November 29, 2004

The boardroom is still a lonely place for women
Posted by diane@downtownwomensclub.com">Diane Danielson at 1:01 PM - 0 comments

The Boston Business Journal reports on the slight increase of women in corporate boardrooms. According to a new study, the number of women serving as directors in corporate boardrooms is up (barely), while the number of women in executive offices is flat.

The 2004 Census of Women Directors and Executive Officers of Massachusetts Public Companies was issued by The Boston Club, which found that, among the largest public companies in the state, women hold 9.5 percent of the 839 board seats, up 0.5 percent from the 9 percent of last year.

At the executive level, women still fill 9.2 percent of the 749 executive offices at those companies, unchanged from last year.

The Boston Club is an organization composed of executive- and senior-level professional women. Its study targeted the top 100 largest Bay State public companies, from highest revenue-ranked Raytheon Co. in Waltham to Rockland-based Independent Bank Corp.

...

 

November 24, 2004

Engineering Women
Posted by diane@downtownwomensclub.com">Diane Danielson at 9:15 PM - 0 comments

Did you prefer Legos and Erector Sets to Barbies when you were younger? Or perhaps you coveted your brother's Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs? Maybe now's the time to rediscover your inner engineer. At least that's what the founders of the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project hope.

Women make up 46 percent of the workforce in the United States yet hold only 12 percent of the jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math. Hoping to attract more women to careers in engineering, a coalition of engineering associations and societies, together with the WGBH-TV Educational Foundation in Boston, have established the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project.

The project will kick off with a book, expected to be published in the fall of 2005, that focuses on what women engineers from around the world have contributed to the development of innovative technologies. The book's topic is clear from its title: Women Engineers: Extraordinary Stories of How They Changed Our World.

...

 

November 22, 2004

Reconsider counteroffers
Posted by jr@jrothman.com">Johanna Rothman at 3:48 PM - 0 comments

I'd missed this article about counter-offers, the first time around, but Michael found it. See the original Accepting a Counteroffer Can Be the Road to Ruin article.
My experience matches Michael's point #2: Anecdotal evidence says that most people regret accepting counteroffers. In my experience, you might be able to retain someone for a few months, but that person has already mentally checked out, and is still looking for a new job.
So, if you're considering counteroffers, don't. Counteroffers are not a good long-term retention strategy.

...

Canada, the next Prozac Nation?
Posted by diane@downtownwomensclub.com">Diane Danielson at 9:58 AM - 1 comments

When it comes to the work-life balance factor, it seems Canadian businesswomen aren't fairing much better than we are. CTV Canada reports on a recent study of depression and working women.

One in five working Canadian women experience depression or anxiety, which has caused some women to avoid or even quit work, according to a national study released Monday.

The study was conducted by Leger Marketing on behalf of Wyeth Canada, a pharmaceutical company. It found that 71 per cent of respondents said depression and anxiety was a barrier to success, compared to 23 per cent who found pregnancy to be a barrier.

...

The survey found that most of the women who experience depression or anxiety are:

between the ages of 35 and 55;

live in a city or a suburban community; and

have children.

...

 

November 18, 2004

HR pay levels on the rise
Posted by skenney@keystonepartners.com">Sean Kenney at 1:32 PM - 0 comments

As the economy improves and employers begin focusing on growing business and investing in employees, many HR positions commanded strong increases in pay levels this year. Salaries for HR roles in areas of rising importance — specifically, compensation experts, recruiters and trainers — advanced significantly. These are the findings of a survey conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting in conjunction with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

...

 

November 17, 2004

Offshoring accelerating
Posted by deisenhart@bostonworks.com">Douglas Eisenhart at 1:36 PM - 0 comments

A new report covered in today's Boston Globe says the number of jobs heading overseas may be higher than previously thought:

Groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce peg the number [of US jobs going overseas] at perhaps 200,000 jobs a year. But a new report commissioned by a bipartisan congressional commission said 406,000 US jobs will migrate overseas this year, double the conventional wisdom. This trend is expected to continue for several years as a greater variety of jobs are offshored, including to Latin America and the Caribbean.

A related piece reports that this includes middle-class, white-collar jobs, too.

...

 

November 12, 2004

The value of values
Posted by skenney@keystonepartners.com">Sean Kenney at 2:46 PM - 1 comments

This article from HR Executive discusses the benefits of looking beyond employee personality and behavorial profiles to evaluate the potential match between their values and those of the company culture. Employees whose values align well appear to be more productive, more satisfied in their job, and less likely to leave.

"Increasingly," [Rodney Warrenfeltz] says, "I'm hearing companies use the kind of reasoning you sometimes hear from a football coach after he's made a first-round draft pick: 'We're not looking to fill a particular position as much as we're looking for a quality athlete with values that match the values of our organization. When we find a candidate like that, we'll find a role for them.'

But what values, exactly, are we talking about? That, experts say, is the question that needs to be answered first.

...

 

November 10, 2004

Clients following salespeople out the door
Posted by pegasus@jpbutler.com">Jason Butler at 10:30 AM - 0 comments

Wall Street is all a-flutter this week because Merrill Lynch's top broker, John Fitzpatrick, has gone to a competitor, and he's bringing all his clients with him. Merrill Lynch is trying to figure out how to prevent that catastrophe.

Merrill might, for example, race to court for a restraining order temporarily prohibiting a departing broker from contacting his clients. Those relationships, it argued, belonged to the firm, not its employee. In the meantime, managers would exhort their brokers to call the clients and urge them to keep their accounts at Merrill.

