From the “this may only interest me” file – Yahoo offers Number of Lefties Bounces Back: While lefties currently make up about 11 percent of the population, earlier studies found only 3 percent of those born in 1900 were left-handed. … “Left-handedness is important because more than 10 percent of people have their brains organized in a qualitatively different way to other people,” McManus said. Half my family is left-handed so I am always keen to these articles. And I can confirm that left-handers have a completely different way of thinking. I often tease my left-handed wife that she has laid out a left-handed kitchen since I often get confused about where… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Lawyers Earn Their Reputation
I hadn’t heard about this case until reading the short Inc.com article. Unbelievable: The owners of a dry-cleaning shop that successfully fended off a $54 million lawsuit over a pair of pants are being forced to sell their business as a result of costly legal fees. Soo Chung and Jin Nam Chung, the owners of Washington-based Custom Cleaners, were sued earlier this year by a customer for allegedly losing his pants. While the case was eventually dismissed, the heavy legal expenses have since forced the Chungs out of business, according to the couple’s lawyer. It is embarrassing to have a legal system where a $54 million lawsuit can be litigated… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Web Is Watching You
I’m a big fan of online purchases mainly because I can get exactly what I want, click to order and forget about it. I’m not a big tracking guy either – I pick the slowest, cheapest method for shipping and the stuff usually arrives within 1 week. Fire and forget. Now Inc.com offers up Ever Wish You Could Read Your Customers’ Minds? Get a load of this new software: Proclivity is a consumer predictive engine technology that is able to analyze a customer’s online activity and identify their interest in certain types of merchandise. … For example, if an online clothing retailer wants to launch a campaign around jeans, Proclivity… Read More
Continue ReadingTough Hiring Data To Spin
Time to suspend the recession talk for one more week. From CNNMoney.com’s Unemployment claims down: WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, an unexpected sign of improvement for the job market. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications for unemployment benefits totaled 311,000 last week, a drop of 9,000 from the previous week. It marked the lowest level for jobless claims since July 28. The decline came as a surprise to economists, who had been forecasting a rise in claims of about 6,000. As I have said before, our day-to-day activities at Select Metrix are… Read More
Continue ReadingBackground Screening Stats
According to a recent article in Workforce Managements Newsletter, almost as many employees are discharged for poor performance as those who leave for better pay or for personal reasons. The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, an Alexandria, Virginia-based group found about 70 percent of companies say job candidates omit relevant background information €œoccasionally or frequently.€ A fairly high rate especially if you are not conducting some type of background check. We have been very consistent here at The Hire Sense encouraging you as an employer to run background checks on all final candidates. If you aren’t performing background checks today, I hope the latest statistic will prompt you to… Read More
Continue ReadingTeam-Based Intelligence
Ok, I haven’t heard of this book until now, but it sounds most interesting – Teaching an Anthill to Fetch: Developing Collaborative Intelligence @ Work. The book is profiled in the BusinessWeek.com article Building a Better Team. From the author: Teaching an Anthill to Fetch is a metaphor for the challenge of creating a significant level of collaborative intelligence in a system. It applies equally whether it is a team, a business, or an entire organization. The title also poses a question: Is it possible to create change at a micro level that will have s(sic) predictable large-scale effects? In my opinion it is. I think he is on to… Read More
Continue ReadingGen Y’s Favorite Cities To Work
The Herman Group’s weekly newsletter (sorry, no link) covers what young jobseekers want and that is a specific urban area. A just-released study from the Segmentation Company, a division of the market research firm Yankelovich reports that 65 percent of 1,000 respondents aged 24 to 35 said they preferred to “look for a job in the place that I would like to live,” rather than “look for the best job I can find; the place where it is located is secondary.” The most popular qualities of a city (78 percent) were tidiness and attractiveness; the characteristic €œwill allow me to lead the life I want to lead€ was a close… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Outlook Still Strong
The hiring outlook for the remainder of the year is being bandied about by the media, but the latest Manpower survey paints a fairly clear picture of a strong market: Of the 14,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 27% expect to increase their workforces during the fourth quarter of 2007, while 9% expect to trim their payrolls. Fifty-eight percent expect no change in the hiring pace, and 6% are undecided about their hiring plans. The seasonally adjusted survey results show that in the majority of industry sectors the hiring pace is expected to remain steady during the final months of 2007. Employers in Construction, Durable and Non-Durable Goods Manufacturing, Wholesale/Retail Trade, Finance/Insurance/Real… Read More
Continue ReadingTelecommuting = Retention
This isn’t shocking news, but telecommuters are more satisfied with their work when compared to the traditional office worker. CareerJournal.com’s Working From Home Fosters Job Satisfaction does provide some detail to this difference that I found noteworthy. First the background stats: Seventy-three percent of the remote and home-based workers surveyed said they are satisfied with their company as a place to work compared with 64% of office workers, according to the survey in June of about 10,000 U.S. workers. But here is the section that points to retention (emphasis mine): Some of the differences were striking, Wiley said, pointing to the 10 percentage point difference between the 54% of telecommuters… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Best Customer Service
can be found at the supermarket according to the latest Harris Interactive poll (h/t JustSell.com). This year€™s annual Harris Poll ranking industries on how well they serve consumers finds that the supermarket industry does the best job according to U.S. adults. Fully 92 percent of adults think supermarkets generally do a good job, and only eight percent think they do a bad job, giving them a net positive score of 84 percentage points. Other industries that receive high net scores are: online search engines (77 points positive); computer hardware companies (64 points positive); computer software companies (61 points positive); hospitals (58 points positive); banks (56 points positive); and packaged food… Read More
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