Now HotJobs.com offers up their survey about job seekers in 2007 – Many workers to consider new jobs in 2007. No surprises in that headline. Their stats:

The survey — in which nearly two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said they would consider new job opportunities in 2007 — suggests the U.S. workforce is full of “passive job seekers” looking to improve their prospects.Optimism about new jobs in 2007 was also common among survey-takers, as approximately 70 percent believe opportunities for job seekers are better or the same as one year ago.

These numbers are similar to SHRM’s results.

There is a stark contradiction later in the article.

Salary ranked as the main thing workers would change about their jobs (39 percent), with benefits coming in a distant second place at 12 percent. In addition, three-fourths of respondents said they did not get the raise or bonus they expected in 2005.

Yet, later in the article is this finding:

When asked how they define success, respondents opted for less tangible benefits than salary. Nearly half (46 percent) said having a work/life balance was the key to success, while 41 percent equated “feeling fulfilled” with success. Only 9 percent considered a high salary as the indicator of success.

It would be interesting to know the age groups that were surveyed, or at least the break out of respondents. Salary is probably what most survey participants believe is the “proper” answer to a survey question regarding why they would leave. Yet half of them do not find it to be a key to their own personal success.

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Each morning I peruse the sales employment ads to see who is hiring and what ads they are placing. I came across a local company I have never heard of and was impressed by a bullet point in their ad:

Accountable for achieving sales goals within an assigned territory which has key accounts.

The emphasis was theirs. This approach may seem trivial, but it is important in putting the right bait out their to find the right salesperson.

Companies often have glorified visions of a single salesperson with minimal marketing help being able to take a zero revenue territory and grow it into a highly profitable territory. This can happen – I’ve personally done it. But I had much help from the marketing department and a strong brand to sell.

Yet finding a salesperson to grow the dormant territory usually takes much money and a long time frame. If you have existing accounts in a territory, do not be afraid to give them to the new salesperson once they are ramped up to full speed. Give them the rewards of the commission for those accounts even though they inherited them. A taste of that sugar will keep them motivated. The commission structure also teaches them to earn as opposed to receiving a handout in the form of a guaranteed commission for a set time period (unless you have no existing accounts in the territory in which to earn commission).

One other point, if your commission plan pays the same rate for a dollar of existing customer business vs. a dollar of new customer business, you need to revisit your commission plan.

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Less than 4% just like the past few years according to Fortune. That is unless you have

specialized skills in office administration, the law, IT, and accounting and finance.

In the case of an office administrator, you can expect:

Senior executive assistants’ pay range in 2007 is expected to rise 6.5 percent, while senior office managers’ salaries are projected to run 8.2 percent higher than in 2006, reaching $52,000 a year at the high end.The salary guide also suggests ways to boost your market value: Add 9 percent to the salaries listed in the guide if you are bilingual, up to 10 percent if you hold a Microsoft Office Specialist certification, and 10 percent if you are a senior assistant supporting a C-level honcho in a large company.

One of the most significant factors that led me into a sales career out of college was the wonderful concept of a commission. The beauty of sales is a simple concept – sell more, earn more.

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In Segal Sibson’s 2006 survey of employee satisfaction, employees responded that their overall satisfaction with their benefit plans was droppiong.

Satisfaction with their pay level dropped from 66% in 2000 and 2003 to 55% in 2006. In terms of benefits, I was surprised to see that healthcare benefits didn’t have the largest drop, it did drop to 54% from 60% in 2003, but the largest drop came in retirement benefits, dropping to 42% all the way from 56% in 2003.

An interesting point that Segal Sibson made was that one company in particular had made a huge investment in retiree medical coverage, but very few of the employees (even those nearing retirement) knew about the benefit.

Here are their tips to improve employee perception of your compensation and benefits programs:

Step 1: Inventory rewards. Conduct a full, realistic inventory of your rewards and pay attention to how they compare to the market for talent.

Step 2: Measure investment. Calculate the current level of investment in each rewards element to determine their competitiveness and the return on changes in each investment.

Step 3: Increase information. Explain the full suite of rewards, and measure employees’ level of understanding, satisfaction, engagement and turnover intent.

Step 4: Implement improvements. Make the intended suite of rewards “real” by ensuring that they are implemented and executed with excellence.

Step 5: Measure impact. Assess desired outcomes, such as engagement retention and productivity, and examine the return on investment produced by changes in the rewards package.

If you read their report, you will find much written about what they call the “rewards of work” which are: Affiliation, Compensation, Benefits, Work Content and Career. They rightly mention that these elements and even certain aspects of the elements will be more important than others to an individual.

The one area they don’t address in much detail is how they measure what an employee wants when it comes to rewards of work and how this information could be used in helping reduce employee dissatisfaction. I would encourage the use of objective assessments to measure an employee’s reward structure along with their motivations.

Segal Sibson makes the statement that employees will, within limits, substitute one reward for another. I would agree with this statement in part, but when you look at rewards, how d you know if offering an individual higher pay will reward them? This reward would work if their material possessions reward was intense enough to engage them. But what if their top reward is the opportunity to do meaningful work? Hence the need to assess each employee so that you know the rewards that are most meaningful to them.

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Allow me to indulge myself for this is a pet peeve of mine. Inc.com offers up this article – Majority of Small-Business Owners Do Not Offer Retirement Benefits.

Only 14 percent of the nation’s small-business owners offer a 401(k) plan to their employees, and 63 percent do not offer any retirement benefits at all, according to a new survey.

