Monday morning saw about half of the public school teachers amounting to 2,100 calling in absent as they picketed outside before the start of the school day in a strike over pay. Several students joined their teachers outside in the strike that was called after a year of negotiations between The Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Denver Public school ended in Saturday with disappointment for both the parties. This comes as an addition to the wave of teacher activism that the U.S. is seeing since the last spring. Alec Garnett, the majority leader in the Colorado house said that the strike undermined the need to boost funds for the public school and said the lawmakers should focus towards putting more money into the class than in administration. The schools barring preschools remained open with administrators and substitute teachers staffing them.
.jpg "JANUARY WAS THE MONTH OF RECORD CEO EXITS SAYS REPORT")
January saw a spike in CEO exits for the U.S. based companies says a report by the HR firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. The last month saw 157 heads of the companies step down from the helm, a 22% growth from the December number of 129 and a 19% boom from the January 2018 figures of 132. Challenger, the publisher of the report put the onus of these exits on the lookout for new leadership in an economy which is, “strong but uncertain”. Most of the CEOs stepped down to take other roles like chairperson or other executive ranks within the company. Some of them hung their hats in retirement, while the others left for what they assume greener pastures. A third of them left due to an internal investigation. Non-profit sector followed by healthcare and finance saw the most number of CEO exits.
.png "COMPANIES WALK IN THE SHOES OF 'STEWARDS OF SOCIETY' UP THEIR CSR GAME")
Companies are increasingly realizing their role as ‘stewards of society’ and are stepping up their CSR initiatives says a Deloitte Global Survey. The survey named “The rise of the socially responsible business” found that an overwhelming 93% of the respondents believed that their company are ‘stewards of society’ and 95% said that they had bigger CSR plans for 2019. 59% of the respondents said that they currently spend 1 to 5% of their revenues in CSR, while two-thirds of them admit that they increased the CSR funding in the last two years. The CSR focus areas for 2019 remain, education, computer literacy, income equality and climate change as companies look to integrate corporate social responsibilities with business strategies.
.jpg "IT'S POOR INTERVIEW PERFORMANCE AND NOT GENDER BIAS, THE JURY FEELS AS IT SIDES WITH FEDEX")
The Jury at Free V. Federal Express Corporation was not convinced that the plaintiff, Christi Free, a FedEx employee was turned down an offer for promotion due to gender bias. The district court allowed the case to go to the jury because it felt that poor interview performance is a legitimate and non-discriminatory reason for denying a promotion. Free, applied multiple times for a posting for Global Operations Control Manager, FedEx rejected her application as they said they found the interview below par. The alleged discriminatory comment that Free brought forward were made by the supervisor of the interviewer and not the interviewer. Also, a separate discriminatory remark relating a female employee as “cute” was directed at another female employee. The jury, however, acknowledged the discriminatory practices of scoring male and female interviews differently and the practice of passing derogatory comments in FedEx.
Employers are leaning on apps to stay connected to their employees as the app deployment by large firms has increased 68% over the last four years. The analysis by Okta Inc. further said that by 2018 the average stood to 129apps per company. 10% of these companies have more than 200 apps in their enterprise IT systems. While the study found larger firms to use apps more than ever, the inclination of using apps is not very viral though the number increased to 73 from a modest 53 of 2015. In another report, Gartner Inc. said that the global spending on apps is expected to increase by 8.5% to a total of $431 billion and a bulk of it will be driven by cloud-based subscriptions.
If you are working at Facebook then its time you give the task of weeding out misinformation some serious thought, like Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook announced a bonus shift in this direction at a recent all-hands-meet. The company intends to revisit its compensation structure and base bonuses on how much of misinformation an employee can weed out to promote safety and security as a priority on Facebook. The company stated that the cogs and wheels of how Facebook runs have “fundamentally changed and the compensation and incentive structure needs to reflect the change. Though a price tag is yet to be placed on these bonuses, the shift is very much in motion.
The U.S. oil major Chevron Corp. is going green in their executive compensation by tying them to greenhouse gas emission targets and rank-and-file bonuses to the reductions. The announcement came in their latest climate report release. The move is a first by any U.S. oil powerhouse till date and comes under the heels of pressure by investors to cut back on emissions. Chevron targets to reduce its methane and flaring intensity by 25-30% from its 2016 levels. The goal will be a part of incentive scorecard for its 45,000 employees. The company skipped addressing reducing the total carbon footprint of the company and as per Danielle Fugere, president of the investor group As You Sow “will not achieve the reductions needed to stabilize the climate and reduce growing economy wise and thus portfolio wise risk to investors.”
“Infants in the workplace” a program launched by the state of Vermont may take away the caregiving woes from the state employees there. The program allows approved state employees to bring their newborns to work starting from 1st of February. To come in the league of “approved employees’ eligible parents should get a go-ahead from their supervisor and certain departmental heads. The final choice for implementing the program lies with the state agencies. The agencies of Agriculture, Administration, Digital Service, Natural Resources, Education and Transportation along with the Department of Labor are the first ones to adopt the program.
Deregulation success will bring back employers to the U.S. again, President Donald Trump opined during his second State of the Union address where he addressed many workforce issues. The focus was on low unemployment and job mentions and painted at the early jobs numbers for January. He called to attention the increased rate of employment among racial minorities and workers with disabilities. Trump also said that the women got the best out of the thriving economy as they filled 58% of new jobs created previous year. The President gave a positive push to the nationwide paid family leave program and said: “every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child”. He also touted an immigration system that in his words “is safe, lawful, modern and secure.”
