Workforce Vision

Shift Happens (Education, Globalism, Technology and the Future)

2007-05-21T22:56:00.001-07:00

BusinessWeek's 10 Best Corporate Practices

2007-04-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek recently provided their list of the 10 best corporate practices or the "ideas that make great sense for employees and for the organizations that employ them:

Employee-Referral Bonuses
Employee-Driven Transfer Policies
Van Pools and Subsidized Transportation to Work
Town Hall Meetings
Ethics Hotline
Distance Learning
Company-Sponsored Alumni Groups
Corporate Social Responsibility Programs
Matching Contributions (i.e. 401K or donations)
Intranets

Read more details on these 10 items at the following link.

10 Best Corporate Practices. [BusinessWeek]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Is the Impending Talent Shortage in the U.S. a Myth?

2007-04-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

It has long been said that the mass retirement of the U.S. Baby Boomers would cause a workforce shortage. See Preparing for Baby Boomer Retirement and Retiring Baby boomer Expected to Hurt U.S. Companies for more information.

However, at least in California it seems that more Baby Boomers (aged 55-64) are working than ever before, not retiring! Should this trend increase the impending workforce shortage may be averted if not at least delayed. According to statistics published in a study by the California Budget Department, the number of Californians ages 55 to 64 who are working has grown from 54.2 percent in 1995 to 61.6 percent in 2006.

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

What is the business of managing contingent or contract labor called?

2007-04-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Top 5 Benefits and Risks of Outsourcing

2007-03-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

WORKFORCE VISION: The cost advantages of outsourcing functional areas, of nearly any organization, seemly continue to outweigh the drawbacks. Rising wages and declining service quality should stabilize as global penetration of outsourcing matures. Until that time it is recommended that companies research their potential outsourcing vendors deeply (including references) in order to minimize their change of failure.

PricewaterhouseCoopers in their outstanding report "Key Trends in Human Capital - A Global Perspective - 2006" report outline their top 5 Benefits and Risk of Outsourcing:

Key Trends in Human Capital - A Global Perspective - 2006. [PricewaterhouseCoopers]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

"Major Implications for Workplace Free Speech" - 2007 CLAY Award Recipient Adam Levin

2007-03-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

CONGRATULATIONS to Workforce Vision friend Adam Levin on his 2007 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award (CLAY). The CLAY award is known as the most prestigious award for California attorneys and Levin is one of the top employment lawyers in the State. Levin's "sexual harassment defense of Warner Bros. before the California Supreme Court in 'Friends' case had major implications for workplace free speech...At stake was freedom of speech within the work environment to address potentially offensive topics such as sex, race and religion in the logical course of doing one's job whether writing for a TV sitcom, discussing stories in a newsroom or academic discussion in a university classroom."

We recommend you read Levin's article - "So This Guy Walks Into a Bar . . . .": Dirty Jokes and Vulgar Language in the Workplace After the California Supreme Court’s “Friends” Decision (PDF) to learn more about whether or not your employees maybe crossing the legal line. Read the press on Levin's CLAY Award below.

MS&K Partner Adam Levin Receives 2007 CLAY Award

Levin’s sexual harassment defense of Warner Bros. before the California Supreme Court in “Friends” case had major implications for workplace free speech

Los Angeles, CA--Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, a leading California law firm that has provided integrated legal and business solutions for nearly 100 years, announced that Adam Levin, a partner in the firm’s Litigation practice, has been selected as a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) award winner by California Lawyer magazine.

“Adam’s selection as a California Lawyer of the Year is well deserved,” said Thomas Lambert, managing partner of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. “He is among the most creative and skillful trial lawyers I have seen in action and a major strength to our firm.”

California Lawyer received nearly 200 submissions for the prestigious award. The winners were selected by the publication’s editors for making a significant impact on the law, the profession, an industry, public policy, for a client or for the benefit of the public in 2006 that is expected to have a significant impact on the law.

Levin received his CLAY award for successfully litigating Lyle v. Warner Bros. Television Production before the California Supreme Court, where he obtained a unanimous decision in favor of several writers and the producers of the hit television series "Friends" in a wrongful termination and harassment suit brought by former writers' assistant Amaani Lyle. Lyle, who admitted she had been warned before taking the job that writers could get raucous during the creative process, claimed their discussions went far beyond the scope of the show, including frequent discussions of their personal sexual experiences.

At stake was freedom of speech within the work environment to address potentially offensive topics such as sex, race and religion in the logical course of doing one's job whether writing for a TV sitcom, discussing stories in a newsroom or academic discussion in a university classroom. Named one of Daily Journal Extra's “Top 20 Lawyers Under Age 40 in California” in 2005, Levin has established himself as one of the leading labor and employment lawyers in California.

Levin represents employers in all areas of labor and employment law, including serving as lead counsel in numerous employment discrimination, wrongful termination, trade secret/unfair competition and right of publicity cases, labor arbitrations, National Labor Relations Board hearings and other administrative proceedings with a focus on the motion picture and television; video game; advertising; and broadcast industries.

About Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp Established in 1908, Mitchell Silberberg's 125 attorneys provide integrated legal
and business solutions addressing its clients' concerns in the following areas: Labor and Employment; Intellectual Property and Technology; Entertainment and New Media; Immigration and Benefits; Tax and Family Wealth Planning; and Environmental Law. Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP has offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit http://www.msk.com

"So This Guy Walks Into a Bar . . . .": Dirty Jokes and Vulgar Language in the Workplace After the California Supreme Court’s “Friends” Decision. [Adam Levin, Taylor Ball - Mitchell Silberber & Knupp]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

CEOs Hired From 'Outside' Cost Much More Than Internal Promotions

2007-03-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

Jeff Nash of Financial Week writes, "According to a new study, companies pay their chief executives nearly three times more when they hire them from outside the company than if they promote from within."

Nash continues, "In the first year of employment, CEOs snagged from the outside earned median pay of $13 million in 2005, compared with $5 million for those appointed from the inside." "Just 15% of the directors said their boards were "highly effective" in managing and developing their executive talent."

A New Boss From Outside Costs More ... a Lot More. [Financial Week - Jeff Nash]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

For US Teens Unemployment Levels Rival Those of the Great Depression

2007-03-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

The March 7th article "Why Teens Aren't Finding Jobs, and Why Employers Are Paying the Price" explains how and why teens are undergoing their own "Great Depression". The ramifications of US teens missing important early career lessons is expected to cause long-term labor challenges. Here are some highlights from that article:

• Teen unemployment at historic highs 2004-2007 - At one point, 70% of newspaper carriers in the U.S. were teens. But that number dropped to 18% in 2004. According to data gathered for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 37% of teens nationwide worked in the summer of 2006 -- nearly 11% fewer than were working in 1989, the peak of a nation-wide economic boom.

• Lack of work ethic or lack of opportunity? - "We often ask, 'What's wrong with this generation? They don't have any work ethic?' but a deeper analysis shows they haven't had the same employment opportunities their parents and older siblings once had," says Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council, a business-led intermediary organization that seeks to strengthen Boston's workforce. As a result, employers are finding that entry-level employees are lacking in what Sullivan calls "the habits of paid work."

• Unemployment rivaling the Depression - "When you ask teens if they want to work, a large number of kids say they simply can't find a job," says a professor of labor economics. For the summer of 2006, according to the labor bureau statistics, teens had an unemployment rate of 16.5% -- four times higher than that of adults during the same period. "If adult employment fell by the same rate teen employment has in the last 10 years, that would be greatest job loss in American history since the Depression."

• Teens missing important lessons - "Working as a team, completing tasks and taking responsibility. Kids learn these skills through employment," says Ivan Charner, director of the Academy of Educational Development/National Institute for Work and Learning, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit concerned with workplace development. "Can you learn those skills by playing a sport or volunteering at church? Yes, but if you are a volunteer, you don't necessarily have to show up. A lot of kids don't or can't play sports. Employment provides an important opportunity for kids to learn from adults other than their teachers or parents."
• Catch 22 for teens - You can't land a job when you don't have experience, and you can't get experience unless you have had a job. Experts agree. "Employment is what we call 'path dependent, the more you work now, the more you will work later."

• If not teens then who? - "Employers are hiring immigrants instead of kids, especially in the last six years," he notes. Hiring one immigrant often leads to hiring more, because hiring usually happens through social networks. Another group replacing teens are workers 55 and older seeking to supplement their incomes. "If you walk into a mall or a grocery store, you'll see large numbers of older people working at jobs teens used to have," says Sum.

