Deck Chairs
Stewart Title Guaranty Co. has named Renella Hill as senior vice president, diversity officer.  Stewart Title Guaranty Co. (STGC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Stewart Information Services Corp. (Stewart) (STC)...HRmarketer.com, the no. 1 marketing and media visibility service for companies selling to human resource decision makers and employee benefit brokers, has named Kevin Grossman chief operating officer (COO)....

 

  You Should Know

Canada:
Labour shortage leaves Town concession cold
For the longest time it seemed like you couldn't get a decent hot dog at the arena. But it wasn't a lack of wieners and buns that was leaving sports fans hungry; it was the lack of people to serve the food. Despite having the concession open during the Alberta Winter Games, the Town has yet to find someone to run it on a long-term basis.
"We were able to, for those four days, find a private operator to come in and exclusively run a concession for the games," said Ewa Arsenault, maintenance and office services supervisor for the Town of Hinton. (HintonParklander)

Workers want more flexible arrangements
More than 90 per cent of employers say they have strategies to offer employees flexible work arrangements but under 15 per cent of them give their managers the freedom to allow such flexibility. And that is making many valued workers plan to leave, according to a study of more than 2,000 people from 32 countries by the Careerinnovation Group in England. (Globe and Mail)

Global:
Recruiters appreciate a ‘pushy' applicant
Follow up is good, but hiring managers look for a candidate who demonstrates knowledge of the company. Hiring managers' phones could soon be ringing off the hook, thanks to a recent survey that encourages job seekers to be "pushy" and follow up within two weeks of submitting a resumé. The survey of 100 Canadian executives, conducted by staffing firm Robert Half International, found that 86 per cent of them said job seekers should contact the hiring managers shortly after applying for a job. Only four per cent said job seekers shouldn't follow up. (Canadian HR Reporter) Attract, develop and keep the best and the brightest. At Microsoft, our most valued asset is our people. As a member of the Microsoft Human Resources (HR) team you'll be responsible for improving the quality of the employee experience and partnering with the business groups to match talented people with positions in which they can excel. (Microsoft)

Engenium: View From The Top
Engenium leading provider of intelligent search and search-related products designed to improve information access for business users. Founded to overcome the shortcomings of existing information retrieval solutions, the company has incorporated a full range of search capabilities from keyword to conceptual in its patented and awardwinning Semetric® platform in order to streamline interaction with business applications and services. Unlike keyword searching that is limited to precisely matching the language of a given query, Engenium's Semetric® concept search engines and Autometric™ clustering engine analyze documents by meaning, concept and context. This yields better, faster search results—uncovers information that otherwise would remain buried— and enables organizations to work smarter. (KMWorld)

The Baby Boomer Generation is a source for trends, research, comment and discussion of and by people born from 1946 - 1964.
Covering issues on the Boomer Generation including original Boomer content, bulletin boards, user comments, Sixties and Seventies music, Baby Boomer culture, health and coverage of issues for "Aging Hipsters." (AgingHipsters.com)

How does Google do it?
Over the past few years the search leader has hired an amazing array of luminaries Over the last two years, Google has lured some of the best and brightest minds in technology and science to join the search giant's lava lamp and snack-filled offices.They include an award-winning physician, a pioneer of the Internet, the head of Amazon.com's A9 search unit, the former head of Microsoft's research group in China and an ex-top Windows architect. (ZDNet)


I.T. leaders salary survey 2006
Nothing gives a better indication of a CIO's strategic value to his organisation than by looking at his remuneration package, and how that compares with the ones received by his executive peers from other industries. In the first-ever Asia-wide IT leaders salary survey conducted by a magazine, MIS Asia unearthed some surprising findings. While many are satisfied with their pay package, a significant percentage believe the pasture is greener in business and marketing roles. Irene Tham has the details. (MISMagazine)

Logistics Today's Exclusive 2006 Salary Survey
For the past three years, Logistics Today magazine has produced their annual Salary Survey. This year, a record 1,625 Logistics Today readers shared not only the state of their personal finances, but their feelings as well on how well they and their peers are doing at advancing the state of the logistics industry. (ClickNews)

