Payroll services company sees small business bounce

And that is a very good thing for the economy.

Transportation Security Administration — protecting with perverts

Or so it seems from a recent TSA job posting with this tagline —

‘A Career Where X-Ray Vision And Federal Benefits Come Standard’

From the link:

That’s the slogan the Transportation Security Administration is apparently using to entice people to apply for jobs as airport screeners. Now that they’re preparing to expand the use of whole body imaging scanners, which can produce moderately detailed nude images of travelers, maybe they should consider a tagline that doesn’t sound like it’s designed to recruit voyeurs.

Hit the link for a screenshot of the actual ad. And just to be clear, I’m using the word “protecting” very, very loosely in the header.

Managing telecommuters

This article is titled, “Six Strategies for Managing Telecommuters,” but is also pretty good reading for those telecommuters being managed.

From the link, strategy number four:

4. Establish clear performance standards.

Again, every team needs to have performance standards and expectations, but this is particularly vital when the manager is unable to observe behavior directly. The team needs to understand not only what they are going to achieve, but how they will achieve it. When people come from a diverse set of experiences, functions, and possibly even divisional or geographical cultural backgrounds, it should not be assumed that they all share the same perspective about what constitutes quality or excellence. This is an opportunity for the leader to set benchmarks, suggest sharing of best practices, and encourage the team to clearly articulate standards by which their performance will be evaluated.

Finding jobs on Twitter

If you’re looking for work, Twitter is now a destination for openings. Check out this CIO.com article for tips on finding work via Twitter.

From the link:

But using Twitter to find new work isn’t a straightforward process. Because people publish so frequently, it’s easy to miss a lead in the process. Also, Twitter’s search tool, while serviceable, sometimes makes it hard to narrow your job inquiries down to something specific.

We spoke with some career experts about how you can search wisely. In general, you must sieve through hashtags, a symbol (#) Twitter users assign to their tweets that sorts them into different categories (I wrote a CIO.com overview on Twitter hashtags a few months ago). We also learned about a few Twitter handles (Twitter user names) that post some helpful content if you’re trying to land your next gig.

Social networking and the workplace

Research from Deloitte LLP Ethics & Workplace survey,

The release:

Deloitte study reveals tension regarding the use of social media in the workplace

According to the third annual Deloitte LLP Ethics & Workplace survey, 60 percent of business executives believe they have a right to know how employees portray themselves and their organizations in online social networks. However, employees disagree, as more than half (53 percent) say their social networking pages are not an employer’s concern. This fact is especially true among younger workers, with 63 percent of 18–34 year old respondents stating employers have no business monitoring their online activity

That said, employees appear to have a clear understanding of the risks involved in using online social networks, as 74 percent of respondents believe they make it easier to damage a company’s reputation.

“With the explosive growth of online social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, rapidly blurring the lines between professional and private lives, these virtual communities have increased the potential of reputational risk for many organizations and their brands,” said Sharon Allen, chairman of the board, Deloitte LLP. “While the decision to post videos, pictures, thoughts, experiences, and observations is personal, a single act can create far-reaching ethical consequences for individuals as well as employers. Therefore, it is important for executives to be mindful of the implications of this connected world and to elevate the discussion about the risks associated with it to the highest levels of leadership.”

A mere 17 percent of executives surveyed say they have programs in place to monitor and mitigate the possible reputational risks related to the use of social networks. Additionally, while less than a quarter have formal policies on the medium’s use among their people, nearly half (49 percent) of employees indicate defined guidelines will not change their behavior online.

“One-third of employees surveyed never consider what their boss or customers might think before posting material online,” Allen continued. “This fact alone reinforces how vulnerable brands are as a result of the increased use of social networks. As business leaders, it is critical that we continue to foster solid values-based cultures that encourage employees to behave ethically regardless of the venue.”

The complete results of the 2009 Ethics & Workplace survey reflect opinions of employees and business executives on questions on ethics, work-life balance, reputational risk and the prevalence of boardroom participation as it relates to increased employee social networking.

Methodology
Opinion Research conducted a telephone survey on behalf of Deloitte LLP among a national probability sample of 2,008 employed adults comprising 1,000 men and 1,008 women 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States. Interviewing for these CARAVAN Surveys was completed during the period April 9–13 and 16–19, 2009. Sampling error is +/- 2.5 percent.

Opinion Research also conducted an online survey of 500 business executives. The sample for the study came from a panel of executives across the United States, including company owners, directors, CEOs, controllers, EVPs, CIOs, VPs, and board members. Invitations to participate in the study were sent beginning on April 10, 2009 and data collection continued through April 17, 2009.

About the Deloitte Chairman’s Survey
The Deloitte LLP Chairman’s survey is designed to measure workplace behavior and the impact leadership has on the workplace environment. Following up on last year’s survey, which uncovered a link between transparency of leadership and employee productivity, this year’s survey studied the impact of use of social networking on reputational risk, workplace ethics, and career-life fit. Sharon Allen, Chairman of the Board, Deloitte LLP, is the sponsor of the annual survey.

Using Twitter for job hunt

Here’s a CIO.com article on using Twitter when searching for work. I think every tool in the box should be utilized when on the employment hunt and Twitter is certainly of the moment.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/davidkonline.

From the first link:

Though LinkedIn tops the list of professionally-oriented social networks for job seeking, you can also use Twitter to get the word out about your skills and talents to relevant people in your industry.

But you must take some steps to be a good Twitter citizen before you tweet yourself into your next gig. We spoke with some career and social media experts on how to utilize Twitter for the purpose of job seeking, and the ways in which you can promote your own interests while helping others at the same time. (As you’ll find, you can’t do one without the other).

If you’re new to Twitter, we recommend reading our beginners’ guide to Twitter, as well as our Twitter etiquette guide, to learn more about what makes this community operate. Overall, it’s important to remember that Twitter is about exchanging ideas and letting people know more about you based on the content of your tweets.

Massive job loss one more recession red flag

I’ve posted on the US recession in the past. Here’s a story from AccountantsWorld.com (free registration req.) on March’s massive job loss being one more signal a recession is here and looks to be significant.

There’s no reason to go around preaching doom-and-gloom, but it is important to be realistic about the current economic situation. Something the administration in DC has had some measure of difficulty with.

From the second link:

It is no longer a question of recession or not. Now it is how deep and how long.

Workers’ pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months.

For the third month in a row total U.S. employment rolls shrank _ often a telltale sign that the economy has jolted dangerously into reverse.

At the same time, the jobless rate rose three-tenths of a percentage point, a sharp increase usually associated with times of deep economic stress.

The grim picture described by the Labor Department on Friday provided stark evidence of just how much the jobs market has buckled under the weight of the housing, credit and financial crises. Businesses and jobseekers alike are feeling the pain.

“It is now very clear that the fat lady has sung for the economic expansion. The country has slipped into a recession,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. Indeed, there is widening agreement that the first recession since 2001 has arrived. Even Ben Bernanke, in a rare public utterance for a Federal Reserve chairman, used the “r” word, acknowledging for the first time this week that a recession was possible.