November 30, 2005

Wages highest in East Coast states
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:16 AM

From today's Globe:

Americans have been migrating south and west for decades, but it appears they've been leaving some high-paying jobs behind.

While there are many pockets of wealth in the South and West, the states with the highest wage earners line the East Coast, according to Census data released yesterday.

Read the entire article.

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November 29, 2005

The coming knowledge drain
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:58 PM

Workforce Management magazine reports on the impending retirement of baby boomers, the attendant skills and knowledge shortage, and what your firm can do about it:

Imagine having to deal with this nightmare scenario: One-fifth of the executives, managers and workers with critical skills that your company needs to survive have walked out the door.

Unfortunately, that’s the real-life predicament that companies could face as soon as 2008 because of the aging of the baby boom generation, according to Mary Sue Rogers, global leader of IBM Business Consulting Services’ Human Capital Management group.

"It’s like the Y2K problem," she says. "If you don’t start early enough in preparing for it, you’ll reach a point where no matter how much money you throw at the problem, it won’t be enough."

(Note: one-time free registration may be required to access this article.)

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November 28, 2005

The high price of coddling stars
Posted by Jason Butler at 1:40 PM

If you ever watch ESPN or listen to WEEI, then you know about (and are probably pretty sick of) the Terrell Owens saga. T.O. is a perfect example of a high-maintenance employee, one so talented that you're loth to give up on him, but so much of a pain in the butt that you can't wait to kick him out.

Knowledge @ Wharton examines the Owens story and deconstructs the issues surrounding tradeoffs between talent and disruptive behavior.

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November 23, 2005

Gender gap heading in right direction (for women!)
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:07 AM

Good news before the holiday shopping season. The Boston Globe business section reports that there's been movement in the right direction on the gender gap. Now women only make $.20 less/$1.00 than men doing the same work at the same level for the same hours. (FYI - women who drop out or work part-time were never part of the calculation.)

Women narrowed the pay gap with men in Massachusetts and the nation last year, but they still earn only about 80 percent of male workers, the Labor Department reported yesterday.

In Massachusetts, median weekly earnings of women were 79.3 percent of men's, up from 78 percent in 2003. Nationally, women earned 80.3 percent of what men did last year, up from 79.5 percent.

In New England, Vermont had the narrowest pay gap last year, with women earning 85 percent of what men did, while New Hampshire had the widest, as women earned just 72.3 percent of men. Nationally, the gap was narrowest in California, where women earned 87.1 percent of men's pay, and widest in Wyoming, where the figure was just 65.9 percent.

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November 22, 2005

A little HR humor
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 8:41 AM

One of my favorite daily comics, Wiley's "Non Sequitur", heads into the HR space this morning. Get a chuckle here.

(Note: if you're viewing this after 11/22, be sure to click on that date in the archive calendar.)

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How not to lose $2 million
Posted by Diane Danielson at 7:55 AM

Did you know that if you are a woman graduating high school this year, you will earn $700,000 less over your lifetime than the boy graduating next to you? If you are graduating college, the men will earn $1.2 million more; and grad school? A whopping $2 million more. These are just some of the facts and information on the gender gap presented on the website, www.wageproject.org.

Cool things to check out on the site: wage gap calculator; actual discrimination stories; how to start a wage club; and a database of sex discrimination cases.

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November 21, 2005

Boston-area health costs rising faster than average
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:17 AM

From today's Boston Globe:

The cost of healthcare benefits for Boston-area employers this year rose at a rate 44 percent higher than it did nationally, according to a study by one of the nation's largest benefits consultants.

Mercer Health & Benefits found that the amount employers paid for each worker's health benefits was $8,434 in Greater Boston, up 8.8 percent from last year. Nationwide, the average cost of health benefits was $7,089, up 6.1 percent.

But you get what you pay for:

Peter Kilmartin, a principal in Mercer's Boston office, said healthcare costs are higher in Boston because of the area's reliance on world-renowned teaching hospitals for care. In addition, he said, employers offer better benefits than the national average.

Read the entire article.

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Work-life balance not just a women's issue
Posted by Diane Danielson at 7:44 AM

After questioning Fortune Magazine earlier this month about why they only focus on the women who drop out of corporate America, it was great to see that this week they focused on the men who are asking for a little humanity from companies. Check out this well-written article that treats the work-life issue more holistically.

There's a scene in the classic 1956 film, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, when Fredric March's driven CEO is informed that his estranged daughter has eloped. The CEO's wife, far from seeking her husband's comfort at this distressing moment, instead announces that their chilly marriage is over. In a wave of bitterness and self-pity, the boss tells junior executive Gregory Peck that "big successful businesses aren't built by men like you—9 to 5 and home and family." They're built by workaholics like me, he explains. The personal toll is obvious. "My mistake," he adds sadly, addressing his glass of Scotch, "was in being one of those men."

We're still stuck between the extremes depicted in the movie. Either you're a maniacal workaholic who runs the world—or you're a Dilbert, punching a clock with little power and authority. Too many businesspeople think that's just the way of the world. "You can't have it all," they say. But let's be very clear on what "all" is. People want to work at the level they're capable of and still have time for things outside work that nourish them. They don't expect to be as rich or accomplished as Bill Gates or Jeff Immelt while also being the perfect parent. They're saying that most of us lucky enough to have the talent and ambition to tackle top jobs while being blessed with people or things that give us sustenance should be able to combine both.

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November 16, 2005

HR managers say cronyism still an issue
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:21 PM

When asked in a recent online poll the main reason they were forced to hire someone, 34% of HR managers said cronysim was the issue:

Cronyism is the most-common reason human resources managers cite for why they have been forced to hire someone who otherwise wouldn't have gotten the job, according to a recent poll on HR.BLR.com.
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The poll had more than 560 respondents. The poll was a follow-up to a previous HR.BLR.com poll in which 77 percent of respondents said they have been forced to hire someone who otherwise wouldn't have gotten the job.

