Reveille
ATS releases Workforce Trends: Tools For Taking Control of Today's Skilled Labor Shortage (PDF Whitepaper)

TipTopJob Celebrates 3rd Birthday.

Quality Staffing Specialists, an independent staffing service in Research Triangle, is celebrating its 10th anniversary

RecruitMilitary, and the MidAtlantic Employers' Association (MEA) have announced that they will partner to promote the hiring of military veterans to the Association's 700 member companies. RecruitMilitary offers online hiring products and other tools that can help MEA member companies and other employers find skilled employees among the men and women who have served in the United States armed forces.

Deck Chairs
Janelle Downes is the new director of human resources for Fauquier County and Fauquier County Public Schools (Virginia)...

Survey Sez
Who has the upper hand in the job market as Labor Day approaches?

It depends on whom you ask. In a new study of U.S. employees and hiring managers, both groups indicated that finding that perfect job -- or job candidate -- is no easy task. Four-in-10 hiring managers surveyed said it was difficult to find qualified staff one year ago, and one-in-three believes the task is even harder today. By contrast, more than half of workers polled felt it was difficult to find a job one year ago, and just under half said it's more challenging.

Neither employers nor employees feel they have a clear edge in the current job market, but workers may have more leverage than they realize as companies continue to face challenges in recruiting qualified staff. In fact, roughly one-in-four managers reported offering more generous compensation packages to new employees in the last 12 months, and one-in-three expect compensation levels to increase in the coming year.
The survey and report were developed by Robert Half International Inc. (RHI), a specialized staffing firm, and CareerBuilder.com. The survey includes responses from more than 600 hiring managers and 1,450 workers, and was conducted from August 1 to August 8, 2005. It was designed to compare and contrast the perspectives of hiring managers and workers in the current employment environment and determine which group has more clout in today's job market.
 
Compensation
One-in-five hiring managers attributed their difficulty in finding qualified staff to the inability to offer competitive compensation packages. But there is a sense that willingness to increase starting salaries is improving. Half of hiring managers said they were not very or not at all willing to negotiate compensation levels for offers one year ago. However, 28 percent said compensation packages have increased from last year and 33 percent anticipated offering higher salary and benefits packages in the next 12 months.

At the same time, employees are becoming more aggressive in their pursuit of more lucrative compensation packages. Thirty-nine percent of workers said they were not very or not at all willing to ask for a better offer from an employer one year ago. Forty-seven percent said they will be more likely to push for more generous salary and benefits packages in the next 12 months.

"While professionals may be hesitant about the job market today, they expect to have greater bargaining power in the near future as new jobs are created," said Messmer. "The challenge for businesses is that while profits are improving, personnel budgets remain tight for many firms. Those that cannot offer competitive starting salaries will need to explore alternative incentives such as flexible schedules or other nontraditional benefits to position themselves as employers of choice."

Employee Turnover
While finding qualified talent has posed a challenge for many companies, hiring managers reported taking little action to retain their current team members. More than three-quarters of hiring managers do not expect turnover to increase from current levels, and the same percentage have not implemented any policies or programs aimed at increasing staff retention rates in the last 12 months.

Meanwhile, 28 percent of workers admitted they are currently looking for a new job. Three-in-10 think they will likely change jobs in the next year and 47 percent expect to do so in the next three years.

"Nearly half of workers say they will leave their current jobs in the next three years, and one-fourth will do so in the next year," said Ferguson. "Employers who are not focused on retention may experience an exodus of top performers and a corresponding rise in turnover costs. Compensation won't be enough to retain workers. Employers will need to leverage creative benefits, carve out clear paths for career advancement and provide a supportive work environment to keep critical talent in place."

Charts and graphs of the survey results

You Should Know

Australia:

• Getting down and dirty with HR. How low does Human Resources rank in organisations? According to US academic and consultant David Sirota,  in most places it's right at the bottom, usually sitting somewhere alongside the IT department. The trouble is that the heat will be on HR soon. The impending revolution in industrial relations, combined with the drift to self-employment by free agents, is set to leave us with a complicated mess of different working arrangements untouched by most third-party regulation. If a University of Sydney study is anything to go by, there are serious doubts that HR will be up to the job.  (TheAge)

France:

