Talent Management Perspectives

Published December 2009
Fielding Objections to Telecommuting
Katy Lynn
Telecommuting options offer strong competitive advantages to
organizations that wish to attract and retain top talent in this
changing workplace.

Telecommuting is defined as allowing an employee to work remotely
through the use of electronic connections with a central office.
Offering this as an option to employees provides the opportunity for
them to have a better work-life balance and still maintain
productivity standards.

The primary struggle lies not in implementing telecommuting, but in
convincing management teams to change. HR professionals must know how
to meet management opposition in order to gain consent for the change.
Here are some of the most common forms of resistance they may
encounter.

"Workers won't be productive unless they're on-site for me to watch
them." This is one of the top reasons managers give for resisting
telecommuting. Many believe their teams are only productive with
constant supervision.

This belief is completely unfounded. Statistics show that
organizations that offered telecommuting options actually saw an
increase in productivity and a decrease in absenteeism. Working from
home gives employees easier access to their work and more time to get
it done, while still allowing them time with their families. It's best
to approach this type of opposition by implementing telecommuting on a
trial basis so productivity can be monitored; this will demonstrate
the increase in employee engagement firsthand.

"I can't manage workers unless they're on-site." Managers work hard to
establish leadership style and believe that if employees work
off-site, things will fall apart. Telecommuting would mean that
managers would have to take on the additional work of coordinating
both on-site and off-site employees.

It would be to the organization's detriment to concede this point and
risk the loss of talent for the sake of catering to a manager's
inability or unwillingness to coordinate an off-site team. HR
professionals can invest in cost-effective managerial training to
provide the necessary skills to lead an off-site team.

"Teams can't coordinate unless everyone is available on-site."
Managers recognize that employees can benefit greatly from the
knowledge and experience of more senior team members. They believe
that allowing team members to work remotely will mean sacrificing
this.

Technology has enabled organizations to offer telecommuting options
without losing knowledge-sharing capabilities. Webcams,
videoconferencing, e-mail and podcasts are just a few of the
technologies available that allow employees to work from home and
still coordinate with team members.

The greatest fact to refute this argument is that managers have been
missing out on potential subject-matter experts by avoiding
telecommuting options. In recent surveys, organizations indicated that
telecommuting options gave them greater access to more qualified
talent that wouldn't be accessible locally.

"We can't afford to offer telecommuting options." In actuality,
organizations can't afford not to offer these options. Recent surveys
have shown that regular on-site 8-to-5 schedules are quickly becoming
antiquated. Telecommuting will become a more common practice in the
next few years, and failure to meet that change will only result in
the potential loss of top performers. Telecommuting is cost-effective
and has a positive impact on employee engagement, retention and
attraction — all of which are critical for organization success.

We live in a changing workplace, and organizations must change with it
or risk irrelevancy in this evolving market. Employee needs are
transforming quickly, and the desire for a greater work-life balance
continues to grow. HR professionals must be able to address manager
apprehension regarding telecommuting so the organization can meet
these employee ne

Katy Lynn is a PHR certified HR generalist with Harland Financial
Solutions. She is currently a student in the master of human resources
program at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

THE VOWS

General Motors, please repeat after me:

We, General Motors take you The United States of America to be our number one producer of wealth, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.


The United States of America, please repeat after me:

We, The United States of America,  take you General Motors to be our number one source of wealth, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.

The moral of the story...

It's a lot easier to make a commitment, than it is to keep one.

What is preventing GM from closing their non-profitable North America manufacturing sector, and transforming themselves into a well know import?

May 13, 11:59 PM EDT

Chinese imports could bring GM political troubles

DETROIT (AP) -- As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.

The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration's desire to preserve the company's 90,000 U.S. jobs.

The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.

"GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," Alan Reuther, the union's Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.

The carmaker, which was in danger of running out of cash early this year, faces a June 1 government deadline to cut costs and complete other restructuring measures or go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It also has requested another $11.6 billion in government loans to make it through this year, and faces the prospect that the government will soon be its largest shareholder.

On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson in Detroit would not comment on the reports. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"GM is reviewing various options," GM's China office said in a written statement received Thursday. "We are not discussing details of our future portfolio, beyond what we have disclosed in auto shows and our viability plans."

But the report reiterated the company's emphasis on first meeting demand in the Chinese domestic market.

