Welcome to the April 25, 2007 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside:

1.  Companies losing millions in payroll expenses

Companies are potentially losing millions of dollars in payroll expenses and employee productivity. That alone is enough to make an executive's blood pressure rise and his/her skin to crawl. What is even worse is that they do not know how much money they are losing.

John Sullivan wouldn't be surprised. Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State University, set off a firestorm of activity a few weeks ago when he described "most HR generalists as little more than hand-holding, silo-building, no-change agents who serve as barriers to HR having a measurable business impact” in the March 26 issue of Workforce Management.

Sullivan added “for the most part they are genuinely nice people but they do more damage within an organization than any negative article about HR could ever do…….they resist measurement. If you look within your firm, you’ll find that your generalists have no output or results metrics of any kind.” According to Sullivan, HR generalists have elevated excuses to an art form.

Whether this is 100 percent accurate or not, the Hewitt study seems to confirm the need for more managers to ask: What is HR doing with their time and resources? (For more about HR's role - or lack of it - in Circuit City's decision to lay off 3400 workers, read the April 11, 2007 edition of The Total View.)

Hewitt's survey of 421 companies found that only 11 percent of companies provided the same time-off programs across all employee groups, making them difficult to administer, track and manage. In fact, only 57 percent of companies formally tracked sick days for their exempt employees, and less than half (46 percent) tracked personal days. And how about this finding: most companies revealed they did not know the financial cost associated with their employees' time away from work, even though they were allowed to provide an estimate.

Three-quarters (75 percent) of companies could not provide an actual or estimated cost of their sick pay as a percentage of payroll. Those that did, however, estimated the potential cost to be between 1 percent and 3 percent of payroll. For a company with $450 million in payroll, the cost of sick time could potentially be between $4.5 million and $13.5 million a year. Expanding the example to include all types of time-off pay – sick time, vacation time and disability – overall costs could reach an estimated 9 percent of payroll, or $40.5 million in time-off expenses.

According to Hewitt, creating and implementing a successful time-off program requires employers to adopt a new paradigm – one that views employee health, absence and disability as interconnected and
translates into the adoption of new strategies.

Not a bad idea if you can get HR to do it.  Send your comments

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Facts and Trends

U.S. Census Facts for April 2007

One birth every...............................................8 seconds
One death every......................................... 12 seconds
One international migrant (net) every.... 26 seconds
Net gain of one person every.................. 11 seconds

2007 HR Executive Census Survey
623 executives listed the following as top challenges in their organizations:

57 percent listed talent acquisition
46 percent cited health-care cost containment
46 percent cited talent retention
(April 2007, Human Resource Executive)

Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 is now available. The year 2007 will see an increase in skilled worker shortages and more competition. The result will be higher salaries, more training and career advancement opportunities, and more flexible work cultures.  How prepared is your company to find skilled and dependable workers?  

Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 is the newly updated and revised 2007 edition of best-selling book first published in 2005.  You can now download an advance copy of PLS 2.0. a $10 value with every purchase of the original Perfect Labor Storm, still a great value at $9.95. 

Don't miss day-to-day updates on Perfect Labor Storm.   Save the Perfect Labor Storm blog to your favorites.

3.  New! Upcoming Webinars, Workshops and Training Dates

CriteriaOne DISC: Building Teams That Click, Not Clique
Webinar - May 1, 2007 at 11 AM to Noon EDT
Registration: Free (Limited to 10 participants)

Hiring Tool Kit 101
Webinar - May 15, 2007 at 11 AM to Noon EDT
Registration: Free (Limited to 10 participants)

ASSESS Expert System Certification
Date: June 12 and 13, 2007
Time: 8:30 - 5:00; 2nd day ends at 12:30PM
Place: Lancaster, PA
Tuition: $1500 per person; $1000 for 2nd person, same company

ASSESS Expert System User Certification has been rescheduled due to the inclement weather experienced in the Northeast from April 15-17. New dates will be June 12 and 13.

For the first time ever, Bigby Havis and Success Performance Solutions have partnered to sponsor a 2-day ASSESS User Certification in Central PA. (Bigby Havis is one of the top U.S. organizational psychology consulting firms with domestic and international clients.)

Participation is limited and over half the seats are already filled.
Don't wait. Call 800-803-4303 for information.

4.  New Free Audio Podcast: Quality of Motivation

Every employer is looking for self-starters and motivated workers. Just imagine if candidates presented for the interview with a motivation meter on their foreheads. In this revealing interview, Ira S. Wolfe explains why motivation is a skill and why some people are highly skilled in a positive way, while others are not only attracted to counter-productive behaviors but they are good at it!

Listen and learn about the Quality of Motivation.

5.  Trust: Building Effective Teams with DISC

Building an effective and cohesive team begins with overcoming the absence of trust. Patrick Lencioni in Five Dysfunctions of offers solutions for each of the dysfunctions and identifies personality and behavioral preference profiles as among "the most effective and lasting tools for building trust on a team." He continues, "these help break down barriers by allowing people to better understand and empathize with one another."

According to Patrick Lencioni, "the most effective and lasting tools for building trust on a team are profiles of team members' behavioral preference and personality styles."

Build Trust, Build Effective Teams with CriteriaOne Behavioral Assessments. Learn more

Order your copy of Five Dysfunctions of a Team

6.  Stop Lies and Sticky Fingers....and absenteeism.

Fifty-seven percent of hiring managers say they have caught a lie on a candidate's application, according to a recent online survey by CareerBuilder.com.

The most common résumé lie cited by hiring managers is stretched dates to cover up employment gaps, with nearly one-in-five hiring managers saying they have found this on a candidate's application. Other top résumé lies include:

Past employers (18 percent)
Academic degrees and institutions (16 percent)
Technical skills and certifications (15 percent)
Accomplishments (8 percent)

The survey, which included more than 2,200 workers and more than 1,000 hiring managers, found that just 5 percent of workers admit to fibbing on their résumés.

In another CareerBuilder.com survey, fifteen percent of hiring managers have caught employees stealing office supplies; 14 percent caught them with money; 11 percent caught an employee with
merchandise.

Isn't it time to stop hiring employees at risk for lying, cheating, absenteeism, and aggressive behavior? Uncover high-risk clues with Candid Clues - the newest generation work attitude assessment.

7.  Quotes from Hire Authorities

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
Dale Carnegie

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission