Author: Site Staff

People moving into key executive positions
	Greg Thompson has joined Saba Software as senior director of strategy and product management. Thompson previously was principal consultant at Knowledge Infusion and director of strategy at Oracle. He also worked at PeopleSoft for 10 years in the human capital management, technology and education areas.
	Akanksha Malik has been named director of process, quality management and training at RPOworldwide. Prior to her new role, she was responsible for setting up the Center of Excellence for Training Development for a division of Intel India. Before that, she managed the e-learning business practice at QAI India.
	Michael Boese has been appointed group vice president of corporate business development at Taleo. Boese most recently was vice president of corporate strategy at SAP. He also has served as vice president of corporate business development at PeopleSoft and held various leadership positions at Quantum Corp. and Oracle
	Rene DuBose has joined Wesley, Brown & Bartle Co. as senior vice president and managing director. DuBose served as global human resource director at McGraw-Hill Cos. Prior to this, DuBose was senior HR partner of global industries at IBM. She also served as director of HR at the World Wrestling Federation
	Thomas White has joined the Chicago law office of Chapman and Cutler as partner. White comes from the law firm of Schwartz Cooper, where he was a principal of the labor and employment group.
	Mel Gadd has been named global vice president of quality at TomorrowNow. Previously Gadd managed customer satisfaction and quality programs at PeopleSoft.
	Dan Twing has been appointed COO of Enterprise Management Associates. Prior to joining EMA, Twing was president and CEO of NetDelivery.
	James Stewart has been named executive vice president of Kopos & Baker. Stewart has more than 10 years of experience in business development
	Henry Janssen has joined F&H Solutions as director of talent management. Prior to joining F&H, Janssen served as project manager at IBM.
	Lorraine Hack has joined Heidrick & Struggles as partner. Hack has served as CFO of Fathon and was senior vice president of executive operations for Sesame Workshop. She spent a decade with Viacom n various financial positions. Most recently she was executive director at Russell Reynolds Associates.
	Dan Ward has joined SRA as vice president and human capital officer. He was chief architect, organization and transformation design, at EDS.
	Jeannie Criddle has joined BeneTrac as regional sales director for the East Bay and Central Valley regions of California. She most recently was sales manager at Opening Technologies.
Marie Avren has joined ERC Dataplus as vice president of client services. Avren’s experience includes serving as project manager in the organizational development and learning center at Yale University.
Jeffrey K. Cordes has been appointed managing director of CareerBuilder.com’s new human capital consulting division. Cordes was president of Human Capital Results and has held positions with IBM, Xpedior, Apropos Technology and NCI.
Bradley Savoy has been named director of strategic development at Bernard Hodes Group. Prior to joining Bernard Hodes, Savoy worked with Taleo as client executive, Bank of America as vice president of staffing and at Andersen as director of recruiting.
Clark D. Handy has been named senior vice president of human resources at Convergys. Handy previously served as vice president of human resources in the global supply chain division and in the global research and development division at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Before Wyeth, Handy held senior management roles at Georgie-Pacific, James River and Hallmark Cards.
Keith Dunnell has joined ZeroChaos as COO.
Edwin C. Hendrick has joined CorVel Corp. as vice president of sales. He was vice president of sales and marketing for USLABS/Esoterix.
Kurt Dunn and Todd Richman have joined PeopleFilter as regional sales managers. Dunn most recently was vice president of global services at Vurv Technology. Richman served was senior director of professional services at Vurv.
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The Sky May Not Be Falling: Despite seemingly weekly notices of huge layoffs, a new research report said 2006 cutbacks were not as severe as in 2005. Chicago consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas reports that overall job cuts in 2006 were 22 percent lower than in 2005, coming in at less than 1 million for the first time since 2000. Ironically, the slowdown in job cuts coincides with record cutbacks in the automotive industry, a bellwether of the economy. Automakers slashed nearly 159,000 positions in 2006, with industrial goods manufacturers the second-hardest hit (about 78,000 jobs). Other sectors that absorbed huge hits were government, nonprofits, computing, retail, media, chemicals and real estate. However, Challenger’s monthly research covers a small number of those who actually lose their jobs each month.

Insurer Reaps Benefits: Richmond, Virginia-based insurance broker Hilb Rogal & Hobbs said it has acquired Nevin, Works & Associates, an employee benefits company in Portland, Oregon. Also included in the deal is Nevin Works subsidiary Thinc USA, described as a niche employee benefits firm. Hilb Rogal is acquiring all the outstanding and issued capital stock of Nevin Works for an undisclosed sum, and reportedly will retain Nevin Works’ employees in Portland.

