On behalf of Manpower Central Iowa we would like to wish you and yours a very Happy New Year!
“Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!
This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!
I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!”
William Arthur Ward
Posted in General Information
Tagged Central Iowa, Happy New Year 2009, Manpower, Nick Reddin, William Arthur Ward
Temporary workers employed through agencies earn higher hourly wages, are better educated than traditionally employed workers and move quickly between temporary and traditional jobs, according to a study announced today by the University of Florida.
“There has been concern by some advocacy groups that the temporary help industry is creating an entire class of people who are churning through temporary-help jobs and can’t escape from that cycle,” Sarah Hamersma, University of Florida economist and lead author of the study, said in a press release. “We find no reason to believe that a large number of temp workers are ‘stuck’ in a secondary labor market.”
Hamersma and Carolyn Heinrich, a University of Wisconsin public affairs professor, studied occupational records, wages and earnings for 5,877 Wisconsin workers between 1995 and 2004.
Of 3,964 employees who held at least one temporary job, 3,947 held a permanent job at some time in those 10 years, according to Hamersma. In an analysis of a subsample over a four-month period, three-fourths of those in temporary jobs moved into traditional jobs and only 23% took another temporary job.
Temporary employees received about 15% more in pay per hour than traditional employees, according to Hamersma. However, quarterly earnings tend to be lower for temporary workers.
“We learned that the shorter duration of temporary jobs means the employees work fewer hours, which translates into lower quarterly earnings than for traditional employees, but they actually end up getting paid more for the hours that they do work,” she said.
The findings in the study were presented in November at the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington DC.
Click picture to enlarge.
Click picture to enlarge.
Posted in Humor
Tagged Far Side Comic, Friday Funnies, Sharks, Swimming with Sharks
The types of video games you play may affect your performance at school, work, or other activities, according to Wheaton College psychology professor Rolf Nelson.
Playing an adrenaline-pumping action game for an hour before doing your homework or tackling a task at work could help you finish the assignment quickly–but with lots of mistakes. Playing a strategy game, on the other hand, will yield more-accurate work, but at the cost of speed, observes Nelson.
In his study, published with co-author Ian Strachan in the journal PERCEPTION, Nelson tested subjects playing either a fast-action video game (Unreal Tournament) or a puzzle-solving video game (Portal).
“While there has been a great deal of [research] focused on performance differences between non-video-game players and avid video-game players, we were interested in looking at the effects of playing different types
of video games,” Nelson says. “Results convincingly demonstrate a priming effect for two different types of video games.”
Click here to see the full report.
Posted in Workforce News
Tagged Portal, Rolf Nelson, Unreal Tournament, Video Games, Wheaton College, Work Performance
1. Cutbacks and Re-Engineering will continue into 2010 Expect ongoing reductions in force as some employers continue to optimize their workforces and eliminate “redundancy”. We caution these employers to be very careful, because we know that 54 percent of today’s employees are ready to jump, as soon as the economy improves. They are currently “Corporate Cocooning”.
2. Shortages of Certain Skill Sets will become More Acute As the economy begins to recover, certain skill sets will be more critical and difficult to find. These high-demand workers will be more demanding about their work schedules, environment, etc. The wisest employers will embrace not only flex-time, but flex-place as well.
3. Employers will embrace Innovative Ideas to Reward their Valued Workers This innovation will include non-financial ways and even non-reward (recognition only) ways to add value for their top talent; these innovative ideas will come from the employees themselves. Employers that do not mine the collective intelligence of their workers will find themselves unable to optimize profits.
4. Fear and Apprehension continue to reduce Productivity A significant percentage of employees continue to worry about the future. These negative feelings will persist, unless addressed. Transparency, besides being one of those elements employees seek, will be imperative.
5.More Employers will invest in a Variety of Healthcare Cost-Cutting Strategies Besides wellness programs to address expensive unproductive behaviors (like smoking and over-eating), more large employers will embrace ideas like onsite clinics and health coaches. For some candidates, the cost of not complying with the prospective companies’ wellness programs will change their employee value propositions so drastically that they will choose to work elsewhere.
6. Focus on Engagement will replace the Focus on Retention Recognizing that with engagement comes not only retention, but greater productivity and profitability, too, employers will change their focus. We will see Directors of Retention morph into Directors of Employee Engagement. The next step (coming much later than 2010) will be to recognize the importance of the total “Internal and External Customer Experience”.
7. Increasing Attention to Succession Planning Around the globe, we see an increasing attention to succession planning and management. However, the issue of succession preparation continues to take a backseat to succession planning. This big mistake will begin to be felt in 2010, when Baby Boomer retirements combine with the lack of trained people becomes a critical problem. Succession management continues to be critical to long-term success.
8. Employers that did not build Bench Strength will pay More to hire Experience Organizations that did not take the opportunity presented by this business slowdown to send their people for more training, will have to pay more to hire trained, experienced people.
9. Some Employers will eliminate Reward Programs Misunderstanding Dan Pink’s new book, “Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us”, some employers will abolish their reward programs altogether. This ill-advised shift will cause significant, negative, unintended consequences.
