Rapid Change and Prolonged Employment

The volatility of the past year has resulted in a temproarily frozen workforce. Those that have jobs are focused on maintaining them; those without remain largely shut out. Several recent studies I have been involved in all point in the same direction, although from differing perspectives.

The well reported impression that the boomer generation will now be working longer in order to recoup investment/retirement savings losses isn't really the news. Rather in the absence of tools to encourage movement of workers into new roles or into retirement there is little room for adequate internal organizational change to promote innovation and fresh ideas. Tools also need to provide for managed retention capabilities to avoid unplanned departures.

The demise of Defined Benefit plans has left workers and executives to rely primarily on their own savings or equity in the business enterprise - retirement income sources that have been uniformly flattened by the market downturn. The increased public scrutiny and government intervention combined with the need for retirement savings vehicle replacements will drive new approaches to wealth creation for the near term.

New wealth creation vehicles are likely to be less transparent supplemental retirement plans or external market offerings in the form of savings or dividend appreciation plans. As an example I recently had the opportunity to work with a mutual benefit insurer of physicians providing rebate credits into a fund with long-term wealth accumulation capabilities.

Top performers who are frequently the ones left standing after several previous rounds of reductions in force are increasingly losing their engagement with and loyalty to their employers. For employers the challenge will be to find vehicles that promote job flexibility combined with organizational affiliation as the employment markets slowly begin to expand. Merely providing compensation will not be sufficient. Organizational affiliation will be needed to avoid excessive turnover while phased retirement and other forms of job flexibility will be needed to promote proper workforce management.

The Recesssion is Dead. Long Live the Recession.

Ben Bernanke's was quoted yesterday as saying the recession is "very likely over." he went on to say though that the recovery was not likely to yield a rapid return to job growth. Watson Wyatt has been reporting for several months in its ongoing polling of large employers that workforces will be smaller in the future than in the past.

Next week Watson Wyatt will release the 14th Annual Strategic Rewards survey. This survey which I had the pleasure of initiating and leading from 1995 to 2005, is the premier measure of employer attitudes as contrasted with employee attitudes in the U.S. It also is uniquely correlated to business performance metrics in order to identify the people actions that drive business results. The survey this year highlights the impact of the recession and the changes employers are making to address the downturn and the resulting recovery, including:

• Organizational restructuring has been pervasive and deep
  –Many rounds of layoffs have occurred since the downturn began
  –Multiple cost-cutting measures were employed to avoid layoffs and to augment them
• Reward programs have been affected
  –Merit budgets low and incentive funding reduced
  –Benefits reduced
• Plans are in play to begin reversing pay cuts but not benefit cuts
  –Most companies plan to begin within next 12 months
  –Incentive eligibility offsetting pay increases in some instances continues as a trend
• Negative impact on employee engagement has resulted
  –Greatest impact on high performers
  –Retention risks loom as we move toward recovery
• Adverse impacts may be occurring on Quality and Customer Service
  –Employees believe recent changes affecting quality and customer service
  –Employers are not as concerned and believe they can make do with fewer employees

Looking forward as we have often advocated; employers need to focus on sources of productivity especially with reduced workforces. Restoring employee engagement can create a compelling bond and increase productivity. Companies must proactively address employee morale AND productivity.

Recession Aftermath

I recently was interviewed for an article in Smart Business magazine on the changes facing business leaders as we begin the process of recovery and renewal post recession. The link to the article can be found at http://www.rickbeal.net/NCA_Watson_0809final.pdf. Key touch points include increased transparency, enhanced articulation of the employee value proposition and heightened emphasis on risk mitigation.

It's also worth noting that the most recent data I have seen continues to indicate that pay programs will return to a new normal with a healthy incentive component associated with downside protections and risk mitigation. Don't however count on rollbacks of the recent cost shifting in benefits programs. The trend is here to stay.

Finally while the aftermath of employment actions will be felt for years to come, employers are cutting back on their recession-oriented communications. The best advise is to continue with enhanced communications regarding business performance and the link to the employment deal rather than dropping the level of communication. Watson Wyatt's forthcoming 2009/2010 Communications ROI study highlights this trend.

