Month: March 2019

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday defended a proposal to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics, pushing back against a storm of criticism from athletes, celebrities and politicians who rallied to support the organization.

DeVos became a target on social media after Democrats slammed her plan to remove the group’s funding as part of nearly $7 billion in budget cuts for next year. The Special Olympics received $17.6 million from the Education Department this year, roughly 10 percent of its overall revenue.

In a statement responding to criticism, DeVos said she “loves” the organization’s work and has “personally supported its mission.” But she also noted that it’s a private nonprofit that raises $100 million a year on its own. Ultimately, she argued, her agency can’t afford to continue backing it.

“There are dozens of worthy nonprofits that support students and adults with disabilities that don’t get a dime of federal grant money,” she said. “Given our current budget realities, the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations.”

Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver on Wednesday pushed back against the proposed cut.

“This is not the old Special Olympics, it’s not my mom’s Special Olympics in some ways,” he said on MSNBC. “This is a new Special Olympics. We are actively engaged in the educational purposes that the country has articulated at the federal level.”

In a statement posted Wednesday night on its website, the organization called on “federal, state and local governments to join Special Olympics in remaining vigilant against any erosion of provisions that have made a substantial difference in the lives of people with [intellectual disabilities].”

The statement added, “U.S. Government funding for our education programming is critical to protecting and increasing access to services for people with intellectual disabilities.”

The Trump administration tried to eliminate Special Olympics funding in its previous budget proposal, too, but Congress ultimately increased funding for the group. Lawmakers indicated that the latest attempt will also fail.

“Our Department of Education appropriations bill will not cut funding for the program,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate subcommittee over the education budget. Blunt said he’s a “longtime supporter” of the group and recently attended its World Games.

DeVos is expected to present her budget to Blunt’s panel Thursday, just days after being grilled over it in the House. Democrats on a House subcommittee asked DeVos how she could cut Special Olympics funding while calling for a $60 million increase in charter school funding.”

Once again, I still can’t understand why you would go after disabled children in your budget. You’ve zeroed that out. It’s appalling,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said at the hearing.

DeVos told the panel that her department “had to make some difficult decisions,” adding that the Special Olympics is best supported by philanthropy.

Following the hearing, Twitter was alight with comments from parents, advocates and celebrities who slammed DeVos and urged her to rethink the proposal.

Joe Haden, who plays for the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers and works as an ambassador for the Special Olympics, said he was sickened by the cut. “This is so wrong on so many Levels!” he said on Twitter.

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, called the proposal outrageous. Kasich, who also represented Ohio in the U.S. House, said that when he was on the budget committee, “these types of programs were off limits — for good reason.”

Others opposing DeVos included Julie Foudy , former captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team, and actress Marlee Matlin , who said the benefits of the Special Olympics are “immeasurable.”

Some Special Olympics athletes joined in to support the group, including Derek “Tank” Schottle, who posted a video that had been viewed more than 140,000 times by Wednesday.

“Win or lose, we’re all winners in our hearts,” he said. “What warms peoples’ hearts is we’re all humans, just like everybody else.”

The Special Olympics’ 2017 annual report, the latest available on its website, says the group received a total of $148 million in revenue that year, including $15.5 million from federal grants.

More than three quarters of the group’s revenue comes from individual and corporate contributions and other fundraising efforts.

DeVos’ budget places the Special Olympics funding among 29 programs up for elimination in 2020, arguing that they have achieved their purpose or that they are ineffective, don’t meet national needs or are better funded from other sources.

The proposal separately calls for $13.2 billion in federal grants awarded to states for special education, the same amount that was given this year.

In her statement, DeVos said it was “shameful” that the media and members of Congress “spun up falsehoods and fully misrepresented the facts.” She drew attention to the $13.2 billion in state grants, along with an additional $226 million for grants supporting teacher training and research to help students with disabilities.

“Make no mistake,” she added, “we are focused every day on raising expectations and improving outcomes for infants and toddlers, children and youth with disabilities, and are committed to confronting and addressing anything that stands in the way of their success.”

This isn’t the first time DeVos has run afoul of disability rights advocates.

Some were stunned by a 2017 Senate hearing in which DeVos, while being questioned about a federal law supporting students with disabilities, said it was “a matter that is best left to the states.” When asked if she was familiar with the federal law, she said she “may have confused it.”

