Articles

Explore practical, actionable ideas that can help you create great workforce experiences.

Treating Hourly Workers like Professional Employees

Today's post is courtesy of our board member,  Steven T. Hunt, Ph.D, SPHR. A recent study found that many American workers between 18 and 29 plan to remain in hourly jobs for the majority of their careers (Gurchiek, 2008). This includes careers in what are sometimes viewed as “entry-level” hourly jobs found in the retail, […]
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The View from the Ground Floor

Guest Blog submitted by: Greg Scott, Jennifer Earls, Kelley Kossakoski Hello, everyone!  We are excited to introduce you to a unique miniseries at the Workforce Institute, a series of blog posts that will follow the early stages of professional development of three recent entrants into the working world. We'll tackle issues that affect how generations […]
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Recession Surfing - How to Ride the Waves

When the economic outlook dims, people start wondering about their job security.   Having just had my 30th Middlebury College Reunion, and with close to 28 years of high tech experience under my belt, I've seen this movie before.  For those of you wondering whether you should hunker down in your current job or get out […]
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The New Industrial Revolution

Photo Credit: ClawzCTR There was a recent article in IndustryWeek, "How Ceradyne Increased Productivity through Effective Labor Management" that raised some questions for me. This article was co-authored by one of my colleagues, Gregg Gordon, and explains how Ceradyne has used Kronos solutions to optimize their workforce productivity. Ceradyne is using a broad suite of […]
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National Teacher Day

photo credit: oddsock Tomorrow is National Teacher Day . The tagline for the day is "Great teachers make great public schools". The first event of this kind was in 1953, when Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day. There has been an annual celebration since 1985.So, how far have we […]
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Guest Blog: Frontline Employees Are Expendable

photo credit: krytofr Today, a guest post from one of our board members, Mel Kleiman. We've written before about the increasing trend toward replacing customer service professionals with self service options. Mel muses here where that path leads. A modest proposal, a la Jonathan Swift... Unless your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or point of difference […]
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The Sun Also Rises

...when the Patriots lose the SuperBowl.  Over at Boston.com,  Boston fans are feeling the pain.  In a portent of the sad things to come for our New England Patriots, this blog from Friday got a few people's hackles up.  Over at Cali & Jody, the authors took issue with my comment that in a time […]
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Doing the Talent Acquistion Limbo

In a new article from our board member, Steven Hunt, he talks about the challenges of keeping your selection standards high when the labor market is tight.   He discusses the downside of lowering the bar to increase your applicant pools - increased turnover, decreased morale, lower productivity - and suggests a number of strategies to […]
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What could you do with $150 billion?

Our board member, Jared Bernstein, speculated in a recent blog here on the options for the US government to intervene to stave off recession.   Even as we speak, George Bush is urging Congress to pass a $150 billion economic stimulus package that would, among other things, generate tax rebates for an estimated 117 million US consumers.  The […]
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Guest Blog: Jared Bernstein - Recession Obsession

The following guest blog was written by Jared Bernstein, a member of the Workforce Institute Board of Advisors.  Economists, including myself, are obsessed right now with the question of whether or not the economy is in recession.  It's obviously an important question, but for many in the business community, it is, shall we say, a bit academic.   […]
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Retaining Hourly Workers - Part 1

At an upcoming meeting of the Workforce Institute Board of Advisors in Boston, we plan to spend a good deal of time investigating best practices in retaining hourly workers.  Although much is written about the retention of white collar knowledge workers, it's harder to find actionable advice for how to achieve the right retention equilibrium point for […]
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Jared Bernstein Guest Blog: So, is the job market healthy or sick?

From a national perspective, figuring out the status of the current job market has not been a walk in the park.  Large data revisions, conflicting statistics, and considerable regional variation have made it quite a challenge to figure out the dynamics of today's labor market. The biggest challenge stems from a large data revision by […]
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