• Long-term effects on US labor and competition - "How can the United States continue to compete in a global economy if the entering workforce is made up of high school graduates who lack the skills they need, and of college graduates who are mostly 'adequate' rather than 'excellent'?" write the presidents of the study's four collaboratingorganizations.

Why Teens Aren't Finding Jobs, and Why Employers Are Paying the Price. [Knowledge @ Wharton]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

NASA's Human Capital Strategy

2007-03-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

With the highly complex, expensive, and risky missions of NASA surely their Human Capital Management strategy must be of critical importance to their success. This strategy is available to view here and outlines the following subjects:

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Nobel Prize Winner Explains Human Capital

2007-03-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

An explanation of HUMAN CAPITAL by Gary S. Becker, 1992 Nobel Prize winner for Economics:

HUMAN CAPITAL

To most people capital means a bank account, a hundred shares of IBM stock, assembly lines, or steel plants in the Chicago area. These are all forms of capital in the sense that they are assets that yield income and other useful outputs over long periods of time.

But these tangible forms of capital are not the only ones. Schooling, a computer training course, expenditures of medical care, and lectures on the virtues of punctuality and honesty also are capital. That is because they raise earnings, improve health, or add to a person's good habits over much of his lifetime. Therefore, economists regard expenditures on education, training, medical care, and so on as investments in human capital. They are called human capital because people cannot be separated from their knowledge, skills, health, or values in the way they can be separated from their financial and physical assets.

Education and training are the most important investments in human capital. Many studies have shown that high school and college education in the United States greatly raise a person's income, even after netting out direct and indirect costs of schooling, and even after adjusting for the fact that people with more education tend to have higher IQs and better-educated and richer parents. Similar evidence is now available for many years from
over a hundred countries with different cultures and economic systems. The earnings of more educated people are almost always well above average, although the gains are generally larger in less developed countries.

Consider the differences in average earnings between college and high school graduates in the United States during the past fifty years. Until the early sixties college graduates earned about 45 percent more than high school graduates. In the sixties this premium from college education shot up to almost 60 percent, but it fell back in the seventies to under 50 percent. The fall during the seventies led some economists and the media to worry about "overeducated Americans." Indeed, in 1976 Harvard economist Richard Freeman wrote a book titled The Overeducated American. This sharp fall in the return to investments in human capital put the concept of human capital itself into some disrepute. Among other things it caused doubt about whether education and training really do raise productivity or simply provide signals ("credentials") about talents and abilities.

But the monetary gains from a college education rose sharply again during the eighties, to the highest level in the past fifty years. Economists Kevin M. Murphy and Finis Welch have shown that the premium on getting a college education in the eighties was over 65 percent. Lawyers, accountants, engineers, and many other professionals experienced especially rapid advances in earnings. The earnings advantage of high school graduates over high school dropouts has also greatly increased. Talk about overeducated Americans has vanished, and it has been replaced by concern once more about whether the United States provides adequate quality and quantity of education and other training.

This concern is justified. Real wage rates of young high school dropouts have fallen by more than 25 percent since the early seventies, a truly remarkable decline. Whether because of school problems, family instability, or other factors, young people without a college or a full high school education are not being adequately prepared for work in modern economies.

Thinking about higher education as an investment in human capital helps us understand why the fraction of high school graduates who go to college increases and decreases from time to time. When the benefits of a college degree fell in the seventies, for example, the fraction of white high school graduates who started college fell, from 51 percent in 1970 to 46 percent in 1975. Many educators expected enrollments to continue declining in the eighties, partly because the number of eighteen-year-olds was declining, but also because college tuition was rising rapidly. They were wrong about whites. The fraction of white high school graduates who enter college rose steadily in the eighties, reaching 60 percent in 1988, and caused an absolute increase in the number of whites enrolling despite the smaller number of college-age people.

This makes sense. The benefits of a college education, as noted, increased in the eighties. And tuition and fees, although they rose about 39 percent from 1980 to 1986 in real, inflation-adjusted terms, are not the only cost of going to college. Indeed, for most college students they are not even the major cost. On average, three-fourths of the private cost—the cost borne by the student and by the student's family—of a college education is the income that college students give up by not working. A good measure of this "opportunity cost" is the income that a newly minted high school graduate could earn by working full-time. And during the eighties this forgone income, unlike tuition, did not rise in real terms. Therefore, even a 39 percent increase in real tuition costs translated into an increase of just 10 percent in the total cost to students of a college education.

The economics of human capital also account for the fall in the fraction of black high school graduates who went on to college in the early eighties. As Harvard economist Thomas J. Kane has pointed out, costs rose more for black college students than for whites. That is because a higher percentage of blacks are from low-income families and, therefore, had been heavily subsidized by the federal government. Cuts in federal grants to them in
the early eighties substantially raised their cost of a college education.

According to the 1982 "Report of the Commission on Graduate Education" at the University of Chicago, demographic-based college enrollment forecasts had been wide of the mark during the twenty years prior to that time. This is not surprising to a "human capitalist." Such forecasts ignored the changing incentives—on the cost side and on the benefit side—to enroll in college.

The economics of human capital have brought about a particularly dramatic change in the incentives for women to invest in college education in recent decades. Prior to the sixties American women were more likely than men to graduate from high school but less likely to continue on to college. Women who did go to college shunned or were excluded from math, sciences, economics, and law, and gravitated toward teaching, home economics, foreign languages, and literature. Because relatively few married women continued to work for pay, they rationally chose an education that helped in "household production"—and no doubt also in the marriage market—by improving their social skills and cultural interests.

All this has changed radically. The enormous increase in the labor participation of married women is the most important labor force change during the past twenty-five years. Many women now take little time off from their jobs even to have children. As a result the value to women of market skills has increased enormously, and they are bypassing traditional "women's" fields to enter accounting, law, medicine, engineering, and other subjects that pay well. Indeed, women nowcomprise one-third or so of enrollments in law, business, and medical schools, and many home economics departmentshave either shut down or are emphasizing the "new home economics." Improvements in the economic position of black women have been especially rapid, and they now earn just about as much as white women.

Of course, formal education is not the only way to invest in human capital. Workers also learn and are trained outside of schools, especially on jobs. Even college graduates are not fully prepared for the labor market when they leave school, and are fitted into their jobs through formal and informal training programs. The amount of on-the-job training ranges from an hour or so at simple jobs like dishwashing to several years at complicated
tasks like engineering in an auto plant. The limited data available indicates that on-the-job training is an important source of the very large increase in earnings that workers get as they gain greater experience at work. Recent bold estimates by Columbia University economist Jacob Mincer suggest that the total investment in on-the-job training may be well over $100 billion a year, or almost 2 percent of GNP.

No discussion of human capital can omit the influence of families on the knowledge, skills, values, and habits of their children. Parents affect educational attainment, marital stability, propensities to smoke and to get to work on time, as well as many other dimensions of their children's lives.

The enormous influence of the family would seem to imply a very close relation between the earnings, education, and occupations of parents and children. Therefore, it is rather surprising that the positive relation between the earnings of parents and children is not strong, although the relation between the years of schooling of parents and children is stronger. For example, if fathers earn 20 percent above the mean of their generation, sons at similar ages tend to earn about 8 percent above the mean of theirs. Similar relations hold in Western European countries, Japan, Taiwan, and many other places.

The old adage of "from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is no myth; the earnings of grandsons and grandparents are hardly related. Apparently, the opportunities provided by a modern economy, along with extensive public support of education, enable the majority of those who come from lower-income backgrounds to do reasonably well in the labor market. The same opportunities that foster upward mobility for the poor create an equal amount of downward mobility for those higher up on the income ladder.

The continuing growth in per capita incomes of many countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is partly due to the expansion of scientific and technical knowledge that raises the productivity of labor and other inputs in production. And the increasing reliance of industry on sophisticated knowledge greatly enhances the value of education, technical schooling, on-the-job training, and other human capital.

New technological advances clearly are of little value to countries that have very few skilled workers who know how to use them. Economic growth closely depends on the synergies between new knowledge and human capital, which is why large increases in education and training have accompanied major advances in technological knowledge in all countries that have achieved significant economic growth.