Conventional Wisdom

The long-held conventional wisdom that people won't leave over benefits but they will over compensation appears to be playing itself out in organizational responses in these later stages of the current recession. As the economy turned south the majority of organizations took compensation cash saving actions in the form of layoffs, furloughs and pay decreases along with benefit cash saving actions in the form of higher deductibles, co-pays or out-of-pocket maximums and increased premiums.

As the economy appears to have bottomed out and employer concern shifts to retention of top performing employees the trend is also shifting to returning salaries to levels approximating pre-downturn. In addition the reduced headcount has provided opportunities for expanded roles and responsibilities for high performers as a means of engaging and retaining their services.

Despite these improving trends on the compensation side their appears to be little to no improvement in trend on the benefits side. Many of the cost shifts that occurred recently are likely to be retained. Going forward the employment deal has employees owning a greater proportion of their health care and retirement costs. In order to manage expectations and keep people engaged, a large majority of the participants in a recent Watson Wyatt study inidcated they have significantly increased their communication with associates.

Watson Wyatt bimonthly report on HR trends digs into this reality and tracks the trend over the last 10 months. http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/pdfs/WT-2009-13301.pdf

Merger Announcements

In the course of consulting to clients on their issues with total rewards in a down market and industry consolidation post financial meltdown it has come to pass that Watson Wyatt has announced a proposed merger with Towers Perrin. While consultants frequently handle the high paced analytical and redesign processes associated with restructuring in a merger environment they rarely experience the process of sitting quasi-idly by while a merger occurs “to” them. A number of my clients have justifiably had some fun with the notion of consultants consulting to themselves. As all of us know intuitively the real learning’s that affect associates aren’t in the analytical building blocks of an organization (although critical to be completed correctly) but rather in the internal communications that allow continued focus on clients as the structural transformations take place.

Watson Wyatt’s communication team recently supported a major automaker in their communications as their market fell apart. Leadership communication was deemed critical to keeping the organization focused. Key messages to Leaders were:

• Be a Leader. Leaders don’t have to have all the answers. Tell employees what you know and what you don’t explain the steps the organization is taking to identify and resolve issues. Knowing their leaders are in the lead through uncertain times is crucial to keep employees engaged.
• Show your strengths. Reinforce the core competencies and values that make your organization successful. Talk about how they will help the new organization thrive in the future.
• Be visible. Credibility, conviction and passion are important messages that only actual presence can convey. Employees can benefit from seeing engaged and informed leaders.
• Use your team. Make sure managers who report to you know how and what to communicate, and that no one is a bystander. Limit potential damage from informal, uninformed conversations that are overheard and ripple through every organization.
• Be timely. Employees should hear your perspective and not someone else’s. Encourage employees to visit the approved sources of information often to keep up to date on news and the company’s perspective.
• Share responsibility. Be clear about what you want people to do. People want to help – tell them how. It’s never a bad time to reinforce customer focus.
• Give up the myth of message control. Find ways to listen to what is on employees’ minds. Monitor the press and social media for what is being said about the company and industry. Commit to quickly distributing answers to rumors and clarifying inaccurate statements.
• Be humane. Some employees are also experiencing personal trauma from the changes. Acknowledge it and help them move through it.
  
  As consultants we have spent years saying the most elegant design is wasted if the communication is given short shrift. We now have the opportunity to eat our own cooking and show that it is much better to have an adequate design with great communications in order to drive results.

Post Crash / Pre Recovery

As we approach the dog days of summer the landscape continues to shift underneath and we ask the question what next? When do things return to normal? Our answer a la Gertrude Stein's reference to Oakland is that "...when you get there, there isn't any there there". Returning to normal is no longer possible as few organizations will truly be the same going forward. This includes my own company Watson Wyatt and my prior company Towers Perrin who have recently announced a proposed merger. Today's topic is about the broader external landscape and I will be addressing the process of change from inside a merger in a separate set of posts.

Watson Wyatt's June release of its bimonthly report on the Effect of the Economic Crisis on HR Programs clearly captures the absence of a consistent expectation of a return to normal. Despite showing trends that indicate a bottoming out of the economic cycle and the expectation among many employers of a restoration of salary levels; a number of employers are indicating no expectation of a return. Out of a sample of 179 large U.S. employers:
* 45% don't intend to reverse salary reductions in the next 12 months
* Of those restoring salaries 22% aren't restoring back to the former levels
* More than a third are unsure when they will reinstate 401k matches
* Many are unsure when they will reverse furloughs or hour reductions
* 31% do not know when travel restrictions will be lifted
* Long-term changes are expected to impact staff size, employee age and health care

How we address this new reality will be the key to organization success in the future. A post on the new reality and the topics that Boards and Executives must address now will follow shortly.

