Lionheart Group Scam Prevention Steps

(From StrategyOne.net) September 3, 2010 (New York, NY) — Most American workers are satisfied with their jobs, but nearly two in three have strong doubts about being able to eventually stop working and retire, according to a recent StrategyOne public opinion survey of 1,043 Americans, including 613 who work either full-or part-time. The vast majority of 613 employed Americans who were surveyed describe themselves as satisfied with their jobs (82%) and report they get satisfaction from their work (80%).

(From PRNewswire) — GettingHired.com, the nation’s largest disability employment portal, announced the signing of an exclusive agreement with HirePotential, Inc. to provide specialized training to major employers related to disability employment readiness. The series of courses, including specialized training on The Accommodation Process, Disability Etiquette Training, OFCCP Compliance, Disability Awareness Training for Recruiters and Hiring Managers as well as Tax Credit Utilization, will allow employers to be better prepared to take full advantage of hiring talented people with disabilities.

LONDON and RESTON, VA (July 20, 2010) Learning Tree International (NASDAQ NGM: LTRE), a leading global training provider, announced that they have been awarded a contract by NATO CIS Services Agency (NCSA) for delivering Project Management, ITIL Certification, Technical, Management and Business Skills training to NATO staff throughout Europe. NATO selected Learning Tree International after a six month review process, evaluating providers on consistency, quality and cost effectiveness. Under the contract, Learning Tree International will provide commercial training services to an estimated one thousand delegates a year across NATO and NCSA bases in Europe. The training will be delivered through a mixture of on-site courses run at NATO and NCSA sites, local open enrolment courses and through Learning Tree International’s fully engaged, live online instructor-led training solution – Learning Tree AnyWare™. Utilising AnyWare, NATO employees will connect to an actual classroom where they’ll participate online in a live, instructor-led training course being held at a NATO or Learning Tree International facility. AnyWare delegates join from wherever they are stationed, saving the time and expense of travel, and receiving the same training, with the same benefits as their in-class counterparts. AnyWare allows NATO staff from disparate bases and sectors to attend the same training course and fully interact with the instructor, their NATO colleagues and complete all of the course’s hands-on exercises. Richard Chappell, Managing Director, Learning Tree International UK, said, “We have been working with NATO for more than 10 years, giving us an unparalleled understanding of their environment and an appreciation of their need for flexible, timely and robust solutions. Learning Tree International is uniquely equipped to meet NATO’s training requirements thanks to our wealth of experience in delivering onsite training throughout Europe, our ability to host a European open enrolment schedule, and through the use of our live online instructor-led offering – Learning Tree AnyWare™.” About Learning Tree International Learning Tree International is a leading global provider of highly effective, hands-on training to managers and information technology professionals. Since 1974, over 65,000 organizations have relied on Learning Tree to enhance the professional skills of more than 2 million employees. Learning Tree develops, markets and delivers a broad, proprietary library of instructor-led courses focused on people and project management, leadership and business skills, Web development, operating systems, databases, networking, IT security, and software development. Courses are presented at Learning Tree Education Centers, located globally, on site at client facilities, and are available via Learning Tree AnyWare™, the Company’s proprietary live, online instructor-led training delivery option, which connects online participants to the actual classroom. For more information about our products and services, call 1-888-THE-TREE (1-888-843-8733), visit www.learningtree.com , follow @LearningTree on Twitter or visit Learning Tree International’s Facebook fan page .

Original post:
Learning Tree International Awarded Pan-European Training Contract by NATO CIS Services Agency

(From Business Wire) — Working Americans are a mixed bag of emotions when it comes to job security, the economy and worker happiness. Short-term job security is improving. Contrast that with more workers who fear losing their job some day in the future. More Americans think the economy is on the upswing. But this is still a minority opinion contrasted against those who fear the worst is yet to come. And amid this uneasy atmosphere, slightly more workers – 61 percent – are happy on the job, up three points from last year. These are some of the findings of the SnagAJob.com Labor Happiness Index, an annual labor study commissioned by the hourly job website, which includes 1,000 employed Americans randomly interviewed by telephone by third-party research firm Ipsos Public Affairs. Thinking about short-term job security, 40 percent of working Americans say they are feeling more secure in their job than a year ago, a marked increase (11 points) over last year. Also good news, the number of Americans citing job insecurity has shrunk significantly to 35 percent, a group that was over 50 percent in last year’s study. Read more.

Continued here:
4 in 10 Working Americans Say Their Job Security is Improved from a Year Ago

(From PRWeb) — Today’s workforce is increasingly diverse. Our lean organizations must utilize the unique talents of all their team members to effectively compete in today’s global marketplace. Microinequities, negative subtle messages we send to our coworkers, can restrain workplace productivity and ultimately drive talented employees out of your organization. Today an organization’s brand is largely driven by social media. When employees feel disenfranchised, they frequently voice their complaints in cyberspace. Organizations without a diverse intellectual workforce cannot compete effectively in today’s global marketplace. Many companies support diversity, but diversity does not always equal inclusion. Download the complimentary whitepaper here.

