Monthly Archives: January 2009

The Virtual Conference Center has Arrived!

Posted on January 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

virtualis

Either this is really cool or really weird – think Second Life for meetings.

Virtualis is the largest and most meticulously-designed convention center in the revolutionary, 3D computer-generated world of Second Life. Mirroring lavish real-world convention centers with lush grounds, Virtualis is owned and operated by real life meeting and event management professionals boasting state of the art facilities with educational breakout rooms, a grand ballroom, exhibition halls and special event space to be used for networking and social gatherings or virtual team building events. Virtualis integrates state-of-the-art technology making your programs powerful, cost-effective and eco-friendly.

Virtualis is a non-traditional meeting and exhibition facility breaking all the barriers of traditional brick and mortar settings. Virtualis is flexible in not only use of space, but offers participants the ability to attend virtually from individual work stations globally or combine a live event with virtual attendees streaming in live or recorded audio and video to your virtual attendees.

Thought: The More I Become an Avatar (Mii, Xbox 360, Virtualis, SecondLife) the Less I Need to Leave the House. Is That a Good Thing?

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Friday Funnies: Why Teamwork is Important

Posted on January 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

This video shows two crooks trying to make a getaway from the police. It also makes a great case for why teamwork is important.

more about “One of the worst escape attempts ever…“, posted with vodpod

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Posted in Humor, Uncategorized

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Manpower Calls for Greater Recognition of the Role of Women in the Post- Crisis Labor Market

Posted on January 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

business-woman

Manpower a world leader in the employment services industry and strategic partner of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, released a paper today titled, “The Underworked Solution: Women and the Talent Crunch.” The paper calls for the increased engagement of women in the global workforce as a key component of long-term economic growth and sustainable development.

“To ensure the best possible chance of success in the post-crisis world, employers and governments must look ahead to the challenges of tomorrow, and explore how to expand their workforces,” said Barbara Beck, Manpower Inc. President of EMEA, who is also a member of the Women’s Programme of the World Economic Forum. “The most effective companies have organized themselves to maximize the role of women in their top leadership.” Beck joins David Arkless, President – Global Corporate and Government Affairs, and Mara Swan, Executive Vice President – Global Strategy and Talent, on the Manpower Davos delegation.

“The role of women in the workforce has been on many corporate agendas for some time, and it has yet to be resolved,” said Jeff Joerres, Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO. “One of our goals at Davos is to elevate the dialogue around the impact of positively addressing this under tapped talent pool.”

To download the paper click here.

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Independent Contractors are Growing at Twice the Rate of Traditional Employment

Posted on January 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

freeagentshirt

According to new research announced today, the segment of the U.S. workforce that includes contract workers, such as independent contractors, is growing at more than twice the rate of traditional employment, requiring human resources and procurement professionals to collaborate in order to maximize investments and manage contract talent strategically.

The study, released today by global professional association and think tank Human Capital Institute (HCI), and leading industry research partners, closely examines the state of Contract Talent in U.S. organizations. Contract talent is defined as contractors, consultants, freelancers, temporary help, interim executives and others who are not part of an organization’s full-time or part-time workforce — a group that currently comprises almost one-third of the U.S. workforce.

More than 90 percent of organizations surveyed for the study, “The State of Contract Talent Management and the Role of HR,” reported that they use contract talent. Additionally, 34 percent said that their use of contract talent has increased or increased dramatically in the past three years, while fewer than 20 percent reported a decrease.

As for the future, a full 85 percent of respondents believe that their use of contractors will remain about the same or grow over the next three years. The composition of the contract workforce is also changing. More than half are skilled technicians, specialists and professionals engaged in core and critical work for organizations. Indeed, identifying high-quality contractors is the number one challenge cited by survey respondents.

I am curious to know if any of you are surprised by this trend?

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Visual: Unemployment Rate by State in North America

Posted on January 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

unemployment-map-dec-2008

Click to enlarge.

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Posted in Workforce Statistics

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Top 20 Social Networking Sites

Posted on January 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

If you look at these numbers, it clearly shows Facebook will soon be overtaking MySpace.

top-20-social-network-sites-10-2008

Any surprises?

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Posted in Interesting Internet

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Crazy Business or Brilliant Start-Up? #9

Posted on January 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

dcaftest

When consumers order diet soda, they can usually tell by the first sip if they got what they ordered. Not so with decaf drinks, which tend to taste much the same as their fully caffeinated counterparts. Thanks to a new innovation much like a home pregnancy test, however, decaf drinkers can now test for themselves whether they’re getting more than they ordered.