The Business Tipping (Pitchfork) Moment

In the past weeks since my post on the Pension Tipping Point, the business landscape has begun to solidify into an overall Business Tipping Point for the future post crash. Today's appointment of a Compensation Czar on top of the recent restructuring of the auto industry are the markers we can use to shine a light on the future. See the attached Wall St. Journal article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124464909136002467.html and there is a similar New York Times article.

About four years ago Ira Kay and I met with the corporate governance leaders and CIOs of the largest holders/managers of US defined contribution and defined benefit assets including CalPERS, Fidelity, TIAA/CREF, Legg Mason and others. The topic I helped broker was a discussion about the importance for corporate boards and their advisers to better manage executive compensation in order to avoid what they perceived as the inevitable day that government would intervene. While we all agreed to disagree on many aspects of the problem, there was no disagreement that we were headed for the "pitchfork moment" as Ira has been quoted on recently.

In the coming weeks I will address some of the key issues as I see them and conclude with an interview in the August issue of Smart Business on this tipping (pitchfork) moment in American capitalism.

The Pension Tipping Point

As we come off the predicted news that the rate of job layoffs is slowing its time to take stock of the near term future. There are many topics from the permanent loss of many job classes due to industry restructuring to the achievement of a zero health care trend even without reform by companies that actively engage their workforce. For retirement the big news is still the old news and that is the convergence of increased reliance on DC plans and the slow demise of DB plans.

The news in the coming months will highlight the sorry state of most DB plans and the need for funding to shore up balance sheets. The result will only increase the pressure on the beleaguered DB plan's ability to act as a management tool and eliminate employers ability to shape the contours of the workforce. The DB plan is much more effective than a DC plan in providing early retirement inducements. Nevertheless as the attached press release demonstrates the DC plan as the sole retirement vehicle is now the majority even among very large employers. Yet if DB plan's assets have been decimated, we are all keenly aware that DC plan assets have been even further weakened resulting in the majority of employees having insufficient resources to retire and employers having less of a stake in their employees retirement futures.

The shape of the future is no longer driven to an outcome but instead adrift in the image of an employee's portfolio. Since this isn't good workforce management it's likely that new workforce management designs will begin to take shape.

Press release on DB plans
http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=21177

Effect of Economic Crisis on HR Programs

Watson Wyatt has just released the April 2009 update of its bimonthly report on the effect of the economic crisis on HR programs. This report provides a real sense of the trajectory of events and the underlying economy before results show up in the lagging government statistics. For example among large employers 72% have already conducted layoffs and only 5% are expecting to impose layoffs in the next 12 months. This is a reversal from October when only 19% of large employers had implemented layoffs and 26% were projecting taking action. The report can be found on the WWW website and a link is provided below. I will highlight other key findings over the next week. You can subscribe to receive these updates through a google reader or other tool on the web by using the RSS button on the right.


http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/pdfs/HR_Programs_April_Report.pdf

The Demise of Gross-Ups

Cari Tuna published an solid article in the April 21 Wall Street Journal on the demise of gross-ups for taxes on perks and golden parachutes. Ira Kay, Watson Wyatt's Global Exec Comp Practice Director, was quoted noting his support for eliminating gross-ups. As Ira has frequently pointed out this is an historic opportunity to eliminate expensive distractions and focus on the core pay for performance mechanisms that drive the US economic engine.

A Non-HR Topic of Interest.

For an interesting discussion on the future of reading and the implications of e-books look to the article entitled "Here comes the E-Book" in the April 20 Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html

Market Pay, Deflation and Total Rewards

As a follow-up to last week’s discussion of the new variability of base pay several interesting points have been raised by the media and colleagues.

• As noted in the media, several states provide a unique program of offsets through unemployment insurance for across-the-board wage reductions. This approach is helpful to employers facing with the challenge of maintaining critical talent needed for an improving market and reduces state expenditures on unemployment. The long-term economic risk associated with base pay reductions lies in the creation of a deflationary spiral that could drag on the consumer side for the long-term. The HR implications are nothing short of the demise of the salaried employment model.