India:
Needed: labour reforms
India perhaps, has some lessons to learn from China in labour reforms, according to the Economic Survey 2005-06. China, with a history of extreme employment security, has drastically reformed its labour relations and created a new labour market, making workers highly mobile. "Although there have been mass layoffs and open unemployment, high rates of industrial growth especially in the coastal regions helped their redeployment. In spite of hardship, workers in China seem to have benefited from wage growth, additional job creation and new opportunities for self-employment," says the Survey. (TheHindu)

India in top three going through medical brain drain
India is among the three countries leading the list from where Britain recruits majority doctors and nurses. The Philippines and Australia are the other two majors from where growing exodus is being seen as a ''brain drain'' of health workers from the developing countries. (WebIndia123)

US:
Immigration issue key to business future
Most everyone agrees that U.S. immigration policy is broken, but there's a huge divide over how to fix it. Millions of immigrants are in the country illegally, employers are having trouble hiring the qualified workers they need from other countries, and some lawmakers are concerned about the economic toll illegal immigrants impose on the state's education and health care systems. (MSNBC)

SoCal students get civics lesson from teacher's immigration woes
A high school English teacher's immigration woes have turned into a real-life civics lesson for his students. Grant Keaney, a 36-year-old teacher at Montclair High School, said he didn't know his U.S. work visa had expired when he headed to his native Canada for a Christmastime visit. Now he can't get back to California, where he has taught for eight years. When word spread of Keaney's plight, hundreds of students and dozens of teachers signed petitions asking Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, to help Keaney return. More than 400 names were collected by the end of the last week. (Mercury News)

Short on Drivers, Truckers Offer Perks
The men gathered in front of the BZ Ballaz Club barbershop in a gritty, mostly Hispanic section of North Philadelphia were listening intently as Kimberly Cromer made her pitch for a career in long-haul trucking.  Kimberly Cromer of Congreso de Latinos Unidos talked with Edwin Torres about becoming a truck driver.
"Why pull $7 an hour cutting hair when you can make $19 an hour driving an 18-wheeler?" Ms. Cromer said, handing the men a pamphlet in Spanish explaining the requirements for a federal commercial driver's license. "Seriously guys, don't you want to get a job with a future and get out of this neighborhood to see the country?" (NYT)

Women's group seeks more diversity on corporate boards
A Tennessee businesswomen's group is searching for at least 50 female entrepreneurs or senior executives from across the state who are interested in serving on boards for Tennessee companies. Concerned about a lack of diversity in the corporate board rooms across the state, the group known as CABLE so far has collected about 30 names. When it has about 50, it will offer the list to headhunters and other recruiters. (Southern Standard)

Survey Sez:
MetLife Study Finds Employers/Employees Worry about Aging Workforce and Retirement Security, but Few Take Steps to Address Situation
-- While Many Older Workers May Need to Stay in the Workforce Longer Due to Retirement Savings Shortfalls, Only One-Quarter of Employers Have Implemented Programs to Accommodate Them -

More than one-third (34%) of all employers - and nearly half (46%) with 25,000 or more workers - agree that the aging workforce will have a significant impact on their company, yet more than three-quarters (79%) have not taken any steps to accommodate older workers, according to the 2005/2006 MetLife Employee Benefits Trend Study. This comes at a time when one-third (33%) of Baby Boomers (age 41-60) have not yet determined when they plan to retire from work. Further, more than half (58%) of young Baby Boomers (age 41-50) are worried that they will have to work either full- or part-time to live comfortably during retirement and 61% say that "outliving retirement money" is their number one retirement-related fear. Fueling these concerns is the fact that 27% of these Boomers admit to being "significantly behind" in their savings, and one in ten hasn't even started saving.

"Over the next decade, the aging workforce will transform the way that both employers and employees think about work and retirement," notes Maria R. Morris, executive vice president, Institutional Business. "With increases in longevity, many workers recognize that they may need to stay in the workforce longer to fund their retirement, which could last 30 years or more."

