National Teacher Day
May 5, 2008
photo credit: oddsock
Tomorrow is National Teacher Day . The tagline for the day is “Great teachers make great public schools”. The first event of this kind was in 1953, when Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day. There has been an annual celebration since 1985.So, how far have we come with public education since 1953? We’ve already commented here on the declining literacy levels among US high school students. Consider as well this excerpt from The Teaching Penalty, a publication of the Economic Policy Institute:
Recent trends represent only a small part of a long-run decline in the relative pay of teachers. Using U.S. Census data we show that the pay gap between female public school teachers and comparably educated women—for whom the labor market dramatically changed over the 1960-2000 period—grew by nearly 28 percentage points, from a relative wage advantage of 14.7% in 1960, to a pay disadvantage of 13.2% in 2000. Among all public school teachers the relative wage disadvantage grew almost 20 percentage points over the 1960-2000 period.
In this era of No Child Left Behind, you’d think that teachers and schools would get additional resources to carry out their mission. Instead, school systems are often pressed to meet federal and state mandates with funding that is highly dependent on the local tax base. As a member of the Finance Committee for a small town in Massachusetts, I’ve had a front row seat at the difficult financial tradeoffs that need to be made to balance flat budgets against the needs of the K-12 students in our town - especially those with special needs that require expensive outside services. Teachers battle through tough collective bargaining to earn modest wage increases.
Most adults have fond memories of the teachers who made an impact in their lives - by exposing them to new ideas, by challenging them to perform at a higher level than they thought possible, or just by being there for counsel. Those of you who are parents of school age children know who are the teachers who’ve made an impact on them.If you want to say thank you tomorrow, by all means send a card or some flowers. If you want to make a real impact, however, vote locally and nationally for measures that provide these teachers with the resources needed to get the job done. We’ll get the workforce we invest in, not the one we wish for.
Happy Teacher Day, Mr. Ramsden, Mr. Perry, Mr. Brady, Mrs. Hennessey, Mrs. Silva, Mr. Reed, Mr. Schwartz and the rest of you unsung public school heroes who’ve made an impact in my life and those of my children.
Guest Blog: Frontline Employees Are Expendable
April 15, 2008
Today, a guest post from one of our board members, Mel Kleiman. We’ve written before about the increasing trend toward replacing customer service professionals with self service options. Mel muses here where that path leads. A modest proposal, a la Jonathan Swift…
Unless your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or point of difference is Exceptional Customer Service (like Nordstrom, BMW, Ritz Carlton, and the Container Store), there’s no reason to sweat it when you lose frontline employees. Most likely, they were not that good anyway because, truth be told, you haven’t invested a lot of money in your hourly hires and even the training you provided, if any, didn’t cost much. In fact, their replacements will probably be just as good and may be even better than those you lose. New employees are excited about their new jobs and will probably have a better attitude and try harder - at least for the first three-to-six months. On top of this, employee turnover will probably reduce your labor costs because you won’t have to fund any benefit programs for a while. And there’s no need to worry if the new hire doesn’t know very much because the customers don’t expect them to know much when customer service is not your USP. You may even want to have new people wear a button that says: “I’m new. Please help me help you.”
Customers are expecting less and putting up with more in large part because automation has taken a lot of the service out of customer service. Voice mail and automatic attendants have eliminated the need for most phone operators and receptionists. Voice recognition software has reached the stage that it can direct your customer to the proper self-service option or you can send them to your website to look up the answer for themselves. Pay at the pump, self service gas has replaced the need for station attendants. And how about self-service checkout at grocery and retail outlets? Then we have touch screen ordering, self-service check in when you travel - not only with the airlines, but also for your hotel room. (If they could only get you to make your own bed!) These self-service options are often faster and the machine always says “thank you.” Production jobs are being performed by robots and no one does repair work any longer because we don’t get things fixed any longer, we just replace them.
The list could go on and on. Today, a few great workers can do as much as what a lot of average workers used to do. Just remember that those few workers better be great because by the time your customer gets to talk to or deal with a real human being, he or she is going to be so mad and frustrated that it will take a Herculean effort to defuse the situation and keep them from going to the competition. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says by 2010 we are going to be more than 10,000,000 workers short in this country. Don’t believe them. In 2000, they said by 2007 we would be 5,000,000 workers short and we still have about 4.6% unemployment in this country because they did not factor in the jobs that technology would replace.
Things have come full circle since the start of the Industrial Revolution and, in today’s world, frontline workers are once again replaceable cogs in a giant wheel.
Mel Kleiman CSp President of Humetrics.
The Sun Also Rises
February 4, 2008
…when the Patriots lose the SuperBowl. Over at Boston.com, Boston fans are feeling the pain.
