June 25, 2007

Report: Merit pay raises increase slightly
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:35 PM

From today's Daily Business Update, an online service of the Globe and Boston.com:

High achievers in Massachusetts workplaces can expect merit-pay raises in the range of 3 to 4.5 percent this year, if a new survey out today is any guide.

Budgets for merit pay raises at Massachusetts employers are starting to "slowly ramp up in 2007," concluded a survey of employers by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, an association representing more than 7,600 Massachusetts businesses and institutional members.

Read more.

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June 21, 2007

Don't show up as a troll or a mermaid: avatars and recruiting
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 1:27 PM

...he couldn't figure out how to manipulate the avatar to sit in the chair -- so he sat it on top instead. (Others at the event began floating in the air while doing their interviews).

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about avatar recruiting from all quarters: from University of Kentucky's Stuckert Career Center, from a recruiting friend at Spansion, and today from a very hip HR manager in my own company. New to this whole Second Life thing? Read on--you don't want to fall behind the cool kids.

Start out by reading Wall Street Journal reporter Anjali Athavaley's June 20th article called A Job Interview You Don't Have to Show Up For.

The phenomenon of recruitment on Second Life began with smaller, more-progressive companies that already used the site to market their products. These companies occasionally recruited Second Life users who visited their buildings. Now, other employers -- even in stodgier industries -- are inviting prospective hires who have never used Second Life to show up in the virtual world and meet with their avatar recruiters.

Right now, many folks are in the ruminating, pre-planning stage. I'm hoping that our company may be persuaded to dip our toes in this pool and do a small experiment with University of Kentucky sometime this year. If so, I will ask them to prep their students with Athavaley's au courant advice:

if you are interviewing with an employer that has a conservative culture, you probably don't want to show up as a troll or a mermaid.

New advice for a new generation.

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June 18, 2007

Temps tumble, economy stumbles?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:02 PM

According to a piece from the latest Workforce Management magazine, an early indicator of the nation's economic health may suggest softening conditions:

The number of temporary jobs in the U.S. declined during the first four months of 2007, the first sign of a possible slowdown in a sector that often serves as an early predictor of the overall health of domestic employment.

Read the entire piece.

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Bad news for men (again)
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 9:16 AM

Last Monday's New York Times had an interesting editorial called Economic Life After College. This editorial references a recently-released working paper by economists Frank Levy and Peter Temin.

It is true that people with college degrees make more money than people without degrees. The gap has narrowed somewhat in recent years, which is disturbing. But the earning power of college graduates still far outpaces that of less-educated workers. The bad news, though, is that a college degree does not ensure a bigger share of the economic pie for many graduates...only college-educated women have seen their compensation grow in line with economywide gains in productivity. The earnings of male college graduates have failed to keep pace with productivity gains.

Levy and Temin's abstract can be found here . Further discussion on the topic and can be found on Economist's View here.

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June 15, 2007

Why no one in Boston's corporate diversity space was home watching TV last night....and what we're all doing for the next 20 years
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 9:04 AM

Last night The Partnership celebrated its 20th anniversary. The event brought out every major mover and shaker in Boston. What could have been merely a self-congratulatory history review and (well deserved) celebration was instead crafted as a dedication to the next 20 years of work. Dr. Beverly Edgehill, President & CEO, unveiled Ten Partnership Initiatives for the Commonwealth's Future, and was clear in her commitment to continue the excellence The Partnership has brought to Boston's corporate community. Some of the ten initiatives expand or enhance current Partnership programs and some are new programs. A sample:

• Expanding the College to Career program
• Craft mentoring programs for Fortune 500 companies
• Develop associate cultivation programs for Boston law firms
• Redesign Senior Executives program

Unlike other organizations that look good on paper, but don't actually make an impact, The Partnership is a successful, thriving doer in the Boston community. Our company, like so many others, has seen and benefited from participation. Congratulations on 20 years of service to the Boston community. Can't wait to see what Boston looks like after another 20 years of your impact.