DiscoverTesting.com‘s D+caf  Test Strip quickly and easily determines whether coffee is really decaf. Consumers simply remove a small sample from their beverage before adding cream or other additives—half a teaspoon is enough, the company says. (The strips must not be used on the part of the beverage that will be consumed, product instructions warn.) They then dip the strip into their sample and hold it there for 5 seconds. Within 60 seconds, the strip indicates via the relative darkness of two adjacent lines whether the drink is truly decaf, with less than 20 mg caffeine per 6 oz. serving. The strips also work on tea and cold drinks, but unfortunately not on latte, cappuccino or other milk-based beverages, which will limit its reach. DiscoverTesting.com, which is part of California-based Silver Lake Research, sells the tests in kits of 20 single-use strips for USD 9.95.

As many as 30 percent of decaf coffees ordered at coffee houses and restaurants contain unacceptably high levels of caffeine, the company says—which means countless consumers are getting more of a jolt than they realize.

HT: Springwise

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The 10 Worst Jobs in America Today

Posted on January 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

worst-job

If you’re lucky enough to have one of America’s 10 best jobs, you most likely enjoy a pleasant, low-stress work environment. But even the best jobs can be unsatisfying for some people. In those cases it may be time to seek a new position, but only if you’re very careful in your selection. For example, if you’re a desk jockey with dreams of dumping the rat race, you might want to consult JobsRated.com’s rankings before saying goodbye to your cubicle. According to our empirical data, many of the nation’s worst jobs involve physical labor and extended time in the great outdoors.

Based on research into 200 different positions, this year’s JobsRated.com report concludes that while mathematician earns the coveted title of America’s best job, the career squarely at the bottom of our rankings is lumberjack. What makes being a lumberjack so unappealing? Also known as loggers, lumberjacks perform backbreaking physical labor in an unpleasant environment — detriments that also apply to our next-worst job, dairy farmer, which requires employees to rise with the dawn and work hard for a minimum of 50 hours every week. Despite their privations, both positions pay less than the salary earned by an entry-level bookkeeper.

Rounding out the 10 worst careers are jobs saddled with other glaring deficiencies. Taxi drivers deal with crime and the stress of traffic all day, while a seaman is away from home for most of the year while dealing with storms and pirates. Roustabouts, who maintain oil rigs and pipelines, shoulder intense physical demands in a dangerous environment, while the disadvantages of being a garbage collector are pretty self-explanatory. Not one of the positions in JobsRated.com’s lowest rung has an average annual salary above $40,000.

If you’re considering a career change, the following are your worst overall options.

Click here to see the list.

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Gen Y’s New Words for 2009

Posted on January 22, 2009 | 1 Comment

geny-on-laptop

NEW SLANG
From povo and myselfish to retox and kward, the terms to know for 2009

While we understand the fleeting nature of slang and promise we are not “trying to make ‘fetch’ happen,” each year ushers in a bevy of new words you might hear and may even want to use (though we urge you to do so sparingly). 2009 introduces us to a vocabulary inspired by pop culture and technology, and here are a few of the favorites heard from the streets, our bloggers, and Gen Ys who know…

RECESSION-INSPIRED SLANG
 Povo (po-vo)
 “Caroline, I can’t go out to dinner tonight: My pay cut has left me totally povo.”

Ex-hole
n. Your ex boyfriend/girlfriend who dumped you via Post-it/text/drop-off-the-face-of-the-earth-disappearing-act and who is now flouncing around town with a new love interest
 “I bumped into my ex-hole this morning – she said she was so sorry that she cheated on me, blah blah blah. I wanted to puke.”

Cupcake
v. To stay home with your boyfriend/girlfriend to cuddle
 “It’s raining and cold outside; I think I’ll skip the bars and cupcake tonight.”

Hot Room
n. A social setting that involves a mix of people whose relationships to each other are, well, complicated
 “I was sitting next to my current flame and then my ex-hole walked in with his current girlfriend, who I had a falling out with in high school – total hot room!”

DIGITAL SLANG
 Pwn (pone)
 v. To “power own” something or someone. Derived years ago from World of Warcraft smack talk, this slang has been adopted throughout other online games, and has since surfaced in the mainstream real world
 “I pwn-ed Stephen last night in Wii Tennis.”

Epic Fail
 n. A frequently used term in the video game community that quite simply means you really messed up and/or something/someone is an utter failure
 “Dude, your attempt to get that girl’s number was an epic fail.”

Geequals
 n. Two people who are equal in depth of arcane knowledge
 “I knew I had met my geequal when Frank showed me his Star Wars light saber iPhone app.”

