July 27, 2006

Girls...party...physics
Posted by at 3:28 PM

I rarely read something that makes me think (see first excerpt), makes me laugh (see second) and makes me angry (see third), so Barbara Ehrenreich's essay in this week's Time magazine was a treat. The freewheeling essay touches on topics including:

gender differences in college attrition

Boys are less likely to go to college in the first place (only 45% of college students under 25 are male) and are less likely to graduate as well.

the role of the MBTI in pre-employment testing

Their chief function, as far as I could tell when I took them, was to weed out the introverts. When asked whether you'd rather be the life of the party or curl up with a book, the correct answer is always 'Party!'

and why we need girls

...we will need those high-achieving girls more than ever. Someone, after all, is going to have to figure out how to make an economy run by superannuated slacker boys competitive again in a world filled with Chinese and Indian brainiacs. I'd still major in physics if I were doing it again, just because there ought to be at least a few Americans, of whatever gender, who know something beyond the technology of beer bongs.

A view of the employment process from outside of it is a healthy dose of reality for us every once in a while. I recommend this quick 5 minute read if for no other reason than the hour-long discussion you can have with your colleagues on one of its many topical threads.

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The long, slow climb up the corporate ladder for women
Posted by Diane Danielson at 11:20 AM

Today's Boston Globe reports on the new Catalyst Study about women's slow progress in corporate America:

NEW YORK -- Women's progress in getting the top jobs in American business is so slow that at the current rate they are becoming corporate officers, it would take 40 years before women catch up with men, according to a survey released yesterday.

Women occupied only 16.4 percent of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies in 2005, according to an annual survey by the nonprofit group Catalyst, which tracks women's progress in business leadership jobs.

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July 26, 2006

To work or not to work; that is the question
Posted by Diane Danielson at 3:27 PM

O.k., I said I wouldn't write on the Mommy Wars, but someone just added some fuel to the debate that is worth a bit of thought. The Boston Globe ran an article this morning about Linda R. Hirshman, a Brandeis professor, who has written a book that proclaims that all women should work.

Hirshman first became controversial when she wrote an article last year for the liberal American Prospect magazine website saying it's a mistake for women to quit their jobs to stay at home with children. Housekeeping and child rearing, she wrote, are not worthy of the full-time ``talents of intelligent and educated human beings." In a piece last month in the Washington Post, she didn't back down. Then came her book, just out, provocatively titled, ``Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World" (Viking).

I confess, I think with the divorce rate what it is, women who don't work are taking a huge financial risk for both themselves and their kids. But I also believe that one parent needs to be flexible in an era where any corporate job demands more than 40 hours/week and travel. So I'm not ready to accept Hirshman's hardcore approach. However, I do like some of the points she makes!

At 62, Hirshman is articulate, feisty, and a self-proclaimed intellectual. She may be squeamish about the degree of angry attention she's generating, but she's fiercely proud of the firestorm she's created. While the feminist movement has mostly succeeded in removing the glass ceiling in the workplace, it's done squat about the glass ceiling in the home, she says.

``I'm pulling the discussion along. That's a good thing. The family is to 2006 what the workplace was to the movement in 1964 and the vote in 1920."

Her goal is for women and men to lead equal lives.

``If raising children and housekeeping are so important, why aren't men doing it, too?" she asks on the phone in an interview from a Manhattan hotel. She's not talking about stay-at-home fathers instead of mothers. She wants even-steven, what's-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander partnerships: ``Why should we have equality in the public realm and a social caste system in the private [realm]? It's laid on women from the moment they are born," she says. ``They come out with a uterus instead of a pen*s and get assigned the dishes."

* * *

``Why is it," she wonders, ``that as a society, we care so much more about children than we do about the women female children grow up to be?"

Interesting to note that this article about women working was in the lifestyle section and not the business section.

