All About Working

Information about a new book by Geoff Colvin came across my desk a few days ago.   Aptly titled “The Upside of the Downturn,” the book is aimed at examples of businesses that are using the current economic recession to build the company for tomorrow since the current time is not the best of times.

Turning to other opportunities rather than trying to play out a strategic plan that was developed before things went so awry is a key ingredient to the concepts Colin explores.  Setting new priorities seems an obvious first task, yet it is surprising how many managers remain rooted in behavior and responses designed for a different business climate.

These managers must begin to focus on what to do — not just to save the ship but to make it fighting-fit for the battles ahead.  He writes:

The downturn is worldwide, so your canvas of opportunity is huge.

He also writes:

The downturn is long, which means many companies won’t survive it.

And so he sets up for discussions about companies that are using a different mentality to plan for survival and rewards in the future.

The book is available through Amazon.com.

Here’s an article from today’s Wall Street Journal that is a good selection to read if your organization is working on job planning for the future. Titled, Some Employers See Hiring Opportunity, it provides a variety of viewpoints about how some organizations are handling the over abundance of job applicants and how they are already starting to look towards future needs:

. . . some employers are seizing the recession as an opportunity to strengthen their talent pool, poach stars from rivals or rebuild after layoffs. Every opening attracts dozens of qualified, and overqualified, applicants. Unemployment is 8.1%, the highest since 1983, and 12.5 million Americans are out of work. Yet the Labor Department says there were fewer than three million job openings in January, the fewest since it began tracking the data in 2000.

Strategically hiring skilled, productive employees can help employers boost efficiency and save money, says DeLynn Senna, executive director of permanent placement services for North America for Robert Half International Inc., a professional staffing firm. Good hiring decisions now may allow companies to best competitors when the economy rebounds, she says.

Many of the employers that are hiring are in sectors such as healthcare, government or utilities, which are still adding jobs.

This article can be found here.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a rather comprehensive article on job furloughing entitled The Politics of Volunteering for a Furlough.The materials contained in this post are from that article.

An important part of the article was about a recent survey by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Inc. Their survey found that 10% of the companies polled said they had offered unpaid time off, and an additional 9% said they planned to do so in the next year. The survey, the first in which Watson Wyatt asked about unpaid furloughs, questioned 245 large U.S. companies that employ more than four million workers combined.

Still other employers increasingly are requiring workers to take unpaid time off. Such mandatory-furlough programs also are generally aimed at minimizing layoffs during the recession.

Nokia Corp., Financial Times Group, Dell Inc. and several public universities are among employers that are increasingly encouraging employees to take voluntary unpaid furloughs.

University of New Mexico President David Schmidly sparked a controversy when he announced the voluntary program, which is set to begin in July. Numerous letters appeared in the campus newspaper protesting the program as unfair to average workers, and calling on senior administrators to shoulder more of the cutbacks. Mr. Schmidly himself plans to take 15 days off, forfeiting nearly 6% of his pay, or roughly $20,000, according to a university spokeswoman.

On the other hand, Ms. Krosinsky, who works in the university’s communications and marketing department, wrote her own letter supporting the furlough plan and saying she planned to take a few furlough days herself. The 30-year-old, who makes about $30,000 a year, says she is able to afford giving up a part of her income. “I don’t think it would be more than an inconvenience,” she says.

Ms. Krosinsky says her immediate co-workers and bosses thanked her for volunteering. But others, like Ms. Thibodeaux, who works at the university’s medical school, questioned Ms. Krosinsky’s motivation. “Supervisors love that attitude,” says Ms. Thibodeaux. “What she has said will ensure her a good-paying job once she finishes [her] internship.”

Ms. Krosinsky says she is trying to help the school manage through the recession, not boost her career.

Loyola Chastain, president of the university’s Staff Council, an employee group, says many staff feel torn about taking time off. “I have people emailing me and saying, ‘I’m one paycheck away from homelessness. I can’t miss one day of work,’ ” Ms. Chastain says. But employees, who typically earn between $30,000 and $40,000 per year for a nonfaculty position, also worry that furloughs will become mandatory if too few people volunteer.

Some employers try to protect the identity of participants taking voluntary time off, to avoid contention among staff. Lynette Seymour, book-store director at Iowa State University, says she agreed to five furlough days after the school asked for volunteers. Only her supervisor, who needed to approve the specific days, and the payroll office knew of Ms. Seymour’s decision. “We didn’t want there to be any sense of competitiveness, like ‘I did this, why didn’t you?’ ” says Ellen Rasmussen, associate vice president for budget and planning.

University President Gregory Geoffroy and 27 top school officials announced in December that they would take five-day furloughs and more than 250 faculty and staff have since joined the effort, saving the school about $420,000. No classes have been canceled as a result of furlough days. The state’s contribution to the university was cut by $7.2 million, or 2.5%, this year and the school expects another $31 million cut in its next fiscal year.

Some companies have more rigorous requirements. Sherwin-Williams Co. is asking employees in its paint and coatings division to volunteer for furloughs running six weeks consecutively. Although the time off would be unpaid, benefit contributions would remain unchanged. A company spokesman, who declined to say how many employees had volunteered, said Sherwin-Williams has adopted voluntary furloughs during past downturns.

In Kern County, Calif., the public-health department considered laying off 16 of its 380 employees after state cutbacks that trimmed $1.8 million, or 26%, from a children’s health-care program. Instead, John Nilon, the public health director, suggested that staff voluntarily take unpaid vacation days. Currently 43 employees, ranging from nurses to managers, are taking an average of 1.5 days off a month each, saving the county about $15,000 a month. The action helped the department reduce the number of layoffs to just two employees. “It’s such a feel-good thing,” says Mr. Nilon.

But some employees felt their co-workers could have done more. “I was a little disappointed that some people whom I felt may be able to furlough didn’t,” says Kitty Berchtold, a 55-year-old county public health nurse. Ms. Berchtold is taking off two days a month, which costs her about $500 in lost wages.

I read an article today about The Balcom Agency in Fort Worth, Texas.  The  cubicles of the Agency were featured in a picture gallery over on Life Hacker.

It’s interesting to look at the gallery because you will see an amazing use of color, particularly in an office setting.  Also, you can see a lot of individual choices for how the cubes are decorated.  The furniture, bookshelves, throw rugs, plants, and more clearly emulate individuals who were allowed to let some expression spill into their workspace.

Now if you go to Balcom’s website, you’ll find that Balcom provides its clients with comprehensive creative, interactive, and public relations to various business challenges.  Clever way to demonstrate that creativity at the core of where it occurs, right in the workspace.

There are some good ideas on the Life Hacker article for using color and designing a pleasing workspace.  If you have to spend so many hours of your life there, why not let it reflect some of you.

MSNBC is reporting that Steelcase Inc., a global office environments manufacturer, and Armstrong World Industries, Inc., the global leader in the design and manufacture of floors, ceilings and cabinets, announced a collaboration initiative to market products branded Steelcase by Armstrong that address the problem of noise in the workplace. The first product to be released under this collaboration is SoundScapes(r), a portfolio of acoustical canopies and clouds intended to reduce noise level and reverberation time in open plenum and suspended ceiling environments.

As work is becoming more collaborative and more space is devoted to team and group work, noise levels are rising in open plan environments. In fact, a recent IFMA (International Facility Management Association) survey found that noise is one of workers’ top complaints. And an ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) paper, “Sound Solutions”, reported that 70% of respondents indicated their productivity would improve if their office was less noisy.

Recent trends in office landscape such as lower cubicle partition heights; open structure facilities without finished acoustical ceilings; and greater use of under-floor air have lead to noise being more pronounced.