Myselfish
adj. A term used to describe people’s need for recognition and self-fulfillment via the Internet. This is accomplished with incessant Facebook status updates and TMI-Twitter feeds, and serves the purpose of making one feel important and/or noticed
 “My friends consider my need to Twitter detailed accounts of my trips to Trader Joe’s, the gas station, and my opinions on anything, really, to be annoyingly myselfish. I consider it shameless self-promotion!”

THIS YEAR’S REHAB
Retox (ree-tox)
 v. To go back on your New Year’s resolutions and do the opposite of the goals you set for yourself
 “Instead of following my resolution to get fit this year, I decided to retox and take up cooking classes instead. Oh well, no one follows New Year’s resolutions anyway, right?”

Smashed Potatoes
adj. Drunk, inebriated, similar to the term “hot mess”
 “Sorry I bailed without saying good night, but I was smashed potatoes.”

STREET SLANG
Hate-cation
 n. Taking a vacation from being a hater where you are committed to not saying anything bad about anyone or anything; synonymous with “moral cleanse”
 “Whatever, I know you have an opinion but just can’t speak your mind because you are on a hate-cation.”

Obama/Not Obama
adj. London street reporters proclaim that our new President has become synonymous with “cool”
 “Yeah, that is so Obama!”

Alt-worthy
 adj. A term used to describe people or things considered to be cool or trendy
 “The pop-up art gallery on Elizabeth Street is alt-worthy.”

‘Kward (kwerd)
 adj. Awkward
 “Whoa, that conversation was very ‘kward.”

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Posted in Workforce Generational Trends

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January 2009 Layoffs by Company at the Fortune 500 Level

Posted on January 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

layoff-delete

Layoffs for January 2009 at America’s 500 largest public companies:

Total 49,762

Jan. 16: ConocoPhillips (nyse: COP – news – people ) trims capital spending by 18%, writes off $34 billion and reduces workforce by 4% (1,300 jobs).

Jan. 16: Hertz Global Holdings (nyse: HTZ – news – people ) sets out for worldwide restructuring in first quarter of 2009; cuts 4,000 jobs.

Jan. 16: WellPoint (nyse: WLP – news – people ) reduces workforce by 600 and removes 900 open positions.

Jan. 16: Advanced Micro Devices (nyse: AMD – news – people ) reduces global workforce by 9% (1,100 jobs).

Jan. 15: Xerox (nyse: XRX – news – people ) cuts 275 jobs in New York region.

Jan. 15: MeadWestvaco (nyse: MWV – news – people ) fires 2,000 and plans closings or restructurings at up to 14 plants.

Jan. 15: Autodesk (nasdaq: ADSK – news – people ) expects loss from 2008 fourth quarter; pink-slips 750 (10% of workforce).

Jan. 15: Marshall & Ilsley (nyse: MI – news – people ) cuts 8% of staff (830) in ongoing cost-cutting.

Jan. 14: Ecolab (nyse: ECL – news – people ) restructures and reduces workforce by 4% (1,000 jobs).

Jan. 14: Delta Air Lines (nyse: DAL – news – people ) gives 2,000 early retirements as part of 8% capacity reduction.

Jan. 14: Motorola (nyse: MOT – news – people ) lays off 4,000 following a 3,000-worker layoff last year; expects savings of $700 million a year.

Jan. 14: Google (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people ) fires 100 hirers as it cuts back on contract workers and temporary employees.

Jan. 13: Cummins (nyse: CMI – news – people ) freezes salaries for the rest of the year and lets 800 go.

Jan. 13: Pfizer (nyse: PFE – news – people ) cuts 800 researchers as it lowers cost in the face of poor performance and coming patent losses.

Jan. 12: Mosaic (nyse: MOS – news – people ) fires 1,000 in Saskatchewan.

Jan. 12: Aircraft maker and Textron (nyse: TXT – news – people ) subsidiary Cessna sends 2,000 packing.

Jan. 12: Best Buy (nyse: BBY – news – people ) clears 12.5% of its headquarters staff with 500-employee layoff.

Jan. 12: Precision Castparts (nyse: PCP – news – people ) dismisses 40 as airline industry continues to struggle.

Jan. 9: Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL – news – people ) reportedly cuts 500 from U.S. sales and consulting businesses.

Jan. 9: Boeing (nyse: BA – news – people ) cuts 4,500 and returns workforce size to what it was in early 2008.

Jan. 9: Freeport-McMoRan (nyse: FCX – news – people ) slices workforce in half at Arizona mine; 1,550 workers let go.