Here is the original post:
‘Microinequities — Are Your Team Members Invisible?’

(From Business Wire) — For mid-sized organizations, performance management may seem like an unnecessary bureaucratic exercise, in part because of manual, paper-based processes. But a solid performance management strategy, coupled with the automation of key processes, can give organizations a significant competitive advantage and help to drive business growth. A new white paper from learning and talent management software provider Cornerstone OnDemand, “Performance Management Solutions for the Midmarket Organization: Why Bother?” examines the business benefits of – and best practices for – creating a performance-oriented culture in mid-size organizations. Readers of Cornerstone’s white paper will learn how the right performance strategy and technology support can help midmarket organizations achieve the following: Improve efficiency and compliance. According to CedarCrestone research, automating the performance management process can reduce operational costs by 20 percent.1 These cost savings are due in part to the reduction of errors inherent in manual processes. Automation also helps managers to provide constructive feedback to employees on a more frequent basis – and in less time. Make performance reviews relevant. Organizations with best-in-class performance management processes are 47 percent more likely to reinforce formal annual reviews, supplemented with informal reviews at least once per quarter.2 Technology can transform performance management from a once-a-year event into an ongoing process that also includes development plans and learning opportunities. Maximize productivity and pay for performance. Top performers almost always exceed the performance of average workers by at least 25 percent – making them valuable assets to an organization.3 Technology solutions can nurture better performance, focus individual efforts on key business strategies, and make it easier to recognize and reward superior performance. Download the complimentary whitepaper here.

Read more:
Creating a Performance-Oriented Culture Is Too Important for Mid-Size Organizations to Ignore

(From USAToday.com) — Flaws in flight simulator training helped trigger some of the worst airline accidents in the past decade, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal accident records. More than half of the 522 fatalities in U.S. airline accidents since 2000 have been linked to problems with simulators, devices that are used nearly universally to train the nation’s airline pilots, the records show. Simulator training is credited with saving thousands of lives. But the problem, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) case files and safety experts, is that in rare but critical instances they can trick pilots into habits that lead to catastrophic mistakes. Read more.

Follow this link:
Simulator training flaws tied to airline crashes

(From The New

(From channelnewsasia.com) — Spring Singapore has set aside S$30 million for two new programmes aimed at building a talent pipeline for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore. The two programmes which target tertiary students and graduates aim to attract 2,000 fresh talents into the SMEs over the next five years. SMEs in Singapore are hoping that they will not lose out to larger corporations when attracting talents. They are also hoping that the new programmes launched by Spring Singapore Wednesday will help change the mindset of local graduates. Under the Management Associate Partnership (MAP), Spring Singapore will work with high growth SMEs to train local university graduates. They will learn how to operate the company over an 18-month mentoring programme. Qualifying SMEs can receive up to S$15,000 grant for the training and development of each management associate. Read more.

Read more from the original source:
Singapore: SMEs to benefit from talent-attraction programmes

I marvel at young reporters who turn stories on deadline while sipping a cappuccino in Starbucks. The concept of working from anywhere at any time is second nature, something they never even question. It’s an option my generation never had when we came on the work scene, when laptops, Wi-Fi and compassionate bosses were scarce. Now, here we are, the 30 and 40-year-olds who make up Generation X, managing the twenty-somethings as their supervisors and mentors and trying to figure out why they have such a different attitude about work and what to do about it. Most of us haven’t really thought about the important role we play in molding this new generation of workers. I wrote recently about how the recession has been a giant slice of humble pie for younger workers, turning bold and brash Generation Y into Generation Comply. From their first entry into the workplace a few years ago, Gen Y, smart and brash, has bumped up against corporate cultures steeped in the chained-to-your-desk mentality. Nationally, advocacy groups are putting up a good fight to coax workplaces to be more accommodating about where and when work gets done. The White House even launched its own push for flexibility. But Gen Y consistently says their biggest obstacle is managers who can’t let go of the need to exercise authority over employees – in person. Read more.

Continued here:
Gen X faces a unique challenge in Gen Y

(From Knowledge@Wharton ) — We live in a world full of benchmarks and rankings. Consumers use them to compare the latest gadgets. Parents and policy makers rely on them to assess schools and other public institutions, and sports fans like them for help in sizing up their favorite teams. But what about when rankings are used at the office for appraising staff performance? It’s often assumed that employees who are benchmarked against each other work harder, to either hang onto a high ranking or raise a low ranking. However, Iwan Barankay, a management professor at Wharton, calls that assumption into question in a new study titled, “Rankings and Social Tournaments: Evidence from a Field Experiment.” “Many managers think that giving workers feedback about their performance relative to their peers inspires them to become more competitive — to work harder to catch up, or excel even more. But in fact, the opposite happens,” says Barankay, whose previous research and teaching has focused on personnel and labor economics. “Workers can become complacent and de-motivated. People who rank highly think, ‘I am already number one, so why try harder?’ And people who are far behind can become depressed about their work and give up.” Read more.