The outstanding economic records of Japan, Taiwan, and other Asian economies in recent decades dramatically illustrate the importance of human capital to growth. Lacking natural resources—they import almost all their energy, for example—and facing discrimination against their exports by the West, these so-called Asian tigers grew rapidly by relying on a well-trained, educated, hardworking, and conscientious labor force that makes excellent use of modern technologies.

About the Author

Gary S. Becker is University Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Chicago and the Rose-Marie and Jack R. Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He was a pioneer in the study of human capital. He won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics.

The Future of Staffing is Crowdsourcing

2007-03-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

In my humble opinion the future of staffing lies in Crowdsourcing. Individual recruiters in local markets, with local connections and local talent pools will be able to recruit for open positions much faster and less expensive than the branch staffing and internal HR department models of today.

To better understand crowdsourcing and how it may impact talent acquisition I recommend watching this video of Don Tapscott, best selling author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, as he speaks at a recent tech conference. Also view the website of Cambrian House, the Canadian Crowdsourcing company that hosts the video. If you don't have time to watch the whole video I recommend moving ahead to the 36th minute where the evolution of Crowdsourcing is explained:

00:36:17

Economic Revolution. Crowdsourcing as natural extension of decreasing transaction costs which have been steadily dropping ever since industrial age. Industrial Age. Extended Enterprise. Business Webs. Mass Collaboration.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Interesting Contingent Workforce blog posts for the week of March 1 - 7th

2007-03-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates: Skilled foreign minds needed in US or competitive ...

6 hours ago by Bill Inman
... so the nation can double the number of graduates in those areas by 2015. See the whole story at the financial times here. Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing.
Workforce Vision - http://workforcevision.blogspot.com/index.html
[ More results from Workforce Vision ]

Japan’s newly contingent workforce

5 Mar 2007 by z
One of the key reasons for the rise of depression, dissatisfaction and malaise in modern Japan is the changing nature of work, and the decline of community within Japan. I’ve just read a piece by Masahiko Ishizuka, originally published ...
AsiaFile - http://www.shuttingoutthesun.com/wordpress

Levi Strauss & Co. To Participate in Contingent Workforce ...

5 Mar 2007
Original post by Levi Strauss & Co. and software by Elliott Back.
RetailInsider.net - http://www.retailinsider.net

HOME BASED BUSINESS - THE CONTINGENT WORK FORCE!

3 Mar 2007 by Howard Hanson
Many of these individuals became a part of what has come to be called the contingent workforce. The contingent workforce consists of temporary, part-time, contract and leased employees along with people who simply decided the time was ...
HOME BASED BUSINESS COMMUNITY - http://homebasedbusinesscommunity.blogspot.com/index.html

Albany Acquires eWork Services to Expand US Contingent Workforce ...3 Mar 2007 by HR Marketer
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—March 1, 2007—Albany, a leader in global contingent workforce management services, announced the acquisition of eWork Services, Inc., a specialist in contractor payrolling services and 1099 compliance. ...
Breaking Human Resource News - http://www.hrmarketer.com/~blog/index.html

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Bill Gates: Skilled foreign minds needed in U.S. or competitive advantage might be lost

2007-03-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Before a U.S. Sentate panel on March 7th Bill Gates competitive advantage is being threatened by U.S. immigration laws. Gates wants to lift the U.S. restriction of temporary H-1B visas, which allows foreign workers with at least a bachelor's degree to work in the U.S. from 65,000 a year.

'We are failing to live up to our obligation to make the investments needed to make sure that the U.S. remains competitive in the future,' Gates told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. 'Our economic future is in peril.'

Gates said the United States should strengthen math, technology and science education so the nation can double the number of graduates in those areas by 2015.

See the whole story at the financial times here.

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

How Companies Find Candidates to Hire - CareerXroads 2006 Study

2007-03-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

A recent CareerXroads study, conducted by Jerry Crispin and Mark Mehler, was conducted to reveal how companies found new candidates in 2006. Here are the results:

Click on Image to Zoom In

Data was gathered by:
* CareerXroads asked 200 major companies to participate; 54 firms responded within 30 days, and of that number, 40 submitted fully qualifying information.
* The 40 companies participating in the survey employ 1,281,429 people.
* 1,880 recruiters filled 207,702 full-time U.S. openings in 2006.
* Approximately 60% of all the hires reported were for exempt-level employees (58% of internal fills and 64% of external fills.)
* Contract, part-time, and contingent workers are a growing percentage of the workforce; only 10% of the respondents have no contract workers.

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Human Capital - 5 Questions with Capital H CEO Weinfurter

2007-03-05T15:01:00.000-08:00

Daniel Weinfurter, CEO of rapidly growing HRO/RPO Capital H, recently discussed the value of human capital to today's succesful companies with The Houston Chronicle. Here are the five questions asked of him by L.M. Sixel of The Houston Chronicle along these lines.

Q: What is the most significant trend in human resources today?

A: I'd say it's the realization, finally, that the people, regardless of the business you are in, end up being the only sustainable competitive advantage. So you better get the people part of your business right. People have always talked about product, strategy and technology, and those are important. But all of those and others are dependent on the people to get them right.

Q: Executives are fond of saying, "Our people are our most important asset." Do CEOs really believe that, or is it just lip service to the politically correct thing to say?

A: I think most CEOs on an intellectual level would agree that people are their most important asset. The actual behavior, though, varies widely. To really gauge a CEO's belief that people matter, you have to look at what they do in more difficult times.

It's easy to have a positive approach when everything is going well, but what happens when business conditions become more difficult or the business situation changes, and does the CEO really place the right level of importance to staying connected with the people to execute the strategy?

Companies can spend hours and hours analyzing the numbers, but nowhere near as much time is spent analyzing the capabilities of the management team, the culture and the softer aspects that ultimately drive the success of a business.

Q: What's on the mind these days of the human resources manager?

A: The human resources manager wants to be viewed as wanting to help drive the strategy of the business and how they help in that role. It's no longer strictly concerned with benefits, retirement and compliance.

Q: Why don't most human resources executives have a place at the board table?

A: I'd say that many do, and the trend is increasingly moving in that direction. Their ability to really get a seat at the table is largely based on demonstrating what they do impacts the results of the business — putting an organizational structure in place with the right people to execute the strategy of the business.

Just managing health care costs doesn't cut it, even though it's an important activity.

Q: Why do people change jobs? Is it money, a lack of challenge or something else?

A: There are two to three primary reasons. More often than not, people quit their boss, not the company or the job.

Second would be the nature of the work is no longer interesting or challenging. Third, they don't believe in the vision or the integrity or the values of senior management.

Well down the list is pay, even though it's often cited as the primary cause. That's because it's objective and easy to explain. But in our view it's not a root cause.

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Meet the 2007 Global Services 100

2007-03-01T05:18:00.000-08:00

Global Services, an integrated media brand servicing corporate professionals engaged in the sourcing and management of business and technology services, recently provided their list of the world's most innovative providers (prepared in conjunction with neoIT ). These providers are, for the most part, business outsourcing services working within 11 different functions; including IT, Call Center, Managed Services, and Engineering.

