This Week's Herman Trend Alert Navigating the Next Year

The Herman Trend Alert April 2, 2008 U.S. Employee Confidence Index Declines The Spherion Employee Confidence Index, a monthly measure of workers' confidence in their personal employment situation, fell for the seventh consecutive time last month. With this decline, it reached the lowest level since the survey's inception in 2004. We see two reasons for this downturn: first, the United States has experienced negative job creation for the last two months, last month losing 63,000 jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; second, the media continues to beat the drum of doom and gloom, because "Bad news sells." We have written about the media's effect before. See The Effects of Fear from 8/15/07. Supporting this fact, this latest Spherion survey also reported that fewer employees expect to look for a new job during the next year. This finding reinforces the existence of the passive job market and indicates that recruiters will be seeking currently employed workers in greater numbers. These people also feel a greater sense of confidence about the future of their current employers. Many Baby Boomers retirements are, in fact, often "recareering" instead. See our previous Herman Trend Alert, Baby Boomers Re-careering from 5/23/07. All of the major players: Adecco, Manpower, Kelly, and Spherion now offer their clients the options of rehiring their retired employees as "consultants", thus protecting them from certain legal liabilities. Many recareering Boomers are looking for project-based work, giving their employers the advantage of not hiring them as full-time, permanent employees on the payroll. The bottom line problem is that there is still a widespread skilled labor shortage. Employers in most industries still have a hard time finding qualified workers. Wise employers are already looking for other opportunities for their valued employees within their organizations; thus, Baby Boomers may leave their high stress, high responsibility jobs and still benefit their long-term employers with their service. A recent Spherion Emerging Work Force Study reported that 80 percent of Boomer retirees "really do want to work again in some way". They want to keep being productive. Expect more employers around the globe to get creative about offering flexible work arrangements for their "retiring" Baby Boomers. This creativity will be a major advantage for these enlightened employers. © Copyright 1998-2008 by The Herman Group, Inc. -- reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution: From "The Herman Trend Alert," by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurists. (800) 227-3566 or http://www.hermangroup.com. The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group, Inc." RESOLVE TO ADDRESS EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN 2009 If you knew just how much money turnover is costing your company, you would have handled it ages ago! Turnover costs A LOT and it comes right off the bottom line. Let The Herman Group and its team of very experienced consultants help you address your turnover issues right away. We have an impressive track record and stand ready to help you. Call Carol at 800-227-3566; international, call 336-210-3547 for a no-obligation conference call. EMPLOYEE RETENTION BEGINS WITH GOOD SELECTION If you are not using pre-employment assessments, you are flying without radar---not very smart in today's highly competitive environment. Let us help you better understand your candidates and your employees. In less than 30 minutes, you will know if they can do the job (abilities); their work behaviors, even their personality and attitudes (like integrity & ethics), and those can't be trained. It's very cost effective, too! For more information, contact Joyce at 336-210-3548 or e-mail assessments@hermangroup.com. Validated for many countries and cultures. We offer in-depth help with job descriptions, too! GET INSIDE THE MINDS OF YOUR EMPLOYEES Find out what's really going on inside the hearts and minds of your employees. Our InnerViews interviewing service uses SPHRs and PHRs, certified human resource professionals to probe for the information you really need to know. Exit and Stay Interviews, as well as Why-Didn't-You-Take-Our-Offer Interviews. Call Rosalie Catalano at 937-648-1918 or read more at: http://www.hermangroup.com/retentionconnection/exit_interviews.html. To read this Herman Trend Alert on the web: http://www.hermangroup.com/alert/archive_9-24-2008.html. Herman Trend Alerts are produced by the Herman Group, strategic business futurists, Certified Management Consultants, authors, and professional speakers. New subscribers are welcome. There is no charge for this public service. 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