Reveille and Hyperbole
JobZen announced the launch of a new business model for the Canadian staffing industry. JobZen's Associate Programs provide a platform for Staffing Professionals to operate independently under their own brand. Designed for recruiters who are working for an agency, corporate HR department or independently, JobZen's bundled services equip individuals to build their own enterprise with the support of qualified professionals. JobZen Associates retain up to 90% of fees and still enjoy the benefits of working in a larger organization.

VirtualEdge (beware, loud music ahead) announced  the immediate availability of VE Fall Release 2005 to its worldwide customer base.

Today's workforce consists of four different generations, all with different values, rewards and work ethics. Cam Marston's new book "Motivating the 'What's in it for Me' Workforce: Managing Across the Generational Divide" explores issues facing all four generations and how addressing these issues in the workplace can improve the success of an organization.

Convergys (CVG) announced an alliance with ClickFox a provider of Customer Behavior Intelligence (CBI) solutions for optimizing the customer experience across multiple channels.

Ceridian has been selected as the  HRO provider for PHH Corporation (PHH).

According to Battalia Winston International, 87 percent of businesses will be conducting some type of holiday celebration this year. While this represents a clear majority of companies, it is down 8 percent from last year (95%) and represents the first reduction in holiday parties since 2001 when the weak economy and the terrorist attacks of 9-11 combined to reduce party participation to 83 percent. Interestingly, 96 percent of businesses view holiday celebrations as a valuable morale builder that demonstrates appreciation for staff. The remaining 4 percent of respondents view their holiday party as a marketing opportunity to mingle with clients.

Cvtips.com has released a new career & recruiters directory which will group all the career & recruitment sites on the internet in one place. 

The Adecco Group (ADO) announced results for the third quarter 2005. Jerome Caille, Adecco Group Chief Executive Officer, said: "I'm pleased with this quarter's net income growth of 16%, which reflects our operating profit growth, combined with lower tax and interest expenses."

Lawson Software (LWSN) today announced the general availability of Lawson Business Intelligence 9.0 to help executives and managers make better and faster decisions so they can improve corporate performance.

American women are less likely than their male counterparts to accept an employer's request to relocate due to concerns about spouses and families, according to a joint survey released today by Worldwide ERC(R), the association for global workforce mobility, and Prudential Relocation, a Prudential Financial, Inc. (PRU) business. According to the Relocating Women in the U.S.: Trends and Comparisons survey (Registration Required), 66 percent of women and 81 percent of men typically accept an offer to permanently relocate within the U.S. The survey revealed that at present, the largest proportion of relocated employees for permanent (47 percent), short-term (34 percent) and commuter (36 percent) assignments within the United States are married men.

JobsInLogistics.com, the largest online job board for logistics and related industries, was recently awarded the prestigious "Best In Class" Award for 2005. This award was given by MRINetwork, the world's largest executive search and recruitment organization. JobsInLogistics.com received the highest overall score, beating out all other niche job boards.

Deck Chairs
Workscape has hired Kevin Rhone as the Company's new Senior Vice President and General Manager of its Workforce Management business unit....Poindexter Systems a provider of behavior-targeted advertising technology, has named Toby Gabriner chief executive...StraightSource, an RPO,  has hired  Karen Reynolds as Vice President of Operations. ...Packeteer (PKTR) appointed Greg Pappas as its new vice president of human resources....Cindy Bezaury, formerly the assistant county administrator and human resources director for Allegan County, Mich., has been hired as Tucson's new human resources director. ...Jane Stampe has joined VirtualEdge (beware, loud music ahead) as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales...Qwiz and ePredix, two recently joined leaders in organizational performance solutions, today announced that Mike Fetzer, Ph.D. has joined the company as the Vice President of Product Strategy & Development....Capital H Group added Terry Faulk and Diane Gallo to its advisory board of directors.  Faulk is Executive Vice President of Global Human Resources for Kraft Foods; Gallo is an executive officer at Overland with responsibility for Human Resources...Eric P. Straus, President & CEO of RegionalHelpWanted.com, Inc. announced  that Scott Marxer has joined the company as Vice President, Inside Sales.

