This Week's Herman Trend Alert The Consequences of Virtual Meetings

The Herman Trend Alert April 2, 2008 U.S. Employee Confidence Index Declines The Spherion Employee Confidence Index, a monthly measure of workers' confidence in their personal employment situation, fell for the seventh consecutive time last month. With this decline, it reached the lowest level since the survey's inception in 2004. We see two reasons for this downturn: first, the United States has experienced negative job creation for the last two months, last month losing 63,000 jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; second, the media continues to beat the drum of doom and gloom, because "Bad news sells." We have written about the media's effect before. See The Effects of Fear from 8/15/07. Supporting this fact, this latest Spherion survey also reported that fewer employees expect to look for a new job during the next year. This finding reinforces the existence of the passive job market and indicates that recruiters will be seeking currently employed workers in greater numbers. These people also feel a greater sense of confidence about the future of their current employers. Many Baby Boomers retirements are, in fact, often "recareering" instead. See our previous Herman Trend Alert, Baby Boomers Re-careering from 5/23/07. All of the major players: Adecco, Manpower, Kelly, and Spherion now offer their clients the options of rehiring their retired employees as "consultants", thus protecting them from certain legal liabilities. Many recareering Boomers are looking for project-based work, giving their employers the advantage of not hiring them as full-time, permanent employees on the payroll. The bottom line problem is that there is still a widespread skilled labor shortage. Employers in most industries still have a hard time finding qualified workers. Wise employers are already looking for other opportunities for their valued employees within their organizations; thus, Baby Boomers may leave their high stress, high responsibility jobs and still benefit their long-term employers with their service. A recent Spherion Emerging Work Force Study reported that 80 percent of Boomer retirees "really do want to work again in some way". They want to keep being productive. Expect more employers around the globe to get creative about offering flexible work arrangements for their "retiring" Baby Boomers. This creativity will be a major advantage for these enlightened employers. © Copyright 1998- by The Herman Group, Inc. -- reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution: From "The Herman Trend Alert," by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurists. (800) 227-3566 or http://www.hermangroup.com. The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group, Inc." BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: RETENTION SPECIALIST PROGRAM A growing number of people have expressed an interest in attending our Employee Retention Specialist Certificate Program. We'd like to schedule on that's convenient for those who want to attend, but need your feedback to do so. Please place RETENTION SPECIALIST in the subject line and Joyce will personally call you back to schedule the workshop. Or you can call Joyce directly at 336-210-3548 (PDT this and next week). BUSINESS IS PICKING UP Most employers are unprepared. The recovery will bring a new set of challenges for employers that have been in prolonged contracted mode. They will need more skilled workers or will need now to begin to upskill their current staffs. But organizations can not engage in Strategic Workforce Planning, when they don't know how. That's where The Herman Group can help. We can help you with your "People Review"----large or small---so that you will know who you will need and when you will need them. . . and we can also guide you to the best sources for the people you will need. For more information, call Joyce at 336-210-3548 or e-mail joyce@hermangroup.com. FIND OUT WHAT YOUR EMPLOYEES REALLY THINK AND FEEL Discover what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of your employees. Our InnerViews interviewing service uses SPHRs and PHRs, certified human resource professionals to probe for the information you really need to know. Exit and Stay Interviews, as well as Why-Didn't-You-Take-Our-Offer Interviews. Call Rosalie Catalano at 937-416-7066, or read more at: http://www.hermangroup.com/retentionconnection/exit_interviews.html. Herman Trend Alerts are produced by the Herman Group, strategic business futurists, Certified Management Consultants, authors, and professional speakers. New subscribers are welcome. There is no charge for this public service. The Herman Trend Alert is received by over 30,000 subscribers in 78 countries, in addition to other websites and printed magazines. Do you enjoy receiving this weekly e-mail update? Contact us about our co-branded Trend Alert service. Click here to sign up for the Herman Trend Alert. Subscribe or Unsubscribe to weekly Herman Trend Alert View this week's Herman Trend Alert Archived Weekly Herman Trend Alerts

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