1. BLYTH, INC.
April 20, 2009

2. BLYTH IS THE WORLD’S LARGEST
CANDLE COMPANY
 A holding company of candle, gift and general
merchandise businesses
 A global direct selling leader
 A top 100 direct marketing company
 The 800 pound gorilla (on a diet) in the premium
wholesale gift and decorative accessories channel
 $1 billion+ NYSE:BTH publicly traded company
2

3. BLYTH IS A SMALL CORPORATE
ENTITY; THE ACTION IS IN THE
BUSINESS UNITS
 Approx. 3,500 employees WW; 2,692 U.S.
 Stand-alone business units with full P&L
responsibility
 Blyth Corporate is an accounting, reporting, tax,
legal and HR group of ~45
 Legal team serves all Blyth companies
 Blyth HR responsible for policies, benefits,
compensation and all executive matters
 Business units supported by local HR teams
3

4. WE RECOGNIZED EARLY ON THAT
2009 WAS GOING TO BE A
DIFFERENT YEAR
 New administration with a mandate for change
 White House and Congress controlled by same
party
 Recent, painful economic news fueled fire for
activism
 Credit crisis, increasing unemployment, bailouts
 Record high commodity costs
 Excessive executive pay
 Continued job losses in manufacturing sector
 It’s all about the first 100 days
4

5. WE ESTABLISHED GUIDING
PRINCIPLES TO APPROACH
UNPRECEDENTED CHANGES
 We will not be surprised
 Our management teams will not be surprised
 We will be proactive in understanding legislative
proposals, their multi-faceted implications and
our options for dealing with them
 We will be protagonists in making necessary
changes in our operations
 We will take a zero-sum approach to cost
implications
5

6. FOR MOST LEGISLATIVE
PROPOSALS, WE FORMED CROSS-
FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
 Blyth Corp HR
 Legal
 Finance
 Payroll
 Business Unit HR
 External Partners: medical broker, medical
carrier, COBRA administrator, outside counsel,
etc.
 Excellent opportunity for HR to lead
organization, but reinforce that entire
management team is responsible for compliance
6

7. WE CREATED SUMMARY
PRESENTATIONS FOR
HR AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT
TEAMS
 Pulled from every resource possible: outside
counsel, SHRM, business groups, media, external
partners
 Took the lead in training our division HR
partners
 Adapted our presentation for division HR to use
with senior leadership and lower level
management
 Educated senior executives
 Value in moving early far outweighed the risks of
guessing wrong on some of the outcomes
7

8. BEFORE YOU PRESENT TO
SENIOR MANAGEMENT …
 Be sure you are speaking the same language … it’s Card
Check, not EFCA
 Be able to summarize the issue in only a couple of slides,
them move promptly to implications and action steps
 Know your stuff, but make clear that the information you
are sharing is based on what you know today
 Articulate (at a high level) accounting implications
 Recommend a management team philosophy
 Explain next steps, get buy-in
 Keep them informed
 Don’t think for a minute that any of this has job
preservation implications
8

9. WE ARE CURRENTLY DEALING
WITH …
 Card Check/Employee Free Choice Act
 Paycheck Fairness Act
 COBRA provisions within Economic Stimulus
Package
 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
 Healthy Families Act
 Working Families Flexibility Act
 Make Work Pay Credit
 Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act
 Future federal/state initiatives
9

10. …USING THE FOLLOWING
TACTICS
 Ensuring compliance with new labor legislation
 Supporting SHRM and other business organization’s activities to
influence outcome of pending legislation
 Monitoring pending legislation to ensure ‘no surprises’ of new
requirements upon passage
 Proactively adapting plans to address shortfalls or bridge funding
gaps between current and pending regulations
 Briefing our CEO, CFO, OOC and business unit leadership as
needed on current or pending legislation
 Leading and championing proactive processes throughout the
company to maintain Blyth’s positive employee relations status
 Developing presentations and training materials in cooperation
with Blyth legal to ensure appropriate managerial and
supervisory training on regulatory matters
 Updating policies company-wide to ensure compliance with new
legislation
 Auditing new company’s employment policies to ensure
compliance with labor regulations 10