DeVos again roiled advocates last December when she rescinded Obama-era guidance meant to protect racial minorities and students with disabilities from unwarranted discipline. In making the decision, DeVos said discipline decisions should be left to teachers and schools.
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President Donald Trump says the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice will review the case of Jussie Smollett, after Chicago police dropped charges against the television actor who was accused of falsely reporting being a target of a hate crime.

Writing on Twitter, Trump called the case “outrageous” and an “embarrassment to our Nation.” So far there has been no statement from the FBI or Justice Department on the matter.

Smollett’s attorneys announced Tuesday their client’s record had been “wiped clean.

A spokeswoman for the Cook Country prosecutor’s office said “After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case.” She added that Smollett will forfeit a $10,000 bond payment.

But Chicago police as well as mayor Rahm Emanuel have spoken out angrily about the development. “This is without a doubt a whitewash of justice,” Emanuel said, complaining that the grand jury in the case heard “only a sliver” of the evidence.

Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson said, “”Do I think justice was served? No. What do I think justice is? I think this city is still owed an apology.”

Smollett, who is black and gay, responded publicly to the decision, thanking family, friends, and fans who supported him and vowing, “I have been truthful and consistent on every level since day one. I would not be my mother’s son if I was capable of one drop of what I have been accused of.”

Smollett reported in January that he had been sent a threatening letter and was then attacked on the street by two men he didn’t know who wrapped a rope around his neck and attempted to pour bleach on him while yelling racial and homophobic slurs. He also said they yelled, “this is MAGA country,” referring to President Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Police later said that Smollett had staged the attack himself, paying two physical trainers $3,500 to carry it out.

Smollett plays a gay character on the television show “Empire,” which is filmed in Chicago.
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So far this year, more than 300 people have contracted measles in 15 states in the U.S. Almost half of those cases occurred in Rockland County, just north of New York City. 

Because of the outbreak, which has lasted nearly six months, county officials have declared a state of emergency and are banning anyone who is unvaccinated from frequenting public places.

“Anyone who is under 18 years of age and is not vaccinated against the measles will be prohibited from public places until the declaration expires in 30 days or until they receive their first shot of MMR,” said Ed Day, county executive.

WATCH: New York County Declares Emergency Over Measles

Public places include shopping malls, restaurants, buses and trains. Police will not be asking for vaccination records, but parents can face a fine of $500 and as much as six months in jail if they refuse to vaccinate their children.

The outbreak is concentrated in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

‘Roll of the dice’

The county executive says it is a matter of getting parents to understand how dangerous measles is.

“Every new case is a roll of the dice,” Day said. “It could bring on pneumonia, encephalitis, the swelling of the brain, or cause premature birth, which can lead to complications and even death.”

And, he said, it’s a matter of keeping those who can’t get vaccinated safe.

“What about the infants who are out there with mom and dad? My newborn grandson is an infant. What about those who are pregnant and those with compromised immune systems like cancer patients and survivors? These are the people we all need to step up for,” Day said.

Vaccine rates vary

Vaccine rates in the U.S. are still high. A CDC study found that 94 percent of children in the U.S. receive the first dose of vaccines that protect against measles, mumps, rubella and other vaccine preventable diseases.

But vaccines that require boosters, including the vaccine against measles, had lower rates of coverage.

Some states allow parents who oppose vaccinating their children for religious or philosophical reasons to opt out. Vaccination rates in these states have dropped steadily. And as they have dropped, cases of measles have increased.

Vaccines proven safe

Some parents wrongly believe vaccines can cause autism in children. Study after study has shown that not to be true. Dr. Frank Esper, a pediatrician with the Cleveland Clinic, defends vaccinating children.

“These vaccines are well shown to be safe,” he said. “We have tested them. We have followed children who have received these vaccines. We know how safe they are.”

Still, some parents remain unconvinced. Rockland County is offering free measles vaccinations in an effort to end the outbreak.
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An Eastern man and a Western woman make up one of the most unusual musical groups in Washington, D.C. 

Masood Omari and Abigail Adams Greenway both play tabla, an Eastern percussion instrument, every day in Greenway’s basement outside Washington. They call this colorfully decorated studio, Tablasphere. And they call themselves Tabla for Two.

Omari introduces the instrument: “This is a goat skin and the middle part, the black here, is burnt steel, coming from the steel powder and pasted with a strong glue and put in the center. It makes a cosmic sound, you can see?”