Jan. 9: Smitfield Foods’ (nyse: SFD – news – people ) Butterball–the nation’s largest turkey company–fires 75 at Missouri plant.

Jan. 8: Union Pacific (nyse: UNP – news – people ) pink-slips 230 as company struggles; stock down 22% year-to-date.

Jan. 8: Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works–owned by General Dynamics (nyse: GD – news – people )–dismisses 179.

Jan. 8: Continuing company wide job cuts at Eaton (nyse: ETN – news – people ) hit Iowa, with 78 laid off.

Jan. 8: Walgreen (nyse: WAG – news – people ) cuts 1,000–roughly 9%–from corporate and field manager ranks.

Jan. 7: EMC (nyse: EMC – news – people ) fires 2,400 as it reduces 2009 expenses by $350 million.

Jan. 6: Alcoa (nyse: AA – news – people ) starts global salary and hiring freeze, plans sale of four non-core businesses and cuts workforce by 13% (13,500 jobs).

Jan. 6: Aqua Glass–a subsidiary owned by Masco (nyse: MAS – news – people )–pink-slips 30 employees.

Jan. 5: Cigna (nyse: CI – news – people ) reduces workforce by 4% (1,100 jobs).

Jan. 5: United States Steel (nyse: X – news – people ) cuts 50 jobs as it closes production lines in Texas.

HT: Forbes.com

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Posted in Unemployment, Workforce Trends

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Where The Jobs Are

Posted on January 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

needle-in-a-haystack

Friends, let’s not sugarcoat it: This is an exceptionally lousy time to be looking for a job. We’ve all heard by now (repeatedly) that about 2 million of them vanished in 2008, more than 250,000 in the financial sector alone, and that hiring at most companies has slowed to a crawl or stopped altogether.

But don’t give up. If you happen to belong to the broad category of employees the Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies as “management, business, and financial occupations” – a group that includes white-collar folk whose titles range from office manager to CEO – there may well be a job opening out there somewhere with your name on it.

That’s partly because grim reports about mounting unemployment usually neglect to mention that job losses don’t fall equally across all categories of workers. The overall unemployment rate, now at 7.2%, includes people of all ages and occupations. But joblessness tends to be more widespread among very young workers, no matter what the economy is doing, points out Karen Kosanovich, an economist at the BLS. If you look only at Americans aged 25 or older, the rate is 6%. Narrow it to only people with four-year college degrees, and the unemployment rate is 3.3%. That’s much higher than it was in 2006 and 2007, when unemployment among college grads hovered around 2%, but it’s still far below the 7.2% national average.

(Conversely, unemployment rates among construction workers and factory employees are much higher than average, at 13% and 10% respectively.)

Moreover, notes Jonas Prising, president of staffing giant Manpower North America, “Some of the ‘job cuts’ announced in late 2008, especially by very large companies, included normal attrition like retirements, plus a certain amount of deciding simply to leave some unfilled positions open for now. So that widely cited figure of 2 million job losses is not all involuntary layoffs, which makes it far less scary than it sounds.”

Click here to continue reading.

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Friday Funnies: Sponsor an Executive

Posted on January 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

more about “Friday Funnies: Sponsor an Executive“, posted with vodpod

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Posted in Humor

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U.S. Jobs Recovery Months Away – According to Staffing Execs

Posted on January 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

biz-snowman1

Any U.S. job market recovery is at least several months away, staffing industry executives say, citing comments from customers, weak consumer spending and evidence in the December jobs report that employers are cutting hours and overtime.

The economy shed 524,000 jobs outside the farm sector last month, fewer than expected, and the unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent, the highest since January 1993. Job losses in October and November were bigger than initially estimated.

‘When we look at where companies are, in the conversations they’re having, we anticipate continued job losses for at least a couple quarters,‘ said Jeff Joerres, chief executive of Manpower Inc (nyse: MAN – news – people ), one of the world’s largest staffing and outplacement firms.

To continue reading click here.

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Posted in Manpower News, Unemployment, Workforce Trends

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The Value of a ‘Portable’ Career

Posted on January 14, 2009 | Leave a comment

chargerslt01sunny

Stellar teamwork and star talent will be on display February 1 at the National Football League’s annual Super Bowl, in Tampa Bay, Florida. For football fans, the much-awaited Super Bowl is the highlight of the year.

Minus the dramatic interceptions and exciting touchdowns, however, football teams are not so different from organizational teams in other fields of life, including business. And watching the career moves of football stars may shed light on how you, too, can plan your next step.