Net-Temps - The Choice of Staffing Professionals

You'll love working with our candidates! Jobseekers that use Net-Temps know they will be working with staffing services. They understand how staffing companies work and that you are there to help them get a job.

Plus, Net-Temps' aggressive online advertising attracts the top candidates and your jobs are broadcast to a wider audience. For 10 years Net-Temps has been providing online services to staffing companies - exclusively.

Our membership includes:

• Reusable job slots that make posting easy and flexible
• Full resume bank access - search over 270,000 fresh resumes every month
• Candidate Manager that helps evaluate candidates and move them through the screening and placement process.
• Daily Hotlist of candidates
• Resume search agents
• ... and more!

Reach the Candidates That Want to Work With You!

Visit http://www.net-temps.com to take our Test Drive or call 800-307-0062 for details.

---

You Should Know

Global:

• Dear Workforce: I have been asked by management to develop a five-year recruitment plan that supports the company's business plan. What should the proposal cover? (Workforce)
   
• Human Resources Outsourcing Leads to Higher Costs at Typical Companies But world-class companies spend 25 percent less by using HR outsourcing to cut transaction processing costs  In most cases, human resources (HR) outsourcing leads to higher costs at typical companies, despite the fact that world-class HR organizations rely on selective outsourcing to reduce costs in highly repetitive transaction-oriented areas, according to newly released research from business process advisory firm The Hackett Group.(SupplyChain)
   
• Rockstars? Nah. Call 'Em BlogStars | Notes from the Editrix  All you people out there who dismissed blogging as a passing fancy, it is now officially time to take note: the bloggers are here stay, and now, it seems, they've gone totally legit. Which makes people like me wonderfully happy, if also sporting a middling concern about what said "legitimacy" will mean for bloggers in the long run. I can remember not more than a year ago having a conversation with someone in this industry who dismissed the future of the blog from an advertising perspective. Nobody reads the things, this person said; nobody cares about blogs. Hmm. Really? A year later and the stats—and money—seem to be moving swiftly in the other direction. (ADBumb)
   
• Beating the odds in market entry Most new market entrants are doomed to fail. Why? Cognitive biases—systematic errors in the way people process information—often undermine the planning and decision-making processes of otherwise astute executives. (McKinsey, Registration Required)
   
• Behind 'Shortage' of Engineers: Employers Grow More Choosy  Many companies say they're facing an increasingly severe shortage of engineers. It's so bad, some executives say, that Congress must act to boost funding for engineering education.  Yet unemployed engineers say there's actually a big surplus. "No one I know who has looked at the data with an open mind has been able to find any sign of a current shortage," says demographer Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. (CareerJournal)
   
• The Quandry of Agencies in an SEM World Search advertising continues to evolve at a brisk pace. It has already assumed a size that makes it impossible for even the greatest critic of search advertising to ignore its potential. An article written by Saul Hansell that appeared in New York Times on the 30th of October—"Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue Too"— explains how Google plans to disrupt the advertising business by replacing creative salesmanship with cold number crunching. Google's intentions are well expressed by statements like the one made by their CEO, Eric Schmidt: "You are the C.E.O. of a large company, and I come to you and say, 'Give me $1 million and give me your Web site, and we will guarantee you will get $100 million in sales.' Which C.E.O. would turn that down?" (ADBumb)
   
• How Some Innovative Employers Are Embracing Flexible Scheduling  For the millions of U.S. workers who want more control over their time, companies have a new message: Flexible scheduling is getting an overhaul.  A few innovative employers are starting to hand out nontraditional work arrangements, including flextime, part-time hours and shorter workweeks, in a fairer, more systematic way. Some are opening up the option to all employees, rather than limiting flexibility to a privileged few, as has often been the case in the past. But they're also raising the bar for employees on nontraditional schedules by asking for more teamwork and accountability in return. (CareerJournal)
   