To Greenway, every note that emerges from the tabla is a “prayer.”

“It’s mathematically perfect and very meditative,” she adds.

What is unusual is that she and Omari both play the tabla together, giving them a modern sound.

The duo plays three different kinds of music, much of which can be heard on YouTube. The first two are classical music and traditional music of Afghanistan and India. The third:

“We play new music for the New World, we call it. It’s our signature music and it is composed by Masood. It’s for two tabla players,” Greenway explains.

Greenway

Greenway grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, a manufacturing city steeped in U.S. history. Her first two names hark back to the wife of America’s second president, Abigail Adams.

“I grew up listening to classical music and American Jazz,” Greenway says. “My father was a classical violinist.”

A visual artist, Greenway moved a long way from all that when she embraced Afghan music and musical instruments. 

She first became intrigued when she was introduced to the music of India. “I heard the music and I just said this is the most amazing instrument I’ve ever heard, the tabla,” she said, adding, “They say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

The pair met eight years ago in an Afghan antique and textile shop in Washington.

​“I realized that he was this amazing tabla player and I asked for lessons. I didn’t know at the time where this was going. All I knew is that I had a huge desire and a force pushing me to learn to play the instrument.” 

“When I saw her first time Abigail, she doesn’t (didn’t) understand the language of Afghanistan. (But) she understand (understood) the beat and melody, and she was very exciting (excited) to learn. She learned quickly.”

Omari

Omari fled Afghanistan when he was 15 and resettled in Islamabad. There, he studied tabla for 10 years and received his mastership before coming to the U.S. in 2002.

 “What’s really extraordinary is that Masood is singing and playing tabla at the same time,” Greenway says about her teacher. “That is exciting.”

Greenway has learned to play harmonium, also known as a pump organ, from Omari.

And here, she earns his praise: “Abigail is playing harmonium in a style no one can play like her. She is playing with her fingers. She is playing very soft, graceful and gentle.”

After devoting years to intense study and practice, the duo formed Tabla for Two. They play at embassies, museums, universities and at the Tablasphere for special invited guests.

Ambassadors

If Greenway worried about acceptance as a woman playing Afghan music, she discovered differently.

“I am clearly an American female and I am playing their music. It’s a coming together of cultures,” she says. “When I play this music they are accepting me, the Afghan people are accepting me.”

This makes Greenway feel “like an ambassador,” which is something of Omari’s philosophy as well.

“I believe that I have an important role playing and preserving the music of my country, Afghanistan and sharing it with the world,” he says.

 “It’s just the beginning. I’ve just started learning about a place that I knew nothing about that has been so ravaged,” Greenway enthuses. 

“And I’m thrilled to show Afghanistan in a positive, beautiful light.”
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Health care has re-emerged as a major focus of U.S. political parties with the Trump administration advocating striking down the entire Affordable Care Act and Democrats introducing legislation to strengthen the law that has been in place since 2010.

The Justice Department on Monday backed a federal court ruling declaring the entire ACA unconstitutional on the basis that without the fines for not having health insurance, which a Republican-led Congress passed last year, the mandate for having coverage should not be allowed.

That went against the administration’s earlier position that while some parts of the ACA should be struck down, not all of it should be thrown out.

Trump told reporters Tuesday he wanted alternatives to the law, which was one of the chief policies enacted under his predecessor Barack Obama.

“The Republican Party will become ‘The Party of Healthcare!'” he wrote on Twitter.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled his party is happy to take on the issue, especially following the end of the special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. Schumer said issues such as healthcare and climate change are much more important to voters.

The issue was a key part of the party’s 2018 congressional election strategy, which put Democrats back in control of the House of Representatives.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled Democratic proposals she says would improve upon the existing law, while accusing Republicans of working only to “destroy the affordable health care of America’s families.”

The legislation would seek to make health insurance plans more affordable by boosting subsidies to lower-income households, provide more protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and boost outreach and enrollment efforts to help people better understand what insurance options exist for them.

The legal battle over the existing law could end up at the Supreme Court, which previously upheld the individual mandate with its financial penalties as a legal tax Congress was allowed to impose. The five justices in the majority on that case remain on the court.
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Spain is seeking the extradition of as many as 10 people from the United States who burst into the North Korean embassy in Madrid last month and tried to pass stolen information to the FBI.