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November 13, 2005

Bait and switch
Posted by Diane Danielson at 1:39 PM

What happens when the job you land is nothing like it was described? This week's NYTimes Career Couch looks at your alternatives. But the best advice may be a little advance planning:

Ms. Dalton, the behavioral consultant from Maryland, said that before accepting a new job, an employee should ask for a written description of the position, spelling out the specific responsibilities.

"It's important to do your homework," she said. "Answering many of these questions up front will save you aggravation down the road."

And a little inside information gained through networking, wouldn't hurt either.

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November 8, 2005

Alito: thumbs up or down from employers?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:46 PM

Even though the hearings will not begin till January, everyone is busy doing due diligence on the record of the current Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito. Here, Workforce Management magazine weighs in with their opinion on whether Alito as Supreme Court justice might be good or bad for corporations. The verdict?:

If he’s confirmed by the Senate, Alito is likely to bring a conservative perspective on employment law to the nation’s highest court. Alito has weighed in on a significant number of workplace cases because the 3rd Circuit Court’s jurisdiction includes Delaware, home to many corporate headquarters.

"He has consistently chosen to interpret anti-discrimination protections as narrowly as possible," says Suzanne Goldberg, professor of law at Rutgers University.

Maybe no surprise there. The article goes on to provide a few more examples and predicts a contentious confirmation process.

[Blogger's Note: In the interest of full disclosure, Sam Alito was a college classmate of mine, though our paths rarely crossed in four years on the same campus. I guess somebody was spending time in the library. . .]

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November 7, 2005

Fortune's most powerful women
Posted by Diane Danielson at 8:13 AM

It's that time of year - Fortune lists their 50 most powerful women. No real surprises at the top. Meg Whitman rules again. But there are some new names.

However, what article about powerful women would be complete without the publication also printing an article about the women who "choose to chuck it." Also in the same Fortune issue:

Research by Catalyst, an organization that studies women in the workplace, shows that attrition rates at the highest corporate levels are comparable for men and women (roughly 10%). But because so few women make it to the top—only 15.7% of corporate officers at FORTUNE 500 companies are women, according to Catalyst—any departure naturally attracts notice. We were curious about why ambitious women would step off the corporate ladder. So we looked up some women whose path had led them onto FORTUNE's power list, then off it—and asked them to tell us their stories.

My question to Fortune: If the numbers don't differ from the men - as you state - why do you have to focus on it??????? Personally, if the ratio is the same, that means there are many more men "chucking it. " Now that would be a much more interesting story.

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November 4, 2005

Mass. House approves healthcare overhaul
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:44 AM

HR folks, the winds of change are blowing in the area of healthcare benefits.

The good news is that if the currently proposed bill goes through, Massachusetts will be the first state in the country with universal healthcare coverage. The potentially bad news for those firms with more than ten employees is that they may be facing a new tax:

At the core of the House plan is the controversial payroll tax, which would be levied on businesses with more than 10 employees if they do not provide insurance to their workers. Romney and Travaglini oppose the tax. But last night's 129 to 24 House vote on the payroll tax would be enough to overrule a Romney veto, and earlier this week House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi suggested that many senators support the idea, despite Travaglini's reservations.

Read the whole story about the Beacon Hill debates from today's Globe.

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November 3, 2005

There's no crying in hedge funds
Posted by Diane Danielson at 3:05 PM

Fortune reports on the lack of women in hedge funds.

Go to a conference of hedge fund managers, or a benefit, or just an old-fashioned booze-up, and it is obvious that something is missing: women. The financial services industry isn't known for being particularly female-friendly; not many women are mutual fund managers either. But hedge funds represent the extreme edge of the spectrum. "It's Wall Street divided by 100," says Jacki Zehner, a former Goldman Sachs partner, referring to the percentage of women in the hedge fund industry. There are no hard numbers, but ask people to name women who run major hedge funds, and you often meet with an awkward silence. ...

Most women in the business say that in the end talent really will trump all. But it is still a boys' club. Anna Nikolayevsky, who runs New York hedge fund Axel Capital, was in the middle of interviewing a young man to work for her when he interrupted to ask, "So who are the guys who started this fund?" Another woman manager recalls questioning in a large public meeting the CEO of a company whose stock she had sold short. The CEO repeatedly referred to her as "Miss," as in, "Well, Miss, if you understood our financials, Miss ..." Some investors simply are more reluctant to entrust money to a woman. "I have never hired a woman hedge fund manager, and I am leery of them," says someone who hires hedge fund managers for a living—and happens to be a woman herself. Another woman has heard over and over from men that they don't like to work with women because they can't stand tears. (A friend of hers has a great retort: "I can't deal with watching you guys adjust yourselves all day!")

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November 1, 2005

Retention attention: Theo and the Sox
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:32 AM

OK, your organization is at the top of its game - world champions, in fact, the best on the planet. And you would obviously like to maintain that position, if at all possible. And you have a great young management team in place that helped get you there over the last couple of years. How important is it to the organization to keep those folks on board?

Maybe that describes your organization. It also describes the Boston Red Sox and what their ownership and senior management have been going through, in a very public fashion, over the last several weeks and months. And, as we all know, it was just announced late yesterday that the Sox lost their brightest young management star, General Manager Theo Epstein.

What do you think, employers, HR managers, business owners, and career development folks? Did the Sox do enough to retain Theo? What impact will it have on the future of the team? How dangerous will it be if he goes to the competition? Let us know your thoughts in this special "Theo and the Sox" discussion group.

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