Watson to Reacquire Partner: Washington HR consultancy Watson Wyatt Worldwide plans to acquire its partner in the Netherlands sometime during the first quarter of 2007, according to the Washington Business Journal. Although declining to release details of the proposed transaction, Watson Wyatt’s acquisition of Watson Wyatt Brans & Co.—created when its Dutch office merged with Dutch actuarial consultant Brans & Co. for $37 million in 1999—continues a string of deals. Last summer it bought boutique compensation company Briggs & Sands, while in 2005 it acquired Davis, Conder, Enderle & Sloan, a Chicago-based actuarial and retirement benefits consulting firm.

Dear Eager to Know:

The good news is that you have a lot of available options. You are correct that full-blown assessment centers are a useful but expensive way to evaluate performance. They are almost always reserved for managerial positions because of the time and expense they require.

 

There are two related options to consider in your situation. The first is to employ some form of simple assessment measure to help you systematically evaluate your candidates for internal promotion. It is hard to determine exactly which type of assessment may be best for your situation without understanding more about the jobs you are trying to fill. However, tons of really good assessments are on the market to help hiring managers clearly understand an individual’s capabilities. It is important to note that I am not recommending these assessments be used as the sole criteria for making hiring decisions. Rather, they should be viewed as a useful supplement to other information, including supervisory ratings and recommendations.

 

Your second option actually is a bigger picture strategy that leverages both the tactics you already use along with additional assessment tools. This involves using your performance management program as a strategic element of your internal hiring initiative. Again, it is hard to make specific recommendations without knowing more details, but in general data collected as part of a formal performance evaluation yields lots of valuable information to aid internal promotion decisions.

 

Assessments can play a key role in this strategy, since many organizations use assessment tools as part of the process for evaluating performance and for performance planning, coaching, etc. In fact, many organizations are using data collected from pre-employment assessments as a baseline from which performance planning and evaluation can begin. Again, it is important to point out that these assessments should never be the only source of information used to evaluate a candidate. In your situation, supervisors should be actively managing the performance of employees and should be aware of assessment results as part of this process.

 

I believe your current strategy–leveraging the experience and knowledge of supervisors–should continue to be a key part of your future strategy. The most important thing is to create a process whereby these individuals are able to consistently obtain quality information to help them understand their employees better and thus make better promotional decisions.

 

One final note: Promotional decisions tend to attract much more litigation than initial employment decisions do. For this reason it is important that you create a structured process for internal promotions that will allow you to document the key criteria used when making promotional decisions. The strategy outlined should help.

 

SOURCE: Charles A. Handler, PhD., president/founder, Rocket-Hire, New Orleans, March 22, 2006.

 

LEARN MORE: Please read how to use job descriptions to make “make more sensible job evaluations.” Also, how to move away from paternalism toward a performance culture.

 

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

 

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Dear Workforce Newsletter

Dear Keeping Them Happy:



Retaining good workers is always a challenge in today’s competitive environment, but keeping workers who are geographically dispersed adds even more complexity. You should consider this three-step approach:

1. Make direct supervisors responsible for achieving retention goals. Smart organizations are shifting retention responsibility to leaders. Numerous pieces of research tell us that employees join for reasons of pay, benefits, duties or schedules. But how long they stay with a company most often is directly tied to relationships with their immediate supervisors. These organizations set retention goals with supervisors, track retention at the supervisor level, and then provide rewards and/or consequences to supervisors based on goal achievement. For example, tying 30 percent of a performance bonus to retention tends to motivate supervisors to work harder at keeping key people.

2. Provide supervisors with retention training and coaching so they can achieve their retention goals. What is the No. 1 quality that employees want in their leaders–the quality that will cause them to remain with your organization longer? The answer: They want a supervisor they trust.Building and maintaining trust with remote workers can be especially difficult because of the absence of daily personal contact. As a result, organizations must be especially keen to hire and promote “trust-builders” to supervisory positions. Then they must provide training to help them meet commitments, tell the truth, share credit but not blame, apologize and admit mistakes, and conduct other trust-building behaviors.

3. Ensure leaders on all levels have retention discussions with remote employees. Traditional supervisory updates are about production and other job tasks. Organizations can improve retention with remote employees by teaching leaders to initiate specific retention discussions, such as:

• Tell me about a past leader whom you trusted. What did that leader do to earn your trust?
  
• Tell me also about a past leader who broke trust so I don’t repeat that same behavior.
  
• What can I do to make this a better place for you to work?
  
• Can I count on you to tell me if something troubles you so much that you would consider leaving, so I can try to fix it?
  
• Can I also count on you to ask any of your peers to come to me with their concerns, rather having you and I both lose the contributions of that person?
  

Make your leaders/supervisors accountable for retention and equip them with the skills or training they’ll need. It is the best strategy for retaining a geographically dispersed workforce.

