illustrative example of a performance management framework that connects TSR and EP with actionable enterprise operating metrics. From a board and investor point of view, the framework provides a holistic approach that enables effective assessment of 'performance' in the context of executive pay.

While this approach is not immune from the aforementioned issues of comparability and complexity, it is a useful paradigm for establishing a standardized approach to performance management. Investors made their voices clear in 2008 and a failure to tackle the problem will no longer be tolerated. The restoration of trust begins with executive pay for sustainable risk-adjusted performance.

Exhibit I. Performance management framework (illustrative above)

HR Friends After You Move Positions

I had a discussion with one of my former bosses the other day and it lead me to write this post on friendship.

We discussed each others current direction, he is a HR EVP for a discount retailer and I am now a full time blogger and Twitter fanatic. He was instrumental in my development from 1999 to 2006 and I can honestly say that I grew dramatically over that period of time due to his mentorship and guidance. Although we did not see eye-to-eye on every subject, policy, or strategy plan he listened and took in all that I was saying. Sometimes he would change his view and sometimes he would be steadfast in his direction. Though all of this we were close friends and each grew from our relationship, knowledge and insight.

What I can say is that there are many friends we establish during our working careers and those that are lasting are those that let a person grow at their own speed and have active listening in the process. Thanks Greg, you are the best.

Can you relate to this type of friendship and can you say that your former bosses are still good friends and still mentors even as you have moved on?

Leadership Skills & Emotional Intelligence

How is emotional intelligence related to the specific behaviors we associate with leadership effectiveness?

Findings: Higher levels of emotional intelligence are associated with better performance in the following areas:

􀂉 Participative Management
􀂉 Putting People at Ease
􀂉 Self-Awareness
􀂉 Balance Between Personal Life and Work
􀂉 Straightforwardness and Composure
􀂉 Building and Mending Relationships
􀂉 Doing Whatever it Takes
􀂉 Decisiveness
􀂉 Confronting Problem Employees
􀂉 Change Management

Participative Management reflects the importance of getting buy-in at the beginning of an initiative. It is an extremely important relationship-building skill in today’s management
climate in which organizations value interdependency within and between groups.

Putting People at Ease gets at the heart of making others relaxed and comfortable in your
presence. From the perspective of direct reports, putting people at ease was related to impulse
control, which is defined as the ability to resist or delay the impulse to act.

Self-Awareness describes those managers who have an accurate understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

Balance Between Personal Life and Work measures the degree to which work and personal
life activities are prioritized so that neither is neglected. High ratings from bosses on these
behaviors were associated with the emotional intelligence measures of social responsibility,
impulse control, and empathy.

Straightforwardness and Composure, which refers to the skill of remaining calm in a crisis and
recovering from mistakes, is related to several emotional intelligence measures. Not
surprisingly, ratings from bosses, peers, and direct reports on this scale are related to impulse
control.

Building and Mending Relationships is the ability to develop and maintain working relationships with various internal and external parties. Ratings from bosses on this scale were
related to only one measure of emotional intelligence: impulse control.

Boss ratings on Doing Whatever It Takes, which has to do with persevering in the face of
obstacles as well as taking charge and standing alone when necessary were related to two of the
emotional intelligence scales: independence and assertiveness. People who are high on
independence tend to be self-reliant and autonomous.

Direct report ratings of Decisiveness are related to assessments of independence. Decisiveness
has to do with a preference for quick and approximate actions over slow and approximate
ones. Independence has to do with the ability to be self-directed and self-controlled in one’s
thinking.

Another interesting relationship has to do with peer ratings of Confronting Problem
Employees, the degree to which a manager acts decisively and fairly when dealing with problem
employees, and the emotional intelligence measure of assertiveness. Assertive people are
able to express their beliefs and feelings in a nondestructive manner.

Change Management is the final Benchmarks scale to be connected with emotional intelligence.
This skill has to do with the effectiveness of the strategies used to facilitate change initiatives.

Conclusions: Leadership abilities vary according to rater perspective and level of emotional
intelligence. In general, co-workers seem to appreciate managers’ abilities to control their
impulses and anger, to withstand adverse events and stressful situations, to be happy with life, and to be a cooperative member of the group. These leaders are more likely to be seen as participative, self-aware, composed, and balanced. Is the need to develop emotional
intelligence abilities related to derailment behaviors? Findings: In his 1998 book, Working With Emotional Intelligence, Donald Goleman suggests that some of the reasons why people derail stem from a lack of emotional intelligence. Our research indicates the absence of emotional
intelligence is related to career derailment. Low emotional intelligence scores are related to:

􀂉 Problems with Interpersonal Relationships
􀂉 Difficulty Changing or Adapting

Ratings on Problems with Interpersonal Relationships from all co-workers—bosses, peers,
and direct reports—were associated with low scores on impulse control.

So what are your thoughts on this provoking subject? Email me at wgstevens2@gmail.com

Innovation as a Weapon in Global Competition

To say the global economic environment is undergoing the most rapid change in the history of business is to state the obvious. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year, you know all about the market blow following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the dot-bomb
phenomenon and the collapse of Enron. To make matters worse, many American companies are increasingly facing resistance -- internal and external -- as they try to expand globally.

These events, combined with an already declining global economy, have left corporate executives on edge. Yes, it’s bad news and it’s depressing. The good news? Everyone’s in the same boat.

But now as before, the fundamentals stand: If you create a business that can adapt quickly and flexibly to the changing economic and cultural landscape, you may have the silver bullet you’re looking for.

A key to achieving this kind of quick response is learning how to inject innovation into decision-making at all levels of the organization. It won’t happen by decree from the
CEO, and I’m afraid there is no shortcut. Real innovation requires broad cultural change based on values, guidelines, and outcome-based measurement systems that give flexibility to all employees while mitigating risk for the business as a whole. Done properly, a company can
stay ahead of the change curve and beat the competition while also easing its move into new markets.

If you aim to achieve and sustain a leadership position in a global marketplace that never sleeps, your company must be a hothouse of creative thinking, flexibility and agility –
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Thanks to Stephen Shapiro for this blog insert.