11. WHAT ARE OUR IMMEDIATE ACTIONS
AND NEXT STEPS FOR KEY COBRA
PROVISIONS?
 Identification of all former employees who are required to receive
the notice
 HRMS Report
 Will consult with each business unit to ensure we have
captured all appropriate former employees
 Follow up step: Await the DOL release of Special Notice in
order to send out Special Election paperwork
 Anthem/Conexis heavily involved in process
 Copy of Special Notice will be circulated to HR Team when
available
 Revise and update COBRA communication materials for
involuntary terminated employees after effective date
 Anthem/Conexis updating their materials
 Work with business units to ensure their communication
materials include appropriate updates
11

12. WHAT ARE OUR IMMEDIATE
ACTIONS?
 Coordinate with Anthem/Conexis to revise procedures
for crediting the 65% share of the COBRA premium for
involuntarily terminated employees while applicable
 Coordinate with HRMS/Payroll to revise
systems/procedures for obtaining reimbursement of
credits from the federal government
 Work with Finance to determine how the new rules
affect claims experience and budget
12

13. LEDBETTER ACTION PLAN
 Evaluate pay policies and performance management
processes
 Ensure well documented process relating to hiring,
promotion and pay decisions
 Retention of benchmarking information for new hires
 Objective, clear performance appraisals with appropriate
documentation
 Consistently applied pay increases based on performance data
 Ongoing coaching for our leaders to ensure they are using
performance management and compensation tools
consistently
 Revise document retention policy regarding documents
concerning compensation decisions
13

14. CARD CHECK/EFCA ACTIONS TO
TAKE
 Company executives, managers and supervisors should
have common philosophy towards unionization, and should
be comfortable articulating it
 Consider including language in new employee orientation
materials, employee handbooks, workforce training
programs and other communications
 Pass language by legal to ensure the language passes NLRB
and applicable state labor laws
 Conduct Employee Issue and Satisfaction audits
 Analyze information and communicate results and action
items
 Review employment policies
 Visitors in the workplace, open door policy, alternative dispute
policy, non solicitation policies, ensure everyone is aware and
enforces the policies
 Get involved – contact your senators and representatives
using SHRM HR Voice as a conduit
14

15. CARD CHECK/EFCA ACTIONS TO
TAKE
 Strengthen positive employee relations stance
and educate leaders and employees
 Show employees what the union authorization card is,
what it means when it is signed, and provide examples
 Let employees know that organizers might approach
them at home, on property, in public places and in the
presence of others employees, pressuring them to sign
the card
 Discuss the fact that the union will provide little
information about their track records in other
workplaces, or about their business in general
 Educate them so they can ask the right questions before
deciding whether to sign
 Let them know they will NOT have a chance to change
their minds later, and the company will not be able to
intervene
15

16. HFA ACTIONS WE ARE TAKING
NOW
 Review existing sick leave or other paid time off policies to
determine how they align with proposed HFA
requirements
 Determine potential cost impact to the business if HFA
passes as proposed
 Draft changes that will minimize cost implications to
business
 Review recommendations with Legal, Finance, and
technology and determine impact
 Review impact and interface between HFA and STD policy
 Make any desired adjustments to sick leave or paid time off
policies prior to enactment of the statute
 Finalize the updated Policy and be ready to put it in place
if the bill moves closer to signing
16

17. RESOURCES
 Your businesses
 National SHRM legal issues and employment law areas
 Workplace law bulletin
 HR Voice
 Local SHRM
 National and local law firms
 National print media
 American Benefits Counsel (www.appwp.org)
 http://www.govtrack.us
 http://thomas.loc.gov/
17

18. QUESTIONS