"GM's philosophy has always been to build where we sell, and we continue to believe that is the best strategy for long-term success, both from a product development and business planning standpoint," it said.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkley who specializes in labor issues, said increased overseas production and imports could prove politically tricky for GM.

"The reason is simple - production location is a corporate decision, but when it's on the taxpayer dime, there are different sensitivities, so the notion of billions for a rescue package and offshore production, I think, could be politically combustible," he said.

Shaiken said GM needs to lower costs, which is accomplished with cheaper overseas labor. But it must also address concerns of the U.S. government, which wants to preserve American jobs.

"GM is getting funding from U.S. taxpayers to help save the company," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said. "Taxpayers deserve more than Chinese imports in return. Taxpayer funds should be used to build the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., not abroad. This is about creating jobs and rebuilding our economy."

GM, though, says the percentage of cars made and sold in the U.S. will remain stable.

Company documents show that American-made cars will comprise 67 percent of all vehicles sold in the country this year. The number drops slightly to 66 percent in GM's 2014 projections. Imports will amount to 33 percent this year, rising to 34 percent by 2014.

The company says the import mix could change by 2014, with fewer vehicles produced in Canada and more produced in Mexico and other countries.

"The percentage sold in the U.S. will stay constant within a percent or two," Wilkinson said. "The number of vehicles built in the U.S. will increase as the market recovers."

He reiterated that the company's goal is to build vehicles in the regions where they are sold, in part to avoid getting stung by currency fluctuations. GM, he said, builds 90 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. in North America, and that is not expected to change.

Of the 3 million vehicles GM sold in the U.S. last year, it imported the Chevrolet Aveo and Pontiac G3 subcompacts from South Korea, the Pontiac G8 muscle car from Australia and the Saturn Astra compact from Belgium. The Saturn Vue, Chevrolet HHR small sport utility vehicles and several pickup truck models were imported from Mexico. Full-size pickup trucks, several sedans and small SUVs and the Chevrolet Camaro were brought in from Canada.

Still, the UAW generally opposes importing vehicles into the U.S. According to its figures, the percentage of GM's U.S. sales from Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China will increase from 15.5 percent now to 23.5 percent in 2014.

Reuther wrote that GM's increased imports would be equal to the output of four U.S. assembly plants, "the same number that GM plans to close."

The union currently is negotiating with GM for government-demanded labor cost cuts, including 16 plant closures. At a leadership meeting in Cleveland Wednesday, leaders were told to expect a vote on concessions before the June 1 deadline.

GM millwright Ron Bear of Belleville, Mich., who attended the meeting, said the rank-and-file would be unhappy with any more imports.

"As far as importing cars, what is that going to do for our jobs? I guess that's the question," he said.

GM would be the first company to import cars from China although automakers have brought in components in the past to save on labor costs. Most Chinese automakers have been daunted by meeting U.S. safety standards. They also face the uphill battle of winning consumer confidence for unfamiliar brands.

According to Chinese media reports, the primary exports to the U.S. would be small cars similar to the Chevrolet Spark subcompact.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, says it makes good business sense for GM to import subcompacts from China because the U.S. market for them is uncertain, but there is strong demand in China.

With gas prices around $2 per gallon most Americans will keep driving bigger cars. U.S. sales would be too small to justify the expense of building and equipping an assembly plant, he said. At the same time, exports to the U.S. would allow GM to keep its Chinese plants running at maximum capacity, which is the formula to make money, he said.

"In the short term, you're going to locate your plants where the core of the market is for that product," he said.

Cole suggested that for Obama, returning the company to viability would outweigh the drawbacks of importing some cars.

"What's more important, some jobs in a particular factory somewhere or the overall success of the company?" Cole asked. "That is really far more important."

---

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington, Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland, Dan Strumpf in New York and Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai contributed to this report.

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Fiesta tops Golf in European sales

The Ford Fiesta dethroned the popular Volkswagen Golf in March to become Europe's most-popular vehicle, according to JATO Dynamics, a Britain-based data company, even while industry sales declined 9%.

The Golf had been the top-selling vehicle for a year, but Fiesta has been well received since the new version went on sale last fall. Fiesta also benefited in Germany and Italy from government incentive programs that have provided money to people who turn in old cars when they buy new cars, JATO said.