• Colleagues have also suggested and I believe rightly so that the “standard 3% on a contribution of 6%” 401k match will henceforth be consistently tied to organizational ability to pay in the form of adequate profitability. The goal of introducing the match initially was to encourage participation and insure an orderly growth in retirement assets that would be a floor for workforce planning. The profitability limitation reinforces the concept of all compensation as variable based on ability to pay and reintroduces a notion of profit sharing that has been fading from the lexicon of compensation design.


• Finally on health care benefits the issue has irrevocably moved to transferring costs and accountability to employees. Employers are increasingly willing to differentiate between employees based on health risk and explicitly limit participation in subsidized health benefits to employees willing to invest in wellness.

The New Variable Pay

Recent inquiries I have field from the media - print, radio and television - have been focused on changes employers are making to weather the economic storm. Fortunately Watson Wyatt is a research rich environment and has been conducting a bi-monthly flash survey that is capturing the curve of changes in this challenging environment. The link to the February press release is http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20684.

The short story is that companies are managing as rationally as possible. I have been counseling employers since last summer to be very careful about making significant reductions in force and about communicating and managing the survivor needs if a reduction is implemented. The data to date seems to indicate that among large employers the sizable reductions have already been completed and that cost saving actions are now taking the form of reductions in other people related expenses.

Why is this rational? Cuts were made early and quickly to adjust to falling demand with the largest cuts occurring in industries tied to consumer demand and of course to financial services and among contingent labor pools.

Why are substantial further cuts less likely? The last recovery cycle from 2002 to 2005 was referred to as the jobless recovery. Companies grew revenues from 2002 to 2008 based on increases in productivity with revenues per employee rising substantially over the past. Headcount management continued and contingent labor and consultants were often used to supplement internal staff and to implement significant initiatives.

So there really isn't really much in the way of further headcount cost savings to achieve before employers damage their ability to function. What's left are opportunities to reduce other people related costs such as 401k contributions, training and tuition reimbursements along with freezing salaries and shrinking bonuses.

In other words reducing the components of total rewards that are variable. The area that is relatively new to the variable equation is fixed cost base pay or salaries. This was previously considered a fixed cost. Now salaries are on the table with many employers going beyond simple pay freezes to actual base pay reductions. The current working assumption is that once the economy recovers these items will be returned to their previous levels but that is by no means a given.

The Intersection of Politics and Business

The level of shock and pain experienced by the public during the recent downturn has led to a political environment that is unwilling to defend valid business actions. The desire to find someone to punish for the downturn has led to actions that are threatening the rule of law.

The recent attempts to punish AIG and its execs as an egregious example of pay for failure, misses the point that the retention contracts (however large and misguided) are rational business practices and contractually valid methods of securing the continuing services of key staff during the wind down of a business. If these staff were not retained the likely result would have been even greater losses as the business was unwound.

The carryover political fallout has others reviewing their incentive plans and compensation designs with an eye focused primarily on the political optics rather than the business purpose. Questions are arising whether Boards' should exercise their discretion to reduce payouts that would otherwise occur based on superior relative performance.

Its always been politically difficult to payout incentives when the performance is based on mitigating losses relative to peers rather than solely on making money, but it is precisely this protection on the downside that requires the most foresight and talent. While it would certainly have been preferable in the first instance to have introduced risk mitigating incentives into plan designs, choosing to reduce or eliminate incentives that mitigate risk through retention of key staff or awards for superior relative performance leads in the wrong direction.

A further concern is that these actions create an environment in which valid contracts are not honored thereby denigrating the rule of law. The congressional passage of an after the fact tax aimed at contractually valid bonuses further subverts the basic foundations of business.

Focus on Today or Tomorrow?

Despite the distracting global economic woes and the sideshow in Washington and on Wall Street, most of the inquiries I am receiving are from business colleagues who are focusing on basic day to day challenges and the occasional merger or spin-out. Reduced staffing levels and desire to provide immediate value are focusing attention primarily on short and mid-term questions. I am not hearing as much long-term and that I think reflects the state of the economy. So what am I hearing and what isn't being asked?

On the short-term side the questions are:

• How do I cut costs without cutting people?


