Inc.com posted this article earlier in the week – Entrepreneurs Twice as Charitable as Heirs. The main thrust of the article: When it comes to charitable giving, self-made entrepreneurs are more than twice as generous as millionaires who acquired their wealth through inheritance, according to a new study. I think many people would have guessed this result. I think there is a principle here that affects lottery winners also. We’ve all seen the follow up stories of lottery winners and how their lives were not as rewarding as they expected them to be. The incredible wealth did not bring them incredible happiness. The difference in donations between self-made millionaires vs.… Read More
Continue ReadingFull Employment
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… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Cure for CEO Turnover
Honestly, I just came across this article – Women CEOs Experience Longer Tenures, Faster Growth – as a follow up to my previous post. This study is from a limited sample of Massachusetts-based companies with an average size of $54M/year revenue and 120 employees. Not huge, but sizeable companies nonetheless. This piece of information from the short article caught my attention: When asked about their priorities for driving that growth, 80 percent of women CEOs surveyed identified expanding customer relationships ahead of aggressively pursuing new products, new geographic markets, or strategic alliances, the study found. Another 77 percent said they sought input into the decision-making process through a participatory leadership… Read More
Continue ReadingCEO Turnover
We first posted about CEO turnover in this post. Now BusinessWeek comes along with an article titled The Great CEO Exodus. CEO’s get a bad rap about their compensation packages, but it is not an easy job. Now consider the pressure being exerted on these leaders: Not so long ago, a new CEO like McComb would have had six to nine months to get his act together. Not any more. Management experts say the newly minted boss has about 90 to 100 days to start implementing strategy. It would appear that there is a drastic candidate shortage even at the CEO level: Gerard R. Roche, senior chairman of leading recruiter… Read More
Continue ReadingiPods at Work
Full disclosure – I don’t personally own an MP3 player (my kids do), but I do use one from time to time. This past week I have come across several articles about the use of them at work, the pro’s & con’s of allowing them and whether companies have policies regulating their use. Here are some of the articles and the interesting points I found in them: iPod @ Work – StarTribune.com Some problems that occur related to the wearing of iPods/MP3s include the users not being able to hear others when they address them, inaccuracies and mistakes on the job due to being more mentally engaged in the music,… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Importance of Your Boss
Sales & Marketing Management has a quick hitter of a story regarding an Adecco survey about the worker-boss relationship. I think most people are aware of this: “The relationship between a worker and his/her manager has very real implications for both employee satisfaction and performance,” says Ray Roe, president of Adecco North America. But here is a survey result that I found somewhat surprising: The younger the worker, the less impact the boss has on overall happiness. Among Generation Y workers, 53 percent said their relationship with their boss had no impact on their work-life happiness. However, 62 percent of baby boomers report their bosses have influence over their day-to-day… Read More
Continue ReadingFortune 500 Blogs
Business blogs seem to be the topic of the day here at The Hire Sense so I putzed around with Google and came across this interesting wiki site that is amassing the active public blogs concerning Fortune 500 companies. Their preliminary findings: According to our research, 40 (8%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging as of 10/05/06 Some of the blogs are written by employees while others are truly corporate-sponsored blogs.
Continue ReadingHiring Still Positive
CareerJournal.com has a quick hit story stating that hiring continues to increase though it shows signs of leveling off: The forecast for technical and professional jobs was strongest, at +23, down from +30 a year before; We have multiple technical positions that we are working on right now. This data seems accurate in our world. We have heard some discussions of manufacturing leveling off, but I’m not sure how severe that plateau will be.
Continue ReadingThe Hooky Entitlement
The Pioneer Press posted this AP story – Playing hooky a popular pastime – Absence from work at 7-year high. I guess there are still companies that offer sick days as opposed to PTO. First, the breakout of sick day excuses: It found that personal illness accounts for only 35 percent of unscheduled absences, with the rest due to family issues (24 percent), personal needs (18 percent), stress (12 percent) and entitlement mentality (11 percent). I found the “entitlement” reason quite entertaining. I suspect some employees feel they have earned that time and choose to use it their own way. The piece of information I find most interesting is the… Read More
Continue ReadingLacking Basic Skills
The humorous look at cover emails and letters points to a growing problem amongst recent grads and younger employees. From Inc.com’s article Younger Employees Lack Basic Skills: Of 431 human resource managers polled, more than 70 percent said recently hired high school students proved to be deficient in academic skills, such as grammar, spelling, and written communications, according to a survey released on Oct. 4 by a coalition of business research and advocacy groups, including the Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.An overwhelming majority cited problems new hires had handling such routine tasks as writing memos, letters, and other reports, the survey… Read More
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