How many of your dollars would walk away with your best salesperson?

...

Recruiting bilingual employees
Posted by deisenhart@bostonworks.com">Douglas Eisenhart at 9:12 AM - 0 comments

Diversity is no longer just an HR buzzword. It's an organizational imperative if firms are to grow and adapt in changing markets. From the fall issue of SHRM's Employment Management Today, here's a piece to help you
attract and hire bilingual employees:

Whether it’s parlez-vous français, habla español or você fala português, more American companies are looking to recruit and hire bilingual employees. Several factors contribute to this trend, but there are two primary reasons for the increased need to recruit multilingual employees. They are (1) a growing immigrant population in the United States that is not fluent in English, and (2) American companies are becoming more global—expanding their operations oversees, which requires employees to speak another language.

...

 

November 9, 2004

Flu-wary Mass. firms attack germs
Posted by deisenhart@bostonworks.com">Douglas Eisenhart at 10:22 AM - 0 comments

The Boston Globe reports:

With winter approaching and too little flu vaccine to go around, some Massachusetts employers are declaring war on germs.

By relying on an arsenal of weapons ranging from sanitizing dispensers to antibacterial agents and e-mails encouraging flu prevention, they hope to keep illness at bay. Others, worried about the spread of disease in confined spaces, are telling sick workers to stay home.

How is your firm addressing this issue?

...

 

November 8, 2004

Nation records a surge in jobs
Posted by deisenhart@bostonworks.com">Douglas Eisenhart at 5:30 PM - 0 comments

Over the weekend the Boston Globe provided the latest jobs report, and the news was good:

Payrolls surged in October as US employers added more than 300,000 jobs, the biggest gain in seven months and the strongest evidence yet that the economic expansion is solidly on track.
- - - - -
"The economic expansion is well entrenched," said Anthony Chan, senior economist at JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management in Columbus, Ohio. "This confirms that expansion is likely to continue into 2005, and should allay concerns that we were about to enter into a recession."

...

 

November 5, 2004

"Bad Mommy, Bad Mommy"
Posted by diane@downtownwomensclub.com">Diane Danielson at 11:50 PM - 0 comments

The New York Times reviews the new book Home-Alone America - the latest salvo fired in the mommy wars.

If any book tempts readers to judge its contents by the cover, it is "Home-Alone America," whose jacket photograph shows Mom leaving for work in her power suit and pumps as Junior clings desperately to her ankle.

Any passions left uninflamed might be stirred by the book's subtitle: "The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs and Other Parent Substitutes." That seems to label it as another book bashing working mothers, blaming them for the ills of society and condemning them for putting their happiness above that of their children.

Not so, says Mary Eberstadt, the author of "Home-Alone America," being published this week by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Group USA that focuses on conservative viewpoints.

"This isn't a finger-pointing book," she said in an interview. "It's not a blaming book. It's an attempt to deliver what I know to be an out-of-the-box examination of a serious social question. That question is, why do kids today have serious problems that their parents' generation and their grandparents' generation did not?"

...

Got game?
Posted by skenney@keystonepartners.com">Sean Kenney at 10:02 AM - 0 comments

In this Harvard Business School Working Knowledge interview, authors John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade discuss the challenges and rewards of managing the generation of gamers:

Gamers approach the business world a bit more like a game. They see the different companies—and maybe the people they work with—as "players." They're way more competitive and are very passionate about "winning." They are both more optimistic and more determined about solving any kind of problem you can imagine; they think there's always going to be some combination of moves that will result in success. That drives them to be incredibly creative. They're a bit suspicious of company leaders: The game world is not big on following hierarchy. Plus, they are very confident. Like entrepreneurs, they would rather rely on their own abilities to succeed or fail. They're also more comfortable with risks, but aren't reckless.

...

 

November 3, 2004

Local man wins age-bias lawsuit
Posted by deisenhart@bostonworks.com">Douglas Eisenhart at 11:28 AM - 0 comments

From today's Globe:

In age-discrimination lawsuits, the ignorance of top executives about what subordinates are doing -- or not doing -- is no longer an adequate defense.

A federal court awarded $827,000 to a former Boston branch manager at Hertz Equipment Rental Corp. John Cariglia was 62 and had restored the money-losing branch to profitability when top executives fired him for poor performance involving equipment maintenance.

...

Hire your best customers
Posted by pegasus@jpbutler.com">Jason Butler at 7:01 AM - 0 comments

The Container Store needs to hire a thousand workers for the holiday season. What do they do? Hire their best customers.

The Container Store, for example, sent out 100,000 invitations last month to people who had purchased wrapping paper from the chain over the past 12 to 18 months. "Do you LOVE gorgeous gift wrap?" the invitation read. "So do we! Let's put your passion for great gift wrap to work. ..."
...
"The fact that they've been great customers is far greater than any prior retail experience that they could have," he said. "The passion is far more important, and we know we can provide them with the initial training needed to make them successful."

I've seen this before in the tech industry as well. Find people who are excited about using your product, and get them to help you make it better.

(via our friends at the Church of the Customer)

...

 

November 2, 2004

Time to vote
Posted by jr@jrothman.com">Johanna Rothman at 8:51 AM - 0 comments

I just received a tickler email from Workforce.com, about holiday gifts for employees. Since I'm a single-person company, I can decide if I want my own coffee, thank you :-) But I was thinking, for larger companies -- even if just a handful of people -- giving people time to vote today may be more important than any holiday gift you can afford or want to give your employees. So make sure your employees -- including you -- take the time to vote. It may be the best non-holiday gift you can give them.

...