SOURCE: Dick Finnegan,TalentKeepers, Maitland, Florida, March 29, 2006.

LEARN MORE: Please read a related Workforce Management article titled Personalizing Motivation.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

The Pentagon’s decision to extend active-duty requirements for citizen soldiers in the National Guard or reserves could take a toll on both civilian employers and employees.

The new policy could require citizen soldiers to be on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan for as long as 48 months—an initial tour could last up to 24 months, followed by a return to civilian life and then a second mobilization round that could be additional stretch of 24 months. By contrast, the old policy limited active-duty requirements in Iraq or Afghanistan to 24 consecutive months.

“Employers are not going to be happy with this new policy,” says Ted Daywalt, president of VetJobs, an online job board for individuals who have served in the military. “They are already up in arms about the pressure that the old, less severe system is placing on their business.”

Some 1.3 million citizen soldiers who work in a wide spectrum of industries could be affected by the lift in traditional caps.

The expansion of active duty may hit small employers hardest. According to Daywalt, 70 percent to 80 percent of individuals in the National Guard or reserves work for companies with 300 to 500 employees. Some firms are even smaller. He cites a Houston-based machine shop which lost 12 of its 21 workers virtually overnight when they were called on active duty in Afghanistan in 2002.

“The owner of the shop had difficulties complying with his contracts because more than half of his workforce was missing,” Daywalt says. “I can assure you that this has not been an isolated case.”

The threat of diminished productivity is not the only source of worry for employers. Under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, companies are required to continue providing certain benefits for family members of the individuals who are on duty as well as ensure employment of citizen soldiers when they return from their missions.

Employers didn’t mind incurring these and other financial responsibilities when the tours of duty were less frequent and shorter in duration, Daywalt explains. But the escalation in requirements has been changing this landscape.

Daywalt warns that the new policy will aggravate the situation and make it unpalatable for companies to hire an individual who is enlisted with the National Guard or reserves.

“Why would anybody want to hire an individual who may called away for two years only to return for a just a few months and then be mobilized for another two years?” Daywalt says. “Companies are not going to be happy about this.”

—Gina Ruiz

 

Corporate directors, having largely addressed the new requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, are worried about a new hurdle: CEO succession.

Roughly half of the corporate boards from public, private and nonprofit companies say they are “less than effective” at CEO succession, and only a similar percentage have a succession plan in place, according to a survey by the National Association of Corporate Directors and Mercer Delta Consulting. Less than 15% of the 1,400 directors surveyed said their boards were “highly effective” in managing and developing their executive talent.

The report recommended that CEO transitions should take place over a minimum of a three-to-five-year period so that directors can be assured the new leader has been adequately trained and developed for the job. Elise Walton, partner and head of Mercer Delta’s corporate governance practice, added that a board should have a succession plan from Day One to avoid a crisis if the CEO suite is suddenly vacant.

Meanwhile, the directors surveyed said they needed to improve in overseeing their companies’ business strategies. While most directors (48%) said their boards were “effective” in this area, 28% said they were “somewhat effective” and 8% said they were “below acceptable levels.”

“Directors are feeling frustrated with not really knowing the right way to get involved with strategic planning,” Walton says. “There’s been a move to share more information, but not much specification as to how to share it; they don’t feel as though they’ve figured out the exact right way to handle the issue yet.”

Directors on public boards spent an average of 210 hours on board issues—both inside and outside the boardroom—during 2006, up from an average of 190 hours in 2005.

Jeff Nash

Jeff Nash is a reporter for Financial Week, a sister publication of Workforce Management.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to discuss Friday, January 12, whether it will review a federal appeals court ruling that IBM Corp.’s cash-balance pension plan does not discriminate against older employees.

The August 2006 decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that said the plan discriminated against older employees because, when expressed as a retirement annuity, the benefits earned by younger employees are more valuable than the same benefits earned by older employees.

But the appeals court—in the first time a court of that level ruled on the issue—rejected that analysis, saying the disparity in benefit values was the result of the time value of money, which, it said, is not age discrimination.

It is not known whether the Supreme Court will agree to review the appeals court ruling. Certain factors, such as a split between appeals courts or the involvement of the federal government, that increase the likelihood of high court review are not present in the IBM cash-balance plan litigation.

But if the Supreme Court does take up the case, its ruling could put the age discrimination issue to rest. If the court agreed to review the ruling and found that the plans are not age discriminatory, it would in one fell swoop end age discrimination litigation and provide the legal certainty employers have long sought.

On the other hand, if the court took up the case and found that the cash-balance plan design violates age discrimination law, employers with the plans would face more lawsuits and likely would move to freeze their plans to reduce their exposure to damage awards.