I’m not surprised by this number. I’ve worked for both small and relatively large companies and there is a distinct difference between the benefits. Obviously the larger companies have the capital to offer more comprehensive plans. Here is the pull quote that struck a nerve (emphasis mine):

“Small businesses employ half of all private-sector employees in America and serve as our economy’s growth engine,” ShareBuilder CEO Jeff Seely said in a statement. “Given the rising cost of health care, uncertainty about Social Security, and longer life expectancy, it’s imperative that America’s small business owners understand their crucial role in addressing the looming retirement crisis.”

At what point does it become the responsibility of the worker to plan accordingly for their retirement? Ideally, all companies would offer some pre-tax retirement plan. But benefits are not a requirement by law and they never should be. The market will drive companies to compete for talent and that battle is only going to intensify over the next few decades. The demand will drive the need for companies to offer more benefits. In the meantime, workers need to plan for their own retirement needs.

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I’m a fan of Anthony Meaney’s blog over at Recruiting.com. He has a great riff today on an interesting trend – publicly traded company CEOs leaving to join privately held equity firms. The reason from Anthony:

Private equity firms are not publicly traded and are not beholden to shareholders, activists, wall street analysts or reporters. Therefore they don’t have to produce unrealistic linear growth every quarter and can make financial decisions for the long term.

I am all for CEOs receiving the best pay package they can. It is a free market which means the market will determine the CEOs value to the company. Plus, not all CEOs are crooks, though at times that fact is well hidden by the media.

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A quick story from the Pioneer Press – Early exit cuts Stroucken pay package. The departing CEO of H.B. Fuller located north of St. Paul is taking a compensation package with him worth $18.5 million. The article simply states:

The news release noted Stroucken is receiving $4 million less than he would have had if he had stayed through the March 31, 2007, the end of his contract.

There is something you don’t see too often in today’s world – a CEO who could have made much more had he completed his contract that ends in 6 months. Obviously, he is leaving with a lucrative compensation package, but here is why:

“The value of the options and stock are largely due to what Al did while he was here,” said Steven Brazones, director of investor relations for H.B. Fuller. “His compensation is tied to how the company performs.”Stroucken, 59, joined Fuller in 1998 and led the company through a series of acquisitions. The company’s improving financial performance showed up in the stock price, which is up more than 80 percent since early 2005.

80%! Think of the shareholder value that has been created during his tenure as CEO. I bring this up because we have worked with this company in the past and it is an impressive organization.

This CEO helped grow the company and received a sizable reward for it. With all of the Enron heartburn that still exists, it is refreshing to read a story about a CEO who brought great value to his company and didn’t milk it for every last cent.

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Last week we posted on the CEO turnover problem both here and here. Today, I caught up to a lengthy CareerJournal.com article regarding How to Fire a CEO: It’s Harder to Sack the Boss. It is an interesting read about the multiple dismissals that have arisen recently. This topic hits home in that the United Healthcare imbroglio occurred in our backyard this year.

This is borders on the absurd:

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. dismissed CEO Robert J. O’Connell last year, saying that he padded a retirement account by millions of dollars, misused corporate aircraft and conducted an affair with a female executive. But a panel of arbitrators said last month that MassMutual should not have terminated Mr. O’Connell for cause. The arbitrators found that Mr. O’Connell made questionable moves to benefit the retirement account and had affairs with two other employees, but said these did not amount to “willful gross misconduct” that materially damaged the company — as his contract required. MassMutual has appealed the decision, which could force it to pay Mr. O’Connell more than $40 million.

Wow. The obvious question is what would the arbitrators consider as “willful gross misconduct?” I really don’t want to know the answer to that question.

I guess this statement provides some insight into how these issues are handled:

It’s so hard to fire a CEO for cause that many boards don’t try, even when ethical problems are involved. Some boards work out other departure arrangements that allow the CEO to leave with severance or other benefits intact.

A few years back, we were involved with a customer that ended up firing their CEO. He was a complete maverick and a definite High D. He arbitrarily hired our services for a consortium for which his company was just one of many manufacturers. We ended up meeting with the president of this consortium who was a bit confused as to our reason for meeting. He proceeded with our hiring process until he got the word out to the other companies involved in the consortium. At that point, the hiring process was terminated.

The CEO for this company was fired not long after this event.

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Well, the latest unemployment numbers are in and they indicate that, as a nation, we are basically at full employment. The new unemployement number is 4.4% – a drop of .2% from last month and a 5-year low. Sourcing is going to be even more of an issue for companies. We are seeing this in our business as we have extended our sourcing times while doubling our efforts. If you aren’t using multiple channels for sourcing, you are going to find long lead times on strong candidates.

The second part of the equation is compensation:

Workers’ average hourly earnings climbed to $16.91 in October, a sizable 0.4 percent increase from September. That increase was bigger than the 0.3 percent rise economists were expecting. Over the last 12 months, wages grew by 3.9 percent.

We have experienced this fact also as candidate compensation expectations are on the rise. There are many good jobs available with strong compensation packages. As you go to market to hire, expect a strong demand from candidates in regards to overall packages.

You know, for all the dire predictions I keep reading about the economy, it certainly seems to be cruising along at a strong clip.

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The Employee Benefits You Should Demand.

1. Wellness
2. Autopilot retirement savings
3. Retirement income security
4. Education and workplace guidance

And how do you get them?

Well, for starters, don’t try to convince your HR department. That would be preaching to the choir, says Adams. Instead he recommends sending letters to the so-called C-suite – the senior level executives. “You have to appeal to the people who can make those decisions,” he said.

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