First Comment

The recession has taken its hits on the job market and we've covered a lot of it on the blog. But no one (at least in the Mainstream Media) seems to write more currently about it than the Wall Street Journal's Careers section. Here are a few recent articles:

I happen to catch a glimpse of the WSJ while in a meeting in a co-worker's office the other day and one of the titles on the front page was "Life on Severance: Comfort, Then Crisis" (picture on right from article). I think it was a very interesting article, but I wonder if the severance package that was described in the opening paragraph was one that was supposed to get people's emotions stirred up. There are people who are a few years out of college, stuck with tons of student loans, and making $35,000 a year who maybe got a month of severance. Then there is the $200,000-a-year CEO who they describe in the article who got a year's worth of pay as severance and has $100,000 in savings. I don't think many people are crying for that guy.

But the point of the article is an interesting one: there is a growing severance economy of unemployed Americans who use severance pay and savings to keep up their lifestyles. The 405 Club asks if severance pay is the new welfare? I don't think that's the case, but for many, it's providing that slowly eroding bridge until the next job offer. How much severance does you company give? Do you think it's enough or would you, if you made the decisions give more? It's an interesting dilemma for companies who then have to worry about keeping happy those who are left behind.

Two more good articles:

• From today's WSJ, word that workers returning from layoffs have struggled to recoup the earnings power as wage erosion threatens to slow the economy's recovery.
• Lastly, this article is supposedly from tomorrow's WSJ (I told you we're ahead of the curve), and says that women now hold half of all U.S. jobs because of the large hits in layoffs to male-dominated industries. This has upended roles about which spouse stays at home finding more women heading back into the workforce to support the family as a single-earner. Very interesting indeed.
  

Over the next two months, I'm going to be on the road giving presentations on total rewards. Hopefully among my travels I'll come across some blog worthy discoveries!

One of the key themes of my presentations is that, in today's economy, employers can't rely solely on base pay and benefits to attract and retain employees. Rather, total rewards is the new focus. Total rewards includes pay and benefits, and also adds work/life balance, career advancement and development, and performance management and recognition into the mix. Moving forward, organizations will have to tap into all 5 of these areas, and customize their blends to meet employee needs, in order to be successful.

In light of this I found two separate conversations I had yesterday quite interesting. In both instances, the employees' employers were trying to do something nice to reward their employees by tapping into the 3 new elements of total rewards. In both cases, the employees knew how much their company was spending on the "reward," and would rather have had the cash. They felt like their companies were forcing the "reward" on them.

Customization of rewards is key moving forward. To be done right, however, customization must be done from the perspective of the employee, not the employer. To truly reward and motivate, the compensation elements must be what the employee wants and needs, not what I as your manager think you should have because I happen to like it.

How much rewards customization does your organization use? Is it truly customized? How will your rewards programs change moving forward?

BusinessWeek looks at the Worst Jobs for the Best Pay. Ever.

It harks me back to one summer, when I had trouble finding a summer internship, I got offered an intern position at a local branch of a well-known, national real estate firm. The pay was pretty good and the job was about a 10 minute drive from my parent's place. The experience seemed like a great way to learn more about real estate and maybe segue into that market. They had my sister as a part-time administrative assistant and they liked her. It seemed perfect.

It wasn't.

A little background: I had just graduated from my undergraduate studies from a top 35 University. I was in the middle of a 5 year BA/MA program getting a Masters in International Economics and Finance. I had interned for 3 summers at Deutsche Bank in Private Wealth Management. I was hungry to get my hands on something new and try it out.

Here were my tasks my first two days there: copy, staple, create binders, empty folders, fill folders, answer phones...and the best of all: fix stuff. This was a pretty successful operation in the heart of Scarsdale, NY at the top of the real estate bubble and they had the cheapest office equipment around. Everything broke. The worst of which was the copy machine, which my boss told me repeatedly was my fault because "everyone knows you shouldn't copy more than 25 pages at a time in a copier". I wanted to kill myself.

In the middle of my third day, I got a call from Jennifer at Astron Solutions. We had the best interview of my entire life (to date) and I was hoping to get an offer from Astron. It finally came. Jennifer asked me if I had already gotten a job. I told her I had, but that I'd quit by the afternoon and be in first thing on Monday.

And I've been working, in some capacity, with Astron ever since.

Despite good pay was the worst job I ever had, but it also led to the best job ;)

Making Staff Decisions in a Recession from the Wall Street Journal

Job losses and pay cuts are mounting as the U.S. economy struggles. Ravin Jesuthasan of Towers Perrin says that health care and energy look like the safest industries in these tough times.