These companies are standing their ground
Then we have the other side of the coin, which assumes that businesses will do what’s right, take care of their employees, and value quality above all else. We’ve seen certain companies — also across a myriad of sectors — stick to their guns and not change their hiring standards just because of Obamacare’s looming implementation.
One such company is warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST), which pays reasonably high wages to its workforce and offers health benefits to full- and part-time employees. The PPACA actually fits in perfectly with what Costco has been doing for employees all along. Another prime example, according to The Wall Street Journal, is Marriott International Inc (NYSE:MAR). The hotel business is all about building personal relationships, and Marriott’s management understands that full-time, trained, employees are the key to building rapport and long-term relationships with their guests.
Further supporting these “good guys,” as my Foolish colleague Steve Heller dubbed them in December, is a study from the Minneapolis Fed released last month that showed only 4% of employers had shifted their hiring to more part-time workers in response to Obamacare. Of the remaining 96%, 7% of respondents planned to shift to more part-time hires between now and the PPACA’s implementation, while a whopping 89% claimed to have no intention of changing their hiring strategies in the wake of implementation.
Are we going to become a nation of part-time workers?
I believe the correct answer here to be “definitely maybe.” While I don’t think we’ll see a dramatic shift to part-time employment, I also wouldn’t be shocked to see certain business sectors pull what Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE:RGC) did to its employees, either. The primary criteria that will determine whether a business chooses to scale back hours for its workforce, or seek to hire more part-time employees, will be based on the skill set needed to perform a task, and the importance of the customer relationship derived from those tasks.
Take the fast-food industry, for instance. Fast-food is known for exceptionally high employee turnover and a relatively young work crew. Having a significantly higher amount of part-time hires here would make sense given that a number of employees are likely to still be in some form of school (limiting their hours from the get-go), and few, if any, of the tasks require a degree or high levels of specialization. In addition, the amount spent per meal is negligible enough that fast-food restaurants can rely on promotions and advertising to drive customers back to its stores rather than solely relying on customer service aspects.
Conversely, high-skill-set jobs and those that require employees to build relationships with customers are unlikely to be affected by the implementation of Obamacare. This would mean that the majority of employees in the health-care field would be well-protected from having their hours cut. It would also mean that highly interpersonal sales jobs would be protected as well, because it’s relationships and the customer’s experience that keeps that individual coming back into the store.
What are your thoughts? Will Obamacare cause a dramatic increase in part-time workers or will businesses welcome this change? Share your ideas in the comments section below.
The article Will Obamacare Turn America Into a Nation of Part-Time Workers? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool owns shares of, and recommends Costco. It also owns shares of Darden Restaurants.
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