From the Editors - three brief editorials - Brief Article - Editorial

HR Magazine, Sept, 2002

Your view on sept. 11

This summer, HR Magazine editors met to discuss editorial coverage for the September issue. We nailed down most of what you see here in this month's issue--except coverage of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

After much discussion, we decided to ask you, our readers, to express in your own words how Sept. 11, 2001, has affected the workplace--and how you have helped your organizations and employees adapt to the changes. You experienced firsthand how Sept. 11 changed the working world forever. These attacks occurred at the workplace, which is your territory.

We heard from companies that lost employees in the tragedy, such as Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield. We also heard from HR professionals across the country on how their workplaces have changed.

And we heard from Joy Wyatt. She assumed the difficult task of succeeding Alayne Gentul, the former HR director at Fiduciary Trust, who heroically evacuated her employees from the South Tower but was unable to save herself.

We also reached out to security, mental health, travel industry and other experts to give a broad view of how those areas have changed over the past year.

As the nation remembers the horror of that day, know that you are not alone in seeking to bring a sense of security as well as some normalcy to your employees and to yourself. Turn to page 42 to read what your colleagues had to say.

Adrienne Fox

Reshaping 401 (k)s

Behind the headlines about shady accounting practices, corporate collapses and Wall Street turmoil, significant changes are taking place in the use of employer stock for matching employees' 401(k) contributions. Without fanfare, companies have been reducing or eliminating such use of their stock, loosening restrictions on its sale and generally encouraging employees to spread their investment risks by diversifying.

The use of employer stock won't vanish, of course, and some limits on divestiture will remain, as Elayne Robertson Demby explains in "Changing the Recipe of 401(k) Plans," on page 58. But incremental changes are likely to continue, and HR professionals need to be aware of them.

If your company has a 401(k) plan with an employer match, it may be time to examine just how employer contributions are affecting participants' accounts. Is the percentage of employer stock in the plan pushing the limits of investment risk-taking? Should your plan be adjusted? Such questions may be complex and hard to answer, but these days they're too important to ignore.

Terence F. Shea

Roberts Becomes New Contributing Editor

This month HR Magazine welcomes Bill Roberts as our technology contributing editor. Bill has contributed frequent HR Technology columns and occasional technology-related features to the magazine for years. He'll continue those efforts and also will play a greater role in ensuring that our technology coverage remains top notch.

Bill has an impressive resume. He began his career in 1976 and has garnered some incredible credentials--including journalism's highest honor, a Pulitzer Prize--while working as a reporter, editor and editorial executive at newspapers, magazines and wire services. While at Ziff Davis Media Inc., he launched Corporate Computing and was editor of PC Computing.

For a more complete look at Bill's impressive credentials, visit www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/ and click on "Contributing Editors.

Julie Britt