[Business Statistics Donnelly Pdf 16
Iberio Ralda
In the past the importance of data warehouse and business intelligence systems has continuously increased and the rate of companies using a data warehouse and/or a business intelligence system is rather high (e.g., Watson, Annino, Wixom, Avery, & Rutherford, 2001). An increasing number of case study publications (e.g., Marks & Frolick, 2001; Watson, Wixom, Hoffer, Anderson-Lehman & Reynolds, 2006) and general literature for practitioners (e.g., Humphries, Hawkins, & Dy, 1999) are further indicators showing the ever-growing importance of these systems. On the other hand, publications concerning these system categories in the context of e-HRM, except for short discussions to some isolated topics as online recruiting (Lin & Stasinskaya, 2002), enterprise resource planning (Ashbaugh & Miranda, 2002), or human resource information systems (Kovach, Hughes, Fagan, & Magitti, 2002) are rather scarce. Data warehouse and business intelligence systems are commonly used in sales or marketing departments. In contrast, their use in HR departments is relatively low (Watson et al., 2001). However, the adoption of these systems in the context of e-HRM offers new potentials to the management of human resources. In the following their technical and functional aspects are depicted.
The data warehouse is the core component of the data warehouse system which further consists of several components (see Figure 1): the extraction, transformation, and loading system (ETL-system), the administration system, the archiving system, and the metadata repository.
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP): Refers to the possibilities to consolidate, view, and analyze data according to multiple dimensions. The fast analysis of shared multidimensional information (FASMI) concept characterizes OLAP by means of five attributes.
Data Warehouse: A subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, and nonvolatile collection of data. The data are usually stored in multidimensional cubes, an optimized way to provide data for analyze purposes.
Data Mining: Subsumes a variety of methods to extract unknown patterns out of a large amount of data. Data mining methods originate from the area of machine learning, statistics, and artificial intelligence. The main tasks of data mining are classification, segmentation, and association analysis.
Wal-Mart, Morgan Stanley, Boeing, Texaco, State Farm and Farmers have all been the targets of recent employment practices lawsuits. Wal-Mart was hit with sexual harassment charges. Farmers was sued for wrongful termination. Morgan Stanley and State Farm allegedly engaged in gender discrimination, while Boeing and Texaco have been accused of race discrimination. These high-profile lawsuits have made headlines with their multi-million dollar settlements, but they merely highlight a growing trend of employees suing employers.
The need for employment practices liability insurance is greater than ever before, but many employers do not know that they are at risk. Agents and brokers may not realize that failing to educate a client about this type of insurance may make them more vulnerable from an errors & omissions standpoint. It is in every producer's best interest to understand the risks associated with the EPLI market.
Overall, employment practices claims seem to be increasing in terms of severity but may be decreasing in frequency. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the number of employment practice charges filed with the federal agency is on the decline.
Chris Christian, senior vice president of London American General Agency in San Diego, agreed that the severity of employment claims is on the rise and blamed higher defense costs and larger settlements.
According to Henry Lopez, marketing executive at Deerfield, Ill.-based professional liability wholesaler Shand, Morahan and Co., a division of specialty insurer Markel Corp., plaintiffs recover damages in employment practices cases 75 percent of the time. In 1990, the likelihood of plaintiffs recovering damages in EPL cases was only 35 percent. Donnelly said that this increase can partially be attributed to laws passed in the 1990s, including the Title VII Amendment that allowed jury trials and the recovery of punitive damages in EPL cases.
But Christian said that wrongful termination claims are often accompanied by a discrimination claim. Discrimination is prohibited federally on the basis of age, race, gender, religion, national origin and disability. Among those, race discrimination is the most common allegation, according to EEOC statistics. Racial discrimination charges were filed 36.2 percent of the time in 2000, followed closely by sex discrimination at 31.5 percent.
Other new trends emerging include claims alleging pregnancy discrimination and male on male sexual harassment claims. Galioto said that over the past year, male on male sexual harassment claims rose about 14 percent.
Certain businesses may be more vulnerable to these employment practices claims. Christian said that problems occur when there is a lot of employee turnover and where part-time or transient employees are common, which creates a large potential plaintiff pool. She said that restaurants, auto dealers and construction companies are hard-to-place classes of business.
National Union Fire's Galioto added that most service businesses are particularly vulnerable to an employment practices lawsuit, especially national retail restaurant and fast food chains, because they usually have many employees scattered throughout the country and a young workforce.
Litigation hot spots
There are about 30 or 40 EPL policies out there to protect employers from the wide range of employment practices lawsuits, according to Lopez, and rates may vary by state or region depending on the amount of employment practices litigation.
Christian added that other litigious states besides California include New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Florida, while Clarke cited New York. He said that rates may not always be higher in these litigious states, but there may be stricter underwriting practices in place.
Galioto predicted that there will be even more EPL filings than ever in the coming year. She said that there will be more class action lawsuits involving age discrimination filed and the industry will be closely watching EEOC's recent sexual harassment lawsuit against Wal-Mart.
A potential E&O exposure for agents
More employment practices lawsuits mean that there is an increasing need for agents and brokers to sell EPL coverage to their clients. Producers could even be vulnerable from an errors & omissions standpoint if they fail to suggest this important coverage or do not provide adequate EPL coverage.
Both Donnelly and Christian recommended that agents have proof that they offered EPL coverage to their clients. Donnelly suggested that clients sign a document stating that they have rejected EPL coverage but that the agent did recommend the coverage.
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