• French unemployment unexpectedly fell below 10% in July, marking the first time in two years the jobless rate in the eurozone's second-largest economy was in single digits.  The French unemployment rate fell to 9.9% in July from 10.1% in June, the INSEE statistics agency said Wednesday, against expectations of a steady reading. Unemployment fell for men, women, those under 25 and those between 25 and 49, with only the 50 and over sector not showing falling unemployment. (MarketWatch)

Global:

• Jobster said Tuesday it had raised $19.5 million in a second round of venture funding, bringing its total financing to $30 million as the online recruiting company seeks to expand internationally.  The fast-growing company, which runs a Salesforce.com-like site for corporate recruiters, announced just last week that it had finalized its acquisition of vertical search engine WorkZoo, which scrapes and indexes listings from major job boards.  (RedHerring)  (SeattlePI) (Jobster Press Release) (see also What is it and how do I use it? by Heather @ MSFT)
   

• It must be fun working at Google – if you want to, you can just create top position ads on search results for free. At the moment, Google is showing "Work on NLP at Google - Google is hiring experts in statistical language processing" when you search for [Susan Dumais]. NLP is "Natural Language Processing", and Susan Dumais... is working as a researcher* on the MSN Search team. (GoogleBlogoscoped)
   

• When talented people leave a company, they leave behind a gap that cannot always be readily filled. Although there is no single person, regardless of talent or experience, who cannot be replaced, in actuality it is often difficult to find an adequate replacement in time to implement a smooth transition. This problem is not limited to IT industry, although the task is undoubtedly somewhat easier for those businesses requiring less specialized skills. Nonetheless, finding a replacement with the necessary skill level and knowledge base, not to mention suitable personality, is a difficult undertaking for any business. (ITManager'sJournal)                                   

Hong Kong:

• "That's why we must have ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen," said Lu, noting that Disney might also face a talent shortage as hotels, resorts and amusement parks compete in coming years for educated young employees in the technology and information industries. Brian Ho, human resources director of Ocean Park, a Disneyland competitor now undergoing a $700 million renovation, noted the same challenge. "Why, when they could be working in air-conditioned offices, would kids want to work outside on a hot Hong Kong day, dealing with mainland tourists?" he asked. For some, Disney's rigorous culture might also prove too straitjacketed. (HollywoodReporter)
   

India:

•  Outsourcing of Medical Transcription (MT) business to India is hotting up yet again but lack of trained manpower may prove to be an impediment to its growth. (Business Standard)

Japan:

• Unemployment among younger Japanese people has fallen sharply in the past year, suggesting that companies' eagerness to fill the gaps left by retirees is altering the balance of power towards Japan's youth.  The number of workers leaving jobs by choice is also rising, which implies a change in the way Japanese people think about work. If this proves true, Japan could be nearer what experts call its "natural rate" of unemployment. This is the level at which inflation starts to rise because full employment is causing labour shortages, forcing central banks to lift interest rates to slow economic growth.  (FT.com)

New Zealand:

•  NZ Workers, Buoyed By Low Jobless Rate, Strike for Higher Pay...Workers are taking advantage of the labor shortage to get a share of the profit growth that helped push the country's benchmark NZX 50 index to a record . (Bloomberg - USA)

Qatar:

• MOST JOB hunters never even know when they've lost out on an interview because of "digital dirt." That could include your chat-room tirade on an ex-roommate's sex life or that photo of you and college buddies smoking something that's not exactly tobacco – stuff a prospective employer finds by Googling your name that causes her to scratch you off the "to call in" list.  (Peninsula On-line - Qatar)

Singapore:

• Family counsellors are heartened that the Government's push to improve the lot of low-income workers goes beyond jobs to include help for their families as well.  But they say more hand holding may be needed, especially for low-skilled female workers and housewives returning to the work force. (MediaCorp)

UK

•  Bosses at Scottish Natural Heritage today launched a massive recruitment drive to fill scores of jobs at their controversial Inverness headquarters. (grampian tv)
   

• One in five children and young people whose parents are both unemployed suffer a clinically recognised mental disorder, figures have showed.  They also revealed a greater prevalence of disorders among lone parents or "reconstituted" families and those where parents had no qualifications.  Autistic children bucked the trend, tending to have more highly qualified parents than others. (The Mail)

USA:

• At the pivotal time of graduating from high school, a military recruiter showered a Chinese high school student with friendship and promises of a speedy citizenship application. In two weeks, Wong Ken Moon, a high school student from Encinal High School in Alameda, California, signed a contract for at least eight years with the U.S. Marines.  Two months after signing the contract, Wong regretted his decision and wanted to back out of the contract on August 12. But he did not even know what type of contract he had signed or how to withdraw from it.  Wong is among the thousands of high school students targeted by campus military recruiters. Recruiters are using visa help to attract immigrant high school students, who are sometimes unaware of the obligations of the contract and how they can pull out of the contract if they change their minds. (NCM)
   

• Lured by Phoenix's hot mortgage business, a Bay Area staffing company is moving to the Arizona desert. Silicon Valley Staffing Group, a temporary and full-time staffing company, announced they have signed a lease for new office space in Tempe, Ariz., adding to its offices in Emeryville, Sunnyvale and Sacramento. (BusinessTimes)
   

• As a travel nurse, Alycen Skorvonek goes anywhere there is a staffing shortage.  Now she is planning her next move, to Southern California to be on a reality show.  Skorvonek is going to participate in "13 Weeks," a creation of a Access Nurses, a San Diego nurse staffing company. The local company created the Web-based reality show to recruit staff, and to promote the company and the profession.  Access Nurses' unique marketing effort captured attention quickly. Nurse applications to the company increased 20 percent after the show's Web site launched.  (SanDiegoTribune)
   

• With an unemployment rate of 6.5%, third highest in the nation, it's still hard to find a job in Oregon. Yet for local college students and recent college graduates like Whitney Egbert, a new company offers hope.  "I stumbled onto CampusPoint through an email sent out by my school," said Egbert, a University of Portland junior. "Now I'm working at Oregon Financial Serves Group and loving it. I don't know how I would have found this job if it weren't for CampusPoint. I've never seen anything like them before."  (Medford News)

Coming Soon

Webinar: You Were Perfect, I Hired You, You Changed: Achievement Based Interviewing Wednesday, September 7, 2005 12:00 pm, EDT Free MoreInfo	Baby Boomer Career Conference September 17, 2005 Occidental College Los Angeles, CA $150 More Info Register
8th Annual Recruiting & Staffing Summit September 19-21, 2005 Intercontinental Buckhead Atlanta GA $1,999 to $4,573 More Info Brochure	IFRA 4-day Adplexing Seminar IfraNewsplex Center Columbia, South Carolina $2500 for non-members. For more information,  1.847.382-9968
Staffing.org's Philadelphia Performance Summit September 21 - 23, 2005 Radisson Plaza - Warwick Hotel Philadelphia, PA $725 Register	Employers of Excellence Conference 2005 September 25-27 Pointe South Mountain Resort Phoenix, Ariz. More Info
Leadership Summit Network of Executive Women Success Strategies September 26-27 , 2005 Renaissance Concourse Hotel, Atlanta, GA. Contact Executive Director Joan Toth at (312) 373-5682 www.newonline.org	Webinar: How to Select a Search Marketing Partner September 29, 2005 2:00pm EDT, 11:00am PDT Free Register Speaker: Chris Sherman, Associate Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com and President, Searchwise
Economist Conferences Human Resources Directors' European Summit September 29, 2005 The Millennium Mayfair Hotel, London £765 + VAT More Info	OnRec Online Recruitment Conference October 6, 2005 Brussels Marriott Brussels, Belgium £265.00 +VAT (370.00 Euros) More Info Register: +44 (1702) 382330, or email wendy@OnRec.com
Talent Management, Leadership Development & Succession Planning in the 21st Century October 5-7  2005   Phoenix Marriott Mesa, Phoenix, AZ, USA $2418 Learn More Register	International Association for Human Resource Information Management (IHRIM) Global Forum Oct. 6-7, 2005 Boston, MA $710 More Information Register
8th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition October 19 - 21, 2005 Chicago's McCormick Place Learn More Request Brochure	Conference-Board New HR Leaders & Practitioners Tough Issues Forum 27 - 28 October,  2005 The Waldorf Astoria, New York, NY $ 2,295 More Info
HRO World Europe November14-16, 2005 Conrad Hotel Brussels, Belgium EUR1,700 Register More Info	VirtualEdge sponsors: CareerXroads Seminar: Job Seeker Experience-Why  Care September 19, 2005 :: 4:30pm - 7:00pm PST Grand Hyatt, San Francisco, CA October 06, 2005 :: 4:30pm - 7:00pm EST Nassau Inn, Princeton, NJ November 10, 2005 :: 4:30pm - 7:00pm CST Hyatt Regency, Chicago, IL

 

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