• Should I use furloughs or salary reductions?


• Should I assume I won't pay bonuses this year?


• Should I cut all at once and hope that it will be sufficient or should I engage in a pattern of small cuts that eventually becomes a way of doing business where I am regularly taking out the lowest performers?


• How can I reduce health care spending now?


• What is the right severance plan today and what are the optics?


• How do the reduced costs of housing and fuel allow me to relocate or lock in people that I need?


• What are the compliance impacts of the regulatory changes that are occurring?

On the mid-term side the questions are:

• Can we change our business model to provide services more efficiently?


• Can we afford an investment in technology today that will provide a quick return within 18 months?


• How can I quickly get more productivity out of a shrinking workforce?


• What is the right revenue per employee number and how does that effect my staffing needs and cost reduction plans?


• How can I keep people engaged in the right behaviors to drive productivity and performance?

From a small number of forward thinking organizations I am hearing questions about the long-term strategic shifts that the future will bring.

• What is our people strategy? Should we revamp our long-term thinking based on current realities. What is the future going to be like? Is this a fundamental restructuring of the business landscape such that we will no longer be in some businesses and therefore won't need the types of workers we employed previously?


• How does this economy impact our workforce planning scenarios? Should we assume that boomers will all defer retirement? What are the career implications for our younger mid-level talent? What are their prospects for promotion and career development? What is the risk of unexpected turnover as a result once the economy rebounds?


• Should we investment in systems changes today that will position us to operate with a different customer service model in the future?


• Should we be doing scenario planning for our business models and human capital needs much as we would for our financial and physical assets? Does scenario planning have any useful shelf life?

Given these unasked questions, can we afford to stay focused on the day-today demands of our jobs or does our viability depend more on our ability to address the needs of tomorrow?

Communication and Engagement

We have heard the refrain from money mangers that the stock market leads the economy by 6 to 12 months. A turnaround in business will be preceded by significant upward market movements. The absence of such movements suggests that a recovery is at best likely to occur at the end of calendar 2009. Employers heading into budget planning for calendar or fiscal 2010 are likely to be looking past significant additional headcount reductions to other means of cost management designed to position them for recovery and future success.

A recent Watson Wyatt survey of 245 large US-based companies attracted attention recently by reporting that despite 61% of participants thinking a recession would continue for the balance of this calendar year, the number of companies planning future headcount reductions dropped to 13 percent (fully 10 percentage points below the number predicting cuts in December). In part this reflects the quick triggers of managers in reducing headcount (especially variable headcount) along with the limited availability of excess staff to reduce.

Instead managers are actively looking at reducing costs including salaries, raises, incentive pool funding, retirement contributions and working hours. In addition the pressure to transfer increasing health care costs to employees is significant and will doubtless play a role in the President Obama's health care debate.

The challenge with any of these actions is to find a way to implement the cost reductions while insuring continued engagement of employees. Employers who oversee an engaged workforce are much more likely to emerge in a strong competitive position. The efforts being made across the board to hold onto critical talent speaks volumes about the degree to which employers now understand that their human assets are their most important assets.

Unfortunately too few employers have translated their understanding into communications that have an impact on engagement. Often as not employees are heard to say we will accept these cuts because we feel lucky to have a job rather than identifying how the cuts and their job performance tie to the success of their companies. This lack of connection not only makes them vulnerable to poaching when the turnaround begins but also highlights the missed opportunity associated with a lack of appreciation of the drivers of economic performance for their employer and themselves.

Now is the time to begin communicating and educating employees on the key drivers of business success and how they play a role in guaranteeing company performance and their own future. Communication provides an opportunity to make the link explicit and to derive the rewards from the enhanced line of sight.

Skills vs Training the Path Forward

An interesting New York Times article today addressing the downturn in admissions to and matriculations from liberal arts based college programs raised several important questions that impact hiring managers. Are nonspecific educational programs that emphasize critical thinking, information synthesis and historical context relevant in an increasingly technological and regulatory compliance-oriented buisness environment? What would you prefer to hire as an analsyt working for you - a techician with deep training or a smart critical thinker? These questions are especially important for managers trying to position their organizations for success in and after a downturn.