Read the rest here:
Ranking Employees: Why Comparing Workers to Their Peers Can Often Backfire

(From Business Wire) — Tennessee continues to invest in its workforce, and the latest development is the enhanced Workforce Investment Act website that launched recently. The Tennessee Workforce Investment Act Eligible Training Provider List underwent a major reconstruction in efforts to design a more informative and user-friendly website for potential WIA participants and providers. The service can be found at TN.gov. The Tennessee Workforce Investment Act is focused on supporting many types of workers including job seekers, laid-off workers, youth, veterans, persons with disabilities, and employers. This program is designed to promote and enhance employment, job retention, earnings, and occupational skills improvement for participants by providing them with an updated list of statewide training providers. A major change to the website is the visibility of performance data information along with basic program demographics. “We were very successful in our goal of designing a website that was more informative and at the same time user-friendly for both students and providers,” said Roosevelt Noble, Director of the Tennessee Workforce Investment Act. Now when students click on a particular program to inquire about the cost or length of a qualified training program, they can also receive information about the program’s completion and placement rates. In addition to the performance information, all of the WIA forms were modified to allow for students and providers to type the information and submit the forms electronically as attachments. Read more.

Read the rest here:
Tennessee Launches New Site to Promote Job Training

(From ComputerWorld.com) Kristine Harper thinks she and her millennial colleagues will run things better when they’re in charge. “Our generation will be a little bit more fun, encouraging, flexible, positive. There’ll be fewer meetings, more networking, more teams,” she says. Flextime will be ubiquitous, and managers will support employees in their efforts to balance work with other interests. Good jobs will be those that always challenge. A day’s work will be measured by results, not hours at the desk. Make no mistake: The workplace that this 27-year-old software developer envisions a decade out won’t look like the typical office of the 20th century. “If I were a manager in the future, I would focus on increasing motivation and community in the workplace,” she says. “I would try to emphasize the importance of employee get-togethers outside of [work] to promote a stronger sense of community and friendship. I think when you feel strongly about the workplace and the people involved, there is a sense of motivation that comes with that.” Read more.

More:
How IT will change when Gen Y runs the show

(From Business Wire) — Simply Hired

(From PRNewswire) — Companies leveraging new ideas and innovation will be able to distinguish themselves from competitors in the global marketplace. No longer the purview of only Research & Development departments, innovation may spring from any employee – especially when they are encouraged and motivated by management, says the new Performance Perspectives executive briefing, released today by Madison Performance Group. “In companies with innovative environments, employees feel management is open to new ideas and experimentation. These companies understand that new strategic ideas come from all levels of an organization,” says Mike Ryan, Senior Vice President of Madison Performance Group, a premier global reward and recognition design and consulting firm. Research shows, according to the Madison briefing, that innovators flourish at workplaces where employees are rewarded for idea development. “Companies that give positive attention to new ideas demonstrate to employees that it’s okay to experiment and develop new ideas – even if they aren’t ‘perfect’ the first time around,” adds Ryan. “In fact, showering positive attention on new ideas is considered a best practice at innovative companies. And because innovation is often a project-based activity, the simple recognition of a new idea by a manager can kick start its adoption into a firm’s work processes.” Read more.

Read this article:
Recognition a Viable Strategy for Fostering Innovation in the Workplace

A new survey from OfficeTeam found 45 percent of HR managers say their biggest staffing concern is employee training and devlelopment. Retaining top performing employees was the second biggest concern at 27 percent. This is

Popular Searches

• studypoint scam

(The Financial Post) — Things are looking up, but there’s still no shortage of headlines on the struggling economy – large lay-offs, double-dip recessions, and slow growth and recovery. The Age of Persuasion produced a great piece on recession marketing – I’d recommend the whole broadcast if you have time, but the parts that tie in here begin around 18:05 (and a friendly warning to anyone who’s anti-Monty Python). The real Take-Home Message of the program is that when times get tough, those who persist and push forward will be that much further ahead when the economy rights itself again. O’Reilly says of a food product manufacturer: “It fought to keep its place in people’s minds…the lesson: In a recession, the advertising landscape becomes a lot quieter and media rates drop. So, not only is a brand more easily heard, it can steal away business from the sector’s weakest players and gather momentum for when the recession ends.” I’m not advocating stealing anything from anyone, but can HR take a page from Marketing’s playbook here? Both job applicants and consumers make decisions in an increasingly noisy informational environment, and both are influenced by the organization’s reputation and brand, and the economic landscape. Read more.