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Workplace Readiness--Millennials?
Posted by at 2:22 PM

As regular readers of this blog know, I love millennials. Understanding that millennials are a different generation, and therefore a different culture, while a new idea, is one that is beginning to root in corporate America. An article in the July 10 LA Times gives us insight into this culture, our new recruiting base:

Gen-Yers arrive at their first jobs with high expectations. After driving hard to be accepted to top schools and pumping up their resumes with myriad extracurricular activities and internships, many young grads expect a lush ride in the corporate world.

But while the job market may have changed, corporate culture hasn't.

Many entry-level positions still require making copies, fact-checking reports and taking the blame when the manager messes up. In industries such as Hollywood, no matter how many calculus classes the wunderkind has taken, the new kid on the block will still be asked to get coffee.

And new hires may not be ready for that kind of sacrifice.

What are the best ways to retain talented employees who may not want to work their way up the ladder? Will old-school managers who need coffee and copies be able to switch gears? If so, into what gear should they switch?

Millennials want mentoring, nurturing and meaningful work. I believe that any entry-level job can be structured not only to give millennials the support, structure and meaningful projects they crave but also get some of the daily work of business (copies, filing) done.

In my experience with millennials, it's the discussion about process that is key. Talking to new-generation employees about the necessity of the small jobs and working one's way up is part of an on-going discussion about talent and growth. Colleagues, what strategies are working for you?

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July 21, 2006

Everyday Ethics
Posted by at 2:20 PM

In a survey of 418 World at Work members who work in human resources, 65 percent said they face ethical dilemmas in their jobs at least once a month, with 19 percent reporting ethical issues surfacing at least once a day.

Corporate responsibility is quite the topic of conversation lately. I've been wondering, however, how many employees believe that their individual actions contribute to the ethics culture of their company.

The article containing the quote above from the San Diego Union Tribune started me thinking about this. It gives an example of an HR person who had to choose between angering a very powerful employee or adhering to a policy. She chose the policy and was backed up by the CEO.

What if that had not been the case? Do ethics, as a practical matter, depend upon where you are on the corporate food chain? Is this what led to Enron?

The article goes on further to describe a 'third-party reporting' systems used by some companies as a method of encouraging a flow of information about ethical violations. Does having this allow a voice for those who are voiceless because of their level of power?

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July 20, 2006

State adds 4,400 jobs; more now working than when Romney took office
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:44 PM

From the Boston Globe's daily Business Ticker on Boston.com, this welcome news:

Massachusetts employers added 4,400 jobs last month, finally erasing the so-called "jobs deficit" of Governor Mitt Romney. The state unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent.

It took nearly four years, but Massachusetts now has more payroll jobs -- 700 -- than when Romney took office in January 2003, according to data reported by the Department of Workforce Development. The state, however, still has 150,000 fewer jobs than at the pre-recession peak of early 2001.

Read the full piece.

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July 19, 2006

Job searches taking longer
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:43 PM

From Electronic Recruiting Exchange (ERE) comes this news brief:

It's taking longer to find a job, according to John A. Challenger, CEO of an outplacement firm.

The 3.6-month median length of a job search last quarter was almost a month longer than it took the quarter prior.

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July 18, 2006

Segmenting FT and temp workers to boost business
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:49 PM

Veritude's Workforce Insights carries an interview with UCLA management professor David Lewin on strategies for managing your full- and part-time workforces for the benefit of the business:

The “core” segment is comprised of full-time employees and a “peripheral” segment consists of part-time, temporary, contract, and outsourced workers, observes David Lewin, a professor of management, human resources and organizational behavior at the University of California at Los Angeles. Lewin spoke with Workforce Insights about how drawing these distinctions – and using them to drive investment decisions – enables businesses to tweak their ratios of core-to-peripheral employees and achieve a greater return on their labor investments.

Read the full interview.

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July 17, 2006

Managing the search firm
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:28 PM

The economy is back, and recruitment is up. So search firms are on the rise once again.

From Workforce Management magazine comes this timely piece on working with search firms:

Hiring is back, and so is the uneasy relationship between workforce management executives and the search firms they use to fill open positions. High-performance partnerships are possible if the search firm is flexible and expectations are clear.