A Spanish judge said he believes all 10 fled to the United States after the February 22 raid. He called them members of a criminal organization and accuses them of trespassing, burglary, assault, and threats. If extradited and convicted, those found guilty could face nearly 30 years in prison.

The suspects call themselves Cheollima Civil Defense and describe the group as a human rights movement working to liberate North Korea. On its website, the organization classified its Madrid action as a response to an “urgent situation.”

“We were invited into the embassy, and contrary to reports, no one was gagged or beaten. Out of respect for the host nation of Spain, no weapons were used. All occupants in the embassy were treated with dignity and necessary caution,” the group said without providing evidence.

The group’s origin remains largely a mystery, but first came to prominence following the death of Kim Jong Un’s half brother, Kim Jong Nam. Cheollima posted a video of a young man claiming to be Kim Jong Nam’s son, Kim Han Sol.

Whatever information was collected, the group allegedly then turned it over to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“This information was shared voluntarily and on their request, not our own,” the Cheollima statement read.

An FBI statement neither confirmed nor denied the existence of an investigation in the matter, but noted it had a good working relationship with Spanish law enforcement.

On Tuesday, the State Department’s deputy spokesperson said Washington was not involved with the incident and “would always call for the protection of embassies belonging to any diplomatic mission throughout the world.”

As stories of the raid began appearing in media outlets across the globe, speculation arose over who may have coordinated the raid and if a foreign government played any role.

According to Cheollima, “There were no other governments involved with or aware of our activity until after the event.”

Seoul’s unification ministry said it had no information on the incident and could not confirm or provide any details about the February 22 event.

A goal for a free North Korea

On March 1, the 100th anniversary of the Korean independence movement, Cheollima Civil Defense released a statement on its website, declaring itself “Free Joseon.”

“WE DECLARE ON THIS DAY the establishment of Free Joseon, a provisional government preparing the foundations for a future nation built upon respect for principles of human rights and humanitarianism, holding sacred a manifest dignity for every woman, man, and child,” the website read. 

The statement went on to add, “We declare this entity the sole legitimate representative of the Korean people of the north.”

“We rise against the criminal incumbents of the north, who have perpetuated vast crimes against humanity for decades. We dedicate ourselves completely to the abolition of this great evil, a stain on the very soul of humanity,” the organizations’ website said.

In its declaration, Cheollima called on like-minded individuals to “join our revolution” and those in North Korea to “defy your oppressors.”

It also offered a warning to those engaging with Pyongyang, “To those who would continue to legitimize and empower this regime: History will remember where you stood when you were offered this choice.”

Shrouded in mystery

After Cheollima posted the video of Kim Han Sol, there’s been significant interest in determining who the group’s members are. Domestic and international journalists have repeatedly made inquiries, but they have gone unanswered. 

The group explains, “Even beyond its borders, it (North Korea) will use assassinations, terrorism, and even weapons of mass destruction, to destroy any who might oppose or challenge their monopoly on power. We respectfully and sincerely ask that you do not enable or make it easier for the regime’s death squads, who have already committed and continue to commit countless crimes against humanity, to threaten or harm our members and their families,” the group said in a statement on its website. 

The statement added, “The identification of even a single member could lead to the identities of others. Several of us have already escaped their attempts on our lives and that of our families. Many of our compatriots and their relatives have not been as fortunate. And any left surviving in concentration camps would surely face execution if the identities of their family members as dissidents were made known.”

While the group is distancing itself from the media at this juncture, it also says it wants to have a “positive partnership with the media” and will do so when it feels safe.
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Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg is riding in the back of a rented minivan to his last event of the day in South Carolina, munching on cold french fries and critiquing his stage performance so far.

The enthusiastic crowds of hundreds who’ve packed his first two stops have been much larger than the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and his team expected. It’s “wonderful,” he says, but the cheering and prolonged applause are messing with his delivery. Sometimes he neglects to pause, and his next words are drowned out. Other times people start clapping when he doesn’t expect it.

“I need to relearn the timing of my stump speech,” Buttigieg says. “I’ve been used to a format where I go in, there’s 50 people, I do my little spiel and then we have some Q&A and hopefully they walk away impressed. Now every one of these things we put on the calendar as a meet and greet is turning out to be a rally.”

