EasyJet Plc took a flight towards gender equality and hired more women in the cockpit with the proportion of 5%, but the move does not erase the pay disparity that continues to rise. The male employees of the air carrier got 54.1 percent more than their female counterparts in 2018, an increase from last year’s 51.7 percent. Airlines suffer from a chasm of pay between its male and female employees as women acquire low paying jobs like cabin crew and ground staff, while the high flying jobs of pilot go to men. In EasyJet’s case, it will be 71% of the low paying jobs being filled by women.
Warner Media’s buyout offer for the veterans of Turner employees comes as a part of the reorganization of this AT&T owned media giant. The company is extending an offer of early-retirement packages to workers who are 55 years or older with 10 years of service under their belt. The staff reduction does not come as a surprise as it was doing rounds since the division of Turner employees among many Warner Media units. AT&T has a long-term debt of about $170 billion and cutting that down seems to be the top priority as per Randall Stephenson, The Chief Executive Officer of the group that spent $85 billion to acquire Time Warner Inc.
Fidelity Investments, the mutual health giant is hoping on the charitable train that led United Way and Salesforce offer employers and their philanthropic employees the Philanthropy Ground. The workplace giving platform is a joint effort by Fidelity workplace investing and Fidelity Charitable and is coined the Giving Marketplace. It is aimed to promote small- charities, as opposed to the tax benefit, backed bigger and more generous charities that Fidelity Charitable, the firm’s charitable arm that runs donor-advised fund business. Their pitch to employers is “Giving is part of your employees’ DNA” and is essentially meant for the masses. The employees just have to log in and select which charity they want to donate with a minimum amount of $25. There is no separate account and the donation is made via credit card, bank draft, and payroll with WePay payment processor operating behind the scenes.
Performance-based pay has long been a booster of employee productivity, but a recent study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Aarhus University in Denmark found that it may also up employees chances of profound mental health issues. The study found out that about 70% of the global workforce receives performance-based pay of one or the other kind, be it commissions, bonuses, profit sharing or goal achievement incentives. The study found a 5.4% increase in the probability of taking medications to combat anxiety and depression where performance-based pay was involved. The study co-author opined that there is more than what looks to the eyes and “this is the tip of the iceberg, and we don’t know how deep that iceberg goes beneath.”
A survey by Recruitment and Employment Confederation found firms downbeat and wanting clarity regarding Brexit. REC has been conducting the survey since 2016 and the conundrum of Brexit – when or if it will happen, has led employers to curb down their hiring and investment plans. It has been three years since Brexit referendum came out, but the way ahead after it is obscure as it was in the beginning days. Employers are feeling the strain of Brexit, even when the labor market is strong. The employers as per the survey are planning to add permanent staff, while the ax looms large on the temporary staff.
A survey by the National Institute on Retirement Security found out that nearly 60% of workers have zero retirement asset and the ones with a retirement account have only $40,000 saved. Companies need to be open about the retirement talk without implying an intention of replacing the employee at the onset of the discussion. The retirement talk as Erik Fromm, Financial Advisor at Janney Montgomery Scott said should start 5 to 15 years before the intended retirement to enable employees to build a sustainable retirement asset plan. From further said, “Early 50s is where we really start to engage with people” and set out a plan during the robust earning years of professionals when the thought of not having a full-time income source is a decade far, but yet obscure.
“Facial discrimination” is climbing up the stairs and maybe soon at par with racial discrimination when it comes to prevalent social ills. Even when Age Discrimination Employment Act of 1967 prohibits discrimination against people older than 40, a recent report by AARP indicated that about two-thirds of professionals between 45 to 74 years have faced ageism at some or the other juncture in their careers. When it comes to tech firms Silicon Valley’s top 150 names faced increased accusations of ageism that toppled over the instances of gender and racial bias. The solution does not lie in proactive law enforcement, which is present, but in building a company culture against ageism. It will, in turn, benefit their younger counterparts – the millennials, in getting a perennial wisdom inflow along with their skills.
