DataDome Blog

The 2007 Top Fifty Companies for Diversity® were announced in March at DiversityInc.

Here are the top 10:

• Bank of America
• Pepsi Bottling Group
• AT&T
• The Coca-Cola Co.
• Ford Motor Co.
• Verizon Communications
• Xerox Corporation
• Consolidated Edison Co. of New York
• JPMorgan Chase
• PepsiCo

See the rest.

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Quotes of the day – on selecting and retaining the right employees:

If you’re losing employees, you’re losing customers.

On average, American companies lose half of their employees every four years, and half of their customers in five years.

This suggests that employee attrition may have a significant impact on customer loyalty.

While every loyalty leader’s strategy is unique, all of them build on the following eight elements:

• 1. Building a superior customer value proposition.
• 2. Finding the right customers.
• 3. Earning customer loyalty.
• 4. Finding the right employees.
• 5. Earning employee loyalty.
• 6. Gaining cost advantage through superior productivity.
• 7. Finding the right investors.
• 8. Earning investor loyalty”.

– Frederick Reichheld, author of The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value

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An estimated 1.7 million Americans are working in high-pressure positions that require 70+ hours a week – “extreme jobs.”

Some can thrive on long hours, especially if they love their jobs (and feel they can gain competitive advantage).

Such demanding positions, however, may also pose challenges. Driven (or pushed) professionals can face significant problems in their private lives (family, relationships, health). Their so-called “work-life” balance doesn’t exist.

The data show that the extreme work model is wreaking havoc in private lives — taking a toll on health, gutting relationships, sideswiping sex lives, and emptying out parental roles. Much of this fall out has particular significance for women.

Retaining upper-level, skilled professionals at that standard will also be a challenge to HR.

“The ultimate price may be paid in succession planning if maxed-out professionals stop striving for top jobs,” say Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce.

Demographics:

Younger vs Older Workers – A full third of employees younger than 44 are likely to leave their positions within the next two years if they are working 60+ hours per week, but only 19 percent of older employees working long works are ready to leave their jobs.

Women vs Men – 57 percent of women said they’re unwilling to take on such schedules for more than a year, but only 48 percent of men expressed similar reservations.

• Mark Rowh, “Working to Extremes,” Human Resource Executive, July 3, 2007
• Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Women and the new ‘extreme’ jobs, Boston Globe, Dec. 2 2006
• Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek,” Harvard Business Review, December 2006

It would be interesting to see a study that compared behavioral styles among these same participants.

Some possible behavioral style factors might include:

Extreme jobs might be fulfilling for High Ds (results-driven), especially if they also have a Low S (like to do a lot of different things at a quick pace).

High Cs may feel they have to work longer hours – whether they really want to or not – to make sure everything is done according to their high standards.

A High S likes a steady pace and a predictable schedule. While they may take longer to get things done, long hours would only work if they really felt like part of the team. Otherwise, they’d rather spend time with their families.

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Management Issues has reported that a study by recruitment firm ExecuNet found job satisfaction levels among America’s top managers were “dangerously low.”

The poll of 2,149 executives, all with an average salary of $221,000, found that nearly half – 48 per cent – were either not satisfied or “somewhat unsatisfied” with their current job.

More than half of these unhappy managers were preparing to leave their company within the next 12 months.

“Given the pace at which companies are hiring executive-level talent this year, disgruntled executives won’t have to look far in search of greener pastures,” said ExecuNet chief executive Dave Opton.

General managers, marketing and sales professionals are all increasingly dissatified, and IT managers are the most unhappy of all.

Why so unhappy? Limited opportunities for advancement, lack of challenge and personal growth, differences with the company culture, bosses not being a good match, and lack of adequate compensation.

HR is on to the problem. Three-quarters of the HR executives also polled were concerned about retention and two thirds believed their company was working harder to retain executive talent than a year ago. Nearly three out of four believed that the war for executive talent had become more intense over the last year.

We offer tools and strategies to address many of these problems. Contact Data Dome Inc. for your complimentary consultation.

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The U.S. Census Bureau has begun launching its report series on older (55+) workers in 31 states, based on data from the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) program.

• The first report, The Geographic Distribution and Characteristics of Older Workers in Iowa: 2004 [PDF], highlights the age composition of the state’s work force, job gains and losses for older workers by industry, industries in which older workers are concentrated and their job stability and earnings. Get the pdf report.
• Second wave: Maine, Vermont, Arkansas, Hawaii and Indiana.
• Third wave: Maryland, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky and South Carolina.
• Fourth wave: Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
• Fifth wave: California.

Check out the online tools from LED, too.

QWI (Quarterly Workforce Indicators) shows 8 economic indicators: total employment, net job flow, job creation, number of new hires, separations, turnover and average monthly earnings for all workers and new hires. Each indicator combines wage information with demographic data to use as a measure of a local area’s workforce and economy.

Industry Focus allows users to identify the leading industries for an area, focus on a particular industry to see how it ranks among top industries, and view graphs and charts of worker characteristics within industries. Users can analyze industries by state, county, workforce investment or metro area based on eight workforce indicators.

On the Map is a Web-based mapping tool that shows where people live in relation to where they work. It includes reports on age, earnings, industry distribution and local workforce indicators.

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