Monday Workplace News Round-up

Here are some headlines catching my eye today:

International recruiting company Hays reports a significant drop in salaries for new positions across seven industries. Construction, property and accounting are the hardest hit.

A new National Institutes of Mental Health survey finds only about half of U.S. teens and children with a mental disorder are receiving treatment.

Want to know which major U.S. employers the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved for H1-B visas in 2009? Computerworld breaks down the numbers and even provides a data base where you can do your own company search. Nice.

The U.S. Supreme Court announces it will hear a California case regarding how much access employers should have to workers' text messages.

E-gads! Facebook surpasses email as the most popular way to stay in touch with friends.

Newspapers may be on the decline, but they're still kicking online's ass when it comes to coupons.

Being a columnist is so easy, anyone can do it. I mean, anyone. I guess she does have experience with the subject matter, though.

Company executives enjoy guaranteed stock returns while 50 million U.S. employees lost an estimated $1 trillion in 401(k) value this year.

Schooling the grown ups: Sunday school students march in protest over Hyatt's firing of 98 housekeepers in August.

So my eyes weren't fooling me when I scanned the magazine shelf after all.

A light bulb moment for entrepreneurs? 587 million people in sub-Saharan African don't have electricity, and the number is projected to grow to 700 million by 2030.

Get ready for monocles in the workplace because it's the latest hipster trend. Monocles? Is the pocket watch on a chain next?

Doing the right thing: Kmart employees at an Iowa store find $10,000 in lost and found, then return the money to the man who left it there. This act restores my faith in humanity a little bit.

There's Something in the Water...

...and it's nothing you want to drink.

It's being reported that 53 employees at the Kaiga nuclear power plant in India have been treated for ingesting a radioactive isotope that was added to the company's water cooler.

The substance, tritium, has glow-in-the-dark properties that are used to light up the hands inside watches. It's also used for making nuclear bombs.

So far, the culprit is unknown, but all signs are pointing to a disgruntled employee.

Check out The Times (U.K.) story about it.

I hope these employees are feeling better. Scary stuff.

Let's Party Like It's 1999

It's been a crazy week. I needed to escape for a few minutes.

Where better to go than the halcyon days of 1999? Come with me and relive the magic, and the naivete, of that year in this December 1999 CNN business segment called "The New Economy: Boom Without End?"



It's funny how 1999 seems like only yesterday, but yet a world away at the same time. One of my favorite memories of 1999 is being too lazy to find my 5-pound arm weights (yes, I'm wimpy). Instead, I would reach for a few business magazines on my desk, since they weighed about 5 pounds each back then. I got a pretty good workout, actually. True story.

I also remember asking start-up entrepreneurs for their company sales figures. To this fledgling business reporter, sales figures seemed like the key measure of company success. What were their sales like? Would they give me an idea of their quarter over quarter sales growth, etc.? Inevitably, there would be a few seconds of stunned silence after I asked the question, or maybe a chuckle as if the entrepreneur and his or her assistants were thinking, "She's kidding, right?" Then they would tell me how their business wasn't about making sales - such a silly, old-fashioned notion! - it was about "synergy" and "stickiness" and "eyeballs" and "mezzanine funding."

After these interviews, I would sit in my office and wonder if I had it all wrong. Was I a behind-the-times humanities major who had no business talking business? Couldn't I see how everything was different now? Had my Great Depression-era parents warped my thinking that badly? What was I missing here?

Looking back, however, I think my gut reaction to the dot-com era was right. It was all an illusion, a game of smoke and mirrors, a period of time book ended by naivete and cockiness. How could anyone lose? It was a boom without end.

I'll always remember the entrepreneur who told me in all seriousness that "sales are irrelevant to our business model." My first thought was, "He's kidding, right?" Ah, those were the days...

Meet Me Onli...Er, In the Conference Room

A new Watson Wyatt survey asks 328 employers about their plans for using social media to communicate with employees.

65% say they plan to use social media more often in 2010. Roughly 78% say they've increased their use of electronic communication over the last two years, and 48% are using less paper to communicate with employees. Score one for the environment!

But these employers still love in-person meetings more than social media.

73% say they prefer to communicate company performance through a staff meeting.

58% say they prefer to communicate pay changes in person.

48% say they prefer to talk about job security face to face.

Employers go on to talk about the challenges of using social media to communicate with employees. 36% don't feel their company has the IT know-how and technology (seriously?). 40% say they don't know enough about it (this is possible). 45% say they lack the staff or "resources" to make it happen (again, seriously?). I didn't know posting something to a company Facebook page required either tremendous knowledge or support staff.

What these numbers say to me is that amid all the talk of social media taking over the workplace now that Generation Y is in da house, it's not happening that fast.

The reluctance of older managers to adopt social media plays a role, but I think there's something much more basic going on here: We human beings prefer in-person interaction at work. We might bitch about having too many meetings, but secretly we relish the human interaction. Meetings help us feel tied into the company's cultural zeitgeist in a way that a status update or tweet cannot. Employers, meanwhile, don't have to worry as much about their words being misunderstood or their internal communications being posted online.

Remember that business meme from 10 years ago, the one about how we'd never have to leave the house anymore? How, thanks to technology, we'd all work from home and have huge bags of kitty litter delivered to our doorsteps? It didn't happen. I have a dust-covered Pets.com sock puppet to prove it.

The same thing will happen with social media use at work. While companies' social media use will continue to grow and will complement their communication strategies, I don't ever see employees getting 100% of their company information electronically. In-person communication will remain the gold standard for the most important business conversations. Our human nature will make sure of it.

A Plateful of Vanity

Have you seen this yet? It's the vanity plate on a Morgan Stanley vice chairman's Porsche.

Boy, that takes some balls in this post-bailout economy.

"What Keeps You Up At Night?"

A fired Bank of America employee has taken to You Tube to say there was "something inherently evil" about her job, which she claims required her to charge $15 "convenience fees" among other things.

She goes on to offer her take on the inner workings of Bank of America during her time there. Many are praising her at a hero. What do you think?

Monday Workplace News Round-Up

Companies in a new Watson Wyatt survey say pensions are hurting their ability to respond to the recession.

U.S. gas prices fall to $2.64 a gallon on average. Cheyenne, Wyoming has the lowest per-gallon price at $2.38. Anchorage has nation's most expensive gas at $3.28 per gallon.

Yahoo! cancels its lavish year-end party.

The great online migration: 4 in 5 senior executives say they will get most of their business news online within the next five years.

Rolling Stone magazine is getting into the restaurant business. Because restaurants historically do so well during recessions.

1 in 4 Bulgarians say they've had to bribe a government employee to get a need addressed.

Don't bother with a bow: National Retail Federation says 55% of U.S. adults want a gift card for Christmas.

Survey finds women are more compassionate about others during the holidays. I'll throw in anxious and overwhelmed.

TD Ameritrade says Americans are ready to start saving for retirement again in 2010. I'll believe it when I see it: 45% of U.S. adults in another survey say they'll use their holiday cash gifts to pay the bills.

Goodbye, MSNBC? Comcast CEO implies the NBC name distracts from the network's cable properties. Because when you have a name everyone knows, of course you should change it.

Thanks for being a friend: HSBC Bank International survey of ex pats ranks Canada, Germany and Australia as the world's friendliest countries. The United Arab Emirates ranks last, the United States ranks sixth.