The workplace’s new normal
Each year for International Women’s Day, a U.N.-designated holiday celebrated on Mar. 8, Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, conducts external global research that investigates the workplace and careers and what women and men around the world have to say about them. This year, possibly more than in any of the eight years we’ve conducted the research, respondents’ beliefs about careers and work-life balance paint a picture of change and a movement to a new normal in the workplace.
Accenture’s research was conducted via an online survey of 3,900 business executives from midsize to large organizations in 31 countries. Respondents were split evenly by gender and were balanced by age and level in their organizations. The margin of error for the total sample was approximately plus or minus 2 percent. You can see the report here.
Accenture found that more than half of both the women and men surveyed (57 percent and 59 percent, respectively) said they are dissatisfied with their jobs, but more than two-thirds (69 percent) of the same respondents said they plan to stay with their current employers. What that means: The workforce is dissatisfied, yet stable. That presents an opportunity for companies to better support their employees by offering career advancement, more flexible work schedules, and new skill acquisition and training in the workplace. Unhappy employees aren’t looking to leave — that’s a bit of knowledge companies can use.
There are some key findings that companies should consider as they work to retain their employees. For example, 71 percent of people we surveyed said they have work-life balance most or all of the time, while 41 percent said that career demands have a negative impact on their family life. So, people’s work is impinging on their lives, but they don’t think their work is overwhelming their personal life — these seem in opposition. But when you consider that more than half of the respondents have some type of flexible work schedule, and 44 percent of this group has had a flex schedule for more than three years, it begins to make a bit more sense. Also, 64 percent of those surveyed say flexible work arrangements are a reason they are staying in their jobs.
When asked about the greatest barrier to career advancement, almost half said it was a lack of opportunity or a clear career path. On the other hand, a third said there are no barriers to their advancement, and only 20 percent said family responsibilities are a barrier.
The word “opportunity” continues to stand out for me in these findings. People want opportunity. They want opportunity for growth, opportunity for flexibility and the opportunity to integrate a career and a family life. And they are dissatisfied without it.
Why our employment figures are wrong
By Sara Horowitz
The opinions expressed are her own.
The national employment figures are an economic bellwether. They profoundly affect U.S. markets, consumer spending, and even the fate of national elections. With so much at stake, you’d think we would be counting the workforce accurately. Unfortunately, we’re not.
The United States treats jobs as something turned on or off—employed or unemployed—but that binary view no longer reflects how Americans really work. Whereas in the middle of the 20th century industrial employees worked one job for one company, today, there are 42 million consultants, independent contractors, entrepreneurs and freelancers working multiple gigs for multiple clients.
Although independent workers were a full one-third of the U.S. workforce at last count (which was 6 years ago), they aren’t counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a consistent and ongoing way. Current statistics tend to lump workers into one of three classes: private wage and salary workers, government workers, and the self-employed. But these groupings don’t account for the nuances in how people work now and the overlap between groups. For example, on-call or contract workers might be lumped in with wage and salary workers, when really they’re independent workers. As a result, our outdated numbers have led to outdated policies that no longer meet the needs of America’s 21st century workforce.
Take, for example, the issue of nonpayment. W-2 employees know that their paycheck will be directly deposited into their checking account every two weeks, and don’t have to worry about chasing down their employer for payment. In fact, the Department of Labor could fine your employer—or send them to jail—if they don’t pay you. Independent workers, however, have no such protection from nonpayment, late payment, or partial payment, leaving freelancers with only two options: sue or walk away. According to Freelancers Union member survey data, that’s a gamble many companies are willing to make: 77% of freelancers report having trouble collecting payment at some point in their career.
In a way, we’re going back to the future. When the U.S. economy began to shift from farms to factories in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, the state of the nascent workforce was largely unknown: there was no national unemployment rate, consumer price index, or average household income. In 1884, President Chester Arthur signed a bill creating the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS produced numbers, and policies soon followed, including many we take for granted today: the eight-hour workday, child labor bans, and unpaid wage claims.
Adam_S, clearly you lead a sheltered life in a comfortable village somewhere. Perhaps you should also try reading a little more than you write. The Wall Street Journal would be a good place to start in view of your bias against Reuters. The truth of the matter is you will find little difference in what they report.
By the way “ENTREPRENEURS” need financing which U.S. banks are loathe to do as they make a killing on Hedge Funds(bets against companies and investment vehicles succeeding).
from Reuters Money:
Is the American Dream dead?
The American Dream lures people from all over the world, and it’s because of this possibility: If you come here and work hard, your kids will have a better life than you.
What if that weren’t true anymore?
Record debt, persistent joblessness, millions of underwater mortgages and a stock market that hasn’t gone anywhere in 10 years: For today’s kids who are entering the job market, it’s hardly a recipe for future success.
For parents who only want the best for their children, those prospects are like a wrenching pit in our stomachs. When such a central pillar of the American story is falling apart, frantic moms and dads hardly know what to think.
