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HR TRENDS
Survey forecasts focus on recruitment

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For some workers, the jobless recovery might not be jobless much longer.

In 2004, corporate recruiters and senior managers will be more focused on recruiting new workers and retaining the ones they have than they were last year, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. The association's online survey polled 362 executives and human resource professionals in December.

The survey's goal: to predict shifts in human resource trends this year and compare corporate executives' attitudes towards the people they manage.

Of those polled, 61 percent said they would focus more attention on employee retention, up from 51 percent last year. Additionally, 50 percent said they planned to recruit new employees, up from 43 percent in 2003. In all, 58 percent said they would focus on building employee morale.

''Results indicate that across the board, 79 percent of top executives and 77 percent of senior managers agree that wisely managing human capital is 'very' important to the success of an organization as a whole,'' the group said.

Based in Alexandria, Va., the human resource group said the survey results suggested that employers would be spending more time on employee satisfaction and responding to workers' demands for more flexible schedules than on layoffs and staff reductions.

''These survey results indicate a clear calling from executives and senior managers for HR professionals who understand the crucial role their contributions can play in helping an organization achieve its business goals,'' said SHRM president and CEO Susan R. Meisinger.

Meisinger said that 63 percent of the executives and 66 percent of the senior managers polled said that it was very important to make sure that employees understand and are aligned with business goals. She noted that more executives seem to understand that employees need to feel committed to the work they do.

She added that many executives said that human resource professionals play a critical role in helping to promote employee loyalty.

HEALTHCARE
Retirees expected to see medical costs rise

Watson Wyatt Worldwide, the benefits consultancy, reports that retirees will shoulder a much higher portion of their medical costs in the future.

At the same time, the company said, the cost of healthcare will grow faster than most workers' annual incomes.

In the 1980s, by contrast, employers typically paid 80 percent of their retired workers' health insurance premiums and the retiree paid only 20 percent, said Watson Wyatt.

Times have changed.

''Assuming no additional growth in life expectancies, lifetime medical expenses equaled 162 percent of median final pay for persons retiring in 2001, and will rise to 220 percent of projected final pay by 2031,'' the consulting firm said. ''Future retirees whose employers offer service-related premium contributions can reduce their share of total costs by working additional years before retirement. But it will require long periods of service for these plans to come near to replacing the typical plan provided to past retirees. Finally, employers will retain the right to modify or eliminate these plans in the future.''

In a separate report, Kaiser Permanente has found that only 38 percent of all large companies offer retiree health benefits today, down from 66 percent in 1988. Watson Wyatt suggests older workers consider the possibility of staying on the job longer. It maintains that extending their careers should reduce the number of years they will need to tap retiree medical care and would allow them to save towards future health care costs.

''Today's workers may not be pleased with the prospect of working longer than their parents did,'' said Watson Wyatt. ''But for most, the only alternative is to save much more.''

Another solution involves setting up separate retiree health benefits with tax incentives that are favorable to employers.

''One way to do so is to allow employers to set up a defined contribution savings plan, similar to a 401(k) plan,'' the company said.

MINORITIES
'Silicon ceiling' holds back black IT workers

African-American IT workers face a barrier to advancement called the ''silicon ceiling,'' reports a study by the Coalition for Fair Employment.

The coalition, a group of professional organizations whose goal is to promote the recruitment of black employees by the high-tech industry, said that employers in the sector are hiring and promoting fewer black employees than other industries.The study tracks trends in the industry that impact black IT professionals.

An article about the study in HR Magazine found that African-Americans accounted for 5.5 percent of the IT work force or 211,000 employees nationwide last year. By contrast, federal labor statistics show that black employees make up 10.6 percent of the overall US work force.

The coalition said a sufficient pool of black college students are majoring in computer science but companies are not recruiting them. In all, 6 percent of the nation's 36.4 million black residents are employed in the industry, according to the US Census Bureau. The group said black IT professionals now own and operate 2,400 high tech companies in the United States.

''Clearly there is a disparity between high-tech companies and other employers in the way they recruit,'' John William Templeton, a member of the coalition's board, told HR Magazine. ''Compared to the 12 major industrial categories as listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, high tech industries ranked 10th, only ahead of mining and agriculture in the proportion of African Americans they employ.''

Templeton disagreed with the contention that minorities are not qualified for work in the IT industry. He argued in HR Magazine that other technology-based industries have aggressively recruited black workers. For example, he said, 13.9 percent of the IT employees in the telecommunications industry are African-American.

DIANE E. LEWIS

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