Ford Motor Co. sold 52,805 Fiestas in Europe last month, up 15.5% from March 2008, while Golf sales dropped by 0.1% to 46,415.

Ford plans to begin selling the Fiesta in North America early in 2010.

SHANGHAI AUTO: Ford: High Single-Digit Growth In China Market

April 20, 2009: 03:59 AM ET

SHANGHAI -(Dow Jones)- Overall sales in China's automobile market are likely to show high single-digit percentage growth this year, a senior executive at Ford Motor Co. (F) said Monday.

Robert Graziano, chairman and chief executive of Ford Motor (China) Ltd., made the remark at the Shanghai Autoshow but declined to disclose Ford's sales target in China this year.

"Our desire is to at least meet industry growth and ideally exceed industry growth," he said.

China remains one of the few auto markets in the world that is still growing. China's auto sales climbed for a second straight month in March, rising 5% to 1.11 million units. In contrast, March sales fell 30% in the U.S. and 32% in Japan.

Last year, China's vehicle sales growth slowed to 6.7% to 9.38 million units, falling short of the official 10 million unit target. It was the first non- double-digit growth rate in China's auto sales since since 1999.

Ford's sales in China will be boosted by the introduction in early March of the Fiesta sedan and hatchback, which qualify for a purchase tax cut implemented by the Chinese government in January, Graziano said.

-By Patricia Jiayi Ho, Dow Jones Newswires; 86-21-6120-1200; patricia.ho@ dowjones.com