It is inevitable that students will gravitate, especially during a downturn, toward degrees that give them a leg up in the hiring process. Students will also follow the money, which has been flowing away from Wall Street recently, toward more stable career choices.

Even in a seemingly broad-based and non-technical field like human resources management; we have seen the emergence of certification programs designed to train new entrants into the field along with the continuing importance and strength of continuing professional education. If presented with two candidates one with a certificate and one without, most managers are likely to go with the certificated hire. Notwithstanding the pre-hire training aspects, the true value of the certificate may lie in the indication that the candidate is truly interested in the area of work and willing to make a longer term commitment to learning and development. The certificate highlights not the end of the learning journey but simply the beginning.

If carried to its logical extension the programs could yield a workforce that is too narrowly trained and not capable of conducting the broader and more challenging synthesis across disciplines that yields innovation in development and in problem solving. As we conduct opportunity hires and reduce existing headcount the challenge will be to avoid purging the exact but elusive qualities we will need to successfully meet the challenge of the future.

Furloughs and Pay Cuts

As the financial strains stretches on employers are increasingly taking action to save cash. Many have chosen to cut headcount early and often, this is especially so in the service industries. Others who were not dependent on large numbers of people to fuel their growth out of the last downturn had contributed to what was then referred to as the jobless recovery. The result is an inability to reduce headcount enough to achieve profitability without severely injuring the fabric of the organization and hindering recovery.

So what to do? Current practices have focused on freezing and reducing salaries across the board starting at the top to reducing the number of days worked (furloughs). Reducing salaries can work for the short run as long as senior management is seen to be sharing the pain in the form of larger percentage cuts and no bonuses.

Furloughs have been used frequently in manufacturing environments including high tech for years (think the last two weeks of the calendar year). They are now being actively used in government and other entities (especially unionized) where it is difficult to implement headcount reductions or changes to the pay system.

The challenge to both approaches is to identify an exit strategy. The strategy needs to go beyond when to reinstate but how to do so. Early communication of the exit plan will go a long way to improve morale and drive performance.

Discipline and Process

The key elements to consistency are discipline and process. Process provides a framework and discipline provides the follow through. Consistency, as I am acutely aware, as a new blog author is a significant part of the formula for success in writing a blog. Consistency is also a significant part of the formula for avoiding issues that might be identified as "unnecessary or excessive risk taking." These terms as applied to a certification requirement for participants in the TARP capital infusion program aren't defined. HR, legal and risk managers have little choice but do craft a rational process from whole cloth that will provide a basis for certification. The first step is to establish a disciplined process for review of the incentive program to insure that intended or unintended consequences are not excessively risky.

The old adage in incentive design "be careful what you ask for because with incentives driving behavior you will get it"; now carries the risk of noncompliance with a federal mandate associated with use of government funds. This small wake up call is a good reminder about the importance of process and identification of risk potential in incentive design whether or not TARP funding is involved.

Relying on competitive information about program design won't be sufficient. A process needs to be in place that includes a disciplined review and documentation of an analysis of the rationale for the program design. Anticipated outcomes and risk mitigation factors should be clearly identified. The challenge as always will be one of balance - sufficient incentive to promote entrepreneurial risk taking moderated by incentives designed to protect shareholders and the enterprise from significant negative consequences. After all that is exactly what shareholders are expecting of management.

Welcome to 2009

The beginning of the new year is often followed by a review of the past and a projection of good intentions (less committed than resolutions) for the coming year. Almost everyone I have spoken to recently would rather forget 2008. However failure to learn from history dooms us to repeating it. A bit like Ground Hog Day.

We should by now be able to recognize:
- market bubbles and gold rushes
- the value of regular pruning of both our portfolios and our staffing
- the need to balance hesitation with action as the foundation to good management
- the importance of being hard on issues but soft on people if we want to retain our best talent
- the ongoing importance of ethics, governance and operating excellence
- the value of showing up and doing a good job
- the value of diversification even when it simply mitigates losses
- and oh yes the value of risk management.

Not withstanding these cautionary intentions we need to relentlessly focus on:
- our customers, clients and relationships
- innovating as the means to achieving highest form of competitive advantage
- building trust and mutual respect between teams and with clients
- taking personal risks to achieve long term goals
- fearing lack of success more than risk of failure.

With these intentions as a backdrop as I learned in college there is always Hope.