Company	CEO	URL
24/7 Customer	P.V. Kannan	www.247customer.com
Accenture	Bill Green	www.accenture.com
Affiliated Computer Services	Lynn Blodgett	www.acs-inc.com
Augmentum	Leonard Liu	www.augmentum.com
Auriga	Alexis Sukharev	www.auriga.com
Bleum	Eric Rongley	www.bleum.com
Caliber Point	Ashok Bildikar	www.caliberpoint.com
Cambridge Solutions	Chris Sinclair	www.cambridgeworldwide.com
Capgemini	Paul Hermelin	www.capgemini.com
CGI Group	Michael E. Roach	www.cgi.com
ClientLogic	David Garner	www.clientlogic.com
Cognizant Technology Solutions	Francisco D'Souza	www.cognizant.com
Convergys	James F. Orr	www.convergys.com
Covansys	Rajendra B. Vattikuti	www.covansys.com
CPM	Antonio Carlos Rego Gil	www.cpminternational.com
Darwin Suzsoft	Dan Ross	www.darwinsuzsoft.com
DataArt	Michael Zaitsev	www.dataart.com
DBA	Danilo Meth	www.dba.com.br
Dextra Technologies	Daniel Chavez	www.dextratech.com
e4e	Somshankar Das	www.e4e.com
ea Consulting Asia Pacific	Chin King Wong	www.eacap.com
EDS	Michael H. Jordan	www.eds.com
EPAM Systems	Arkadiy Dobkin	www.epam.com
Etech	Dilip Barot	www.etechinc.com
ExlService Holdings	Vikram Talwar	www.exlservice.com
FCG Software Services	Subramaniam Ramachandran	www.fcg.com
Freeborders	John Cestar	www.freeborders.com
Genpact	Pramod Bhasin	www.genpact.com
Globant	Martin Migoya	www.globant.com
HCL Technologies	Shiv Nadar	www.hcltech.com
Headstrong	Arjun Malhotra	www.headstrong.com
Hispanic Teleservices	Alberto Fernandez	www.htc.to
HTC Global Services	Madhava Reddy	www.htcinc.com
Hinduja TMT	Partha D Sarkar	www.hindujatmt.com
I.T. United	Cyrill Eltschinger	www.ituc.com
IBA Group	Sergei Levteev	www.iba-it-group.com
IBM	Samuel J. Palmisano	www.ibm.com
ICT Group	John J. Brennan	www.ictgroup.com
i-flex solutions	Deepak Ghaisas	www.iflexsolutions.com
Infinite Computer Solutions	Upinder Zutshi	www.infics.com
Informatica Integral Empresarial	Antonio Velasco	www.sinersys.com.mx
Infosys Technologies	Nandan M Nilekani	www.infosys.com
Innominds Software	Rao Vemula	www.innominds.com
Intelenet Global Services	Susir Kumar	www.intelenetglobal.com
Intetics	Boris Kontsevoi	www.intetics.com
ITC Infotech	Sanjiv Puri	www.itcinfotech.com
Kepler - Rominfo	Petrisor Guta	www.kepler-rominfo.com
Knoah Solutions	Myneni	www.knoah.com
Lason	Ronald D. Risher	www.lason.com
Lohika Systems	Daniel Dargham	www.lohika.com
Longtop	Eric Liang	www.longtopinternational.com
Luxoft	Dmitry Loschinin	www.luxoft.com
marketRx	Jaswinder S. Chadha	www.marketrx.com
Mastek	Sudhakar Ram	www.mastek.com
MERA Networks	Dmitry M. Ponomarev	www.meranetworks.com
Microland	Pradeep Kar	www.microland.com
MindTree Consulting	Ashok Soota	www.mindtree.com
Mistral Software	Anees Ahmed	www.mistralsoftware.com
Motif	John Coker	www.motifinc.com
MphasiS	Jaithirth Rao	www.mphasis.com
NCO Group	Michael Barrist	www.ncogroup.com
Neoris	Claudio Muruzabal	www.neoris.com
Ness Technologies	Raviv Zoller	www.ness.com
Neusoft Group	Jiren Liu	www.neusoft.com
NIIT SmartServe	Paul Barrow	www.niitsmartserve.com
Objectiva Software Solutions	Douglas Winter	www.objectivasoftware.com
Ocwen Financial	William C. Erbey	www.ocwen.com
OfficeTiger	Randolph Altschuler and Joseph Sigelman	www.officetiger.com
Outsource Partners International	Clarence T. Schmitz	www.opiglobal.com
Patni Computer Systems	N.K. Patni	www.patni.com
Perot Systems	Peter Atlabef	www.perotsystems.com
Polaris	Arun Jain	www.polaris-america.com
Politec	HÉlio Oliveira	www.politec.com
Promantra Synergy Solutions	Praveen Vadlamudi	www.promantra.net
QuEST	Ajit A. Prabhu	www.quest-global.com
Sapient	Jerry Greenberg	www.sapient.com
Satyam Computer Services	B. Rama Raju	www.satyam.com
Scicom (MSC) Berhad	Leo Ariyanayakam	www.scicom-intl.com
Sierra Atlantic	Raju Reddy	www.SierraAtlantic.com
Sinapsis Technologies	Gerardo Rodriguez	www.sinapsis.com
SnT Global	David Wong	www.sntglobal.com
SoftServe	Taras Kytsmey	www.softservecom.com
Softtek	Blanca TreviÑo	www.softtek.com
Sonata Software	B. Ramaswamy	www.sonata-software.com
SPI Technologies	Ernest Cu	www.spi-bpo.com
StarSoft Development Labs	Nick Puntikov	www.starsoftlabs.com
Stream	Toni Portmann	www.stream.com
Summit HR Worldwide	Ranjan Sinha	www.summithrww.com
Sutherland Global Services	Dilip R. Vellodi	www.suth.com
Symphony Services	Gordon Brooks	www.symphonysv.com
Syntel	Bharat Desai	www.syntelinc.com
Tata Consultancy Services	S. Ramadorai	www.tcs.com
TransWorks Information Services	Atul Kunwar	www.transworks.com
Unisys	Joseph W. McGrath	www.unisys.com
vCustomer	Sanjay Kumar	www.vcustomer.com
Vee Technologies	Chocko Valliappa	www.veetechnologies.com
Vsource Asia	Jack Cantillon	www.vsourceasia.com
Wipro Technologies	Azim H. Premji	www.wipro.com
WNS	Neeraj Bhargava	www.wnsgs.com
Zensar Technologies	Ganesh Natarajan	www.zensar.com

Meet the Global Services 100. [Global Services - Rusty Weston]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

2007 Temporary Jobs Guidebook by Staffing Industry Analysts

2007-02-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

Staffing Industry Analysts has created the 2007 Temporary Jobs Guidebook which outlines “a fundamental shift in the make up of the U.S. workforce.”

"From our analysis, we predict that over the next 10 years, corporate America is likely to face a distinct challenge to find highly skilled workers to help them achieve their business objectives," said Barry Asin, Chief Analyst of Staffing Industry Analysts. "As a result, employers can expect rising prices for skilled temporary help and longer waits to find these workers. For temporary staffing firms, the demand for contingent workers will translate into a growth opportunity for the foreseeable future."

Here are some interesting facts on temp labor contained in the Guidebook:

The Guidebook can be orderded by contacting Staffing Industry Analysts' sales at 650-232-2350 or kmarechal@staffingindustry.com.

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

United States Workers' Compensation Resources (Employee Injury Insurance)

2007-02-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

Need to get a question answered or know more about Workers' Compensation in a specific state? Use the following resources from StaffMarket.com:

U.S. States		Other
A-M	N-W
Alabama	Nebraska	U.S. Department of Labor
Alaska	Nevada	American Samoa
Arizona	New Hampshire	Guam
Arkansas	New Jersey	Navajo Nation
California	New Mexico	Northern Mariana Islands
Colorado	New York	Puerto Rico
Connecticut	North Carolina	Virgin Islands
Delaware	North Dakota
District of Columbia	Ohio
Florida	Oklahoma
Georgia	Oregon
Hawaii	Pennsylvania
Idaho	Rhode Island
Illinois	South Carolina
Indiana	South Dakota
Iowa	Tennessee
Kansas	Texas
Kentucky	Utah
Louisiana	Vermont
Maine	Virginia
Maryland	Washington
Massachusetts	West Virginia
Michigan	Wisconsin
Minnesota	Wyoming
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

The Big Ten Innovation Killers

2007-02-12T23:40:00.000-08:00

In today’s business environment innovation is about more than new products. It is about improving and reinventing processes and quickly tapping into new markets that meet rapidly changing customer needs. As globalization increases the flow of new ideas, innovation has become about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time. This requires efficient and flexible Human Capital. Here are the “Big Ten Innovation Killers”, as written by Joyce Wycoff, that your company will want to avoid when managing its labor pool.

Not creating a culture that supports innovation
Not getting buy-in and ownership from business unit managers
Not having a widely understood, system-wide process
Not allocating resources to the process
Not tying projects to company strategy
Not spending enough time and energy on the fuzzy front-end
Not building sufficient diversity into the process
Not developing criteria and metrics in advance
Not training and coaching innovation teams
Not having an idea management system

The Big Ten Innovation Killers. [Joyce Wycoff]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Boom expected in hiring security-cleared workers

2007-01-23T13:57:00.001-08:00

In 2007 will see a surge in the hiring of workers with security clearances as a result of the many multimillion-dollar Department of Defense contracts that were awarded in December 2006.