Print  Close Send workers home... Tejaswi Shekhawat And Virat Markandeya January 8, 2009   Mornings are particularly busy for Simone Premji, 34, Manager, HR, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Mumbai. It's a race against time to complete household chores, but Premji is in no hurry to leave for office—simply because she works from home. Premji joined TCS in 2002 and worked from office for three years until she had her daughter, Aliya. She initially took a year off and then wanted to get back to work. As a working mother, she was better off with a flexible working option. She got more than that; TCS gave her the option to work fulltime from home. Now her daughter goes to school, but she continues to work from home. "Something that started on a need basis has become a policy and way of working now," she says. TCS does not have a work-from-home (WFH) policy, but extends the same to employees who need it. Mumbai-based Sameer Deshmukh's daughter Richa thinks her father has probably lost his job. What else could explain his presence at home when he should be in the middle of meetings in his office? The answer to Richa's confusion lies in the 'Work from Home Pilot Programme' at IT and BPO company MphasiS where Deshmukh, 42, works as Delivery Leader of the banking vertical. Deshmukh says he can't wait for this pilot programme to become a fulltime policy. "With e-mails and phone, there are no issues of connectivity. We are in a world where face-time is not required. Everything, including appraisals, can be done on e-mails," he says. Simone Premji Manager, HR, TCS Why telecommute:"Needed to balance out work and family" Challenges: "Sometimes connectivity and a sense of dis-engagement" Premji and Deshmukh are part of a growing number of employees opting for virtual workplaces or telecommuting, with organisations increasingly putting in place fulltime work-from-home programmes. The objective is two-pronged—to retain the talent pool and cut costs. But, that's not all. Says Shanthi Naresh, Principal Consultant, Human Capital, Mercer Consulting (India): "WFH policies have a great impact on employee engagement… while many organisations explicitly position WFH practices as part of the company's total reward strategy and use it as a great attraction and retention tool, the impact of WFH practices on employee engagement is often underestimated." The trend of telecommuting may strengthen with organisations looking at reining in costs. "Today, when most organisations are trying to enforce cost-cutting measures, telecommuting is one of the most effective. From an employee's perspective, though, people may think twice. They will not want to move out of office. The employees may worry along the lines of— out of sight, out of mind," says Elango R., Chief Human Resource Officer, MphasiS. Lower cost, higher productivity While the jury is still out on the benefits of work-from-home, costcutting is clearly one of the drivers. "This policy seems to be working well for both the company and the employees. The productivity of our employees has gone up by 20 per cent," says Elango. Elango does some numbercrunching to drive home the point. "On an average, a company spends Rs 22,000 per person only on the seat cost. When he is working from home, all his needs like AC, food, transport etc., are taken care of." Elango would know because he works from home as well. "We as an organisation have to look at this as a policy and not a privilege because it probably benefits us more than the employee," he says. IT major Cognizant, too, is actively adopting WFH. It is providing the option of telecommuting to people engaged in production support activities to avoid commute at odd hours. Says T. Sridhar, Chief People Officer, Cognizant: "Our belief is that if a fifth of our employees becomes part of this new arrangement, over a period of time, we would have effected a 20 per cent saving in investments in real estate, a 20 per cent increase in productivity of our employees and a 20 per cent improvement in customer satisfaction levels when these employees remain available to them on demand." Vandana Arora Assistant Manager, Quality, Genpact Why telecommute: "I have a small kid so I opted to work from home" Challenges: "No major challenges": Genpact sees telecommuting benefits in terms of employee satisfaction and thus, retention. Says Rajeev Sharma, Vice President HR, Finance and Accounting, Genpact: "We are rapidly moving towards the world of virtual organisations. The work-from-home policy helps us in talent pool retention. Re-training cost and loss of knowledge gets taken care of." At Genpact, there is only three per cent attrition among employees working from home. Currently, the company has 500 employees working from home and it plans to increase the number to 5,000 by 2010. No weak links According to a white paper on Changing World of Work by Manpower Inc., by 2016, 63 per cent workers globally want to work flexibly and 84 per cent employers recognise this as a significant benefit in terms of retention. Vandana Arora, 30, Assistant Manager, Quality, Genpact, Gurgaon, is a recent convert to work-from-home. She has been working from home (which started on a need basis) for the past eight months. "It started because of my two-and-a-half-year-old son, but now I love it," she says. Arora is part of a five-member team and two more members of the team work from home. "It's a perfect team at work with deadlines and deliverables," she says. Are the work-from-home members of the team weak links? "I don't think so. I have even got a promotion in the past six months," she says. Companies want results. Whether you come to office every day or work from home, at the end of the day, it's the output that matters, say HR heads. "An employee's performance should be calculated on what he delivers, rather than how many hours he spends in office," says Elango. TCS sets goals for its workfrom-home employees and tracks their performance and achievements based on which their performance assessment and appraisal takes place at the end of the year. "Meeting the deliverables of the job assigned is the key measure of performance," says Ajoy Mukherjee, Vice President and Head, Global HR, TCS. Sameer Deshmukh Delivery Leader, MphasiS Why telecommute: "My company wants me to. I am liking it" Challenges: "The family needs to cooperate and be serious about the whole affair The limitations Telecommuting is not free from its share of challenges. For starters, it can only be offered to employee profiles that have no security and privacy issues involved. "If you are working on a client basis, then it is critical that your client is comfortable with your employees working form home," says Elango. Work-from-home may not work well where working together in a team and using a common pool of physical resources to deliver results is essential. Examples of this are in product engineering type functions where physical collaboration is vital for innovation. Mercer's Naresh points out: "This is, however, changing with a number of collaboration and knowledge management tools proliferating in the market." On the flip side, WFH is sometimes a challenge because of unreliable power supply, lack of private working space at home, and a constantly ringing door bell. If employees make provision to tackle these issues, then WFH is very convenient. Apart from this, there are execution challenges, too. According to Subash A.K. Rao, Director, Human Resources, Cisco India, work evaluation and absence of external motivation are two of the main challenges. Those working in teams might feel isolated and miss the interaction with co-workers. Many employees find they can get more work done without the distractions of a corporate environment, but some others find themselves unfocussed without other people around to motivate them. Cisco is implementing a work-fromhome policy on an ad-hoc basis, which is a carry-over of its worldwide policies. HR heads say that it helps to have clear rules of engagement. "Telecommuting is a good option once certain pre-requisites, like a structured performance management approach, are in place and the employee's bonus is mapped onto productivity," says Rao. Print  Close URL for this article : http://businesstoday.digitaltoday.in /content_mail.php?option=com_content&name=print&id= 9463   @ Copyright 2008 India Today Group.

