From today’s excellent ERE.net article Employees Are Not Assets: Employees As Investors One of our problems is that we think of employees as assets, or things we control and dispose of as we see fit. Unfortunately, this characterization leads to behaviors that are incompatible with reality. Employees cannot be owned, taxed, depreciated, or disposed of as machines or other tangible assets. They are investors in our organizations and they freely choose to share their expertise and skills with us or not. Each employee has a built-in return on investment meter that is constantly sampling the atmosphere and deciding if she is gaining or losing from a continuing association with the… Read More
Continue ReadingLoyalty Amongst The Younger Generations
A quick read from Inc.com – Younger Employees More Loyal. Some excerpts: In a survey of 2,469 adults nationwide, 56 percent said they feel appreciated by their employer, according to the latest Workplace Insights Survey by Adecco, a Melville, N.Y.-based workforce-solutions firm. It doesn’t get any fuzzier than to use the words “feel appreciated.” Three-quarters of respondents reported that they are committed to their employers, with members of Generation X — ages 30 to 42 — feeling the most secure in their jobs. I suspect the Gen Xers are moving into management positions and are more confident. However, the survey also found that feelings of company loyalty often vary by… Read More
Continue ReadingCandidates’ Decision Making Process
I’m never sure what to make of these surveys about employment decision processes among candidates. Pay always seems like the obvious response but rarely the significant driver of the decision. Nonetheless, the results always catch my eye so I put it up here anyway. From the most recent Workforce Recruiting Newsletter (sorry, no link) – the top attraction drivers by age group for U.S. employees in 2007:
Continue ReadingSmall Business Is Where The Jobs Are
Interesting story here from Inc.com – Small Businesses Responsible for Nearly All New Jobs – that has a surprising statistic: Businesses with fewer than 20 employees account for 90 percent of all U.S. firms and are responsible for more than 97 percent of all new jobs, according to a new report by the Small Business Administration. This is just one statistic from a recently published annual report by the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy based on Census data from 1988 to 2004, the most recent year available. The detailed figures quantify various indicators among small businesses, including job creation, business births and deaths, industry growth, and regional differences. 97%… Read More
Continue ReadingRaises For Results
This CareerJournal.com article can only be categorized as good news – More Employers Are Basing Raises, Bonuses on Results. Of course, none of this is surprising for salespeople since the vast majority are compensated based on their successful selling. For other positions, this may be a bit of a surprise: Employers have turned to tying pay to performance to shore up costs and to try to retain their best workers. “There is a limited amount of money that people have, and they are trying to get a better return on those compensation dollars,” says Steve Gross, Mercer’s global-reward practice leader. I am a passionate proponent of merit-based pay structures and… Read More
Continue ReadingWarm Chair Attrition
The above term is from The Herman Group’s weekly newsletter (no link but their website is www.herman.net). I love that phrase – it is quite descriptive. Here is the excerpt that caught my attention: Fueled by the publicity frenzy the press is enjoying, the current volatility in world financial markets is affecting many people at all levels of our societies. From the employees’ point of view, this uncertainty engenders insecurity. What will happen to my company? Will it be in business? Will I have a job? The reaction is that they continue “corporate cocooning”, staying in the safety and sanctuary of their corporate jobs, despite their deep dissatisfaction. A number… Read More
Continue ReadingInc. 500 Companies Monitor Social Media
It’s true. Do you? Reading this blog would apparently qualify based on Inc.com’s article To Gain Competitive Edge, Companies Turn to Blogs, Video, and Social Networks. A study by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research found that 51 percent of Inc. 500 companies are monitoring social media, and they are doing so by various methods, including reading RSS feeds, looking at Web statistics, tracking video downloads, and watching online competitive activity. Interesting. The article isn’t overly descriptive of the methods, but the blog piece is certainly worth noting. “Inc. 500 companies are saying that not only is it important for us to communicate in an outbound… Read More
Continue ReadingScarcity Of Quality Sales Candidates
No surprises here from the ManageSmarter.com article – Roundin’ Up Reps. Our clients often ask us what the employment market is like right now. For most of this year we have been telling them it is a candidate’s market right now. Some seem surprised while others seem to be familiar with this fact. In case there were any doubts, this short article lays out the findings from a CareerBuilder.com survey (my emphasis): The 2007 CareerBuilder.com Midyear Employment Forecast indicates that “46 percent of sales employers currently have open positions for which they cannot find qualified candidates, an increase from 39 percent heading into the first half,” reads a release on… Read More
Continue ReadingWipe Your Facebook
The thought of using social networking sites as part of a candidate background check has been debated greatly in recent months. I have to confess, I am of two minds on the topic. Foxnews.com offers up an interesting story titled Job Hunters Hire Pros to Clean Up Online Profiles. Some CareerBuilder.com stats are provided within the story: A study of 1,150 hiring managers by Careerbuilder.com found 26 percent of managers admitted to using search engines such as Google and 12 percent of managers said they used social networking sites like Facebook.com in their hiring process. … Of the 12 percent who checked social networking sites, 63 percent declined to hire… Read More
Continue ReadingBrutal Bosses Get Promoted?
This report just cuts against common sense in many ways. From Yahoo News’ Bad bosses get promoted, not punished? In the study to be presented at a conference on management this weekend, almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways. Whenever I see these types of surveys, I wonder about the wording. “Domineering ways” is definitely a fuzzy phrase. I would guess that the respondents may simply have had an issue with a High D style. I’ve worked for quite a few bad bosses and I know the stress involved with them. Some… Read More
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