See more here:
The ‘Recession Era’ War for Talent

Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire both Elluminate, Inc. and Wimba, Inc., two of the leading providers of synchronous learning and collaboration technology to the education markets, for a total of approximately $116 million in cash, excluding transaction costs and subject to certain adjustments. These leading teams and solutions together will form Blackboard Collaborate, the newest standalone platform in the Company’s family of education solutions. Blackboard, combined with the teams from Elluminate and Wimba, will pursue greater innovation to meet growing needs in the area of synchronous learning and collaboration, including continued support for integrations with open source applications and other commercial learning management systems (LMS). Read more.

See the original post:
Blackboard to Acquire Elluminate and Wimba

Pittsburgh, PA (Vocus) August 11, 2010 — Development Dimensions International (DDI) has launched the Global Leadership Forecast 2010-2011. The Global Leadership Forecast will examine how the economic downturn has impacted confidence in leadership, how leaders are dealing with transitions into new roles and the relationship between leadership practices and bottom-line performance. This year’s study features a special section on innovation from Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management. “This year’s Forecast pushes inquiring minds further by asking not only about satisfaction with current leadership practices, but what is needed in the future to be successful,” said Jazmine Boatman, co-author of the study. Read more.

See the original post here:
DDI Launches Global Leadership Study

Chicago, IL (Vocus) August 11, 2010 — TalentDrive, the creator of the leading online resume aggregation search engine, TalentFilter, today released the results from its “Job Market Perceptions” survey. The findings uncover a widening gap between current employers’ expectations and job seekers’ actual skill sets. For millions of unemployed Americans, looking for a job is their main objective. TalentDrive conducted a survey to get a better understanding of current job seekers’ perceptions of their own skill sets compared to expectations held by hiring managers. Are candidates’ skills and employer requirements aligned? Results uncover key “skill gaps” between the two groups. The survey started by asking 79,000 job seekers (86 percent considered to be actively seeking employment) to assess their personal skill set and attitude toward the current job market. An overwhelmingly negative response found that 71 percent were pessimistic about their career search, feeling they possessed the required skill set but were not getting hired. 37 percent were extremely frustrated, with no hope for improvement in sight and 34 percent unhappy with the environment, but starting to see signs of improvement. Read more.

Here is the original post:
Frustration Between Job Seekers and Employers Mounts

(From BusinessWeek.com) There are four types of training that do not cost much. The first of these can be found on the Web. Many of the offerings there present opportunities for real skills building. The second option is distance learning, which is also generally accomplished through the computer. Third, local communities of shared interest can provide relevant training in technology, project management and even leadership. Finally, I would encourage you to learn on the job via joining up with others outside your team so you can develop broader points of view. I have learned a lot over the years taking on different assignments and meeting with all kinds of people outside of my space. Read more.

Continue reading here:
IT training on the cheap

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–With the nation’s economy struggling and companies under pressure to keep employees motivated, Personalysis announced today it will, for the first time, offer its proprietary training practices to independent consultants. The Personalysis’ Certification Program is based upon proven, exclusive technology and applications that teach organizations how to understand their employees’ unique abilities, maximize their effectiveness and manage them more positively. Read more.

Read more:
Personalysis Opens Certification to Consultants

(From Business Wire) — Edmunds.com, the premier resource for automotive information, has been recognized as one of the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2010 Best Places to Work. “At Edmunds.com, our goal is not only to empower automotive consumers, but also to provide a satisfying and supportive work environment for our employees,” said Avi Steinlauf, President of Edmunds.com. “It is extremely gratifying to be acknowledged as a leader in this way.” Edmunds.com has also been named one of the Top 20 Places to Work by BusinessWeek and Architectural Record, and was a Wall Street Journal Top Small Workplaces finalist. “Edmunds.com is proud to offer an exceptional benefits package to our employees,” said Karren Fink, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Edmunds.com. “Some of the highlights include paid time off of a minimum of 4 weeks per year, 14 paid company holidays – including Earth/Community Service day, 401(k) plan with matching contributions, generous maternity and parental leave programs, educational reimbursement, annual cash incentive plan and employee referral bonus programs.” Read more.

See the rest here:
Edmunds.com Named A “Best Place to Work” by Los Angeles Business Journal

(ABC News) — Forget that week-long cruise, drive through the national parks or journey to London. These days Americans are taking shorter trips — mostly extended weekends — and leaving a large chunk of their paid vacation days unused. Americans already have fewer paid vacation days than their European counterparts, but now comes news that only 57 percent of people here are taking all of their vacation time. “People are fearful for their jobs. They want to stay there and work but they also need the money,” said John Wright, a senior vice president at the research firm Ipsos. “They don’t want to miss out on anything at work because they don’t want to fall behind or lose their job or something like that.” Ipsos teamed up with Reuters to look at where workers were more likely to use all of their vacation days. Read more.