Security Cleared Workforce Data:

18 Months - The average time to thoroughly vet a prospective worker with no security clearance. (Office of Personnel Management reports that clearances can be reduced to six months or less)
More than three-fourths of government contractors agreed that the need for cleared employees to work on federal contracts had increased, in the past five years:

“greatly” (51 percent)
“somewhat” (26 percent)

50% of the respondents of a 2006 Federal Computer Week survey believed the security clearance process, run by the Defense Security Service and OPM, had:

worsened (31 percent)
not improved at all (24 percent) in the past year.

There are some 79,500 contract employees working on federal information technology projects.
Of the top 10 locations seeking cleared candidates, seven are in the national capital area.

1. Chantilly, Va.
2. Washington D.C., metropolitan area
3. McLean-Arlington, Va.
4. El Segundo, Calif.
5. Fairfax-Reston, Va.

In terms of salary:

Cleared workers sent to Iraq can earn on average $98,400
Cleared workers earned on average $78,400 in Maryland
Cleared workers earned on average $76,500 in Virginia
Arizona ranked tenth in the nation at an average earning of $64,400.
Candidates with higher clearances can earn on average $10,000 more a year than workers with only a secret or confidential clearance.

Boom expected in hiring security-cleared workers. [Clearancejobs.com, Federal Computer Week]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

The Rise of Crowdsourcing

2007-01-19T17:20:00.001-08:00

The Wired magazine article "The Rise of Crowdsourcing" reads, "Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D."

The internet, low cost equipment and access to information, and professional and hobbyists who have extra 'cycles' to burn have become low cost resources for corporations big and small. Here are some crowdsourcing examples (from Wired magazine):

Lego
The beloved toy company encourages its fanatical customers to design everything from robot operating systems to Lego sets.

SportingNews.com
Last summer, the sports media company made blogs and social networking the foundation of its Web relaunch. Traffic and ad revenue soared.

Second Life
Residents of this popular online world put in more than 22,500 hours of “work” each day, stocking the virtual world with everything from ninja armor to giant tree houses.

Threadless.com
This hipster company prints T-shirts with designs submitted to its Web site. It expects to earn $20 million in revenue this year.

What are the rules of Crowdsourcing? Here are 5:

1. The crowd is dispersed
People spread around the world can perform a range of tasks – from the most rote to the highly specialized – but this would-be workforce needs to be able to complete the job remotely.

2. The crowd has a short attention span
These new workers find time after dinner and on weekends. So jobs need to be broken into “micro-chunks.” Most tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk, for example, take less than 30 minutes to complete.

3. The crowd is full of specialists
For Procter & Gamble, the crowd is the world’s scientific community; for VH1 it’s any ham with a camcorder; for iConclude it’s the handful of professionals with experience troubleshooting Microsoft’s server software.

4. The crowd produces mostly crap
Networks like InnoCentive, Mechanical Turk, and iStockphoto don’t increase the amount of talent – they make it possible to find and leverage that talent. Any open call for submissions – whether for scientific solutions, new product designs, or funny home videos – will elicit mostly junk. Smart companies install cheap, effective filters to separate the wheat from the chaff.

5. The crowd finds the best stuff
Even as a networked community produces tons of crap, it ferrets out the best material and corrects errors. Wikipedia enthusiasts quickly fix inaccuracies in the online encyclopedia. Viewers of Web site YouTube find the one tastelessly funny amateur video from the 10 that are merely tasteless.

The Rise of Crowdsourcing. [Wired Magazine - Jeff Howe]

5 Rules of the New Labor Pool. [Wired Magazine - Jeff Howe]

Look Who's Crowdsourcing. [Wired Magazine - Jeff Howe]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

U.S. Contingent Workforce Statistics

2007-01-15T16:10:00.001-08:00

Jobs

Staffing companies match millions of people to millions of jobs.

2.9 million people per day are employed by staffing companies.
12 million temporary and contract employees are hired by U.S. staffing firms over the course of a year.
79% of staffing employees work full time, virtually the same as the rest of the work force.

Flexibility
The staffing industry offers flexibility to both employees and companies. People can choose when, where, and how they want to work. Companies can get the skills they need to keep fully staffed during busy times.

66% of staffing employees say flexible work time is important to them.
64% of staffing employees report that their work gives them the scheduling flexibility and the time for family that they desire.
90% of client businesses say staffing companies give them flexibility to keep fully staffed during busy times.

Bridge
Temporary and contract work provides a bridge to permanent employment. People can try out a prospective employer and showcase their skills for a permanent job.

88% of staffing employees say that temporary or contract work made them more employable.
77% of staffing employees say it’s a good way to obtain a permanent job.
80% of staffing clients say staffing firms offer a good way to find people who can become permanent employees.

Choice
Many people choose temporary and contract work as an employment option. They can select their work schedules and choose among a variety of diverse and challenging assignments.

67% of staffing employees say choice of assignments was an important factor in their job decision.
23% of staffing employees have little or no interest in a permanent job—they prefer the alternative arrangement over traditional employment.
33% of staffing employees say they work for a staffing company because they like the diversity and challenge of different jobs.

Training
The staffing industry provides free training for millions of temporary and contract employees to help meet today's demand for skilled workers.

90% of staffing companies provide free training to their temporary employees.
65% of staffing employees say they developed new or improved work skills through their assignments.
40% of staffing employees say they choose temporary or contract work as a way to obtain employment experience or job training.

Staffing Statistics - Staffing Facts. [American Staffing Association]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Who Rises to Power in American Business?

2007-01-11T13:40:00.001-08:00

"Who achieves success and power in the United States? In the twentieth century, the easiest path to power was available to certain individuals—mainly men, mainly white—who were otherwise favored with the right religious, family, geographic, and educational ties. But a significant number of "outsiders" created their own road to success, overcoming significant odds."

Here is a summary of a recent Q&A with Anthony Mayo of Harvard Business School and author of Paths to Power: How Insiders and Outsiders Shaped American Business Leadership:

Q: Your research suggests that for the first three quarters of the past century access to positions of power and leadership in America was not available to all equally. Who was favored during that time?

A: What is often overlooked or forgotten in the Alger stories is that the individuals who "came up from their bootstraps" did so with the assistance of an important and influential benefactor...the benefactor helped to channel that energy into an opportunity with potential. In a sense, this personal network or connection helped to facilitate access to others in positions of influence which in turn provided opportunities for advancement.

In Paths to Power, we trace seven factors that either provided easy access to an insider track to power or functioned as obstacles to success. These include birthplace, nationality, religion, education, social class, gender, and race. Those from privileged families have always had an easier path to traditional power. Those on the outside—foreigners, women, African-Americans, non-Protestant religious affiliations—often pursued other paths to power. When doors were closed, outsiders created their own paths.

Q: How has that situation changed today? Do paths to power mirror trends and values in society at large?

A: There has been a gradual opening of access. In our research, we saw education supplanting religion, birthplace, and nationality as a more important factor for success by the late 1950s. The MBA as a prerequisite for success in the top tiers of business became increasingly important from the 1970s through the end of the century, and as a result, we have seen a massive proliferation of MBA programs. At the elite graduate institutions, there may be less access—in essence, a closing of the funnel.

Q: In what areas do paths to power still appear to be closed today? Who is being excluded?

A: The three areas that are still part of the outsider path are social class, gender, and race. The most intractable issue is probably social class. The composition of leaders who overcame poverty to achieve the pinnacle of success in business changed very little over the course of the twentieth century.

Q: What does your research suggest about American business leadership in the future?

A: Businesses that will succeed in the twenty-first century will be those that embrace the diversity of their workforce, that can compete in a global, competitive landscape. Education is far more important today. Going forward, a global perspective will be increasingly vital.

Q: What do you think is the single most important finding from the research that went into the book?

A: At first glance, the composition of CEOs in America seems to have changed little in 100 years—it's mostly comprised of white men. But digging deeper, it is apparent that the composition has changed in some dramatic ways. There are more foreign-born CEOs today, religion is no longer a barrier to entrance, education has helped to level the playing field for some from less advantaged backgrounds, etc.

Link to Who Rises to Power in American Business? [HBS Working Knowledge - Anthony Mayo]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Companies, Compliance, and the Contingent Workforce Statistics

2007-01-10T11:05:00.001-08:00

What are companies thinking about their contingent labor? Yves Lermusiaux provides the following statistics:

• 92 percent cite inconsistent costs and a lack of price control a primary “pain point” with their current contingent labor workforce.

• 69 percent are highly concerned about their organ ization’s compliance with industry regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC, FDIC, etc.

• 66 percent are highly concerned about employee misclassification and co-employment risk.