The latest Department of Labor Memo is slated to bring more complications for the employers who deploy H-1B visa employees. The new memo though not a regulation mandates employers to put a notice to employees about employing H-1B workers. The notice, electronically distributed or circulated internally otherwise should contain details like the location of the Labor Condition Application that employers must file for inspection by the Department of Labor and the wage details. The memo is targeted specifically to the Information Technology service industry and requires employers to put a notice to the collective bargaining representative or in the worksite in case of a not-unionized entity. Failure to comply can bar the company responsible for the slip from hiring foreign nationals (H-1B workers) for at least a year.
PepsiCo. CEO Ramon Laguarta sent an internal email on the occasion of International Women’s Day announcing Paula Santilli’s appointment as CEO LatAm. Santilli, who joined PepsiCo as a part of its Quaker Acquisition has been in in a number of leadership positions in the region since 1992. Santilli who is slated to succeed Laxmi Narashiman, who is moving to be the global chief commercial officer of PepsiCo was previously president of PepsiCo. Mexico Foods, one of her numerous leadership roles in the Latin American region. This is the second woman in the recent weeks whom PepsiCo named to the top in their endeavor to get more women leaders on board. Michelle Gass, CEO Kohl was named on the board two weeks prior to the announcement.
Old work habits, especially the toxic ones must go to improve the overall health of the workplace. A recent report by Myers-Briggs Company says that old habits entrenched in the workplace might be holding back the business. One of the major habits that need to see the door is the “always on” culture that as the study points out leads to disproportionate work-life balance, stress, poor performance, and ill-health among employees. Employers also need to let go of the narcissistic leaders and replace them with leaders who inspire and motivate. Employers need to upskill leaders in interpersonal skills and as a second step train leaders about effective leadership approaches.
Hybrid Jobs are the latest to hit the town and they are here to stay as per a long-tailed study by Burning Glass Study. The people who manage multiple skills like, marketing with statistics or IT with creativity have a piece of two-pronged good news. The first is the unique combination makes them a rare occurrence and thereby eligible for premium pay package. The second advantage is that these unique skills make their job automation resistant. Case in point is the marketing managers with data analysis skills who earned 40% more than the ones who did not. In another instance 2010 saw just 150 job postings for people who were experts in applying statistics to business problem concentrated in Wall Street. A contrasting scenario is that of 2017, with 1.7 million job postings for data science in every conceivable industry. Burning Glass first started tracking the hybrid jobs in 2015 and are now slated to grow by 21% in the coming decade as opposed to the overall job market expected to grow by 10% in the same time.
Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani of Rakuten, the country’s leading e-commerce portal, is taking collective organizational learning and development to a new dimension yet again. Mikitani recently announced that it would require all of its 17,000 employees to learn computer science beyond mere usage, followed by a mandatory knowledge of programming for all entry-level hires. Rakuten faces increasing competition from the likes of Amazon who are trying to gain a foothold in the lucrative world of Japanese e-commerce. Experts on the subject opined that this could be a step in the right direction for Rakuten, where employees could play a crucial role in understanding technology and effective decision making beyond mere technology buzzwords.
Global Body on Higher Education the Business Higher Education Forum, in collaboration with The Burning Glass, recently released its report based on the analysis of 150 million job postings and CVs across the US for more than a decade. According to the report, the entry-level and managerial jobs of the future will be heavily based on the 3 skill pillars of sound technical knowledge, strong human and interpersonal skills and deeply founded business acumen. It is important to note that the report transcends jobs in the technology industry and applies equally to all sectors. Employers have cited these as the top 3 requirements in their new job postings across the country.
