In this weekend's New York Times, Floyd Norris highlighted the latest statistics for workers and corporations.  He writes:

In the eight decades before the recent recession, there was never a period when as much as 9 percent of American gross domestic product went to companies in the form of after-tax profits. Now the figure is over 10 percent.

During the same period, there never was a quarter when wage and salary income amounted to less than 45 percent of the economy. Now the figure is below 44 percent.

Accompanying his article, were a number of charts, including the below to highlight his point:


For decades, the success of workers and corporations were intertwined.  As corporations did well and had high profitability, benefits expanded and wages increased.  A rising tide lifts all boats, right?

In the 1910s, Henry Ford knew if workers worked long hours at low pay, they could neither afford nor consume the product they were making.  So, he lowered the work day to 8 hours and the work week to 5 days, while offering $5 a day in wages (doubling wages).  Check out his thoughts here.

When did organizations decide that workers no longer deserved to share in the success of the organization?

In today's wonderful edition of The Cynical Girl, Laurie Ruettimann cites that 82% of recruiters find evidence of discrimination against the employed.

This brings up the following conundrum:

1.  If recruiters and employers are not looking at the unemployed to fill vacancies, they must be looking at job seekers who are currently desiring to leave their current position, or trying to entice those who may be content at their current job.

2.  Wages have stagnated for the past 30 years....see graph:



So, riddle me this Batman, how are vacancies being filled if higher real wages aren't increasing.  Or, is the only way to get a wage increase in today's economy is to switch jobs with the expectation, that once the job is secured, one is unlikely to see significant increased in salary for several years?  Is pay compression (or even pay inversion) the "new normal?"

I admit it.  I am not a Google + user.  Yes, I have an account, and I dabbled with it when it was first released.  However, I never found the value added above and beyond what I get with Twitter and Facebook.  As a result, I rarely look at it and haven't posted on it in ages.

However, each day I get two or three notices saying that someone has added me to their circle on Google +.  Given my limited participation on Google +, I have to ask.....WHY!?!?!

Do they want to simply bask in my good looks and charm?   Is it simple autospamming? Is it my enormous....Klout score?   What are they getting?

Which brings me to Follow Friday (nice timing, eh?) on Twitter.  While it is nice to list people you think others should follow on Twitter, is it really generating new leads and cultivating new relationships?  And, why should you "trust" the person making the recommendation?  Because I tell you to follow someone, should you really listen to me?

In their 1982 article, Increasing Productivity through Performance Appraisal, Gary Latham and Kenneth Wexley argue that three criteria should be used to judge the appropriateness of the information source.  First, evaluators should be aware of the objectives of the employee's job.  Second, the evaluators should have an opportunity to observe the employee on the job....the more times the better.  Third, the evaluators should be capable of determining whether the employee's performance is satisfactory.

While Follow Friday is a way to recognize people making good contributions, they are often absent of any context as to why they should be added.  Are you aware of their job?  Have you had an opportunity to observe them on Twitter? Are what they writing satisfactory?  Or are you simply following them blindly?

With the news today that hotel reservations are now being accepted for the 2012 SHRM Annual Conference, I bring you my 3rd annual expose of SHRM hotel costs....this time, 7 months early.  In the previous two Junes, I have conducted a quick statistical analysis of the cost to attend the SHRM Annual Conference in terms of housing. 

I look at selected SHRM conference brochures (i.e., the ones that I still possessed) over the past 12 years to see what it would cost a person to book a single room on a per night average.  Clearly, prices in 2001 will be different than in 2012, so I use an inflation calculator to adjust costs to today's dollars.  So, how does the 2012 Conference in Atlanta compare to years past?

Cost of an Average SHRM-Affiliated Hotel (per night)
San Francisco (2001): $250.77 (standard deviation of $55.29)
Chicago (2008): $250.16 (sd of $28.80)
San Diego (2010): $238.42 (sd of $41.04)
Washington DC (2006): $226.12 (sd of $38.85)
Philadelphia (2001): $212.70 (sd of $56.90)
San Diego (2005): $199.94 (sd of $48.75)
Atlanta (2012): $198.36 (sd of $22.13)
Las Vegas (2007): $164.16 (sd of $31.64)
Las Vegas (2011): $126.25 (sd of $17.51)

I ran a simple one-way ANOVA (i.e., a fancy way of comparing multiple means simultaneously) to see if there was a significant difference across the means of these 9 sampled years.  The results showed a statistically significant difference overall with F = 21.82 (p=.0000) with an R-squared of 38.57% (hence, nearly 39% of the variation in hotel costs can be explained by location).  The result is not surprising, given that San Francisco and Chicago is nearly twice as expensive as Las Vegas.

Clearly, attending the SHRM Annual Conference in 2012 will be a much more expensive proposition than in 2011.   Hotel costs in Atlanta are approximately $72 a night more expensive than in Las Vegas.  However, hotel prices are in the lower third historically, representing a bigger bargain than in any other city than Las Vegas.   Further, given the 2nd smallest standard deviation in the sample, you will be able to find higher quality/higher rated hotels for not much more than the overall average.

But....once again, you better start saving your pennies for 2012, as the conference is returning to Chicago, amongst the more expensive cities in the group.

See you in Atlanta.