The Northwest-Delta airlines merger is the talk of this town as you might expect.  There has been much posturing up here as people and politicians realize that Northwest will probably leave this town as Atlanta becomes the new company’s headquarters.

I was reading an article on the merger in our local St. Paul Pioneer Press when I came across this quote (my highlighting):

As for the covenants Northwest signed with the state in 1991 on maintaining a certain number of jobs, the airport hub and Northwest’s Eagan headquarters, Anderson said “we think we can get to the spirit of the original covenants that were struck.”

That is a fat-worded, or fuzzy-worded, phrase of the highest order.  Somehow I don’t think they are thoroughly committed to the original covenants.

If this was a sales qualifying situation, the sales rep would have to ask Anderson what he means by the phrase “get to the spirit.”

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Another good article here from WSJ titled New Career, Same Employer.  The gist of the article:

Ernst & Young LLP last year named Nancy Harley director of career mobility for the Americas, a new position designed to help employees of the accounting firm move into new roles. “The longer someone stays intrigued and challenged, the longer they’re going stay with the firm,” Ms. Harley says.

Observers say employers are creating or expanding these programs to improve retention rates in a competitive job market, particularly as Baby Boomers begin to retire.

The initiatives typically include Web-based programs for evaluating employees’ career goals and suggesting relevant paths.

Interesting title – director of career mobility.  That position, or some form of it, may become quite common in the next 5 years.  Evaluating skills, talents and motivations is already a common tool used today by companies in both hiring, evaluating and promoting.

Here is an example from the article of how a large company handles this topic:

Accenture’s career-change initiative includes resources such as an online skills-assessment tool and a Web page featuring video clips of workers who have changed careers at the company. Every Accenture employee has an internal career counselor. Employees are urged to work with these counselors to develop a plan, including searching the company’s internal online job board.

I like the idea of an internal career counselor.  Obviously, Accenture is large so they have the ability to offer these resources.  However, managers can still be tuned into these topics with their employees.  This management skill will surely become more important as Gen Y increasingly becomes the largest generation in the workforce.

On a related note, I wrote an article a couple years ago that talked about Gen X and Y desiring a skills path for their personal development.  You can read it here.

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This Wall Street Journal quick-hit article is shocking:

Companies are rolling out software that allows them to mine their employees’ emails and electronic address books for contact information, in a bid to make it easier to establish relationships with potential clients and others. But the tools also raise privacy concerns, and have been met with resistance at some firms.

“Raises privacy concerns”…that is an understatement.  There has to be more to this story, but I can’t imagine companies using these tools.  If they do, I suspect the natural reaction will be for employees to carry around their contact info on their cell phone and not place it on their company computer.

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