Policies that Increase Labor Demans

I was at a great seminar this week sponsored by CALED - Keys to Successful Economic Development. Bruce Stenslie of Ventura County made a nice point about workforce development, identifying that there are TWO ways to increase workforce/job expansion, one is to increase labor SUPPLY -- i.e. to produce more and better trained workers, the other is to increase labor DEMAND by being more innovative in job situations, benefits, perqs so as to increase the worker's interest in going to these jobs. With the common complaints these days about the Gen X/Millennial workers, this is a place of great opportunity. Work from home situations, family involvement, child care resources, advanced training opportunities, team contributions, a vision of the big picture -- all of these opportunities will increase a business' supply of great workers and retain them to grow and prosper. With the turnover costs of hiring new employees at almost 7 times retention costs, figuring out how to make good workers want to be at your company is a boon. Also see Sac Bee yesterday on best 100 places to work, VSP of our fair city made the cut!

Gallup Management Journal explores what it takes to get top quality employees in today's tight market and it turns out that a good manager is better than more money! "Job seekers are slightly more likely to say that a quality manager (56%) or quality management (55%) is extremely important when looking for a job than they are to say the same about compensation."

http://gmj.gallup.com/content/103114/Job-Seekers-Ask-Whos-Boss.aspx

I was persuaded to take a job once by someone who promised me he'd be, "the best boss I ever had." And he was (so far.)

Especially with the next generation of workers, who value relationships and their own development more than putting in the time for the paycheck, "nearly half of job seekers say the opportunity to learn and grow, the opportunity for advancement, and earning promotions based on merit are extremely important when looking for a job."

And feedback about performance is especially important to workers, especially the ones who have the most potential to excel at your company. People who like to know thy are doing well are the ones who put in the effort to actually do well. Gallup notes, "employees are more likely to be engaged in their jobs if someone at work encourages their development, if someone talks with them about their progress, and if they have had opportunities in the past year at work to learn and grow."

Finally, the sense of purpose and commitment that comes from working with others and contributing to a greater goal encourages workers, and therefore company, success. "Similarly, more than 4 in 10 job seekers say the quality of their coworkers and a great work team are extremely important when applying for a job."

So focus on promoting to management people who are good managers, who can tell what motivates others, who aren't afraid to give feedback -- both praise and guidance -- and who focus on the fairness of merit based rewards.

The Hiring Process

I'm working with three high level, long career, professional people who are job hunting right now. The horror stories are incredible. With Internet submission of résumés, people infrequently get even any recognition that materials have been submitted; after discussing skill sets and expertise, employers will rarely illuminate for the candidate a "range" of what the expected salary might be; and then there are the formulaic questions repeated to each candidate, creating no opportunity to share information about actual skills, only skills of self-promotion.

And then there's the other side of the coin generation X -who has interests in and needs from their future employer that are very different from the needs expressed and sought by the previous employee generation.

Here is an interesting article discussing the message to then organizations and when it has a not very illuminating and perhaps even in net hiring process: http://www.governing.com/articles/10kmiller.htm

Preparing for Disasters

There was a very interesting article in the Sab Bee on 9/25 about the banking industry preparingfor a disaster such as a pandemic.



-- Unfortunately, (in my opinion) the Sac Bee website sucks so bad I can't find a link for the article even though I have the ripped out section in my hands....



But anyway, bans and other financial systems are preparing a 3 week long disaster scenarion to prepare resposes in case of emergency. These exercises include:



Coping with absenteeism: The over 2700 finnacial institutions recieved instrcutions that included assuming that 25% of the work force cannot comne to work. They were given certain letters to ID last names to ensure that the "hypothetical flu" could hit the bank president as well as the teller or janitor. In week two the scenario requies that the absentee rate be 49%



The planner have also proposed deling with shrinking bandwidth as more people try to conduct business from home, tring up the efficiency of transactions, possibly worldwide.



They expect cash withdrawals from ATMs to increase dramatically and considered how to get those machines re-filled with $$ as people are gone. Other interesting stumbles are considered as well.



This all just highlights the need for all of us do give some time and energy to thinking about how to be less caught off gard when something happens. Flood scenarios, home fires, etc. they are all hard to think about, but with some minimum consideration you could save you comany or family some of the pain and headaches of not having food, cash, communications, rendevous sites, etc. planned in advance.



http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_disaster_ap051707.pdf

http://www.sba.gov/services/disasterassistance/disasterpreparedness/serv_disaster_inthenews.html



Crisies are a lot less devastating when they aren't a total surpirse.

Workplace Safety Seminar

The State Compensation Insurance Fund, http://www.scif.com/news/100907-ErgonomicsCompliance.html is having a safty seminar covering ergonomics, occ. health and safety and saftey management systems info on Tuesday 10/16 at the Raddison, 500 Leisure Lane, 8am -12. Contact Angel at 916-924.6812 or amartinez@scif.com

The SCIF is (by their own definition) a self-supporting, non-profit enterprise that provides workers' compensation insurance to California employers at cost with no financial obligation to the public. Yep, like always, the business owner isn't getting it for free.... Still, having in place a safety policy and reviewing it and making it known to your employees can reduce you liabilities and therefore your costs.

Call for suggestions of BAD for Business Federal regulations

Make your voice heard! It isn't that often that an organization makes a call for complaints!

The Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration is issuing a call for nomination of federal rules and regulations in need of review and reform. You can help us streamline and update outdated or ineffective rules by nominating those that keep you up at night. Nominations are due by December 31, 2007.

Nominate them on the Office of Advocacy r3 Web site at www.sba.gov/advo/r3 or send an email to advocacy@sba.gov. For help, call Keith Holman at (202) 205-6936. For press release, click here.


And info on the BEST palces to do business... http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/fsb/beststates_top10/10.html