Some 1,200 to 1,500 cash-balance plans covering millions of employees and retirees are currently in operation.

As part of a comprehensive pension funding reform measure passed last year, Congress included provisions to protect new cash-balance plans—those created after June 29, 2005—from age discrimination suits. Only one large employer, MeadWestvaco Corp., a Richmond, Virginia-based office products and paper manufacturer, is known to have set up a new cash-balance plan since the legislation was passed.

It isn’t known how soon the Supreme Court will decide after the Friday discussion—part of the justices’ regular weekly conference—whether to review the lower court ruling.

—Jerry Geisel

Jerry Geisel is a reporter for Business Insurance,
a sister publication of Workforce Management.

Korn/Ferry International is acquiring LeaderSource, one of the nation’s largest executive coaching and leadership development consultancies.
 
The move, which comes on the heels Korn/Ferry’s August purchase of Lominger Ltd., a provider of leadership development tools, allows the company to extend its reach beyond its traditional executive search capabilities.

“We are in the process of creating a diversified HR firm,” says Gary Burnison, president of Korn/Ferry’s Leadership Development Solutions. The company launched its strategic efforts five years ago to meet growing demand from clients.

Terms of the LeaderSource deal, which was announced Wednesday, January 10, were not disclosed. Korn/Ferry paid $24 million in cash last year to acquire 100 percent of Lominger.

“Workforce leaders are recognizing that solely managing the end points of employment just isn’t good enough,” Burnison says.

Until recently, Korn/Ferry’s transformation took place exclusively by developing in-house capabilities in various fields, including executive leadership development and coaching. The acquisitions of LeaderSource and Lominger, however, were made to gain ground quickly.

“Developing the competencies that LeaderSource and Lominger have would take many years,” Burnison said. “We can catapult ahead by making careful acquisitions.”

Other search firms have rolled out similar diversification strategies. Manpower bought Right Management in 2004 to capitalize on the company’s expertise in coaching, succession planning and outplacement.

Search firms are realizing that finding a job candidate is just the beginning of a long and complex process, says Kevin Cashman, who founded LeaderSource in 1977. Teaming up with experts in the fields of executive coaching, leadership development and succession planning enables search firms to improve the chances of success for a job candidate that they pitch to a client.

“It is in the interest of a search firm to have candidates not only be hired by a company but also to have them stay employed because it speaks volumes about the quality of employees they are recommending,” says Allison Cheston, chief marketing officer for the Association of Executive Search Consultants in New York.

One of the first tasks for the newly formed entity, whose full name is now LeaderSource, a Korn/Ferry Company, is to create a fresh onboarding initiative. The program will integrate Korn/Ferry’s search expertise with LeaderSource’s coaching and leadership development capabilities.

“We will not only find the right job candidate but we will help them thrive in their new environment,” Cashman explains. The onboarding program will give newly hired employees a 12-month assimilation process that includes coaching and development.

The acquisition boosts Korn/Ferry’s network of executive coaches to about 200. LeaderSource has 50 executive coaches, 15 of whom are full-time employees, and posted revenue of $3.5 million in 2006. Some of its clients include General Mills and pharmaceutical giant Novartis. This deal makes it one of the largest players in the highly fragmented coaching industry, Cashman says.

Cheston anticipates that search firms will continue to diversify their lines of business.

“Clients are increasingly looking for a one-stop shop,” she says. “And in today’s bullish market, companies are more likely to take on challenges that will make them more competitive.”

The stakes are high in the field. A recent survey from the Association of Executive Search Consultants forecasts a positive outlook. Some 80 percent of the 186 retained executive search consultants that participated in the study indicate that competition for executive talent is at an all-time high, and 85 percent of respondents expect that the search industry will grow in 2007. Almost 70 percent of the survey respondents plan to increase their staff.

Besides the synergistic gains and the enhancements to client services capabilities, another element that makes business diversification attractive to search firms is the potential for growth. The coaching industry brings in about $2.4 billion and is expanding at a rate of 18 percent per year, according to Cashman. Getting in on the game could produce a new source of revenue for search firms. About 20 percent of Korn/Ferry’s $600 million in revenue for 2006 stemmed from business other than its traditional recruitment services.

Throughout LeaderSource’s 30-year history, Cashman says he has declined dozens of acquisition offers. He decided to join forces with Korn/Ferry, however, because of its core competencies and strong brand. In addition, joining forces with the search firm will allow the company to expand outside of North America and Europe, where it already has a strong presence. Korn/Ferry has 70 offices in 40 countries.

LeaderSource will continue to be based in Minneapolis and retain its workforce. Cashman’s title will be president of LeaderSource.

—Gina Ruiz