CAHRS Top 10 News: November 2009
Each month, Cornell's Center for Advanced HR Studies (CAHRS) selects their Top 10 news items covering key workplace issues of interest to CAHRS partners and HR executives in general:
1. Building Effective Virtual Workforces
Summary: The march toward virtual collaboration in today's workforce is inevitable as increasing volumes of work are being passed on to global partners who offer a cost advantage. Research shows, however, that diverse -- and dispersed -- teams can be less effective than homogeneous groups. It's time for HR to take the lead in developing the effective virtual and heterogeneous organizations needed to compete in this century.
2. What Companies Need to Develop Women Leaders
Summary: Retaining talented women in corporations is more critical than ever. Successful organizations know that developing individuals who can truly lead in the global economy gives them a competitive advantage. Interviews with high achievers of both genders in Fortune 500 companies and universities have revealed much about leadership today. For the first time in history, the attraction, retention, and development of talented women has become an important issue for many American corporations.
3. In the Talent War, the Ceasefire Is Over
Summary: With so many companies focused on simple survival during the downturn, with so much job loss and anxiety among those who survived, it was easy to forget about the war for top talent. But the downturn was just a temporary truce; the battle is about to erupt again in full force. And ironically the companies who are the most at risk of losing their best leaders are ones that responded most vigorously (but often misguidedly) during the recession.
4. The Kinds of Employees You Want to Hire
Summary: There are two kinds of employees. Some believe they can make things happen, and the others believe that things happen to them. Employees who are innately confident and self-directed routinely outperform their co-workers, regardless of their backgrounds.
5. Why Does CEO Succession Planning Produce So Few Successors?
Summary: The past year and a half has been a real wake-up call for many boards of directors who have taken their leadership of succession planning to the next level," says Stephen Miles, an expert in leadership succession issues and Vice Chairman and Managing Partner, Leadership Advisory, at top executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
6. Executive-Pay Crackdown: Bad for Business?
Summary: Can the government revolutionize executive pay? Or is it going to handicap the very companies it just bailed out? Time magazine discusses the positives and negatives of executive-pay crackdown.
7. Forecast: Employee Plus One Health Coverage Over $10K
Summary: U.S. employers will see an increase in their medical benefit expenditures of 7 percent in 2010, creating significant affordability challenges for employers and employees, according to an analysis by consultancy Towers Perrin. The study findings show that many employers are preparing to take action by embracing new approaches to benefit management that could transform the current model of health care delivery.
8. Employers Contributing Less to Retiree Pension and Health Care Plans
Summary: The value of employer contributions to retiree pension and health care plans fell to 6.9 percent of employee pay from 7.8 percent from 2002 through 2008, according to a new analysis of employers. [Requires free Workforce.com registration.]
9. Recruiters’ Use of Criminal and Credit Checks Colliding with Legislative Constraints
Summary: Explosive growth in the background screening industry during the past decade has generated near-universal adoption of criminal checks and a steady rise in credit checks for all U.S. job candidates. Even employers that limit the types of screening results that will lead to adverse hiring decisions may violate federal law. [Requires free Workforce.com registration.]
10. Creating Jobs: Tax credit proposal explained by Cornell ILR professor John Bishop
Summary: Details of a federal job creation tax credit proposal co-authored by ILR Professor John Bishop and Tim J. Bartik of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research were unveiled Oct. 20th at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Bishop explained the proposal in an interview.