That’s the message of new research by HBS professor Boris Groysberg, Lex Sant, and Robin Abrahams. Their case study “When Stars Migrate, Do They Still Perform Like Stars?” looks at the “portability” of performance and the likelihood that some positions may improve or diminish one’s prospects for career advancement. In autumn 2008, Groysberg and coauthors described their work on the National Football League in the MIT Sloan Management Review.

“As research on the National Football League reveals, sometimes the specific nature of a job determines whether a great performer at one company can replicate that performance at another,” they wrote.

The lessons are directly relevant for hiring managers, too, says Groysberg. “Managers might want to think strategically about what positions they can hire a top-notch outsider for, and which ones they’re better off developing talent for inside the organization.”

To continue reading click here.

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Crazy Business or Brilliant Start-Up? #8

Posted on January 14, 2009 | 1 Comment

zocdoc

Last summer I heard about Lifebooker, a free service that lets users search, browse and book discounted appointments at health and beauty spots in New York City. In much the same vein—and in the same city—ZocDoc brings similar time-saving capabilities to the booking of appointments with doctors and dentists.

Aiming to make healthcare simpler, ZocDoc lets users make appointments with the Big Apple’s dentists and doctors instantly and online, 24/7. Users simply search for the type of appointment they need—the site currently offers primary care, dermatology, ophthalmology, ENT, orthopedics, OB/GYN and dentistry—and they get a list of immediately bookable appointments in their area. Background details and patient reviews are available for each doctor and dentist listed on the site, and ZocDoc can also filter results by location and insurance accepted. Launched into beta in late 2007, the site is free to use.

Last month, ZocDoc was named the winner of the Forbes.com Boost Your Business Contest. And, of particular note for Springwise readers, the site is working with Dr. Jay Parkinson—whose ideas for Web 2.0 medicine we’ve covered twice before—with an API for Hello Health‘s platform. One to partner with or emulate in other parts of the world….?

Website: www.zocdoc.com
Contact: service@zocdoc.com

HT:Springwise

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Top 25 Declining Jobs

Posted on January 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

This is as of January 2009.

top-25-declining-jobs

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Posted in Workforce Statistics

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Friday Funnies: Peyton Manning on SNL – United Way PSA Skit

Posted on January 9, 2009 | Leave a comment

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Visual: United States Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas – Nov 2008

Posted on January 8, 2009 | Leave a comment

usa-unemployment-avg-nov-2009

Click picture to make it bigger.

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Can You Engage the Millennials in Work?

Posted on January 8, 2009 | Leave a comment

millennials

Recently JobFox.com conducted a poll of recruiters with predictable results—Millennials were judged to be the least effective performers of the four generations now in our workplace. A paltry 20 percent of the responders characterized them as “generally great performers”. Compare this statistic to the 63 percent who said Baby Boomers (43 to 62 years old) were great performers and 58 percent who gave high marks to Gen Xers (29 to 42).

Jobfox CEO Rob McGovern believes that corporate leaders, not Millennial professionals, “need attitude adjustments”. Certainly, the Millennials, sometimes called Gen Y, are the most educated and technologically savvy generation ever. Once you understand them and choose to make an effort to engage them, they are a very impressive group of workers.

According to McGovern, there are four “major motivators” for Millennials at work: The most sought-after motivator is balance. The Millennials do not embrace the value of the Boomer-created nine-to-five work week. They work best when they can set their own hours.

Second, they want to be on the leading edge. Millennials understand that technology is changing rapidly. If not updated continuously, their skills promptly become obsolete. “They have seen their parents and neighbors downsized and right-sized out of jobs.” Staying marketable is justifiably very important to them. Even though in a recent JWT survey, 60 percent of Millennials agreed that “an employee owes loyalty to their employer “,companies that do not provide new learning experiences will see this generation seeking job opportunities elsewhere.

Third, they do not want to be treated “as junior anything”. Millennials want to begin contributing right away. Companies must do a better job of helping younger workers see how their work is vital and how that work relates to the bottom line of the company.”

Finally, Millennials are looking for stability—especially now. Gen Y workers can be loyal team players as long as they can balance work and life goals, gain new learning opportunities, and feel like they are supporting company goals. The employers that will be the most successful over the next two decades will be the ones that can best inspire and engage this challenging generation.

To listen to me interview a Millennial about this exact topic click here.

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Posted in Workforce Generational Trends

50 Best Companies to Work For (2009)

Posted on January 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

Glassdoor.com released today their listing of the 50 best companies to work for (2009). Having worked with some of these companies I think their inclusion is a little suspect, but can you really expect perfection with these kind of things? Although if your job hunting, this list may not be a bad place to start.

50-best-companies

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