In a portent of the sad things to come for our New England Patriots, this blog from Friday got a few people’s hackles up. Over at Cali & Jody, the authors took issue with my comment that in a time of economic uncertainty, employees may want to be extra careful about calling in sick the day after the Super Bowl. While I meant the tone to be light, I can appreciate their perception that it came across a bit harsh and old school. I applaud their commitment to and suggestions for helping organizations create a Results-Only Work Environment. When organizations have to make tough decisions about their workforce, it is absolutely the people who drive results that survive - and they aren’t necessarily those who maximize their face time with management.
Doing the Talent Acquistion Limbo
January 31, 2008
In a new article from our board member, Steven Hunt, he talks about the challenges of keeping your selection standards high when the labor market is tight. He discusses the downside of lowering the bar to increase your applicant pools - increased turnover, decreased morale, lower productivity - and suggests a number of strategies to avoid the adverse consequences of lowering the bar for incoming talent.
While many organizations are competing for talent, one desirable population, the Millenials, may be underlooked. In a recent BusinessWeek article about the importance of the youth vote this election year, our board member Jared Bernstein is cited as saying Millenials “start lower and grow slower” than their parents did when it comes to employment opportunities in the US as many former middle class jobs have shifted offshore. Proactive organizations are reviving their college recruiting efforts and making investments in growing their talent from within. Although their recruitment strategies may be cutting edge (Facebook, MySpace) the employment brand value proposition may still be old school. It’s made clear in the BusinessWeek article that Millenials share many of the same priorities with their parents when it comes to employment - with health benefits topping the list.
What is your organization doing to recruit and develop talent from the Millenial generation?
What could you do with $150 billion?
January 25, 2008
Our board member, Jared Bernstein, speculated in a recent blog here on the options for the US government to intervene to stave off recession. Even as we speak, George Bush is urging Congress to pass a $150 billion economic stimulus package that would, among other things, generate tax rebates for an estimated 117 million US consumers.
The question this begs is whether the average consumer will go out and spend that money to its intended effect; i.e. to pump those dollars back into the economy via the purchase of goods and services. In this related blog at the Wall Street Journal, consumers are indicating that they’re cutting back on discretionary spending in order to be better prepared for potential workforce cutbacks.
What’s your plan? Remember the fable of the ant and the grasshopper? Do you blow your rebate on a big screen TV or tuck it away in a CD?
Guest Blog: Jared Bernstein - Recession Obsession
January 14, 2008
The following guest blog was written by Jared Bernstein, a member of the Workforce Institute Board of Advisors.
Economists, including myself, are obsessed right now with the question of whether or not the economy is in recession. It’s obviously an important question, but for many in the business community, it is, shall we say, a bit academic. The bottom line for most businesses is…well, it’s the bottom line. So at a time like this, with the economy definitely slowing- possibly, I’d say likely, to the point of actual recession - a better question is what impact might that have on the type of robust economic activity upon which businesses depend.
Let’s start with a look at the lay of the economic land, which isn’t too pretty right now. A speculative bubble in the many housing markets across the country burst last year, and the spillovers have been far-reaching. The direct impacts have been foreclosures, mostly in the sub-prime end of the market, and, much more broadly, falling home prices. But the damage to the economy goes much deeper. The housing bubble was inflated by all kinds of creative and innovative-those are the nice words for them-lending schemes.
The loan-rating agencies and bank regulators, including the Federal Reserve, were asleep at the switch, and lots of these shaky loans worked their way into the financial system, both here and abroad. This led to a freeze in credit markets, and this economy thrives on free-flowing credit. The Federal Reserve can cut rates and pump liquidity (cash) into the system, but if investors are sitting on the sidelines, waiting for this mess to get sorted out, it won’t help much. Also, as home prices fall, homeowners are much less prone to refinance their mortgages and pump some of that new found cash into the economy.
Absent housing stimulus, we count on the job market to provide consumers with the income they need to keep the economy moving forward-consumption is 70 percent of GDP. But the job machine appears to be heading for a stall, as well. Last year, unemployment rose from 4.4 percent to 5 percent. Yes, that’s still a low rate, but every time unemployment has gone up that much, we’ve either been headed for a recession or in one.Let’s get technical for a brief minute. A recession is officially called by a group of econ profs called the Business Cycle Dating Committee, which sounds a little like a lonely hearts club for wonks. Their definition of a recession is “…a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”
I can tell you the following facts right now: real income is down the past couple of months, private sector employment fell (slightly) last month, industrial production is down (again, slightly) since the summer, and retail sales, strong in November, appears to have stumbled in December. But if the officials ultimately make the recession call, they won’t do so for at least six months from now. So the rest of us, especially those in the business community who’d like to get a sense of what’s coming are left to figure this out for ourselves. My take is that the pressures on consumers are too high to keep the economy out of a slump. I can’t be sure until we see if the job market is really heading for the tank. The December report was unequivocally weak, but one bad month does not a trend make.