See more here:
Americans Afraid to Take Full Vacations

(From Business Wire) — Vaco Los Angeles, LLC, a leading consulting and placement firm, is proud to announce that it has been named the Best Place to Work in Los Angeles in the staffing and consulting category by the Los Angeles Business Journal. This is the second year in a row that Vaco Los Angeles has been honored with this award. Vaco Los Angeles was among the 75 Los Angeles companies that were acknowledged at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles as Best Places to Work in 2010. Frances Moreno, managing partner, Vaco Los Angeles, said, “Our vision is for our employees to have phenomenal career opportunities and to provide our clients with the best talent to achieve their business objectives. The key is to appreciate every member of the team and trust them, to quickly resolve any issues that arise, and maintain accountability to achieve the best results for our clients and our business.” Vaco Los Angeles was named the Best Place to Work in the staffing and consulting category, and ranked eight of 27 small companies ranked in Los Angeles. The winners emphasized commitment to employees, incentive programs, flexibility in the work place, and promoting an overall positive corporate culture. Read more.

Here is the original post:
Vaco Los Angeles Named Best Place to Work in Its Category by the Los Angeles Business Journal

Popular Searches

• Is vaco a fraud

(From Talent Management) — Scottrade is remarkably lean as brokerage firms go, with just three to five people working in each of its 450-plus branches nationwide — 3,200 employees total — and plans to reach its 500th branch this year. As such, its talent management strategy must be targeted, fast-paced and able to easily reach its widely distributed and growing workforce. When the company was founded 30 years ago, however, it had no talent management strategy whatsoever, and this remained the case for the first 18 years of its existence. “We started as a small company; I actually was about the fourth employee here,” said Jane Wulf, Scottrade’s chief administrative officer, who is responsible for its HR, training, branch development and national service center. “We had no training department — people would sit with someone and learn that job — and as we evolved, we had to grow a training department. It’s only about 12 years old currently.” Wulf spoke with Talent Management magazine about how Scottrade’s approach has taken shape. Read more.

Original post:
Cornering the Market on Talent

(From Businessweek.com) Financial services firms are recruiting more IT professionals this summer than a year ago, and they are looking for strong programming, database and operating system skills to keep their real-time banking and trading systems up and running. “Technology is extremely important on Wall Street, where they have vast quantities of data that needs real-time analysis,” says Constance Melrose, managing director of eFinancialCareers, an online listing of available jobs in the banking, trading and money management fields. “We have a lot of clients who are looking for technologists who can handle the speed, quantity and precision of that information.” Techies interested in these posts will have a leg-up on the competition if they have experience in one key business area: risk management, a capability that was sorely lacking on Wall Street prior to the recession. Read more.

Read more:
Wall Street wants these tech skills

(From NewsOK.com) Work force training programs at several Oklahoma colleges and universities will get a boost from $2.1 million of grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The department plans to award more than $159.1 million in grants nationwide to support health care training, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday. The funding is designed to improve health care quality by better preparing health care workers to help a diverse population. Grants will support programs that train nurses and geriatric specialists, as well as programs that support recruitment and improve performances of minority students who are pursuing careers that relate to health professions. Read more.

Read more here:
$2.1M in grants will support health care training programs at Oklahoma colleges, universities

(From the Chicago Tribune) CHICAGO —Health care work force training programs in Illinois are set to receive federal grants totaling $5.4 million. The grants, announced Thursday, target nursing, geriatrics and recruitment of minority students into health care professions. Health care training programs across the state are receiving grants. Recipients include University of Illinois at Chicago, Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and Illinois State University in Normal. Read more.

Go here to read the rest:
Illinois to get $5.4M for health care training

Public managers within a single organization commonly define fundamental terms differently. Since public managers come from diverse backgrounds and have different experiences, it’s not unexpected that they interpret the world around them differently. Are these differences in understanding detrimental to the public organization? How should public managers react to these situations? Perhaps hermeneutics is the best tool for grappling with differences of understanding within an organization and it is time to add it to the public management tool kit.

(From the Wall Street Journal blogs) Women have nearly achieved equality with men in today’s workforce, with one glaring exception: Mothers. Once women step away from the workforce to raise their kids or provide other care for their families, their careers suffer in terms of pay and promotions, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. Fathers who take time off pay a big price, too—but it’s still mainly women who act as caregivers. “Women do almost as well as men today,” said Jane Waldfogel, a Columbia University professor quoted in the piece, “as long as they don’t have children.” The column offers some interesting policy recommendations to help make the workplace friendlier to those who serve as caregivers. Most intriguing is a simple, inexpensive idea for changing workplace culture: Simply allowing workers the right to ask for a part-time or flexible schedule, as a new British law requires. Under that rule, employers can still say no, but most haven’t. Read more.