“My husband and I are terrified for our sons,” says Saideh Browne, a 40-year-old mom of two who heads up a speaker’s agency in New York City. “When they were born, we figured as long as we saved for college, they would be okay.
“But now, we can’t just tell them to go to school, get a good job, and retire at 65. We’ve had to rethink parenting, and it hasn’t been easy. We’re encouraging them to learn a trade, and hope it all works out before the economy tanks further.”
Browne is hardly alone in fretting about her children’s future. According to a new survey from Ipsos, sponsored by New York Life, only 41 percent of parents surveyed think that kids will have a better standard of living. It’s a major tectonic shift in our national belief system, but given the events of the past decade, it’s not that shocking.
It died in 1975….
the last year America had a trade surplus and Sam Walton listen to a whistle while you work song east of Seoul.
Remember what Lance Winslow wrote in that article “The Flow of Trade in a Global Economy”….
“Now let us look at Wal-Mart again; you buy a product there, 6% goes to the employees, 10-18% is profit to the company, 25% goes to other costs and 50% goes to re-stock or the cost of goods sold. Of the 50% about 20-25% goes to China, a guess, but you get the point. Now then, how long will it take at 433 Billion dollars at year for China to have all of our money, leaving no money flow for us to circulate? At a 17 Trillion dollar economy less than 40-years minus the 1/6 they buy from us. Some say that if we keep putting money into our economy, it would take forever, but if we do not then eventually all the money flow will go. If China buys our debt then eventually they own us, no need to worry about a war, they are buying America, due in part to our own mismanaged trade, so whose fault is that? Not necessarily China, as they are doing what’s in the best interests, and we should make sure that trade is not only free, but fair too.”
Think for a moment about George Washington….yes the man that is on the US dollar bill….How do you think George feels being sent overseas in return for all that foreign so-call cheap items and being left in a foreign bank because the American worker doesn’t make anything for the foreigners to buy. Cheap items didn’t make this great union of 50 states the greatest place on the face of this Earth…..the American worker (union and non-union) did.
You can’t have a strong country without having a strong currency and you can’t have a strong currency unless you keep it floating around within your 50 states. This is why the store with the star in the name puts 95% China made items in their stores in China….to keep their “yuan” in their country helping the nice people there. And with only 5% left for all the other 182 country’s that make stuff including the United States of America….that doesn’t produce very many jobs outside of China.
Being an old person myself and knowing how it was back in the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s in this union of 50 states….I look at George each time I pull him out of my billfold and make a promise to send him out for items made in America so after floating around helping each hand he touches just maybe one day he will shake mine again.
Fifteen cargo ships pollute as much as 760 million automobiles.
$9 billion a year in hidden taxes to all American taxpayers to clean fish from ballast tanks of ships…
think about all those facts the next time you pull that George out of your pocket….
Retail makes NOTHING…
Governments only make MORE DEBT…
It’s time for less of those two and for America to get back to what it does best….MAKE STUFF..
cause George Washington on that dollar can’t help anyone in the United States of America if he is being held in a foreign hand.
Made In America is the only way out of this mess cause foreign made put US here.
Fed stuck doing the heavy lifting
-James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own- With employment weak and consumer credit weaker, look for extended official measures to support the U.S. economy.
Recent data show that despite emerging glimmers in manufacturing, de-stocking having reached its limit, and some strong showings globally, the U.S. recovery is far from self-sustaining.
With Congress serving as an effective roadblock to a comprehensively expanding fiscal stimulus, the heavy lifting, if any is to be done, may fall on monetary policy and “off balance sheet” forms of stimulus.
The Christmas eve move to suspend any cap, previously $400 billion, on the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is an example of the latter, while more mortgage buying and virtually zero interest rates from the Federal Reserve are probably in store.
“Markets are still thinking of monetary policy strictly as changes in interest rates — even though the Fed has been conducting successful policy this past year through quantitative easing,” St Louis Fed President James Bullard said in Shanghai Monday. “Markets should be focusing on quantitative monetary policy rather than interest-rate policy.”
The big question is “how to adjust the asset purchase program without generating inflation and still providing support to the economy while interest rates are near zero,” Bullard said. “Interest rates may remain low for quite some time.”
A recent run of very poor economic data nicely illustrates the fact that, despite having underwritten the banking system and made progcress on reflating asset markets, there really is no simple, elegant, low-cost solution to a balance-sheet recession.
Thousands lose jobs due to higher federal minimum wage
– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The views expressed are her own. —
As President Obama considers whether to fulfill his campaign promise to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 per hour by 2011, there’s no better illustration of the consequences of well-intentioned policy-making than recent events in American Samoa, a United States territory in the South Pacific that falls within the purview of Congress.