Still, it has been slowing for the past year. Fed rate cuts will help a little, but with banks and investors still discovering new infections in their portfolios, they’ll remain spooked for awhile yet. If you read your papers, you’ll see that Washington, where I ply my trade, is talking about the possible need for a fiscal stimulus. I give the basic thinking behind that idea here in the TPM Cafe ; it’s the notion that when the private sector cycle is down for the count, the public sector needs to kick in to prime the pump. Given the problems documented above, this is clearly a case for a measured stimulus package that’s timely, aptly targeted, and temporary. The worry is that politics will queer the deal. Already, some folks are talking about large, permanent tax cuts that have everything to do with their agenda and nothing to do with a quick, temporary jump start, such as the one suggested by my organization, the Economic Policy Institute. Anyway, whether the recession daters tell us six months from now what most us already think we know is beside the point. The business environment, especially for firms that depend on robust consumer demand, appears to be in trouble. It’s happened before, and if we play our cards right, we could offset some of the damage. But, as much as I hate to go all dismal on you, the facts are pointing towards an economic slowdown.
Are you seeing signs of slowing growth in your business? How does that affect your workforce planning?
Retaining Hourly Workers - Part 1
November 27, 2007
At an upcoming meeting of the Workforce Institute Board of Advisors in Boston, we plan to spend a good deal of time investigating best practices in retaining hourly workers. Although much is written about the retention of white collar knowledge workers, it’s harder to find actionable advice for how to achieve the right retention equilibrium point for hourly workforces. While a certain amount of attrition is healthy in an hourly workforce, just as it is in the salaried world, many organizations relying on hourly labor struggle mightily to keep their shifts covered.
Dr. Charles Handler recently wrote about this topic in ERE in an article entitled “Turnover: Insights from the Real World”. One of the key points he makes is that for many hourly workers, the job is not where they turn for personal fulfillment, but rather to pay the bills while they seek personal satisfaction through other channels.
We’ll be writing much more on this topic after our upcoming meeting. We’d love to hear from any of you who have real life examples of organizations who do a good job in managing voluntary turnover in their hourly worker populations.
Jared Bernstein Guest Blog: So, is the job market healthy or sick?
October 14, 2007
From a national perspective, figuring out the status of the current job market has not been a walk in the park. Large data revisions, conflicting statistics, and considerable regional variation have made it quite a challenge to figure out the dynamics of today’s labor market.
The biggest challenge stems from a large data revision by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). When they first reported the national figures for August’s net job growth from their payroll survey, the number was downright depressing: -4,000, the first negative report in four years.
But a month later, they revised that number up by 93,000 (!) for a net gain of 89,000 in August, followed by a gain of 110,000 in September.
Clearly, any survey, even a large one like the BLS payroll survey from which these numbers derive, will have monthly blips. That’s why I like to take a three-month average of the job changes to better tease out the underlying signal. The problem is that due to these unusually large revisions in September, this method showed job growth at an average of about 45,000 over the prior three months. In October, the revised data (and the additional month) raised the three month average to 97,000, a much healthier rate of job growth.
Bottom line is…well, there are two bottom lines (hey, I’m an economist—I’m allowed to invoke the ‘on-the-one-hand’ method of discourse): first, the job market is healthier than we thought. I plumbed the underlying data a bit and I think the revised numbers are the right ones, i.e., I doubt these latest results will get revised away.
Second, even the improved rate of job growth is probably too slow to prevent the unemployment rate from rising. It’s still quite low at the national level, at 4.7%. But that’s up from 4.4% last March and the highest rate since August 2006.
Of course, like politics, from the perspective of the firm, all job markets are local. Michigan’s unemployment rate has been at recessionary levels (7.4% in August), while that of my state (VA) is 3.1%–all that gov’t deficit spending spins off some jobs, you know.
But my sense is that slower growth in the overall economy, related in large part to the housing bust, the credit crunch, and the resulting loss of economic stimulus from these developments, is bleeding into the job market. At times like this, it’s useful to go back to first principles: demand for labor is derived demand, derived from employers and producers views of where things are and where they’re headed. Again, there’s lots of variation around the country, but it looks to me like when it comes to labor market conditions, they’re tighter than I thought they were, but looser than they’ve been.
How’s it look to you?
Jared Bernstein is a member of the Workforce Institute Board of Advisors and author of All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy.
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