HR experts have warned jobseekers of the severe impact that any kind of notoriety on social media can have on their career prospects since the advent of Facebook and LinkedIn. A new report by First Advantage has reinforced the importance of the advice. The employer survey points out that 60% of employers presently screen a prospective employee’s social media profile comprehensively for any incidences of drug use, violence or any kind of unlawful activity. The report also notes that this practice has surged by more than half within the past two years. As screening and background checks become increasingly more comprehensive, talent managers are looking to reduce their hiring turnaround times and are increasingly turning to third-party agencies to handle these checks.
One of the largest investment banking conglomerates in the world is throwing the gauntlet on workforce diversity issues, an example that is expected to be widely replicated in the very constrictive world of corporate finance. Goldman Sachs recently announced its target of entry-level hires comprising exclusively staff of black and Hispanic origin at 11% and 14% for the current year, respectively. This initiative is also expected to be stretched worldwide, as the investment banking giant also announced 9% of its entry-level workforce to be black, in the UK. In a recent memo, the company announced it was “nearly there” in reaching its diversity hiring targets that were announced a year ago.
It’s the story Hollywood flicks are made of, and one that was ironically first reported by Hollywood Reporter. Warner Bros Chairman and CEO, Kevin Tsujihara, recently announced his resignation from the top job after reports of his alleged affair with Charlotte Kirk, whom he had promised career opportunities, namely, roles in the studio’s movies in exchange for sexual favors. Tsujihara, who has held the job at the media giant since 2013, sent out a memo announcing his resignation, stating that he would not let unnecessary media hype turn the limelight away from the stellar achievements that the company had had under his leadership. The company is investigating his behavior with full cooperation from his end, it was reported.
Employee disability management and absenteeism management were the two biggest hurdles organizations were currently facing, in a survey reported by The Standard recently. From among 501 organizations surveyed, more than half earned low C, D or F grading in their disability readiness and absenteeism management. This is further reflected in the fact that among the organizations surveyed, only 25% of the HR personnel conceded that they had disability friendly facilities and had absenteeism well under control. This, even as more and more companies are choosing to outsource their FMLA management to third parties. HR personnel attributed the problems largely to the “constantly changing disability laws and guidelines”.
The estimated global talent shortage will be 85.2 million people by 2030 and that will result in $8.4 trillion worth of unrealized annual revenue as per a 2018 study by Korn Ferry, an executive search brand. Microsoft owned LinkedIn just like many others in the economy are looking at AI to get a solution to this dilemma. The social network targeted towards professionals has an AI-based strategic business platform that uses 610 million users’ data to judge talent competition in a particular area. Companies like EY, Citizens Bank NA and IBM are looking at AI as one of the biggest recruitment tools as a Gartner study indicates increasing use of AI in talent acquisition with 23% of responding companies in U.S. and Canada saying that the use of AI in their company is for recruitment.
CEOs are troubled and “people problem” is the most significant part of their sleepless nights. A recent report by Predictive Index surveyed 156 head of companies to create, what they call Annual CEO Benchmarking Report 2019. Strategy development and talent development as per the report came up as the top ranking challenges of this year. Nearly 70% of the leaders opined that they need help in talent-related strategies like pre-hire selection, worker performance, and leader development. A good two-thirds of them opined that nearly half of their costs came from employee-related expenses. Finding the right talent, aligning employees with talent strategy, maintaining a positive work environment while getting the maximum performance by workers was in the top of their talent optimization challenges.
PG&E Corp, the power utility that filed for bankruptcy protection this January, anticipating overwhelming liabilities after many wildfires, especially the massive 2018 Camp Fire that blazed 85 lives is all set to revamp with a new executive board. The triad of activist investor firms – Knighthead Capital Management LLC, Abrams Capital Management LP, and Redwood Capital Management LLC are backing the utility’s move to appoint a fresh board. P&GE is on the heels of selecting a brand new CEO alongside offering 10 new independent board candidates, the names of whom are expected to be revealed the next week. Bill Johnson, CEO of Tennessee Valley Authority who is all set to retire from his current post this April is the frontrunner for the office of CEO at PG&E.
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