10. Burned out Employees will begin Leaving Employers Over 80 percent of today’s employees feel overworked and under-appreciated. Too many organizations have survived and maintained some level of profitability by over-loading their long-term employees. Once we begin to see positive job growth in the second half of 2010, some employees will feel confident enough to leave their companies.
11. Employers will accommodate Older Workers like Never Before The exodus of their long-term employees will challenge some employers to get the work done, without resorting to hiring expensive contract help or paying high fees to recruiters. Enlightened employers will mine the rolls of their retired workers and hire them back on a part-time, temporary, or seasonal basis. These seasoned professionals will be welcomed back, in spite of the fact that they will dictate their own terms.
Original Source: Joyce Gioia
Posted in Workforce Trends
Tagged 2010 Workforce Trends, Future of Work, Workforce Forecast, Workplace Forecast
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Manufacturing and service-sector companies plan to hire in December, a turnaround from their plans in the same month a year ago, according to the leading indicators of national employment report released by the Society for Human Resource Management.
A survey for the report found that 28.2% of manufacturing companies plan to hire in December while 17.5% plan to cut staff for a net increase of 10.7%. This compares to a net decrease of 10.9% in December 2008.
In the service sector, a net 18.8% plan to add staff in December compared with a net decrease of 9.1% in December 2008.
The SHRM report is based on a survey of private-sector human resource professionals at more than 500 manufacturing and more than 500 service-sector companies.
The Conference Board’s U.S. employment trends index rose in November for the fourth month in a row and job gains appear “imminent.” The index stands at 90.8, up 1.8% from October’s revised level.
“The very small number of job losses in November was to be expected given the increase in the employment trends index in recent months, and this month’s large increase in the [employment trends index] suggests that job gains are imminent, said Gad Levanon, associate director of macroeconomic research at The Conference Board. “However, the pace of hiring is likely to remain subdued because the economic recovery is expected to be weak throughout the first half of 2010.”
On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the U.S. lost only 11,000 jobs in November. The Associated Press reported economists had been expecting a loss of 130,000 jobs.
Compared to a year ago, The Conference Board’s employment trends index is down 9.4%.
Posted in Workforce Trends
Tagged Employment Trends Index, Hiring Trends, The Conference Board
Garry Mathiason, of labor law firm Littler Mendelson, is convinced the U.S. workforce is shifting to mirror that of the film industry, where crews of contingent production workers are assembled for a movie and then disbanded once the project is finished. In a recent study, 73 percent of employers queried anticipate some level of increase in their contingent workforce between now and late 2010, with nearly 35 percent planning increases of 50 percent or more.
Posted in Workforce Trends
Tagged Contingent Staffing, Contingent Workers, Manpower Inc., Temporary Staffing
According to an article recently published in Time magazine, men’s underwear sales is an economic indicator. Their top ten humorous leading economic indicators include:
Their articles summarizes: “You know the economy is struggling big time when your underwear is old, the armed forces don’t need recruits, there’s a hot resale market for cemetery plots, you can’t find the local pro football game on TV, your rich neighbors are clipping coupons, and your waitress looks like Megan Fox.” You can read more here.
Original Source: SIA
Although there was a slight increase (+5.9 points) in the November 2009 CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index, job seekers might be in for a long wait until hiring improves enough for unemployment to drop back into the single digits.
Released today, The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index, which measures U.S. managerial recruitment activity, found that the number of online job postings in November 2009 rose to 73.7, which is 3.4 points below the level of last November, but slightly higher than the Index last month (67.8).
Some parts of the country are faring better than others during the current job shortage, with Washington D.C. having the greatest hiring activity (135 points) per capita as compared to Riverside (13). This month shows San Francisco (70) having twice as many jobs per capita as Los Angeles (35). Atlanta (+14 to 62), Pittsburgh (+14 to 57) and Boston (+14 to 107) showed the most growth since last month.
While all regions experienced gains in November, the Northeast was the only region of the country to show a slight gain from 2008. And while Chicago had the biggest drop (-3), both major Florida metro areas — Miami (28) and Tampa (27) — are lower than almost all other metropolitan areas in the United States.
Although there was a slight increase (+5.9 points) in the November 2009 CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index, job seekers might be in for a long wait until hiring improves enough for unemployment to drop back into the single digits.
Some parts of the country are faring better than others during the current job shortage, with Washington D.C. having the greatest hiring activity (135 points) per capita as compared to Riverside (13). This month shows San Francisco (70) having twice as many jobs per capita as Los Angeles (35). Atlanta (+14 to 62), Pittsburgh (+14 to 57) and Boston (+14 to 107) showed the most growth since last month.
While all regions experienced gains in November, the Northeast was the only region of the country to show a slight gain from 2008. And while Chicago had the biggest drop (-3), both major Florida metro areas — Miami (28) and Tampa (27) — are lower than almost all other metropolitan areas in the United States.
Posted in Workforce Trends
Tagged CareerCast.com, Employment Index, Hiring, JobSerf, Most Job Openings