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Virtual work still evolving http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/09/01/14/10274898.html 01/13/2009 11:42 PM | By Sanjiv Anand and Rajesh Iyer, Special to Gulf News Globalisation and the Internet have made businesses more mobile. People and organisations are becoming more flexible about how they work and how they deal with new business opportunities. As the number of partnerships explodes, the need to work in virtual teams has increased. Virtual working will not replace traditional organisations and people physically getting together to work, but it has some distinct advantages: In a world where change is rapid, a virtual corporation can allow an organisation, or group of organisations, to address new opportunities or threats quickly and efficiently. The Internet and other telecommunications advances, such as audio and videoconferencing, make it easier for members of an organisation to collaborate more efficiently. More and more people are working from home for at least part of their week as a result of these advances. However, there are some key questions to be addressed. Where does virtual working work best? Where there is a specific output or objective that needs to be achieved. It is, by definition, not 9 to 5 working. Rather, you set someone or some group a task, and they go about achieving that task. They can spend all weekend and then take days off, once they deliver a result. What are the key trends that are driving virtual working? Globalisation, rapidly changing environments, and the advances in the Internet and telecommunications are key drivers. Many of the new opportunities are crossing traditional business boundaries - the telecommunications and content industries are intermingling, for example. Very few organisations have all the skills required to meet these new opportunities. These business changes underpin a social trend for skilled individuals to want more flexibility in how they live and work. The result is that virtual working can bring together a mix of skills and capabilities that would be very difficult to assemble in a single physical setting. How do virtual organisations, collaborative working, and telecommuting differ? Virtual organisations are legal entities that are established with clearly defined objectives, such as developing a product, or exploiting a particular market opportunity. In collaborative working, the focus is very much on knowledge work. This is better suited to small multi-disciplinary teams of five to ten people. Collaborative teams can be established and disbanded according to the current need. Frequently, it may be the case that a person is a member of several teams at the same time. Telecommuting can, of course, support collaborative working, but is also used for processing the data in batches. For example, a hospital's handwritten records may need to be filed electronically every day. Another example is the personal assistant who works from home for an executive who is constantly travelling. Have virtual workplaces been overhyped? Yes. Like many new-economy developments, there were wild predictions that we'd all be working in our pyjamas. The reality is that people still like to go to work to get out of the house. But virtual working still remains an important trend. Sanjiv Anand is the Managing Director and Rajesh Iyer is a Director at CedarManagement Consulting International.

Global CIO: The Top 10 CIO Issues For 2009

What should be on your agenda next year: A CIO-centric blend of business and tech issues that will help you increase business and customer value.

By Bob Evans,  InformationWeek
Dec. 30, 2008
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212700241

Given what's going on in the economy these days, maybe the No. 1 item on this list should be "Stay employed." But we figure you've all got that one nailed, so we've focused on a CIO-oriented blend of business and technology issues that in the end represent opportunities for you and your team to drive greater business value and customer value. And, to be sure, many other issues could have made this list -- we're assuming as givens things like increase revenue, make a profit, turn out great products, etc.

Along with each of the Top 10 CIO-centric issues, we've included at least one thematic piece published in 2008 by InformationWeek that offers valuable perspectives on these top-priority subjects. Please let us know what you think at bevans@techweb.com:

1. Customer-Facing Innovation. While it's essential for CIOs and your teams to be innovating across all parts of your operation, the greatest value in 2009 will come from efforts that directly connect your brands, products, services, and capabilities with your customers. In fact, in 2009, I think we'll see this term shift from "customer-facing" to "customer-embracing" to signify the move from the largely passive approach of merely facing your customers to the more-active and -engaged notion of embracing. Two articles that offer significant insights into this concept are this blog post introducing "The New Age of Innovation" microsite we created in April with authors C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan for their superb new book of that name; and a revealing look inside one of the top consumer brands in the world via Mary Hayes' "Coca-Cola's CIO Talks Innovation".

2. Attacking The 80/20 Ratio. Just as customer-facing innovation is the top outward-facing CIO priority for 2009, the inward-looking top priority is attacking the maintenance glutton that sucks up 75% or even 80% of your precious IT budget. Unless this beast is confronted and defeated, you're going to face an ugly 2009 with little or no money available for innovation, and that inability to push the company forward will, sadly, enhance the stereotype of you and your team as a cost center that impedes progress rather than accelerating it. In that context, we're happy to provide a richly detailed account for how to make it happen with Chris Murphy's superb "HP Goes All In With IT Transformation".

3. The Challenging Economy. Making your already-difficult job even a little more demanding, the current global economic mess is forcing CIOs to find ways to pursue the top two agenda items while also slashing away at costs. To see how some of your peers are tackling those challenges, check out another great piece by Chris Murphy called "How CIOs Are Setting IT Strategy Amid Economic Uncertainty".