• 50 percent do not know if their company has ever defended itself against a lawsuit associated with contingent labor.

• 33 percent could not report which, if any, department holds primary responsibility for minimizing their company’s risk and liability as it relates to contingent workforce management.

• 21 percent could not estimate their company’s current annual spending for contingent labor in the U.S.

• 18 percent could not estimate the number of suppliers currently providing contingent labor to their company.

Contingent Workforce Management Trends. [Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal - Yves Lermusiaux]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Tracking the Rise of Global Contingent Workforce

2007-01-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

Steve Marlin of Global Services writes, "CONTINGENT workers, also known as temps, part-time and contract workers, have long been a staple of the global labor force, providing a flexible and cost-effective means of smoothing out fluctuations in demand and production...Small wonder that companies are clamoring for ways to reduce the costs and improve the efficiency of their contingent workers."

"Beset by a lack of uniform hiring processes and procedures, minimal controls and high administrative costs, companies have found themselves in a quandary in managing contingent workers. And now that the contingent workforce has gone global, the level of complexity has ratcheted up, with a patchwork of labor laws, wage rates and cultural differences thrown into the mix."

In response to this companies are:

* Investing in processes and technology to meet demands for greater visibility into * Setting up master contracts with staffing-services companies to handle requisitions for every kind of worker, from unskilled to the most technically
* Implementing supply chain software to put in place the same controls over contingent-worker procurement as they have for indirect goods and services.
* Being challenged to bring consistent process, technology and program governance to a function that’s historically been decentralized.

Companies are taking these initiatives because they are looking to:

1.) Reduce the time for candidate-sourcing and filling requisitions was cited as a challenge by nearly half (48%) of participants in an Aug. ‘06 study by Aberdeen Group.
2.) Improve collaboration (48%)
3.) Obtain greater visibility into rates and processing costs (40%)
4.) Increase compliance and verify worker qualifications (36%)
5.) Reduce runaway spending (33%).

Tracking the Rise of Global Contingent Workforce. [Global Services - Steven Marlin]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Vendor Management Standards Committee Formed

2006-12-30T00:13:00.000-08:00

The Human Capital Institute and a coalition of seven contingent workforce industry vendors announced today the formation of the Vendor Management Standards Committee. Advancing best practices and benchmarks for clients, COMSYS, Beeline, Allegis Group Services, Bartech Workforce Management, Comensura, MyBizOffice and ProcureStaff joined forces with the Human Capital Institute to develop and publish best practices and industry standards focusing on vendor management.

Here are some quotes from press releases on the Committee:

"There is a great deal of confusion among buyers and industry insiders as to what constitutes a Managed Service Provider (MSP). The vendor management industry lacks consistency or standards around the services it provides."
"We continue to see a substantial increase in the use of vendor management systems, especially with large- and medium-size firms nationwide . "

"The Vendor Management Standards Committee will help to establish base standards that will serve as a fundamental set of expectations for any buyer who contracts with an MSP that adheres to the standards. "

More information can be found at the following link:

Vendor Management Standards Committee Formed to Promote Contingent Workforce Industry Best Practices. [Human Capital Institute]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Top Business Trends for 2007

2006-12-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Top Small-Business Trends for 2007 as stated by Vistage, the world's largest CEO membership organization:

Increased Globalization

Heightened M&A Activity

Increasing divide between Baby Boomer and Generation Y workers

The above trends revolve around cost cutting, increasing profitable growth, and human capital.

“The global economy is increasingly being fueled by small businesses,” said Rafael Pastor, Vistage CEO and Chairman of the Board. “In 2007, more small businesses will not only experiment with global opportunities, but significant percentages of their growth and ability to compete will depend upon it.”

Vistage sees many of its members in the $50 - $100 million range either recently having gone through a merger or acquisition, or are anticipating one. In fact, a recent poll of Vistage members revealed that more than 50 percent are considering a merger, acquisition or both in 2007 as a way to help their businesses grow.

With staffing the No. 1 concern of small and medium-sized businesses executives, a new challenge will impact their ability to hire and retain skilled employees in 2007: a clash between work styles and expectations of Boomers vs. Gen Y. In many cases, Boomer executives are not creating work environments that fit the Gen Y mindset. Other Boomers are actively seeking out and catering to younger, less experienced employees because of their creativity, knowledge of new technologies and different viewpoints on business.

These trends are based on feedback and issues raised by Vistage members. Vistage International has more than 13,000 members worldwide who meet regularly to discuss their most pressing business issues and opportunities.

Vistage Reveals Top Business Trends for 2007. [Press Release]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

"Attempting to Stop Globalization Can Cause More Harm Than Good" - Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

2006-12-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

"The global economic transition to a post-industrial economy has increased pace since the end of the Cold War, but the dislocations caused by rapid globalization rage on...Politicians find themselves pandering to narrow constituencies with petty, irrelevant legislation to build coalitions, often with majorities so razor thin that they are ungovernable. From France to Poland to the US, the appeals to the extreme groups result in proposals of nativist immigration and trade policies that do little to assuage the economic uncertainty confronting increasing numbers of voters around the globe. ... journalist Richard Hornik warns that “the dislocations wrought by globalization’s creative destruction are nothing compared to the economic chaos unleashed when efforts are made to halt or reverse the process.”

Is this true? Does attempting to halt or slow globalization do more harm than good to the countries that take this strategy?

Here are some quotes from this Yale Center for the Study of Globalization article:

Politicians are reaping the whirlwind of more than a decade of over-promising and scapegoating.

For the workforce, no job is safe. For all but the very wealthiest, working lives will henceforth be spent worrying about tomorrow's paycheck, health benefits and pensions.

Parties at both ends of the political spectrum in Europe and the US will be left with self-defeating policies of raising trade barriers, defending domestic industries in distress, limiting social benefits to “true” citizens and wrapping it all in patriotic bunting.

If politicians at both ends of the political spectrum continue to win votes by pandering to the worst fears and basest instincts of a frightened electorate, it seems only a matter of time before the resulting governments indulge in the self-destructive grand gestures that could lead to a global trade war or a violent anti-immigrant backlash or both.

Globalization: When Cure Is Worse Than Malady

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

U.S. Temporary Employment in Decline for 1st Time in 3 Years

2006-12-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

Temporary help payroll growth, as measured on a 12-month trend, has been weakening steadily over 2006, and finally crossed the line into the negative zone in November, falling 0.8% from the year earlier. This was the first recorded year-over-year decline in temporary help payrolls since June 2003. Part of the reason for this decline is the effect of Katrina on previous year’s numbers. November 2005 saw a large increase in temporary help usage in the weather-beaten Gulf Coast. Nonetheless, even taking this liberal perspective, it remains that temporary help payrolls are also up less than 1% above pre-Katrina levels, so volume growth is unquestionably weak at best. On a month-to-month basis, temporary help services rose 0.2% from October, adding 4,800 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Global Talent Management for Technology Executives

2006-12-05T23:48:00.000-08:00

A recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers states:

Workforce investments represent a singular untapped opportunity for technology companies to drive financial performance in the coming decade. The effectiveness of these investments may well determine which companies succeed or fail; which companies continue to innovate, cut costs and drive productivity; and which companies spend too much energy just to replace the talnt they once had or work without cohesion due to poor leadership and direction.

The studies main observations about talent management for technology executives:

1. A priority with failing grades. Many technology executives are making human capital management a greater priority, but the survey shows they do not have a high regard for their firms’ capabilities in this area.

2. Acquiring hybrids. Executives are beginning to experience a painful scarcity for the essential employee: that talented, technically-savvy individual who can collaborate, innovate, and manage change.

3. Harvesting talent from within. Technology companies worldwide are focusing on personnel development and training, and, by inference, on the retention of new hires and existing personnel.

4. Managing global markets and global talent. Nearly half of all technology companies say they difficulty finding technical talent in emerging markets, and just under half say these difficulties include the retention of skilled people around the globe.

Read the study at:

Technology Executive Connections: Successful Strategies for Talent Management. [Economist Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalization * Trends * Outsourcing

Demand-Driven Workforce Management

2006-12-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

Kronos', a leader in technology for workforce time tracking, descrbes "Demand-Driven" Workforce Management on their website. This exemplifies a major advantage to utilizing a contingent workforce which is the reduction of labor costs when a workforce can be easily augmented or cut back in conjuction with company and customer needs.

