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GradeGov: Reminding Congress Who it Works For
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (15)If it's true, as a recent study indicates, that most Americans believe members of Congress care more about their careers than about helping the people they represent, then Americans need a way to regain their attention. Here's one option: GradeGov.com, a site with the reassuring tagline, "They work for you. Remind them."
The site allows users to grade elected officials with the universally understood A through F scale. Grading can be done as often as once a day, which veers from the grade-school system quite a bit.
Site founder Elizabeth Letchworth is a Senate staff veteran. She told Politico that the site will give politicians a sense of constituent sentiment in a much-needed straightforward fashion.
“They’re so busy. And even town halls are now orchestrated to only last an hour, get in and out, five questions. So it’s really hard for them to hear from their constituents in a real way,” she said. “It’s just the way the system has evolved.”
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Sen. Arlen Specter: Party Change Renews Hopes For Employee Free Choice Act
Tweet Share on Facebook April 28, 2009 Comment (2)It looks like the Employee Free Choice Act could be juiced again. From Politico:
A source involved in the talks confirms that Senator Arlen Specter will switch to the Democratic Party, a dramatic move putting the Democrats within reach of two votes in the Senate.
The move stands to put the White House's agenda on a fast-track, and to renew hopes among organized labor for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Specter, if you recall, indicated last month he would oppose so-called "card check" legislation, which would make it easier for employees to unionize, until the economy had improved.
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Managers' Health Affected By Layoffs
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2009 Comment (6)The public's sympathy for the distress caused by layoffs tends to be directed, understandably, toward the workers who are losing their jobs. But the act of handing out layoff notices, or of picking the workers to be laid off, is no picnic.
A decade-long study of line managers at Boeing found the long-term side effects of laying off workers can include "sleep problems, emotional exhaustion and dizziness," according to a report in Human Resource Executive.
These so-called "layoff agents" were reported to have been distancing themselves emotionally from workers--they felt they had become "calloused" and desired to tune out. They were also found to have higher rates of stress, depression and emotional exhaustion, HRE reports.
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Finding, And Keeping, a Job Without Moving
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2009 CommentLast year, most Americans stayed put. The Census Bureau reported yesterday that the national mover rate fell to 11.9 percent, the lowest rate since the data were first tracked in 1948. Of that 11.9 percent, only 13 percent actually moved out of state. The vast majority of the moves were actually in the same county.
William Frey of the Brookings Institution had this to say to the AP: "It's a combination of the inability to buy or sell homes, locally, as well as a drying up of jobs particularly in hot housing markets. ...The lure of the suburbs for immigrants, in particular, has been curtailed as homeownership there has proved to be elusive."
Not surprisingly, employers report paying for fewer relocations in 2008, according to Atlas Van Lines’ annual Corporate Relocation Survey. Nearly two-thirds of employers report having had employees turn down requests for relocation, largely citing housing as the reason. An ugly stat from the study that I hope doesn't hold true in this economy: "38 percent say declining an opportunity that involves relocation can hurt an employee’s career."
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Are 452,000 Americans Making a Living as Bloggers?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2009 Comment (4)A Mark Penn piece in the WSJ yesterday has been creating something of a statistical stir online. Penn looks at the available research on blogging and concludes that for 452,000 Americans, blogging is their primary source of income. That means there are more people making a living as bloggers than people making a living as firefighters, Penn notes. That is a big deal. If it's true.
What's behind Penn's math? In an update, the Microtrends columnist explains that an eMarketer report found more than 22 million bloggers in America. OK. Then a Technorati survey of bloggers found 2 percent said blogging was their primary source of income. Two percent of 22.6 million is 452,000.
So there are a few things here:
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A Happy Administrative Professional's Day to You
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2009 Comment (1)Today is Administrative Professional's Day in the U.S. It's traditionally been a day for managers to make a point of showing their appreciation. This year, however, even the bosses are probably aching for a little appreciation, and I was thinking that the holiday might be a little less relevant. That is, until I read this list of terrible requests bosses have made to their administrative assistants.
Some choice excerpts from Business Management Daily:
* Inspect the boss’s sandwich every day to make sure it contained no tomatoes.
* Call around for a used toilet to replace one that had broken in the boss’s rental house. “Uh, do you guys have any used toilets?”
* Send fake rejection letters from universities to the boss’s daughter as a joke.
* Take a Johnny Mathis album cover to the tailor to find material that matched Johnny’s jacket.
Read the full list here.
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Yahoo to Cut More Jobs
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2009 CommentThe recession continues to hurt revenue at ad-dependent media and online businesses, including Yahoo. The Internet giant said today it would cut another 5 percent of its workforce, or about 700 employees, in an effort to cut costs and ease future investments.
From Bloomberg:
“You’ve had more or less an advertising depression -- what’s encouraging right now is you can see where the bottom is,” Larry Haverty, a portfolio manager with Gamco Investors Inc. in Rye, New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The company is running very fast in a troubled environment -- they are just not running as fast as Google.”
Yahoo actually met estimates for first-quarter earnings. Moving forward, Carol Bartz--Yahoo's CEO since January--says she's looking to give customers a "wow experience."
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Suzy Welch and Tina Brown Talk Working Moms and Sarah Palin
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2009 Comment (114)Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, and Suzy Welch, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, both know a bit about being busy. Brown recently interviewed Welch about her new book 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea and they had a brief discussion of work-life balance and Sarah Palin.
Here's the excerpt:
[Brown:] I actually have always found that mixing the kids with the business does not work in any shape or form. And the whole idea—when I read about politicians that bring their kids to work I think, "Who are they kidding?" That is what obsessed me about Sarah Palin. It couldn't possibly have been happening the way she described it.
[Welch:] One thing that kills me when people bring their kids to work is the assumption that other people in the office enjoy it. They want your kids in the office? Who is actually enjoying that? That is a decision you have to make. You have to separate lives. Are you going to blend them at someone else's expense?
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Pulitzer Prize Winner Alexandra Berzon Helped Save Worker Lives
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2009 CommentA year ago, the Las Vegas Sun reported on a rash of construction-worker deaths on the booming Vegas Strip. In 16 months, the deaths had reached the number recorded throughout the whole 1990s Strip construction boom. Reporter Alexandra Berzon found that the dizzying rate of development was leading to lax safety protections and oversight. The stories Berzon wrote led to public outcry, investigations and, most importantly, policy changes, which appear to have made lifesaving differences.
The Sun reports: "Twelve workers had died in 18 months. But after the improvements, the deaths stopped. No workers have died since June 2008."
The Sun and Berzon today were awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. You can read the whole series here.
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Recession Hits Jack Daniel's: Layoffs at Brown-Forman
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2009 Comment (3)The liquor business is not, apparently, entirely recession-proof. Brown-Forman, the distiller of Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort whiskeys, said today it would cut 250 jobs, mostly in the U.S. and Mexico, and offer early retirement to certain employees. The company is also slashing merit pay increases and shaving spending on travel and meetings in a bid to save as much as $25 million fiscal year 2010.
The company said last month its sales dipped 11 percent in the third quarter, thanks to the global economic slowdown.
The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting that 57 workers in Lousville will be informed of their layoffs this week, and 51 will be taking early retirement. Brown-Forman employs 4,100 people worldwide.
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