Buttigieg, a veteran and Rhodes scholar, was the longest of long shots when he announced a presidential exploratory committee in January. No mayor has ever been elected president, much less one from a community of roughly 100,000 people in the middle of America, and Buttigieg is barely old enough to be eligible for the job.

But his underdog bid is gaining momentum, and the clean-cut guy known to most people as “Mayor Pete” can feel it. Now he has to figure out how to turn one of the first surprises of the nascent race for the Democratic nomination into a full-fledged presidential campaign — and one that isn’t remembered as a mere quirk.

“The buzz helps,” Buttigieg says. “But you want to make sure that you have enough substance and enough organization that any kind of flavor-of-the-month period is something you can outlive.”

Besides the crowds and the cheering, Buttigieg has seen increasing national media attention, from Fox News to MSNBC and his second appearance on ABC’s “The View.” After a breakout performance in a CNN town hall earlier this month, Buttigieg’s team says he raised roughly $600,000 from 22,000 donors in just over 24 hours. He has now received enough individual contributions to qualify for a spot on the Democratic debate stage this summer.

But there’s still plenty of work to do, starting with raising money and hiring staff. Buttigieg said his goal early on was to raise $1 million by the end of the first quarter on March 31, adding, “We’re definitely there.” He’s fairly confident they’ll have the funds needed for a healthy operation, at least in the early stages. But he also wants to “show well” when all candidates’ first-quarter totals become public — the first time this cycle that campaigns are required to file campaign finance reports.

“I think we benefit from the fact that it’s graded on a curve,” Buttigieg said. “No one is expecting us to raise as though I were a senator from Florida or from a big city. But we’ve got to show that we can compete at this level.”

Buttigieg also plans to double the size of his roughly 20-person team in the new few weeks, in preparation for an official campaign launch. He doesn’t have an advance team – those campaign staffers who coordinate events on-site before the candidate arrives, hang campaign signs and ensure someone is capturing emails and phone numbers for every person who walks in the door.

Volunteers and local Democratic officials handled most of those duties during Buttigieg’s swing Saturday through South Carolina, site of the South’s first primary. Instead of professionally printed banners, someone hung poster boards with messages handwritten in black marker urging attendees to tweet photos and video using several different hashtags and Twitter handles. When Buttigieg took questions from the crowd in Rock Hill, there were no microphones for people in the audience, forcing him to ask a woman at the back of the gymnasium to shout her question — twice — so he could hear.

None of that seemed to bother voters. After his event in Columbia, Christina Goodwin, 32, called Buttigieg “exciting” and said he’d moved into her top three list, along with Sens. Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, despite her misgivings about supporting another white man for president in 2020.

Goodwin, like other voters, said she’s been picking up bits of intriguing information about Buttigieg through social media that have piqued her interest. That he learned to speak Norwegian, for instance, so he could read more books by a Norwegian author, Erlend Loe. Buttigieg, who speaks seven languages, demonstrated some of his language skills when a Norwegian media crew showed up to ask questions after the Columbia event. (He also speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Dari and Maltese, the language of his father’s home country.)

Buttigieg also plays piano and has been known to join local performers on stage in South Bend — video of which sometimes pops up on social media. When he was applying to his alma mater, Harvard, he won the Profiles in Courage essay contest with a piece about an independent then-congressman from Vermont whom he admired: Bernie Sanders. They would speak years later, when the senator called in 2017 to encourage him to drop out of the race for Democratic National Committee chairman, which Buttigieg later did.

Buttigieg believes he’s gaining support because people are looking for something different and a more hopeful message to combat President Donald Trump.

The openly gay former lieutenant in the Navy Reserve uses his stump speech to talk about how political decisions have shaped his life, and how much is at stake in 2020.

He recalls writing a letter to his family before he deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 so they could read it if he didn’t return. He also talks about his marriage to his husband, which “exists by the grace of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court” – a line that generated some of his biggest applause during his trip through South Carolina.

Friends Catherine Paquin, 36, and Jonah Burrell, 37, attended Buttigieg’s stop in Greenville wearing “Mayor Pete 2020” T-shirts they bought off Amazon.com.

Burrell, who is gay, said it’s “really cool” to have an openly gay man in the race, but it’s not the main reason he’s supporting Buttigieg.

“That calm demeanor, the way he speaks is smart,” Burrell said. “You can tell he thinks about all his answers. He’s done his research.”

