Rights And OptionsRights And Options

Federal law dictates a level of commitment that employers must show their mobilized reservist staff, but most companies contacted for this story have policies that exceed those requirements.

Congress passed the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act in 1994 to protect the jobs of people who sign up for the National Guard or the reserves. In the broadest sense, the law requires employers to take demobilized reservists back and give them like jobs and resume salary, benefits, and tenure as if the absence had never happened. A Department of Labor primer on the act can be downloaded at www.dol.gov/vets/whatsnew/uguide.pdf.

Many companies, including Circuit City, IBM, Integic, Northrop Grumman, Pfizer, R.R. Donnelly, and U.S. Steel, provide differential pay for staffers who are activated. That means they make up the difference in pay reservists experience when they pick up their first military checks. The period through which companies commit to this differs, mostly depending on their financial wherewithal.

Tom Shelman, CIO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman, says supporting reservists in his department is more of a personal matter than even a corporate mandate. Shelman served in the Air Force and signed up for reservist duty. In fact, he says, he has trained reservists. "After Sept. 11," he says, "I went around to all of the [staff] reservists and thanked them for doing their duty."

Bob Hollingsworth can't say enough about employers such as these. He's executive director of a nonprofit organization called Employers Support for the Guard and Reserve. The mostly volunteer group was formed to help employers deal with the reservist act and to highlight those that it believes do an exemplary job for reservists.

Though extravagant gestures like personally thanking reservist employees are great, Hollingsworth says employers can do a lot just by sitting down with reservists. Talk to them about their job concerns, he says, even before they're notified of activation. Thoroughly explain the company's policies for reservists, he says, and "tell them you support them."

Hollingsworth has advice for when the troops come back, too: "Kill the fatted calf. Celebrate these people."

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