• Mr. Briteside: Philip Kaplan Builds the Marketplace for Online Advertising It's quite a feat to be considered a maverick in an industry without a rulebook. Yet in just five years, Philip Kaplan has truly earned the appellation, most notably by having founded F***edCompany.com: a hugely successful website that tracked dotcom failures at a time when the online industry was crumbling faster than the Death Star. (ADBumb)
   
• Google Base Live, Accepting Content  Google Base, which some people got an early glimpse at last month, is now live (or supposed to be) for anyone to play with. So what's in it, and what's it all mean? (Search Engine Watch) 
  
  
  

Malaysia:

• JETRO Study Shows M'sian Workforce Not Competitive A recent study conducted by the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) showed that the Malaysian workforce is not competitive enough and looses out to its counterparts in the region, Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr Fong Chan Onn said Wednesday.  He said the annual JETRO study conducted among Japanese businessman in the country showed that Malaysian workers were job hoppers and lacked skills. (Bernama)
  

US:

• AFL-CIO Launches Web SiteFor Researching Employers  In a further example of how the labor movement is increasingly waging broad campaigns to highlight corporate behavior, the AFL-CIO launched a Web site Thursday that lets workers search for information about outsourcing and workers' rights violations at roughly 60,000 U.S. companies. Launched through the nine million-member labor federation's community affiliate, Working America, the "Job Tracker 2.0" site provides data on recent health and safety violations, injury rates, violations of the National Labor Relations Act, as well as CEO compensation. Visitors can search the site by company name or by state or zip code. (CareerJournal)
   
• Pensions Go on the Balance Sheet: FASB  In a unanimous vote, the accounting standards board decided last week to look into an overhaul of the retiree-benefit accounting system. Employers would be facing a bumpy road ahead if they're no longer permitted to smooth results over a number of years when they account for the pensions and retiree health benefits they provide. (CFO.com)
   
• White House Agrees to Reinstate Wage Requirement in Gulf Coast  The Bush administration said Oct. 26 that it would reinstate Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements for reconstruction projects in the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast region.  "Upon review of current conditions in the declared areas, the administration will reinstate Davis-Bacon Act provisions effective November 8," Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in a statement. (CareerJournal)
  
  

Survey Sez:

Hay Group Study Says Utility Industry Faces Severe Manpower Shortage As Majority of Its Workforce Plans Retirement

Electric and gas companies face significant threat to their survival

It's more than two years since the major 2003 blackout and in the last few months there have been several power failures following hurricanes and floods. Yet before the decade is out, the nation is likely to face numerous blackouts according to a new Hay Group study unless the utility industry immediately addresses dangerously inadequate staffing levels.

An Aging Concern


According to a new study by Hay Group, a global organizational and human resources consulting firm, a substantial number of mission-critical employees in the utilities industry from the executive suite down to the lineman are rapidly approaching retirement age in the next four years.

The likely retirees are in key roles including management, senior engineers, operations, nuclear operators, gas transmission specialists, and control supervisors. The Hay Group Utilities study found that on average these employees are older than their counterparts in other industries and represent approximately 50% to 60% of the industry's knowledge assets.

According to the Hay Group study, 40 percent of senior electrical engineers and 43 percent of shift supervisors will be eligible for retirement by 2009.

The study also found that more than two-thirds of utility companies surveyed have no succession plan for supervisors and 44 percent have no plan for vice presidents.

"The electric and gas industries could easily collapse if they don't put a plan in place for staffing, retention, recruitment, and training" said Mike Brown, Senior Consultant and Utilities Sector Leader for Hay Group. "We need to seriously question if we will be able to keep the lights on in the next ten years."