When the workforce is not aligned with demand (as in the above chart), your organization risks being overstaffed against customer volume, production workloads, or the patient census, all of which increase your payroll costs. Worse, it can also lead to understaffing and the inability to meet your customer service and quality standards. Rectifying the situation may require excessive use of overtime and premium labor.
Demand-Driven Workforce Management helps you to perfectly align the workforce with demand. As a result, you can reduce labor costs by minimizing overstaffing and improve quality by avoiding understaffing. Most important, your frontline managers can take a more proactive role in improving business performance. They are better able to manage responsibilities associated with staffing budgets, labor law and policy compliance, and employee satisfaction.

The Demand-Driven Workforce. [Kronos]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

The Four Segments of the Contingent Workforce

2006-11-29T22:58:00.000-08:00

Manpower's whitepaper "The Total Workforce" outlines their 'Four Segments of the Contingent Workforce'. The following diagram outlines these four areas and provides a useful reference to often often used terms "Temporary Employee", "Contractor", "Outsourced Employee", and "Consultant".

Click on the Image Above to View a Larger Size

The Total Workforce. [Manpower - PDF]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

The Talent Management Continuum as Segmented by Taleo

2006-11-29T17:03:00.000-08:00

Click on the above image for a larger view

Source: Taleo

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Managing Your Contingent Workforce

2006-11-29T16:48:00.000-08:00

Contingent Workforce Strategies has published group of articles on managing external contractor and temporary worker labor forces entitled "Managing Your Contingent Workforce." The articles provide a solid knowledge base for professionals who seek to gain cost, administrative, and risk control over their contingent workers.

Managing Your Contingent Workforce. [Contingent Workforce Strategies] {PDF hosted by ContingentWorkforce.org}

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Blue Collar Temporary Workforce To Continue Growing In 2007 Despite Moderating Economic Growth

2006-11-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

Staffing Industry Analysts forecasts Temporary Staffing for Industrial Workers To Expand A Solid 5% Next Year After 7% Growth In 2006

The forecast states "the growth of temporary industrial jobs will be approximately the same as the overall growth rate of U.S. temporary workers. Temporary industrial jobs, which have been growing rapidly to keep pace with demand from largely cyclical industries, comprise 4% of the total industrial workforce. In 1980, less than 1% of workers in industrial occupations were employed on a temporary basis."

Staffing Industry Analysts CEO Ron Mester said, "Temporary industrial job growth is slowing somewhat as the economy moderates, but it will continue to grow solidly in 2006 and 2007. For job seekers, the opportunities are with every kind of employer – from small business to the Fortune 50. For employers, temporary workers will play an increasingly important role in remaining competitive in a global marketplace where employment needs change quickly."

Facts from the Forecast:

* The South and the Midwest are the geographic regions with the highest proportion of production and transportation jobs.
* The Sunbelt States have the highest proportion of employment in construction.
* Building and grounds-keeping employment is relatively strong in vacation and retirement metropolitan areas.
* Installation and repair employment is highest in the South. * Overall, industrial temporary staffing is expected to grow $2 billion to $28 billion in 2006.
* Industrial temporary staffing is the largest segment of the temporary staffing industry, employing roughly half of all temporary workers.

Blue Collar Temporary Workforce to Continue Growing in 2007 Despite Moderating Economic Growth. [Staffing Industry Analysts]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) will grow 8% in 2007

2006-11-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

An industry that seemed to have problems because of State regulations and co-employment litigation has continued to persevere and gain momentum on the backs of the industries largest players.

ADP grew revenue nearly 27% between 2004 and 2005, the fastest rate in the industry. Large PEOs are gaining competitive advantage because of:

Economies of Scale

Well diversified employee skills pools which diffuses workers' compensation risk

Technology advances leading to increased efficiency and automation

Up-selling payroll service only clients

The top 5 PEOs (by revenue) are:

ADP TotalSource of Miami, FL. $6.97 billion. The company had 5,700 clients and 139,000 worksite employees. Gross PEO revenue grew 26.9% from 2004 to 2005.

Administaff Inc. of Kingwood, TX. $6.63 billion. The company has 5,000 clients and 94,000 worksite employees. Gross PEO revenue grew 23.4% from 2004 to 2005.

Gevity HR Inc. of Bradenton, FL. $4.77 billion. The company had 8,200 clients and 136,600 worksite employees. Gross PEO revenue grew 10.8% from 2004 to 2005.

Paychex Business Solutions of Rochester, N.Y. $2.48 billion. The company had 3,300 clients and 59,000 worksite employees. Gross PEO revenue grew 8.6% from 2004 to 2005.

TriNet Group Inc. of San Leandro, CA. $1.67 billion. The company had 1,100 clients and 16,600 worksite employees. Gross PEO revenue grew 20.6% from 2004 to 2005.
Source Information:

Staffing Industry Analysts Ranks Top 25 PEOs. [Staffing Industry Analysts]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

New Ways of Thinking in the War for Talent

2006-11-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

A McKinsey & Company study (2001) culminated in the book The War for Talent, an insightful look into the deeply held belief, in 'high-performing' companies, that the key to competitive advantage comes from superior talent and managing that talent effectively. The following chart, from The War for Talent, takes a look at the the new and old ways of thinking about human capital:

It's Time to Retire Retirement

2006-11-19T22:53:00.000-08:00

"Long-standing human resources practices invest heavily in youth and push out older workers. This must change--and public policy, too--or companies will find themselves running off a demographic cliff as baby boomers age" (It's Time to Retire Retirement, Harvard Business Review).

This HBR article highlights the need for all types of companies to create a plan to battle the coming talent shortage. 60% of companies do not account for workforce aging in their business plans! Working with 'older' workers is a main tactic to beating this threat to competitiveness. Creating a culture that honors experience, offering flexible work and introducing flexible retirement will be critical to companies that want to remain competitive in their field.

It's Time to Retire Retirement. [Harvard Business Review - Ken Dychtwald, Tamara Erickson, Bob Morision]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Innovative Executive Onboarding Strategies

2006-11-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

Onboarding Senior Executives into your organization in a professional and positive manner is critical to getting them off to a fast and productive start. Here are some tips from Mary Herrman of the Capital H Group on this process:

1) ensure that your organization's values align with those of the incoming executive and vice versa.
2) giving him access to the people, personalities and politics of your organization before the first day
3) execute a "get to know you" communications plan
4) work with a coach who is familiar and experienced with your organization
5) entire senior management team should take accountability for the success of your new executive

Read the details behind these tips in the following article:

Innovative Tactics For Onboarding Top Talent. [Mary Herrman - Capital H Group]

Additional Resources:

The Onboarding and Offboarding Process (click on image for larger size)

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Workplace Statistics from the "Perfect Labor Storm"

2006-11-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

"The Perfect Labor Storm" website provides information and statistics for workforce trends, demographics, and forecats about the projected U.S. labor shortage. They offer 642 facts about this shortage. Here are a few of these facts and a link to the entire list:

Fact #5
The 50 and older population from 2000-2050 will grow at a rate 68 times faster than the rate of growth for the total population
Source: Beyond Workforce 2020, Hudson Institute

Fact #6
One-fifth of this country's large, established companies will be losing 40 percent or more of their top- level talent in the next five years.
Source: Development Dimensions International

Fact #27
45 percent of workers want to change jobs at least every three to five years, up from 26 percent in 1999.

Fact #41
By 2010 we will have 167,754,000 skilled jobs to fill in the United States alone.

Fact #42
By 2010 we will have only 157,721,000 people in the workforce to fill those jobs.

Fact #103
The cost of replacing a senior executive averages two to five times his or her annual salary.
Source: Training and Development, February 2004

Fact #166
For dual career couples with kids under 18, the combined work hours grew from 81 a week in 1977 to 91 in 2002. Source: Families and Work Institute

The Perfect Labor Storm Facts. [perfectlaborstorm.com]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

2006 Workforce Trends

2006-11-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

The Herman Group, workforce futurists based in North Carolina, published their 2006 workforce trends list. These trends include:

1. Intensifying competition for qualified workers.
2. Gradually increasing attention to employee retention.
3. Increasing investment in older workers.
4. Shift in retirement plans to lifetime lifestyle funding.
5. Continued off-shoring of some work, coupled with return of other work.
6. Larger investment in corporate training.
7. Growth in telecommuting.
8. Expansion of staffing industry.
9. Heightened flexibility in work arrangements.
10. Employer dissatisfaction with product of schools.

