(The Omaha World-Herald posted the following article by Stacie Hamel on its website on July 6.)
OMAHA, Neb. — When Roderick Riley was mulling a Union Pacific job offer, the Houston resident took a look at the railroad’s demographics.
Aging. Overwhelmingly white. Mostly male.
Rather than being turned off by the lack of diversity, Riley, who is black, was attracted by the potential.
The age gap “does create an opportunity for me to get in and move up,” said Riley, who holds a mechanical engineering degree and a master’s in business administration.
Last summer, he took a job as a senior project manager in finance and moved his family to Omaha. When his wife, Alecia Grant-Riley, was ready to go back to work, U.P. hired her, too.
The native Jamaican, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, now is a manager in the car group.
The 140-year-old Union Pacific stands at the brink of change. Nearly 50 percent of its workers could retire within 10 years, and 75 percent are over 40. The work force, including union and nonunion, also is about 95 percent male and more than 75 percent white.
As older workers retire and are replaced by a younger, more diverse work force, the company will evolve as well, changing the face of this Omaha institution.
New workers won’t arrive to find an outdated or poorly run railroad, said Barbara Schaefer, senior vice president of human resources.
“We’re very much a vibrant 21st century company, and I think people will recognize that.”
Jim Dolan, the railroad’s vice chairman, is among those approaching retirement. He plans to leave in just under a year and is certain he will leave a company “as fine as you’re going to get” and one that has made huge technological gains in the last two decades.
“This is a company that has been a Malcolm Baldrige finalist,” Dolan said, referring to the prestigious national quality award in which U.P. was a finalist in 1994, 2001 and 2002. “So it has paid an awful lot of attention to those quality principles, which are going to pay off.”
Dolan and others are turning their attention to finding “the best people possible to replace those of us who are going out.”
That’s important, he said, because it ultimately impacts the company’s day-to-day operations. The better the people, the better the management, and the better the management, the better the operations, Dolan said.
Potential employees might not realize the railroad is “amazingly advanced in terms of technology.”
“We probably have to sell that fact and ourselves to get the people we want,” he said.
Alecia Grant-Riley said U.P.’s technology will continue to advance as new employees bring new ideas, because the railroad constantly researches ways to modernize its systems.
“They’re moving,” she said.
U.P. reached the point of having a large portion of older workers through a series of mergers and the accompanying efforts to avoid job duplication.
For a while, the company didn’t need many new hires, and, in fact, announced 1,000 job cuts this year. The company has a total of about 48,000 workers, with about 43,000 of those in union jobs.
“The net effect is we have a very unusual demographic,” Schaefer said.
The railroad retirement system is regulated by Congress, which lowered the age at which workers can receive full benefits to 60 as of 2002.
The result: “Union Pacific’s work force is barreling toward the age when you would expect them to retire,” she said.
While about 20 percent of the general U.S. work force is ages 20 to 29, only about 6 percent of U.P. workers fall in that age range.
Women make up just 3.2 percent of the company’s union work force. One hurdle is a strength test for those mostly manual labor jobs that require much upper-body strength. Company officials said the requirement results in a safer work force. It recruits women through health publications and in gyms.
Among nonunion, administrative jobs, just under 18 percent are women. Of the 416 highest paid U.P. Railroad employees, 15 percent, or 63, are women.
“By no means are we bragging about these numbers,” said Kathryn Blackwell, general director of corporate communications. “We have a lot more to do.”
The railroad’s most recent college recruiting season brought 33 hires, including 15 women and nine nonwhite employees.
Among nonunion workers, just 12.4 percent – compared to 25.2 percent of union workers – are nonwhite.Increasing diversity will make a difference in the company’s operations, said Dolan, the railroad’s vice chairman. Especially when it comes to customers.
“If you’re going to relate well with other companies, you have to have diversity yourself,” he said. “Other companies are going to relate well to a company that has a diverse, well-educated, well-trained work force. I think that’s particularly true of customers.”
Riley, the newly hired project manager, said the number of nonwhite workers at Union Pacific headquarters gave him only brief pause.
“Of course, you don’t want to go into the workplace and be totally the only one,” he said.
But after visiting Omaha and meeting U.P. employees, he said, he felt comfortable.
When U.P. recruited Riley, he had been at ExxonMobil for a year after finishing his MBA at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Before that, he worked for 41/2 years for United Technologies in West Palm Beach, Fla.
His wife had completed her master’s at the University of Alabama in Tuskegee, then worked for Ford Motor Co.
Neither had considered working for a railroad, even though Riley has been fascinated with model trains, as well as the full-sized versions, since he was a boy.
“Railroading is a hobby for me but as an employer it was almost nonexistent,” he said.
Both said they have found a congenial, relaxed atmosphere at U.P. with less emphasis on formality and chain-of-command than their previous workplaces.
“You find an openness that makes you very comfortable,” Grant-Riley said.
They also were surprised by the company’s benefits, which have expanded to make U.P. a more competitive recruiter.
U.P. compares its benefits to those of 30 other companies, including other transportation companies, major Omaha employers and companies with similar demographics. Money magazine included U.P. on a 2002 best-benefits list.
“We’re probably not the leading edge,” said Schaefer, the human resources executive. “But we call ourselves an early follower.”
In 2001, U.P. also ranked among the 100 best places for working mothers, according to Working Mother magazine. The company didn’t win that recognition in 2002 but hopes to be included this year.
A well-rounded array of benefits is the “ticket to the dance” when recruiting, Schaefer said.
Some of U.P.’s newer or expanded offerings: a soon-to-be-built child care center; domestic-partner benefits; lactation rooms; an on-site fitness center; and flex-time, telecommuting and job-sharing, depending on the position.
Most newer benefits are available to workers in Omaha, and Schaefer said the company looks for ways to offer similar benefits to workers elsewhere, such as paying health club fees.
When Greg Barbe, vice president and general manager of the railroad’s industrial products division, joined the company in 2000, it already “was eager for change.”
The company looks for new ways to do business, to improve productivity and streamline processes, he said. All of which will take good, smart people.
“You can never have too many good people, it doesn’t matter how old they are,” he said. “The more A players that you have, the more successful the business is going to be.”
When he talks to potential employees, he tells them there are opportunities at U.P. because of looming retirements.
Nancy Rase, a senior business manager in marketing and sales, is one of the young managers U.P. sends to recruit on college campuses.
Rase, a six-year employee, said business professors at Creighton University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she received an MBA, used U.P. as an example of quality.
She joined the company’s management-trainee program and was the only woman in a class of six.
The company “is male-dominated, but I haven’t really felt that it has been a disadvantage,” she said. “There was never a doubt in my mind that everything out there was achievable.”
Flexible hours have helped her balance home and work.
Rase, 31, and her husband, Mark, have a 14-month-old son, Drew. She has worked from home when Drew was sick and structures her work day to pick him up from a home day care. Her husband handles drop-off.
“Everyone realizes you have other commitments, and they’ll work with you,” she said.
The Rileys’ 2-year-old daughter, Amira, attends the First National Bank day-care center, which U.P. is sharing until its own center is built nearby. Son R.J., 61/2, also attends summer camp there.
Their previous employers didn’t offer day care.
Being close enough to “run over and take a peek” during lunch time made going back to work easier, Grant-Riley said.
The day-care center is one benefit that Riley said will attract the workers who will bring change and enthusiasm for the company’s technology.
“They’ll start thinking of new ways of running the railroad,” he said. “Bringing things from the outside to a company that used to seem closed will kind of open it up.”