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July 11, 2006

Fishnets at Work
Posted by at 2:57 PM

I was forwarded an article from a colleague today on what to wear at work. Since I'm not a fishnets and stillettos type, I assume that she sent it as a wow-other-people-can-be-strange-sometimes reminder. The article, from MSN Careers, gives 15 bits of fashion advice everyone should heed. What was most interesting to me, however, was not the sage fashion advice to men to avoid sport socks with business shoes, but rather an example within the article itself.

The story details Olga 'a real head turner'. Her reply to the HR staff member who confronted her about her attire stunned me:

'She unabashedly told me that she couldn't help it if people felt threatened or turned on by her. She was who she was and those people bothered by it were probably older, fatter and jealous.'

I was fascinated and wanted to know more about Olga. Was this a millennial statement, a feminist one, or an expression of individuality? Was she so brilliant/delusional that she thought she would succeed despite her attire?

Regardless, her response to HR seemed inappropriate at best and insubordinate at worst. It made me wonder: what happened next?

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Region's hiring on the rise
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:56 AM

The Northeast Human Resources Association (NEHRA) reports that local firms' are in hiring mode:

"Hiring projections for the coming year look positive according to our annual hiring e-survey," said Lou Gaglini, co-chair of the EMA/Staffing Special Interest Group, Northeast Human Resources Association. "Employers will be making efforts to locate and hire the best talent, relying heavily upon their internal recruiting staffs in the process, and turning to their own employees for referrals of quality job candidates," Gaglini said.

A convincing 65% of those polled anticipate the number of full-time employees to increase over the next year, while 29% will remain at the same staffing levels and only 6% expect a decrease. The majority of those hiring will add staff in the exempt and non-exempt categories with significantly fewer hires of temporary and contract workers. Hiring projections have increased by a few percentage points since NEHRA's last hiring survey a year ago.

Read the full piece right here on BostonWorks' Hiring Hub, where our partnership with NEHRA gives us exclusive access to this and other HR trends, stats, and expert advice for Greater Boston and the northeast.

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July 7, 2006

Online applications for hourly jobs double
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:23 PM

From our sister site About.com, a short report on the increase in online job apps for part-time positions:

Unicru, the company that provides hiring management systems for more than 130 brands including 22 of the Top 100 U.S. retailers, reported that last quarter 2.5 million job candidates applied online with Unicru clients for an hourly position, more than twice the 897,000 applicants that applied in-person.

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July 6, 2006

No-cost recruiting tools
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:16 PM

John Sullivan, writing in Workforce Management magazine, weighs in on the war for talent with some proven no-cost solutions. Here's a sample:

. . .If you’re looking for almost foolproof no-cost recruiting tools, here [are] some of the ones used by leading firms.

Targeted employee referrals. Every bit of research that I’ve seen comes to the same conclusion: Referrals consistently produce the highest-quality candidates of any recruiting source. However, most companywide referral programs cost money, and because the Homer Simpsons of the organization know people too, these companywide programs can attract lower-quality referrals as well as higher-quality ones. However, there is a more focused referral approach that produces spectacular results with no out-of-pocket costs. I call this "Give Me 5.". . .

Learn more.

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July 5, 2006

Finding fresh talent in a tight market
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:18 AM

After years of a buyers' market for firms, the economy has strengthened and job seekers have more leverage than before. So what do you, the recruiter, do about it?

BostonWorks' own Hire Authority, Elaine Varelas, has some ideas on how to find fresh talent in a tight market:

We've all heard the predictions about the shrinking labor pool: the baby boomers will begin to cycle out of the workforce, while the global economy will continue to grow. How will organizations sustain a viable workforce? We know we can't rely on old recruiting tricks: sign-on bonuses, providing foosball tables, and employee referrals. If companies want to survive the coming labor shortage, and thrive, they need to rethink the way they approach recruitment and retention and, more importantly, who they are trying to recruit and retain.

Read the entire piece from the BostonWorks HR Center.

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