Stand-up desks may be better than the sit-down desks, but there is a price for standing up on your feet at the same place the entire day. The radical report of James Levine, a doctor of endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic in 2011 led to revolutionize office desks. But, in the opinion of Levine, it is the office habits that needed a change and not the furniture. Moving around is the healthiest option as standing up all day without movement, can get people closer to the risk of cardiovascular diseases. While Levin’s statement, “Excessive sitting is a lethal activity” holds true, moving around or going for a walk across the hallway as opposed to standing all day long is the alternative.
The retail industry found a new competition in the now growing cannabis industry. The last December saw 1,500 job postings in Glassdoor as the marijuana industry saw a spike of 76% in openings. Though the federal law still prohibits the sale and use of cannabis, the states’ moves to legalize the medicinal and at times for recreational use. The support for the legalization is up like never before with 66% of Americans saying ‘yes’ to the move and 33 states have made the use legal in one or both of its avatars. The wages for the cannabis industry is 10% more than the U.S. median that sums up to be around $58,511 per year.
Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership and human resources officer at Accenture is all up for creating a “work-learn, work-learn mindset” and to put words to practice the company has retrained nearly 300,000 out of its 469,000 strong workforces. Shook further believes that the experience of “reskilling” puts Accenture as a case study of the job-retraining in the wake of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The company’s cost of reskilling is $1 billion per year. Shook, also said while speaking at World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland that the company created “Job Buddy”, a software that tells what part of their job will get automated and how they can upskill. 85% of the employees have taken the assessment till date.
Motherhood comes with a reward and penalty for working mothers, looking from the corporate career perspective. If the recent survey by Bright Horizon’s Modern Family Index is to be believed then an overwhelming number of workers feel that mothers are better listeners, crisis managers, multitaskers and time managers. Club the above skills with an increased calm in a crisis and all the pointers indicate towards a leadership boost. The other side of the coin says that motherhood is penalized as 72% of both working moms and dads feel women are having to pay with their careers for starting a family as opposed to men. Most working mothers believe that they have to work extra hard to quiet the skeptics and 37% of them fear that motherhood will render them incapable to “fit the leadership mold” in a world filled with male leaders.
The automobile major announced the handouts of yet another round of pink slips on Monday, aligned to its announcements in November 2018, this time numbering at around 4,000 of its salaried employees, in what was described as a restructuring of its entire white collar workforce. The outcome will be in a total expected shrinkage of its workforce by 15%. The current round of layoffs, according to insiders, would largely affect its information technology workers at facilities in Texas, Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan. This follows the 1500 workers already laid off in December alongside 2300 workers who accepted the buyouts by the company. It is also cutting down executive ranks by 25%
Google’s parent company swelled both its hiring and it’s spending in the fourth quarter, according to reports. The period saw a spending surge of 26%, touching $31 bn. In the same quarter, the company hired more than 4,300 employees, taking its total employee count to 98,771. This number is exclusive of Temporary Workers, Vendors or Contractors (TVCs in Google parlance). The largest number of hires that the company made over the last quarter was noted to have been in its cloud computing business segments. This division of Google’s business has seen significant focus from the parent company and has also reported a strong growth recently.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced that its 52-week parental leave program for staff would be cut down to half its size. According to the organization’s CHRO, the parental week program was halved because it was found to be disruptive to the overall productivity of the employees. The new policy is expected to come into effect in the latter half of the year and will offer only 6 months of paid leave to employees. It will, however, come with an added benefit of a $20,000 taxable allowance that is aimed at helping employees with childcare and other costs.
.jpg "CHINA GOES POPULIST WITH STIMULUS INITIATIVES")
The world’s second-largest economy recently announced a slew of policies and initiatives aimed at uplifting the low-income workers and SMB segments. This is a part of the initiatives of the government to boost spending amid fears of an economic slowdown. In these efforts, graduates and migrant workers would be given a higher priority in terms of tax breaks and employer benefits for companies who hire needy workers. The aggressive stimulus package may be a result to combat the heavy toll that the US-China trade war has taken on Chinese manufacturing and export industries throughout 2018, according to reports.
The world’s largest search engine company has always been at the forefront of technology and innovation largely because of the superlative intellect of the workforce. However, if recent internal reports are anything to go by, employee confidence in the CEO Sundar Pichai’s vision is fast failing. In an internal poll called Googlegeist, just over 2/3rd of employees surveyed agreed that the CEO’s vision of what the company can achieve inspires them. This was down 10% from the results of a similar poll the year before. In a similar vein, only 74% of the employees agreed that Pichai and his management team can effectively lead Google into the future, down 18% from the year before.
According to industry estimates, a staggering 17.2 million workers across America are expected to call in sick on Monday, a day after the Super Bowl. In a survey released by consultant firm Robert Half, 42% of senior managers have reported that post-game hangover is the most annoying sports related employee behavior. Another aspect is the ultra-low productivity for employees who do show up – largely due to lack of sleep and other post-recreational factors. In fact, Super Bowl Monday was reported by 72% of HR managers as a preference for an instituted paid leave, in another similar survey conducted last year.
Elon Musk’s automotive brainchild is in troubled waters again, with the company recently formally announcing laying off at least a thousand workers. The electric car manufacturer will be cutting down just over 800 jobs in Fremont, where it’s assembly plant is located. In addition to this, it will also be terminating 130+ employees at its Lathrop facility and around 78 employees at its Palo Alto headquarters. This follows closely on the heels of Musk’s announcement via email earlier in January, where he announced the layoff of 7% of the staff at Tesla, citing the need to be ‘relentless about costs’.
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