4. The Strategic CIO. And somehow in 2009, even as you're dealing with those three issues above, you'll have to make some time to continue finding additional ways to enhance your role as a strategic business leader within your organization. While that certainly implies an open-ended set of possibilities, here are a couple of pieces that will offer some ideas of what you should be doing, "Tomorrow's CIO: The Qualifications," and what you should definitely not be doing, "Two Flavors of CIO, Each Leaving An Aftertaste".

5. Cloud Computing. Is it safe? Is it practical? Is it The End Of IT? Is it right for you and your company? InformationWeek's John Foley, who recently launched an excellent new site called Plug Into The Cloud, offers some CIO perspectives in his insightful overview, "CIOs On Cloud Computing".

6. The SaaS Effect. In 2008, like cloud computing, SaaS went from a slightly marginal prospect into a full-fledged player as large, midsize, and small companies alike began adopting the notion of having someone else host mission-critical applications. One of the challenges CIOs faced and will continue to face with the SaaS model is integration, and Mary Hayes offers an outstanding look at the challenges and solutions in "SaaS Integration: Real-World Problems, And How CIOs Are Solving Them".

7. Virtualization. While this became one of the most widely pursued approaches to attacking the 80/20 problem, some CIOs did not or could not make a strong case to the CEO and other executives about the business value virtualization can offer. So in some cases it was seen as a cool back-office techy thing, but not something to be confused with a game-changing business tool. Art Wittmann offers some analysis on this must-solve 2009 problem with "Does Management Get Virtualization?".

8. Outsourcing. Although it's widely used and most CIOs feel it can offer huge value, outsourcing is still regarded by some as anywhere from too risky to too mean-spirited. Chris Murphy shines some clear thinking on the whole matter as part of his two-week adventure in India with "Report From India: 5 Reasons To Outsource".

9. Green Computing. While a lot of attention around this issue was centered on the dubious claims of saving the planet, many companies devised excellent approaches to lowering energy consumption, reducing costs, and doing a better job with recycling -- all good business practices. In the midyear days of $4 gallons of gasoline, John Soat fingered the real culprit with "Energy Woes? Blame The CIO!".

10. Radical Desktops. Here's how Joe Hernick opens his analysis of how the trusty old desktop computer is about to undergo some massive change: "A slate of contentious issues -- social, economic, and technological -- will radically alter the business user's computing experience by the end of this decade." Virtualization, smartphones, new platforms, and more all play a role in "Radical Desktops Deliver Power To The People. But What About IT?".

So that's our list of things to keep you CIOs busy in 2009. If it's any solace, we here at Global CIO are honored to be able to follow your efforts and challenges and achievements, and to share the perspectives we hear from you and your peers as you attempt to change how the world thinks, works, plays, learns, communicates, and views itself. Thanks for the opportunity to serve you, thanks for your trust, and thanks for the great work you do. May 2009 be full of promise, fulfillment, and fun. Happy New Year!

To find out more about Bob Evans, please visit his page.

One Million Job Cuts Predicted in 2009

Reported by: RNS

Monday, Dec 22, 2008 @09:15am CST

Another one million Americans will likely be getting pink slips next year.

That's according to the latest forecast from layoff tracking firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

The Chicago-based company says employers have already shed more than a million jobs this year because of weak consumer and corporate spending, a trend that is expected to continue.

CEO John Challenger says a massive stimulus plan expected from the Obama administration is going to take time to work through the system. He says even if the Obama plan goes well it could be several months before we see the benefits.

Challenger says the state of the economy and the job market will have a significant impact on 2009 workplace trends. He says there could be a major shift toward telecommuting as employers look to cut costs without turning to layoffs.

Challenger says many companies have already found they can save big on real estate costs by having employees work from home.

He says job seekers are also likely to turn to the Internet, enhancing their work search through video resumes posted on YouTube and the use of social networking sites. The national unemployment rate is now at six-point-seven percent.

Some economists expect that number to go as high as nine percent before the job market even starts to rebound.

Challenger says health care, education and energy industries are likely to do the most hiring in the year ahead. He says construction could be the lone industry to see an immediate boost from Barack Obama's economic plans since they focus heavily on a nationwide infrastructure rebuilding program.