October 22, 2003
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-- Hire me, I'm qualified ----just don't ask me why!
-- Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 11 to #15
-- How Well Can They Sell?
-- Take the mystery out of employee motivation >>>>>>
-- Last Week! >>>>>>Employee Selection and Job Benchmarking Workshop - Get Certified October 30 - November 1.
-- Get Insight - Team Building and Leadership Development
-- Online Personality Screening for as little as $15
-- Reduce no-shows, theft, aggressive behaviors with the Best Pre-Employment Tool for Hourly/Entry-Level Employees
-- Obesity Weighs Down Health Care Costs
-- Take the heat and misery out of employee evaluations.
-- Every Hiring Manager Needs This Book!

Welcome to this week's issue of The Total View.

A funny thing recently happened to over fifty employers on their way to a job fair. While expecting to see a parade of out-of-work, humbled candidates pleading for jobs, these employers found themselves speaking with job seekers who already had jobs. Nearly four out of every ten job hunters already in fact were already working!! Despite the doom and gloom of the jobless recovery you read about almost daily, employees are still out there actively looking for the better opportunity - and as they told us, better pay. Folks, that's forty percent of the currently employed who are actively looking for leave their current employer.

Employers can learn a great deal from these job seeking candidates through the information they shared with us at the end of September.

Over 700 of the 1000-plus job seekers who attended the September 2003 Lancaster Chamber Fall Job Fair completed the survey. What they revealed will be shared in the next few issues of The Total View.

Beginning today, we will publish the results including what benefits are most important to these job seekers, how they rate their own job skills and if employed, how likely it is they will be with the same company two years from now. Stay tuned >>>>>>>>

The Total View is written and published each Wednesday by Ira S. Wolfe, founder of Success Performance Solutions. (Yes, Ira writes every article, every week!)

Ira S. Wolfe ©2003 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

To learn more about Success Performance Solutions or read back issues of The Total View, visit our website at www.super- solutions.com.

Have a comment? Disagree? Need advice? Visit our Free Discussion Board.

Hire me, I'm qualified ----just don't ask me why!
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Everywhere you turn managers are complaining about the shortage of qualified workers. Workers are complaining about their quality of life. Customers are complaining about the quality of service.

It's not your imagination either. More and more businesses are finding out why they can't get there from here with the employees they have. It is getting much tougher finding qualified workers. Even with the ranks of the unemployed reaching 12 year highs, the number of qualified workers knocking at employers' doors is at an all-time low.

While attending the Lancaster (PA) Chamber Fall Job Fair, over 700 job-seekers completed a survey about benefits and skills in late September. Nearly 400 of the job seekers were unemployed. (That by the way also means 300 had jobs but were looking for a change.)

The good news is that over 68 percent rated their overall job skills as above average or excellent. Unfortunately when asked to rate their individual skills sets, the ratings were average at best.

When asked how they would rate their computer skills, over 56 percent felt their skills were average or worse. Fifty percent rated their Internet and emailing skills as average or worse as well.

When it came to understanding current business trends and how a business operates and makes money, less than half (45 percent) rated their skill as excellent, with only 30 percent of 27 to 35 year olds feeling prepared. With across the board layoffs, early retirements and the impending exodus of aging boomers, the replacement workers by their own admission feel their skills are average at best.

Just slightly more (47 percent) felt they had the skills to handle stressful situations even when under a lot of pressure. Age didn't seem to make much of a difference.

Only 43 percent rated themselves as having the skills to solve complex problems in a logical and systematic way and just 56 percent felt they made good decisions in a timely manner with effective results. Again age with a +/- 5% variation didn't seem to matter.

Now maybe you feel it is not the responsibility of hourly workers to solve complex problems and understand business trends. But over 38 percent of the respondents were supervisors, middle managers and executives and the self-assessment of their skills wasn't much better.

As many businesses are finding out, the skill sets of people are being exceeded. The shortage of skilled workers is already painfully present. As the economy improves and more people are needed to produce the products and deliver the services for a growing and aging population, businesses will fall into a second black hole - an excess number for jobs for the people available to do them. It is estimated that more than 10 million jobs will exist by 2010 than there will be people to fill them.

In addition to paring down physical plants, equipment and supply costs, managers would do well to examine closely the capacity and capability of their workers and do what it takes to ratchet up their abilities and performance. Competition in the future won't be very forgiving to those companies that carry excess human resources or poorly skilled ones.

What are Employees and Unemployed Workers looking for? Download your FREE report here.

Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 11 to #15
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You can't attract a 21st century workforce with 20th century benefits. Times are changing and flexible benefit packages will need to change too.

Fact #11

Married-couple households have slipped from nearly 80 percent in the 1950s to just 50.7 percent today.

Fact #12

Eighty-six million adults are single. Forty-two percent of the workforce are unmarried.

Fact #13

Married couples with a single working dad, stay-at- home full time Mom, and kids living with two biological parents -