Archive for the 'Research' Category

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You can’t fault popularity contests - they’re so democratic. But are they a useful way to help job seekers find a job?

Universum, a Swedish research firm, fields an annual study of MBA students on behalf of Fortune that ranks the 25 most popular potential employers. The MBA graduates who participated were asked to list their top five potential employers.

The exercise yielded no surprises: These are all blue chip companies known for high growth, excellent management and intellectual property. You can’t blame anyone for wanting to work at Google or GE or even No. 25, Coca-Cola. Of course, if you like large corporations, there are more than 1,700 billion dollar-size firms to choose from in the U.S. alone.

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Most of us want to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with our work. But the vast majority of us aren’t what HR experts call “engaged” by our jobs.

What can we do about that? First, we can realize that this is a universal problem. A recently released study of 88,612 workforce members in 18 countries by Towers Perrin finds that only 21 percent of employees are engaged in their current work. In fact, 38 percent of workers feel partly to fully disengaged.

Does this sound like the weather report for your cube? Patchy clouds of engagement, followed by chilly co-workers, and a chance of hot air from your boss.

The litmus test goes like this: If you care about the future of the company and are willing to make a discretionary effort, then it’s likely you are engaged. Translation: You’re willing to work 65 hours a week because you like your job and you like your company.

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What do you look for in a good corporate careers site? Good jobs, certainly. A design that’s easy to navigate? Information about what it’s like to work at the company?

Most companies forget that last point or possibly they don’t know where to start.

Deutsche Bank delivered on all of the above when it created several Web-based videos of employees talking about why they work there.

And having checked it out, I can see why Deutsche Bank was proclaimed the best corporate careers site by a group of students, recent graduates and Swedish researchers.  

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Let’s admit that it’s ironic to talk about talent shortages in a recession. Unemployment is rising in America, though it’s still better than in Europe. But in Manpower’s annual survey of 43,000 employers in 32 countries, nearly one-third of the companies experience difficulties filling open positions.

Globally, that’s down by 10% in a year, clear evidence that there’s more supply in the talent markets. But in the US of A the situation is more worrisome: a year ago 62% of employers said they were having difficulty filling jobs and this year only 28% shared the same complaint.

2008 Global Hot Jobs

1. Skilled Manual Trades
2. Sales Representatives
3. Technicians
4. Engineers
5. Management/Executives
6. Laborers
7. Administrative Assistants / PAs
8. Drivers
9. Accounting & Finance staff
10. IT Staff
Manpower, 2008 Talent Shortage Survey

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International human resource managers have long struggled to articulate the return on investment for expatriate costs.

Smart HR managers will be sure to highlight the findings of a recent study by Dr. Michael Dickmann in their next presentation on expat ROI. (Companies spend an average of $311,000 a year on each expatriate.)

An academic authority on expatriate management, Dickmann runs the Centre for Research into the Management of Expatriation (CReME) at the Cranfield School of Business in England.

His study, conducted in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers, found that productivity jumps while the employee is on assignment, stabilizes when he or she returns and then increases again.

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Fortune’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list is out and the top 10 contain a few surprises, some might even say head scratchers. But then again what a boring list it would be if you could guess all of them without looking.  

This year about 400 companies competed to make the list. What’s particularly useful about it are the different ways to sort through the data on the CNNMoney.com website, including by location, pay, job growth and benefits, to name a few.

Although one might argue that 400 companies really only scratches the surface of corporate America, one of the things that substantiates this list are employee interviews. Fortune’s research partner, San Francisco-based Great Place to Work Institute, compiled 100,000 employee interviews among these entries.

I’ll bet you can’t guess the highest paying employer on Fortune’s list - or possibly any of the top 10 aside from Goldman Sachs. But it’s interesting to note that the average annual pay of employees at Bingham McCutchen an elite Boston law firm is $211,017. Pity the associates who start out at a paltry $160,000 a year.

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Here are three telling data points which, when properly assembled, paint an unflattering picture about working in America today:

• The wealthiest 1 percent sees their income dramatically outpace others;
• Men in their 30s today earn less than their fathers did in the 1970s;
• A parents’ economic success is one of the biggest pointers to their children’s future economic success.

Those are key findings of a new study that evaluates economic mobility, or the ability of a person to move up or down the economic ladder within a lifetime or from one generation to the next.