These surveys come out on a fairly regular basis. There is a part of me that believes 20 years down the road we will still be seeing similar results to the findings in Inc.com’s Employees Feeling Underappreciated. Of more than 500 full- and part-time employees surveyed nationwide, 35 percent said the company they worked for was ineffective at rewarding strong performance, according to OfficeTeam, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing services firm. At the same time, 30 percent of 150 senior executives surveyed admitted that employee recognition wasn’t a high enough priority. The reason I mention this survey is that that Gen Y/Millenials have a different take on employment. They value… Read More
Continue ReadingMore Americans Are Working From Home
Foxnews.com offers a story regarding the booming trend of working from home. I hope no one is surprised by this trend since it has been prevalent for many years now. Obviously, $3 a gallon gas is driving even more people towards this model. Yet, I think the gas prices are exacerbating the increasing commute times around the country. To my point, think of how much time is wasted each work day when commuting: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2005 an estimated 3 million Americans commuted more than 90 minutes to work each way €” almost twice as many as in 1990. Fifteen out of every 100 Americans traveled… Read More
Continue ReadingAre You Using Assessments?
Most people are, according to a Workforce Management Quick Take titled Organizations Look to Get Personal in €™07. Statistics from the short article (my emphasis): Organizations in 2007 will increasingly turn to personality tests when recruiting and hiring, according to Birkman International in Houston. Birkman, citing research from New Orleans-based Rocket-Hire Inc. (a Dear Workforce contributor), says 65 percent of companies used them in 2006, up from 34 percent a year earlier. That is a noticeable increase in one year. If you are not using assessments today in your hiring process, we can help.
Continue ReadingA Surprising 6 Figure Job?
According to Forbes.com’s article Near The Head Of The Salary Class, one of the “surprising” 6 figure jobs is that of a sales representative. Surprising? As most of you know, a strong salesperson can easily make 6 figures in most industries. The main point regarding sales (and many other positions) is that you have to pay your dues. Nonetheless, Forbes listed this information in their slide show regarding the sales rep position: Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products Sell goods, for wholesalers or manufacturers, to businesses or groups of individuals. Work requires substantial knowledge of items sold. Top 10% Wage: $101,030Median Wage: $49,610Total No. Of Jobs:… Read More
Continue ReadingShow Up And Throw Up
As a continuation of my post from earlier this morning, I came across another Selling Power article that complements the point about the importance of asking the right questions. The Sales Intelligence Imperative provides detailed statistics regarding the point at which many sales stall. Interestingly enough, the researchers found that prospects were dropping out at a surprising time: New research from CSO Insights shows an €œalarming erosion€ in sales reps€™ ability to move the sale forward from that initial conversation. Specifically, 57.6 percent of companies in 2005 said more than half of their initial conversations progressed further into the sell cycle. There will always be salespeople who approach the wrong… Read More
Continue ReadingWords That Make You Wince
Ok, as a blogger I find this Yahoo story downright insulting. From ‘Most Hated Internet Words’ Revealed: “Blog”, “netiquette”, “cookie” and “wiki” have been voted among the most irritating words spawned by the Internet, according to the results of a poll published Thursday. Topping the list of words most likely to make web users “wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard” was folksonomy, a term for a web classification system. “Blogosphere”, the collective name for blogs or online journals, was second; “blog” itself was third; “netiquette”, or Internet etiquette, came fourth and “blook”, a book based on a blog, was fifth. They have got to be… Read More
Continue ReadingA Lack Of Productivity Overseas
We don’t work in the international hiring arena so this may be old news to some of you. I just read the latest Herman Group enewsletter regarding the Global War for Talent (sorry, no link). Apparently productivity is a real problem overseas (emphasis mine): In some countries, notably Mexico and China, the productivity simply isn€™t there. According to fellow futurist Edward Gordon, €œthe productivity of China€™s workers is only 14 percent of their United States counterparts.€ When Joyce spoke at the first Human Capital Conference in Japan, back in 2000, the VP HR for Intel Asia complained that his productivity was one-third that of their US operations. … Advancing technologies… Read More
Continue ReadingHow To Make Employee Orientations More Effective
In a recent article on SHRM’s weekly Newsletter (membership required), a survey of 597 organizations found that 86% of organizations have an orientation program (14% don’t?), but most said they lacked real impact. Here are some other findings of the survey: 81% of the organizations turn to HR to administer new employee orientation, 23% involve multiple departments and 21% include the department in which the new employee will report. Orientation usually takes a day or less for about half of the employers and 26% take two to three days. Nearly half use employee surveys to measure the effectiveness of their orientation program, 22% don€™t track it at all, 20% measure… Read More
Continue ReadingA State Of The Industry Speech – Mobile Devices
CareerJournal.com pens an article titled Mobile Workers Tie In With Hand-Held Devices. I hope most of the information in the article is familiar to you since mobile PDA phones are more than a passing fancy. The article reads like a state of the industry address with a couple of notable points. First, the sheer size of this industry (my emphasis): There are an estimated 50 million “mobile” workers in the U.S., those who have no desk or spend more than 25% of their time outside the office, according to Frost & Sullivan, a business-research and consultancy firm. Catch that? No desk – totally mobile. This new format is more than… Read More
Continue ReadingAdvertised Vacancies Up 29% In Past Year
As I was searching the web this morning came across an interesting site for The Conference Board. The company is “the world’s preeminent business membership and research organization.” They have been around for 90 years and are best known for the Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators that you see referenced so often. They provide an economic analysis based on a monthly basis is the total number of online job ads. The report and analysis they provide is amazing – a total of 17 pages of information for the month of May alone! Although the total online job ads were 4,374,400 in May, a 0.2 percent increase from… Read More
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