Read details at:

2006 Workforce Trends by the Herman Group. [The Herman Group - Anita Cambell]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

What is the Contingent Workforce?

2006-11-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the term Contingent Workforce but are not quite sure what it means? Here is a definition:

Contingent Workforce -- The group of consultants, contractors, temps, and other project based workers that a company employs. Usually these contractors are employed through staffing firms, project-based consulting companies, or through outsourcing.

Get a crash course on the Contingent Workforce by reading the information on the following webpages:

http://www.galtglobalreview.com/careers/contingent_workforce.html

http://www.humancapitalinstitute.org/hci/tracks_contingent_workforce_management

http://www.bsr.org/CSRResources/IssueBriefDetail.cfm?DocumentID=48981

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_Workforce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_Workforce_Outsourcing

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=437082&seqNum=8

http://physorg.tradepub.com/c/pubRD.mpl?sr=ct&_t=ct:Hr&pc=cws

http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/recruiting/story/0,10801,78709,00.html

http://s-ox.com/news/detail.cfm?articleID=1284

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Higher Wages + Lower Productivity = Inflation? (U.S.)

2006-11-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Labor Department reported:

July - September U.S. labor costs rose 3.8%
Wages and labor costs are up 5.3% over the last year, which is the highest increase since 1982
Unemployment claims up to highest level in three months. They slowing economy may be pushing companies to lay off workers

Martin Crustsinger, AP Economics writer states, "The concern is that with productivity gains slowing over the past year and the cost of labor rising, these trends could make the Fed's job of keeping inflation under control more difficult."

Productivity slows to a standstill. [U.S. Labor Department, AP - Martin Crutsinger]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Cost of Turnover

2006-11-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

According to the Spherion Emerging Workforce Study the cost to replace an employee (U.S.) is $59,692. 40% of workers plan to leave their current jobs in the next year.

To see what this is costing your organization and the value of developing a retention program view Spherion's Turnover Cost Calculator at the following link.

Turnover Cost Calculator. [Spherion]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Reminder: Why Outsourcing IT to India is Still Hot

2006-10-31T12:35:00.000-08:00

In case you needed a refresher on why India is still experiencing rapid IT outsourcing growth here are some statistics (from The Economist Magazine):

* Every year India produces around 2.5M university graduates, including 400,000 engineers and 200,000 IT professionals
* India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) calculates that the country has 28% of the world's IT offshore talent
* They work while the West sleeps
* They speak (splendid) English
* They can throw huge numbers of people at an IT project
* The cost of an Indian graduate is roughly 12% of that of an American one
* Indian graduates also work more: an average of 2,350 hour a ear compared with 1,900 hours in America and 1,700 in Germany
* A company can buy almost 10 Indian brains for the price of 1 American one

The World is our Oyster. [The Economist, October 7th, 2006]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

The World Economy - 1990, 2005, 2050

2006-10-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

The following slides illustrate the history and predictions on the global economy through 2050 [Presented by Spiegel Online with data sourced from Madison, IMF, and Goldman Sachs]. Click on any slide to display in a larger size.

China has risen to the ranks of a global economic power and sets out on a course to surpass other nations in terms of economic might. Russia lags, India starts to develop, even if only gradually.

The World in 2050
The investment bank Goldman Sachs peers into the time machine: China has soared above the United States. Europe, once the motor of industrialization, has fallen markedly behind -- even India is ahead. Resource rich Russia has reestablished itself as a global player.

>

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Workforce Vision * workforcevision.blogger.com * By Bill Inman * http://www.billinman.com/ Human Capital -- Contingent Workforce -- Globalism -- Workforce Trends -- Outsourcing

America's Middle Class - Global Loser

2006-10-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

"There are essentially three exclusive characteristics whose simultaneous development have served as the foundations of the United States's success up until now -- and they only appear in this particular combination in America. They are not only the country's biggest strengths, but also its greatest weaknesses," as Gabor Steingart writes in his book World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity. They are:

"Nowhere in the world can you find such a high concentration of optimism and daring"
"The United States is radically global"
"The United States is the only nation on earth that can do business globally in its own currency"

However, these very strengths have hurt the U.S. workforce by inadvertently causing:

A "Blur [in] the line between optimism and naivete," that has given rise to "public, private and corporate debt far exceeds any previously known dimensions
"Globalization [to] strike back...the United States has promoted the worldwide exchange of commodities like no other nation, and the result is that their local industry has begun to be eroded"
"The dollar [to not] just strengthen the United States; it also makes it vulnerable. The government has pumped its currency into the world economy so vigorously that the dollar can now be brought to the point of collapse by external forces"

And "the rise of Asia has only led to a relative decline of the US national economy. At least so far. But for many blue- and white-collar workers, this decline is already absolute because they have less of everything than they used to. They possess less money, they are shown less respect in society and their chances for climbing up the social ladder have deteriorated dramatically."

America's Middle Class Has Become Globalization's Loser - [Spiegel Online]

Workforce Vision * Post: Bill Inman * Human Capital * Contingent Workforce * Globalism * Trends * Outsourcing

Is Social Capital 'the New Black' for Human Capital?

2006-10-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Contrary to conventional wisdom -- firms can (and quite possibly must) learn when employees leave their company, not just when they hire away an employee from another business. A Wharton School research paper studies the social capital of employees who leave and who can be tapped into when they are future companies...

"The social capital approach would predict that the firm losing an employee would gain access to the new employer's knowledge, while the human capital approach would not," the researchers suggest in their paper."

With my focus being on human capital for over a decade I find this statement on "Social Capital" quite compelling. Maybe, with the advent of web 2.0 social networking, there is a shift from internal knowledge and training to building strategic alliances on the individual level utilizing human capital alumni (who then transfer their knowledge to the social capital realm) to increase the flow of industry and competitive knowledge!

The Social Network Benefit: Losing an Employee Doesn't Have to Mean Losing Knowledge. [Knowledge @ Wharton]

Read the Research Paper behind this article.

“Where the Brains Are…” - The Clustering of U.S. College Graduates

2006-10-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Richard Florida, the author of the book The Rise of the Creative Class, and the Hirst Professor for Public Policy at George Mason University writes:

”Today, a demographic realignment that may prove just as significant [as the pioneers westward, the rural South to Urban North, and city to suburb migration] is under way: the mass relocation of highly skilled, highly educated, and highly paid Americans to a relatively small number of metropolitan regions, and a corresponding exodus of the traditional lower and middle classes from these same places.”

Read more on the “Means Migration”:

Where the Brains Are. [Richard Florida] PDF

Indian Temporary Staffing to Grow Exponentially by 2009

2006-10-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

‘Flexi-staffing firms will be big employers by ‘09’

DH News Service Bangalore:

The size of the Indian recruitment market is a huge Rs 4,500 crore and is growing at a healthy 50 per cent. Flexi-staffing (or temporary staffing) market in India is a whopping Rs 1,000 crore, growing at 100 per cent and is fastest growing market in the world. Flexi-staffing companies are all set to be largest employers in India by 2009. These were some of the statistics shared by Kris Lakshmikanth, Secretary- Executive Recruiters Association (ERA), at its national convention, held in the city on Friday. The theme of the convention “War for talent — The Next Decade” threw up some interesting insights .The three major factors in this war for talent is attracting, retaining and motivating talent. In his inaugural address, Ganesh Natarajan, MD, Zensar Technologies, said, “people do not leave an organisation for more money, they leave because they are not taken care of, by the employer.

It is important for us to focus on what motivates people and provide them with an answer to the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) factor.” He said 90 per cent of the future manpower needs in the IT sector cannot be met, as less than seven per cent of the fresh engineers are not employable for the sector. If the problem of talent shortage is not addressed, India will lose out to China. If India has to achieve an elevated economic status in 2050 which Goldman Sach’s study on BRIC countries prophesies, it can only happen by managing and retaining talent, said V K Vishwanathan, Joint Managing Director, Mico. Meena Ganesh, CEO of Tesco Hindustan Service Centre said the only way to retain an expanding workforce it for the top management to be constantly visible and in touch with its employees on an ongoing basis. Stressing on the importance of a strong organisational culture, Hari Iyer, Culture Officer of Sasken said, “the culture of the company is the key differentiator, it attracts, retains, rejects and ejects its employees.

Original Article Link
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan72006/business181551200616.asp