Read the original:
WSJ: Women Near Equal at Work, Mothers Fall Behind

(From ITWorldCanada.com) How will people work 10 years from now? Gartner thinks it has a pretty good idea, predicting 10 major changes that will occur during the next 10 years. “Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, ‘swarming’ and more,” said Tom Austin, a Gartner fellow, in a media announcement. In just five years, the report notes, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be “non-routine,” which is up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” Austin stated. “In addition, simulation, visualization and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.” (Yes, he said “yottabytes.”) Read more.

Read the rest here:
Your workplace in 2020: Gartner’s predictions

Wallingford, CT (PRWEB) The Marlin Company of Wallingford, CT, has been granted its first patent (U.S. Patent No. 7,743,112) for the Electronic Communication Station, a digital signage solution for workplace communication. The product enables companies to easily communicate important topics such as safety, quality and productivity in a visual manner. Read more.

See the original post:
The Marlin Company Obtains Patent for Workplace Digital Signage Product

ZDNet has developed a new white paper, available now for download. “In the Global Knowledge/TechRepublic 2010 Salary Survey, conducted at the end of last year, one of the questions put to respondents was “What skill set will your company be looking to add in 2010?” The skills listed by respondents include the perennial favorites, such as security, network administration, and Windows administration.” Read more/Download.

Follow this link:
Top 10 Skills in Demand in 2010

(From MedPageToday.com) A combination of mentoring and training in coping skills can improve mental health and satisfaction with life among abused children in foster care, according to a small randomized trial. The randomized trial, conducted among more than 150 children placed in foster care, found that children had fewer mental health problems six months after completing a nine-month program that included skills building and mentoring, compared with children who did not get the intervention, according to Heather Taussig, PhD, and Sara Culhane, PhD, JD, both of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Children assigned to the intervention also reported a better quality of life, as well as other improvements in functioning, Taussig and Culhane reported in the August issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Read more.

Originally posted here:
Abused Children Benefit from Skills Training

REDWOOD CITY, CA, Aug 02, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, the worldwide leader in securing the Internet, and the Ponemon Institute, a leading privacy and information management research firm, today released the findings of a global survey, Web 2.0 Security in the Workplace, revealing that up to 82 percent of IT security administrators surveyed believe social networking, Internet applications and widgets have significantly lowered the security posture of their organization. Respondents cited viruses, malware and data loss as the top Web 2.0 concerns, with as many as 77 percent of businesses planning to implement a solution addressing such vulnerabilities within the next five years. Read more.

Read more:
Survey Reveals the Importance of Employee Consciousness in Web 2.0 Security

(From swtimes.com) For the second consecutive year, The Chronicle of Higher Education has named the University of the Ozarks at Clarksville as one of the top U.S. universities for which to work. According to a U of O news release, it is one of 30 four-year colleges named to the 2010 “Great Colleges to Work For” honor roll, and was the only Arkansas university to make the list. The third annual survey recognizes colleges for specific best practices and policies, such as compensation and benefits, faculty-administration relations and confidence in senior leadership. U of O was recognized in the small university category – those with enrollments under 3,000. U of O was recognized among the top 10 small schools in nine of 12 categories: Collaborative governance, professional/career development programs, teaching environment, compensation and benefits, job satisfaction, work-life balance, confidence in senior leadership, supervisor or department chair relationship, and respect and appreciation. Read more.

Link:
U Of O Lauded For Workplace

(From Forbes.com) Last month the U.S. Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated opinion, City of Ontario, California v. Quon, which sheds some light on an often overlooked, yet important, issue in many corporations today: technology and network use policies. The case highlights the importance of using these policies to address a company’s right to access information created and sent using work-issued technology in connection with an employee’s expectation of privacy in the workplace. Taking into account this important decision, companies must create, implement and enforce these policies, ensuring employees are aware that their actions may be monitored. Read more.

Original post:
Privacy Vs. Technology In The Workplace

(From ABC.net.au) Wouldn’t it be great if rising demand on the health system led to an automatic increase in the health budget? Wouldn’t it be great if an increase in demand for peak-hour trains led directly to governments providing more of them? Wouldn’t it be great if governments responded to citizens need for services in the same way they respond to employers demands for more immigration. Australia has, we are told, a skills shortage. Presumably developing countries have much better education systems than ours as they, it seems, have a skills surplus. Does it seem a little bit weird that so many people from the rest of the world want to come to Australia for an education but, at the same time, so many Australian employers would prefer to employ people with skills obtained overseas? Does it seem strange that developing countries are better able to train doctors than a country like Australia? This does not mean that doctors from other countries should not be free to come to Australia if they wish to, but the idea that we have a shortage of doctors and other countries have a surplus is just absurd. The reality is that Australian governments have decided it is cheaper to let other countries invest in training and for us to poach them. Read more.