This corporate crisis began in the tumultuous years of deregulation 15 years ago when utilities were in the business of merging and downsizing. Few utilities achieved the anticipated gains from the mergers and staffs were cut across the board.

Recently, crises such as the blackout of August 2003, power failures in the Gulf Coast, and ongoing post-9/11 security concerns underscore inherent weaknesses in the nation's electric power system. The Hay Group study found an intense need for power engineers as well as for a broad range of other utility personnel in the coming years.


Shrinking Talent Pool

The study also found that this issue goes way beyond human resources issues of retirement, recruitment, and retention and needs a comprehensive approach that includes academia. The utility industry's staffing problems start at the undergraduate level. Universities are now graduating an average of 10 power engineers per state per year, compared to 2000 graduates in the 1980s. In contrast, such countries as India, China, and Russia graduate a significant number of power engineers each year.

Surprisingly, salaries are more than competitive, with senior power engineers earning 30 to 40 percent more than computer science engineers. The base salary for these engineers is $100,000. Yet today's most talented, promising students are focused and directed toward careers in aerospace, biotechnology, software development, and chemical engineering.

Diversity is also an issue. According to the National Academy of Engineers, the number of women in engineering is declining. Women account for less than 17 percent of engineering graduates compared to 20 percent a few years ago.

"Hay Group has started to work with electric and gas companies to address these critical issues," said Brown. "These firms need a comprehensive plan to address retirement, succession planning, career development, retention, and rewards. But given the shortage of talent, they should go further to include job and organizational design, job sharing, and work systems."

Focused Candidates Visit Focused Job Boards. Find your focus below and discover a new channel of fresh talent!
Accounting / Finance	jobsinthemoney.com
Accounting / Finance	CareerBank.com
Call Center	CallCenterJobs.com
Drivers / Trucking	JobsInTrucks.com
Employee Benefits	BenefitsLink.com
Enviro/Occup. Health & Safety	EHSCareers.com
Executive	RiteSite.com
Executive	NETSHARE.com
Health / Medical	HealthJobsUSA.com
Hispanic / Bilingual	LatPro.com
Logistics	JobsInLogistics.com
Manufacturing	JobsInMFG.com
Retail	AllRetailJobs.com
Tax Specialists	TaxTalent.com
Telecom / Wireless	TelecomCareers.net
Transitioning Military	TAOnline.com
For more Specialty Boards, visit: The Employer's Corner on TopUSAJobs.com marketing@TopUSAJobs.com

Coming Soon

Webinar: Guy Kawasaki  and Teresa Shappell Creating a Portfolio of Leaders to Drive Successful Exits" November 30, 2005 10:30 a.m. PST / 1:30 p.m. EST Free Register	IHRIM Webinar The State of Workforce Technologies and Service Delivery Approaches: Insights from the CedarCrestone Survey December 1, 2005 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. PST 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. EST $175 More Info Register
Strategic Research Institute's Beyond Blogs & Social Networks conference, December 1-2, 2005 Jersey City, NJ $1,495 Register	OnRec presents: Digital Content Forum Feb 02, 2006 Cafe Royal, London More Info £175 plus VAT Register
Human Capital Summit Conference April 5-7, 2006, Chicago Marriott Downtown Hotel Register $1195	IHRIM: HRMStrategies 2006 April 9-12, 2006 Washington, DC $1,265 More Info Register
2006 EREC 21-22 June 2006 ExCel London, UK Register	HR.com's Employers of Excellence Conference 2006 October 25 - 27, 2006 Red Rock Resort Las Vegas, Nevada Register

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got News?
Send your company news, personnel changes, placements, and other tidbits of interest. News you'd like to see covered that we haven't? Let us know.

Don't forget to check out the blogs on bert.

Email Address:
Request:	Subscribe Unsubscribe

If you have any problem with this form please click on the link below and enter your email address:    SUBSCRIBE      REMOVE             Thank you.