March 16, 2011

Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Published by Success Performance Solutions.

What's Inside this issue of The Total View:

1. The New Odd Couple: Skilled Worker Shortages and High Unemployment

2. Workforce Trends

3. What Motivates Employees

4. Annual Performance Reviews Simplified!

5. CandidClues Assessment

The New Odd Couple:  Skilled Worker Shortages and High Unemployment

YouTube last week announced it expects to have its biggest hiring year in 2011, with plans to grow its staff by 30%.

The Google-owned video site has dozens of open positions in all areas, with a high number of them are in advertising sales and customer support.

Google itself announced a few weeks ago that 2011 would be its biggest hiring year ever, surpassing its 2007 hiring record with more than 6,000 new hires.

In contrast AOL, the darling of Wall Street just a decade or so ago, announced it was laying off 20 percent of its workforce or 900 people.  That followed a cut of 2,500 employees just about 4 months ago.

The contrast between Google and AOL, as well as quite a few more technology companies, is distinct. It reinforces the volatility of business models, and essentially job markets, in today's marketplace.  

What I find most interesting with this news is that hiring a few hundred employees actually made front page news. Contrast that with just a few decades ago when manufacturers, especially the auto industry, announced employee call backs in the tens of thousands following a recession.

As recent as 30 years ago, the auto plants and related factories provided high-paying jobs to people without any college degrees or even any high school degrees. A person with little or no education could get a factory job for life that would give them a comfortable middle-class existence. The worst case scenario was a temporary layoff during a tough economic cycle.  But these dips and layoffs were temporary.  As the economy recovered, employees were re-hired to the same jobs they left.  

Employees waiting today for their old jobs will hear only the call of disappointment. Many of those jobs are gone for good. Some were lost to outsourcing. Just as many jobs were eliminated thanks to automation. 

Assembly line jobs have been replaced by robots and computers. Many of the people who used to assemble products are now looking for work but don't have the specialized skills to perform the new jobs. New jobs require strong technical or professional skills and some level of post-secondary education.

For instance, one of the largest hiring sprees is being conducted by Accenture. They are hiring 45,000 employees.  Most of the job openings require at least a four-year degree. The same thing with Deloitte, which is hiring over 11,000 people this year. The Big Three - GM, Ford, and Chrysler - once ruled the roost when it came to hiring and offering a middle class lifestyle with only a high school degree. As recently as the 1970s, manufacturers recalled tens of thousands of employees.  No more. The bar for employment has been permanently raised.

I'd be remiss if I excluded companies offering entry-level jobs from the conversation. In fact, businesses are hiring workers who don't have college degrees. Marriott plans to hire 5,400 people, while Wegmans and Publix are hiring 1,500 and 1,300 respectively. But the numbers pale in comparison to Accenture and Deloitte. So does the pay... and the opportunity for a middle class lifestyle.

Our job market has undergone a major structural shift. The writing was on the wall for years.  For many employers and employees, today is the tomorrow they hoped would never come. The odd couple of skilled worker shortages and high employment will maintain their contentious relationship for some time.

Comments?  Post them here. 

Workforce Trends

Demographic changes have resulted in an aging population with a larger female share. Until about 1950, the population was majority male. Now, nearly 51 percent of the population is female, with four million more females than males. The gender imbalance is even larger at age 65 and older, where women have a 57 percent population share.

Source: Women in America

For more  workforce and hiring trends, visit Perfect Labor Storm website and Perfect Labor Storm blog.

What Motivates Employees

Business values and motivators determine the "why" of human behavior.  
 

For managers, Business Values and Motivators answers the nagging question - How can I motivate my employees?  
 

For employees and individuals looking to re-energize their careers, the Business Values and Motivators report helps them understand what they value most.  As people, we tend to value certain viewpoints positively and judge others negatively.   How we value or judge determines our motivations and provide us with our sources of energy or conflicts and stress in our personal and professional lives.
 

What are Business Motivators? Read more.

Annual Performance Reviews Simplified!

Save time, increase productivity, and eliminate hassles when administering employee performance reviews with HReviewer.

Ask any manager what he or she hates most about the job and you'll often hear "performance reviews."   That's why we've created HReviewer.

We recognized a huge gap in the performance evaluation market between paper forms and online performance management. 

HReviewer is a user-friendly, centralized online solution to streamline and improve the annual, semi-annual or periodic review for small to medium sized organizations. It's convenient and very affordable too.  Our goal was simple: to help take the hassle out of getting managers to complete performance appraisal forms and giving employees more frequent feedback. 

The system comes with a library of competencies, an easy to use form creator, at-a-glance dashboards and reports, and a built-in reminder system to help HR track down managers when reviews are due....or past due!

More about HReviewer or Email us to schedule a FREE demo. 

CandidClues™

The cost effective solution to curb absenteeism and employee theft 

There is wide-spread concern about the honesty and integrity of employees. Most organizations have serious problems of pilferage, absenteeism, tardiness, employee disagreements that lead to violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and computer misuse. The annual loss from these counterproductive behaviors is estimated in the billions of dollars. There was a clear need for a brief assessment that could be used as part of the pre-employment screening process. CandidClues™ was developed to meet that need.

CandidClues™ assesses six areas of potentially counterproductive behaviors by a self-descriptive inventory that taps six substantive areas of concern as well a Good Impression (validity) scale.

• Hostility
• Conscientiousness
• Integrity
• Substance Abuse
• Sexual Harassment
• Computer Misuse