Read more:
For the love of profits: Australia’s skills shortage

(From ZDNet.com) University applications are going up, almost 12% this year in the UK alone and figures showing US applications on the increase though lagging behind other countries. But for every graduate level job, 70 graduates on average apply making the chances of post-graduate employment difficult. The economic downturn hasn’t helped things, with unemployment at record levels and an influx of graduate students adding to the numbers. But a controversy is brewing in the UK – and frankly worldwide as well – in regards to ‘modern’ degrees in computing, the digital age, and multimedia technology and the lack of actual workplace skills gained from such. Read more.

Read more from the original source:
Are digital degrees ‘useless’ without employment skills?

Sunrise, FL—June 8, 2010 -

(From Harvard Business Review) — Tony Hayward’s expected departure as CEO of BP today won’t be the biggest surprise; the surprise is that it’s taken so long. (I called publicly for his resignation some time ago.) The Case of Tony Hayward and the Gulf Oil Spill will be fodder for business school discussions for years to come, as a how-not-to-do-it guide for leadership when disaster strikes. Mr. Hayward must have studied management in a parallel universe, where a set of anti-rules for bad leadership are taught. Here’s what I imagine are those anti-rules. Deny and minimize problems. Drop any mention of the high-minded principles you announced at the beginning of your term, such as safety and a culture that puts people first. Sweep them under the rug as you play down the significance of the crisis. Or better yet, find someone else to blame—a supplier, a business partner, a lowly employee or two. Emphasize your own power and importance. Keep yourself front and center all the time. Rarely bring forward the rest of the team, nor even indicate that it’s a team effort. Make the story all about you. Talk about your heavy burdens and the costs to your life. When forced to acknowledge the true victims, pay lip service. Never apologize, and don’t even pretend to learn from your mistakes. Brush off public disapproval, and persist in the same mindless behavior that provoked criticism in the first place. Hang onto your job even when it’s clear you should go, in order to negotiate the highest severance package, whether you deserve it or not. Don’t even consider a deferred resignation to allow for smooth suggestion. Cling to power, and keep everyone guessing to the very end. Just reverse these rules, and the outcome could have been different. Good leaders must face facts, prepare for the worst case scenario, draw on the whole team, show constant concern for stakeholders, acknowledge mistakes and not make the same ones twice, and do the honorable thing if getting in the way of company progress. BP, in fact, mobilized thousands of employees and former employees from around the world to work on the Gulf Oil spill; the saga of Mr. Hayward now seems peripheral to the main action. Read more.

Read more here:
Leadership Tips from Tony Hayward (or Not)

(From Gradkin Blog) — With the current view that the generational gap in the workforce is as wide as ever, it’s spurred a recent push by companies to better understand the Gen-Y recruitment landscape. Many companies that had previously been satisfied with their talent management strategies, now realise that methods of old aren’t as applicable anymore. Graduate recruitment like other functions of a business needs to evolve with time. Human Resource professionals globally are in a constant state of incertitude as they try to figure out the answer to “How do we attract Gen-Y talent?”. The reason for the uncertainty really lies in a lack of understanding of today’s millennials. When you can get inside their head though and understand exactly what motivates them, tailoring your recruitment processes around it leads to a winning attraction strategy. The issue is complicated further with a War for Talent reemerging as the global economy recovers. Not only are employers desperate to attract the right talent, they do so in an increasingly competitive job market – start-ups, SMEs and MNCs are all fighting over the best talent and the companies with the most persuasive stories win. So, how exactly do companies ensure they stand out when attracting Gen-Y talent? Read more.

Follow this link:
4 Steps to Attracting Gen-Y Talent

(From Business Wire) — A consortium of the nation’s largest and smallest employers have joined forces to compile a job bank of one million immediate job openings across the country, in an effort to put Americans back to work. As of today, nearly 600,000 jobs have been listed in the job bank, with hundreds more added daily. “A Million Jobs for America™,” which launched today, is corporate America’s response to reversing the high unemployment rate. Employers include some of the largest corporations in America, as well as small and mid-sized firms, who have pledged financial support and, more importantly, their job openings in an effort to stimulate the job market. One unique element of the program is its focus on helping Americans who most need employment: Job openings are distributed directly to veterans groups, disabled individuals, non-profit organizations and state unemployment offices. In turn, employers who hire these qualified candidates may be eligible for federal tax credits, such as Restore Employment Act (HIRE) Credits and Work Opportunity Tax Credits. “Who better than American business to lead the job creation efforts and help get Americans back to work?” asked Mark S. Andrekovich, President of MAXIMUS Tax Credit and Employer Services, the sponsor leading this effort to bring businesses and community organizations together. “ ‘A Million Jobs for America’ is our way of helping reverse the staggering unemployment rate and get Americans back to work,” said Dennis Ratner, Founder and CEO of Ratner Companies, the parent company of Hair Cuttery. “CEOs across the country know that true economic recovery will happen when – and only when – our workforce is back to full capacity.” Read more.