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June 12, 2007

New media content is the ticket to Club Millennial
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 3:45 PM

Yesterday's Financial Times had an excellent article on B-school blogs' effects on admitted student decisions to attend. The article can be accessed here. Millennials are just beginning to graduate from business schools and are accessing information in a way common to this generational cohort. As companies seek to attract talent, it will be critical to manage the company's on-line presence. This article speaks to the role that blogs play in candidates ascertaining the real culture of a B-school. Substitute company for school and interview for campus visit in the paragraph below (and article) and you have a clear indication of where employer branding needs to go next.

In the past, campus visits were the only way for would-be business students to get beyond the slick....canned recruiting pitches and gauge where whether a particular school was the right fit. Nowadays, however, prospective applicants turn to blogs for a no-holds barred understanding of what life at a certain business school is like.

Corporate America is shadow-boxing with new media like MySpace and wondering how best to get into Club Millennial. My recommendation? Start by finding out what content is out there on your company's culture and then start pushing out additional (authentic) content. Coporate MySpace pages? Already being pushed out by early-adopting companies. Content of this ilk is the ticket to the recruiting lounge in Club Millennial-----see you inside!

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June 8, 2007

How to run a women's intiative program
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:01 AM

Businessweek is running a story about how to make a women's initiative work using examples from Best Buy, Deloitte and GE. Great stories and great examples - and if you need more you can find some in Sylvia Ann Hewlett's book Off-Ramps and On-Ramps. But, what happens to the rest of the women who don't work for those handful of fortune 500 companies that "get it" and put mega-budgets behind it? From the Businessweek piece:

Corporate women's networks frequently get a bad rap--for good reason. The groups frequently toil on the fringes, hosting "lunch and learns" and book clubs that rarely provide the skills or exposure women need to rise in the ranks. Often, "these initiatives are run by people who don't really have much power," notes Claudia Peus, a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. When she interviewed more than 900 female executives about critical factors in their success, they ranked programs for the promotion of women last. "The spontaneous reaction was, 'They don't work.'"

It's an issue - how do you keep your women engaged and not marginalized if you don't have a budget or the senior management buy-in to do so?

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June 7, 2007

Mass. economic growth, productivity lead New England
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:48 PM

Here's some good news from the Boston.com Daily Business Update:

Massachusetts' economic growth accelerated last year, outpacing other New England states. . .
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Massachusetts's productivity, or output per person, was the third highest in the nation, as measured by value, the Commerce Department said. Each person produced nearly $47,000 in goods and services, compared to about $38,000 nationally. Delaware, at $59,288, and Connecticut, at $50,332, led the nation.

The Commerce Department attributed the high per person output to "a concentration of high value industries, such as financial services."

Hmmmm. We hear a lot around here about the higher education industry and all the intellectual capital in the region. Looks like it might be paying off.

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June 6, 2007

More on millennials
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:39 AM

The HR Blog has provided continuing coverage of millennials, or Gen Y, in the workplace, thanks in part to HR Blogger Maureen Crawford's ongoing fascination with this topic.

Now here's an audio entry, a segment from NPR's Morning Edition on how this new generation's entry into the workforce is changing the nature of things:

Morning Edition, June 6, 2007 · The 18- to 25-year-olds from the so-called "MySpace" or "Millennial" Generation often have radically different needs and expectations than older workers. The two groups can find common ground.

To hear the piece, go to NPR.org and click on the "Listen" button. Running time is just under 4 minutes, and interviews include a real live millennial(!) and a consultant who specializes in demographic shifts in the workplace.

If that piques your interest, then you may also want to listen to last week's segment on firms using another highly popular social networking site, Facebook.com, as a recruiting tool:

Morning Edition, May 30, 2007 · "Generation Me." That's one term for a generation obsessed with affirmation, iPods and Blackberrys. Companies are doing whatever they can to pull them in. The consulting firm Ernst and Young hopes to hire more than 3,000 entry-level associates this year. So it set up a recruiting page on the social networking site Facebook, featuring video testimonials and blogs. More than 6,000 "friends" are signed up on the site. But the company warns its members to be careful to only post comments if its [sic] something they would say at work.

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