Last fall, Richard Grasso, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, was forced to resign following disclosure that he had accepted a $187.5 million compensation package. The chairman didn’t set his own salary, however. The board of directors set it. What was their rationale for approving a package of that magnitude? Was he being
Just as it’s been the principal benchmark that financial markets have used to evaluate the economic recovery for the past three years, job creation has become the central economic focus of the U.S. presidential campaign. Benjamin Disraeli’s statement on the three types of lies is appropriate because the way in which the employment statistics are
When networking is mentioned as a job hunting or career-advancement tool, you probably think of industry or professional meetings with picked-over hors d’oeuvres and people wearing “Hello, I’m…” name tags. The mere specter of working a room this way can cause even the most practiced executive to break out in a sweat.
Confusion about how recruiters operate has put many a career at a disadvantage. Executives in transition can’t afford to let faulty assumptions foul up their prospects. Knowing how the search industry operates will make you a better, more successful candidate. To help you get the facts straight, here’s a guide to working with recruiters based
It isn’t uncommon for employers to receive more than 500 applications for a single job. Many companies have databases containing more than 1 million resumes. To manage these huge volumes, companies increasingly are using online staffing-assessment tools to screen and select candidates. These questionnaires and tests allow companies to sort through hundreds of applications rapidly
It’s no secret that many performance-management systems aren’t working. This goes from the top to the bottom of organizations, from boards who adjust executives’ performance goals so they can receive pay that appears to have no relationship to company results, to levels lower down, where large numbers of employees are indifferent or unmotivated by the
During the blackout of 2003, the electricity went out along much of the East Coast, but the light bulb over my head clicked on. I had been unhappy for most of that summer. I was frustrated by a lack of progress in my reporting job at the Wall Street Journal Online, wanted to be nearer
We enlisted a team of volunteers to “mystery shop” the job pages of some of America’s largest corporations. What have they learned? That applying for a job online isn’t always as easy as it looks, and the results are often less than satisfying. Based on their experience, we offer an online job hunter’s bill of rights:
Activist shareholders are trying new tactics to rein in executive pay at U.S. companies, with proposals they hope will appeal to a broader group of investors. The new strategies include simpler, less prescriptive holder resolutions that don’t dictate executives’ pay packages. Instead, the new proposals seek to more closely align executive pay with corporate performance,
For years, companies have created employee-resource groups for women and racial and ethnic minorities, aimed at boosting recruitment and retention. Now, employers increasingly are creating similar groups for gay and lesbian employees. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Morgan Stanley and Intuit Inc., among others, created groups for gay employees in the past year. The Human Rights Campaign,
When calls to the reservation line at Choice Hotels International Inc. surged after an ad campaign earlier this year, Don Brockway, Choice’s vice president of world-wide reservations, found his call centers short-staffed. So he quickly arranged to add as many as 20 agents per shift.
The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case testing how managers may react after an employee complains about harassment or discrimination. But legal specialists say employers can take steps to minimize retaliation complaints through beefed-up training, investigations and follow-up efforts. The touchy issue confronts many companies. Complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that
When should an executive retire? The question is gaining urgency in Europe where, for years, companies and governments have pushed people to retire earlier than their American counterparts. The mindset in Europe was that this cleared room for younger executives and brought in fresh ideas. Now, in a shift, some European companies are pushing to
It is a hot business idea of the moment, a growth formula embraced by General Electric Co., American Express Co., Progressive Corp. and many others. But a growing chorus of skeptics question the value of the “net promoter” concept advocated by consulting firm Bain & Co., market researcher Satmetrix Systems Inc. and author Fred Reichheld.
Managers like to say employees leave companies because of bad bosses or lack of career growth. A new report suggests a more straightforward reason: money. In a survey of about 1,100 U.S. employees, 71% of top performers listed pay among the top three reasons they would consider leaving their employer. Yet in a sister survey
Psychology professor Richard Griffith is on a mission to stop “fakers.” To Dr. Griffith, of the Florida Institute of Technology, fakers are people who misrepresent themselves on personality tests increasingly used to screen applicants for entry-level jobs at call centers, retail stores and other customer-service positions. The tests typically ask candidates to agree or disagree
Two years ago, Rod Bond, an executive at a U.S. unit of French food-services company Sodexho Alliance SA, accompanied female colleagues to a meeting of the Women’s Food Service Forum, where he was a rare man among roughly 1,500 women. “That’s a profound experience,” says Mr. Bond, 57 years old. It prompted him to wonder
Home Depot Inc. likes computer-based training — most of the time. When the big Atlanta-based retailer hires new cashiers, it marches them through online simulations of making change and processing credit cards. Recruits learn so quickly that training time has shrunk 30% from classroom norms. On the sales floor, however, it’s a different story. After
Go out and mingle with top headhunters — those gregarious talent scouts who are constantly scouring the world in search of managers to fill the top executive jobs — and these days you’ll find some most happy people.
Give back that bonus! That angry cry has been heard for years from governance consultants and shareholders seething at the way some chief executives grow rich as investors suffer. Usually, such shouting is futile. Bosses defend their pay or simply ignore criticism. Either way, they keep the cash, perhaps agreeing to take leaner pay packages