"Employers that make a long-term commitment to accommodate their older workers - not just through the physical environment or flexible work schedules, but by providing access to critical employee benefits that can protect an individual throughout their lifetime - will reap the benefits. Many older workers feel a strong sense of loyalty to their companies and expect the same in return. At a time when Baby Boomers are nearing retirement - and increased longevity is enabling many of them to work productively well into their 70s and 80s - older workers may prove to be the solution to the impending talent shortage. It's crucial for companies to identify a strategy for retaining trained, experienced workers and keeping them satisfied and engaged," notes Morris.

The MetLife study found that older workers are generally more satisfied with their jobs and more loyal to employers than their counterparts; 67% of pre-retirees (age 61-69) reported high levels of job satisfaction and 75% indicated that they were very loyal to their employers, compared to 44% and 46%, respectively, of all employees. They are also more likely to report that benefits are an important reason they remain with their employer than their colleagues.

On the flip side, companies must grapple with a host of benefits-related issues specific to aging employees - in particular, "health-care costs" was ranked by senior management (81%) as their top benefits-related concern. The impact of the aging workforce is especially significant for the largest companies. Roughly one-third of employers with 25,000 or more workers cited "long-term care issues" (35%) and "benefits for retired employees" (44%) as a "key concern" in 2006, compared with only 14% and 18%, respectively, of companies with fewer than 50 employees.

In addition to protection products such as disability insurance and long-term-care insurance, older employees are increasingly turning to the workplace for financial planning advice and protection products. Currently over half (56%) of pre-retirees are interested in having access to financial planners through the workplace to help them make decisions about 401(k) money. In order to help employees address the needs of guaranteed income in retirement, nearly half (46%) of the largest companies - and 31% of companies with 500 or more employees - currently offer annuities through the workplace as an employee benefit. Among all employers, 19% currently offer annuities, up from 16% one year ago.

Among the other key survey findings:

• Longevity: A Significant, but Overlooked Retirement Risk
  Given that many retirees will live 20, 30 or even 40 years in retirement, ensuring a steady stream of income in retirement is crucial. While most (72%) pre-retirees have tried to calculate how long their nest egg will need to last, only half (50%) of Baby Boomers have taken steps to factor longevity into their retirement plans.
• One-quarter of Baby Boomers Not Allocating Any Monthly Income to Retirement Savings
  Approximately one-quarter (26%) of all Baby Boomers - the oldest members of whom will reach traditional retirement age in just five years - do not allocate any of their monthly household income to retirement savings vehicles such as 401(k)s, IRAs or annuities. As a result, 38% expect to remain behind in their retirement savings five years from now. Equally as concerning is the fact that employees age 51-60, who only have a few years left to accumulate a nest egg, are allocating, on average, only 10% of their monthly household income to retirement savings products.
• Long-Term Care Insurance on the Upswing
  With nearly half of all employees worried about providing for their own (47%) and their spouses' (49%) long-term care needs, 16% of employees ranked long-term care insurance as their most valued employee benefit, doubling from 8% in 2004. Employers are heeding this call, with nearly half (46%) of all companies - and 81% of companies with 25,000 or more employees - offering long-term care insurance as part of their company's benefits offerings.

The MetLife Employee Benefits Trend Study was conducted during late 2005 and consists of two distinct surveys, one which polls employees and the other, employers. The employee survey, fielded by NOP World in September, polled 885 full-time employees (age 21 and older) at companies with at least two employees, and an additional 328 employees who work part-time and/or are currently on maternity leave. The employer survey polled a total of 1,514 HR/Benefits executives from companies with at least two employees, and was fielded in September by GfK NOP. For a copy of the study, visit http: www.whymetlife.com/trends1

MetLife, a subsidiary of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to millions of individual and institutional customers throughout the United States. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife, Inc. offers life insurance, annuities, automobile and homeowner's insurance and retail banking services to individuals, as well as group insurance, reinsurance and retirement and savings products and services to corporations and other institutions. Outside the U.S., the MetLife companies have direct insurance operations in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe. For more information, please visit www.metlife.com.

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Lucas Group and The Wall Street Journal: Executive Diversity Career Fair April 19, 2006 Chicago, IL - Embassy Suites, Chicago Downtown For details:awasson@lucasgroup.com	SHRM's 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition June 25-28 Washington, D.C. $1,350 Read more Register
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