And those doubters who say Buttigieg doesn’t stand a chance?

“I think they underestimate him,” Paquin said.

Wrapping up his remarks in Greenville, Buttigieg noted that’s happening less these days than it did a few months ago, when hardly anyone knew his name.

“I don’t know whether we can pull this off, but I’m feeling pretty good about it,” he said.
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What should have been a giant leap for womankind has turned into a stumble on the path to equality after U.S. space agency NASA canceled the first all-female spacewalk due to a lack of a spacesuit in the right size.

Anne McClain and Christina Koch had been due to step into history books in a spacewalk Friday, during the final week of Women’s History Month.

But McClain will now give up her place on the mission to her male colleague Nick Hague, NASA announced late Monday.

“Mission managers decided to adjust the assignments, due in part to spacesuit availability on the station,” NASA said in a statement.

“McClain learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso — essentially the shirt of the spacesuit — fits her best. Because only one medium-size torso can be made ready by Friday, March 29, Koch will wear it.”

Nearly 60 years after the first human blasted off into space, less than 11 percent of the 500 plus people who have traveled to space have been women, and spacewalk teams have either been all-male or male-female.

McClain and Koch were both part of the 2013 NASA class that was 50 percent women.

NASA said the decision to change the plan was made in consultation with McClain after a spacewalk last week.

“Anne trained in M and L and thought she could use a large but decided after Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better,” wrote spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz on Twitter.

“In this case, it’s easier (and faster!) to change spacewalkers than reconfigure the spacesuit.”

The NASA announcement was met with disappointment and anger by many following the much-anticipated mission on social media, with some arguing an all-female spacewalk was overdue.

Others said they were sad that a milestone moment on women’s space exploration had been deferred, but safety came first.

“I’m super disappointed about the all-woman spacewalk not happening as scheduled this Friday but I’m also super supportive of astronauts having the authority to say ‘I would be safer using a different piece of equipment’,” wrote Emily Lakdawalla, a senior editor at the U.S. nonprofit The Planetary Society.

“An all-woman spacewalk WILL eventually happen.”
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Sixty-three percent of American workers are stressed and ready to quit, and poor communication is a leading cause of their frustration, according to a survey commissioned by Dynamic Signal, a California-based company that sells mobile-first communications platforms to companies.

Eighty percent of U.S. employees report feeling stressed because of ineffective company communication, which is a 30 percent increase from a year ago.

The survey involved 1,001 respondents who answered questions online between January 31 and February 12.

Among the most frustrated workers are the 80 million hourly employees who rarely have access to a work email. These non-desk workers include people employed in retail stores, hotels, restaurants, bars, production facilities, warehouses and hospitals, as well as delivery drivers.

Deskless employees are four times more likely to agree that their company communicates more effectively with office employees than it does with them.

“I think companies are doing same job they’ve done forever, but expectations of their employees has evolved,” says Russ Fradin, Dynamic Signal’s CEO. “Because whether it’s your bank account balance or your Tinder match or your sports score … that’s all basically pushed to you immediately, so that makes the frustration when you hear about something you needed to know for your job an hour later, three days later or two weeks later, I think probably that much more frustrating.”

In addition, the survey finds that workers spend up to two hours of each workweek looking for information they need to perform their daily tasks.

Other studies also reflect growing dissatisfaction with internal communications at work. A 2017 Gallup Poll found just 13 percent of employers found company communications to be effective.

And Staffbase, another company that produces mobile apps for internal employee communications, says that 74 percent of U.S. employees feel they are “missing out on company news and information.”

Using posters in the break room or on the factory floor, or newsletters and magazines to communicate with employees might have been effective before the advent of smartphones. But now that the vast majority of Americans – 77 percent – own a smartphone, companies like Fradin’s, as well as the Harvard Business Review, are making the case for using mobile apps to improve employee communications.

That would allow employees to receive information about schedules, pay stubs, company announcements and benefits directly to a mobile device, even if they don’t have a company email.

“It’s really just about bringing the types of tools around your mobile phone that everyone is used to in their day-to-day life, into the workforce,” Fradin says. “There is a way that folks are used to receiving all of their information and workplaces have not kept up with that.”

Improving internal communications can boost the bottom line. Companies with higher employee engagement retain more workers and bring in higher profits, according to Gallup’s 2017 State of the American Workplace report.
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