View original post here:
Corporate America Unites with Community Organizations to Launch “A Million Jobs for America”

(From NYTimes.com) HIROSHIMA, Japan — Six young Chinese women arrived in this historic city three summers ago, among the tens of thousands of apprentices brought to Japan each year on the promise of job training, good pay and a chance at a better life back home. Instead, the women say, they were subjected to 16-hour workdays assembling cellphones at below the minimum wage, with little training of any sort, all under the auspices of a government-approved “foreign trainee” program that critics call industrial Japan’s dirty secret. Read more.

Read more:
Japan Training Program Is Said to Exploit Workers

(From Dayton Business Journal) Solving the mismatch between available jobs in the Southwestern Ohio area and the skills of the region’s workforce was a main concern for a panel of five regional leaders at the Regional Development Forum in West Chester. Keynote speaker Lisa Patt-McDaniel, director of the Ohio Department of Development, stressed the importance of the success of the state on the people in Ohio. She told the 250 people gathered at the Savannah Center that companies are happy with the region’s work force and work ethic, but the firms need employees with more technical skills. Read more.

See the rest here:
Ohio: Need to match jobs with skills of region’s workforce

“300 million people use PowerPoint and most of them use it poorly,” says Ron Galloway, director of the new documentary Rethinking PowerPoint: Conversations About Slide Design & Presenting. The DVD of the film was released July 20, 2010. Learn more.

Link:
New DVD: Rethinking PowerPoint

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–With nearly 60 percent of companies becoming more dependent on their contingent labor programs over the next two years, The Contingent Labor Management 2010 Report, published by the Aberdeen Group, found that companies will have a greater number of Statement-of-Work (SOW), Independent Contractors (IC) and services-based work employees. The report, sponsored by Guidant Group Inc., a managed services and talent acquisition consulting company, takes an in-depth look at how companies can better manage their ever-expanding contingent workforce, including ICs and SOWs. It suggests companies can manage their contingent workforce by exhibiting spending control and securing a quality contingent workforce as they focus on: Key performance metrics required to derive value from temporary workers Core technologies and solutions that help leverage, track and organize contingent spending and labor, such as Managed Service Providers (MSP), Vendor Management Systems (VMS) and Independent Contractor Engagement Specialists (ICES) Read more.

Continue reading here:
Report: Companies More Dependent on Contingent Labor

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–U.S. employers are reporting a 2.5% average salary budget increase across all employee categories for 2010, which means many employees may expect a base pay raise of around 2.5% before the year is over. However, the size of the raise changes when the employee’s performance is factored in. Low performers can expect to see minimal increases of up to 0.7% or nothing at all, middle performers might expect a nominal base pay raise of 2.4%, and high performers may expect an average of 3.7% (54% higher than a middle performer). Surveyed employers reported that roughly 24% of employees are rated as high performers, while most are classified as middle performers. Read more.

Read the original here:
Employers Still Giving Raises, Mostly to High Performers

(From Business Wire) — More than half (54 percent) of large U.S. businesses that reduced staff in the past 12 months plan to rebuild their workforces to pre-recession levels within two years, according to a study released today by Accenture (NYSE: ACN). “The Accenture High Performance Workforce Study” found that among all U.S. companies surveyed, only 13 percent of executives said that they plan to reduce their employee base over the next 12 months. “The outlook is improving,” said David Smith, managing director of the Accenture Talent & Organization Performance practice. “But as companies grow their staff, it is more critical than ever that they understand their skills needs and approach the expansion of their workforces strategically.” The survey confirmed that companies are shifting their focus away from cost control and returning to growth. The percentage of U.S. companies focused primarily on cost control will decrease from 41 percent in mid-2009 to 18 percent in 2011, according to the study. And the percentage of U.S. companies focused primarily on investment in growth-oriented activities, such as hiring, will increase from 24 percent today to 37 percent within the next 12 months. However, as companies focus on growth, a shortage of high-quality skills may be cause for concern for many businesses. Only 15 percent of U.S. executives surveyed described the overall skill level of their workforces as industry-leading. “A lack of relevant skills may present a hurdle for companies as they position themselves for growth,” said Smith. “Companies need to rethink how they equip employees with the skills required to be competitive today. They must also consider new strategies for hiring and developing untapped talent currently available in the market.” Read more.

See the original post here:
More Than Half of Large, Downsized U.S. Businesses Plan to Rebuild Their Workforces to Pre-Recession Levels by 2012