Chicken of the Sea, the tuna company, announced this month that it will close its canning plant in American Samoa in September. The culprit is 2007 legislation in Washington that gradually increased the islands’ minimum wage until it reaches $7.25 an hour in July 2009, almost double the 2007 levels.
In 2007, the hourly minimum wage in American Samoa for fish canning and processing was $3.76 and the minimum wage for government employees was $3.41. Shipping had the highest minimum wage, at $4.59. Garment manufacturers got the lowest, at $3.18 an hour. A $7.25 wage is a substantial increase for most residents.
Chicken of the Sea will lay off 2,041 employees—12 percent of total employment, almost half of all cannery workers. And the 2,700 workers at StarKist, the other American Samoa tuna canning company and Chicken of the Sea’s rival, are probably concerned that their jobs are the next to go.
American Samoa’s loss is Georgia’s gain. Chicken of the Sea will move to Lyons, Georgia, (2007 population 4,480) employing 200 people in a new $20 million plant on a more capital-intensive production line.
In January 2007 the legislation originally did not include American Samoa, perhaps because Del Monte, at the time the parent company of StarKist, was headquartered in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district.
Thank you for the post – It is right on point! Most of the people that commented on this have no clue what or where American Samoa is. Someone mentioned a population of 3.2 million? Our population is only 70,000+, and for people’s information, our islands are located in the middle of the South Pacific. The ONLY resource that we have are the oceans as we have mountainous volcanic islands – so there is not enough flat lands for agricultural purposes. The ONLY export that we have is canned tuna – IF you take the canned tunas away, our economy is doomed! We don’t have anything else to export, and being that we are heavily dependent on imported goods – cost of living will skyrocket as we will need to pay higher shipping/ freight rates since the vessels will not have anything to carry back out of American Samoa. Most if not all American Samoans that live on American Samoa NEVER asked for this increasing minimum wage – this is a classic example of colonialism where such mandate will devastate the American Samoa economy and we can’t do anything about it as it is dictated by the federal government!
China’s growth obsession may spawn jobless upturn
– Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own –
China is pulling all the stops to keep the economy growing by at least 8 percent, a pace considered necessary to absorb millions of migrant workers and graduates that hit the job market every year.
Ironically, with all its attention focused on the vigorous “defense of the eight”, Beijing risks losing sight of its ultimate goal — creating enough jobs to preserve social peace — and may end up engineering a jobless recovery.
Not only the rate of growth is important, but also its sources. Expansion led by capital-intensive industries will not be as effective in creating jobs as one driven by more labor-intensive sectors.
Statistics of the past three decades show that with the focus on investment, rise of heavy industries and China’s wish to move up the value chain, more and more economic growth has been needed to create the same number of jobs.
The latest efforts to shield the world’s fourth largest economy from the global financial crisis, including a nearly $600 billion stimulus, also focus on capital-heavy infrastructure projects.
“If your concern is jobs then targeting growth is not the best approach because the link between growth and jobs is not fixed, and different sources of growth have widely different impact on employment,” says Bill Bikales, a senior economist for the United Nations Development Program.
It is interesting to watch. China is in a predicament right now and very vulnerable as is Russia. I don’t believe that it is because of wall street fraud and irresponsible homeowners. I think there is an economic battle being waged here on the global scene. It’s hard to spend money on your military when when your economy is in the tank.
Can the G20 do “big” outcomes?
George Magnus is Senior Economic Adviser, UBS Investment Bank, and author of “The Age of Aging: How Demographics Are Changing The Global Economy And Our World”. Any opinions expressed are his own.
The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States has unleashed a welcome torrent of optimism during hard times. Aside from an especially demanding domestic policy agenda, the new president will also have his work cut out to rebuild the authority of and respect for U.S. leadership in the global community.
The G20 meeting in Washington on November 14-15, billed as the forum for rebuilding the world’s financial architecture, could not be happening at a more important time. We should be under no illusion, however, that results will occur in a week, despite the expectations. Anyway, the G20 has the more pressing issue of countering global financial instability and the global recession.
Nevertheless we – or they – need to think big and hope that new thinking from the Obama administration will be channeled precisely in the direction of global monetary reform. Part of the reason for the banking crisis, and its awful aftermath, was the untreated chaos in the global monetary system. Essentially, it was this chaos that contributed to exchange rate misalignment, the existence of unsustainably large external imbalances, and the creation of a debt mountain in advanced nations and excess savings in poorer nations.
If we are to stabilize the global economy in the longer term and be confident that periodic fires can be fought without risk of systemic failure, these issues need to be tackled now, and they can only be done so via a system of rules to which all participants can subscribe.
Although the return to financial stability and sustainable economic growth will dominate the G20 agenda, this forum may also be the appropriate one to review and implement initiatives related to other big and long-lasting changes in the world, such as demographic change and rapid aging.
The best employees to have are those that can work anywhere, but choose to work at your company. That should be the goal of all leaders. Times might be tough now, but when things change – and they will- you hardly want all your IP walking out the door!