Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

Unemployment Benefits Extended: Good News But A Band-Aid Solution

Posted by • July 22nd, 2010 • 3 Comments

The unemployed received some good news today – Congress passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits to people who have been out of work for six months or more, and President Obama later this afternoon signed off on the bill. This means that the 2.5 million people whose benefits expired at the beginning of June will be able to receive retroactive payments, and a total of 5 million Americans will be eligible for payments through December 31, 2010.

How will the benefits extension impact the economy and those unemployed job seekers?

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Hiring Advice For Employers, Recruiters & Talent Search Firms To Help Reduce Unemployment Rate

Posted by • December 15th, 2009 • 1 Comment

Despite a recommendation from a United States Senator, and a recommendation from the head of one of the Commissions that requires Senate confirmation, and another recommendation from the #2 person within another agency (and who happens to be one of the largest contributors to President Obama’s campaign), I could not get invited to the Presidential Job Summit.  In hindsight, I should have just dressed up and crashed it as that seems to work, but that just wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. I am not sorry that I wasn’t included other than I had hopes that something tangible would come from the session.  I may be one of the few Americans who watched all of the sessions online.  More to come on that and my learning from watching all of those sessions (btw, you can too on www.whitehouse.gov).

In the meantime, here is an idea that might help, without government subsidies or any taxpayer money… This initiative would be all of us helping each other out and participating in our own support in getting people back to work.  This initiative revolves around reducing one of the largest barriers that get in the way of hiring and that is the ...

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Obama Jobs Summit Stirs Questions Over Salary Awareness

Posted by • December 3rd, 2009 • 3 Comments

Today in the White House job summit, President Obama and his cabinet invited business executives, finance experts, economists, small business owners and labor leaders to discuss ways to spark job creation. The Christian Science Monitor highlights eight ideas to help jobs rebound and of these eight ideas, there are a couple that specifically caught our interest, including:

Tax credits. As it did with incentives this year for people to buy cars or houses, Congress may dangle cash in front of employers who hire. The liberal Economic Policy Institute estimates that if the Treasury refunds 15 percent of new wage costs in 2010, and 10 percent in 2011, the result could be 3 million jobs next year and 2 million in 2011. Some experts argue the credit won’t be that successful.
Just wait, jobs will come back. The first Obama administration stimulus package of $787 billion is still only partly spent. That, plus a nascent consumer recovery, will generate job growth next year, some economists say. And there’s this tough-love recipe for jobs: Let US wage rates adjust downward, so that the demand for labor comes into balance with supply. That’s a process that tends to be slow, however.

These ...

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The Business Behind Your Health Care Plan: An Insider’s Perspective

Posted by • June 19th, 2009 • 10 Comments

It’s been one interesting week for health care given Obama’s statements on health care reform. As Associated Press reported today, President Barack Obama seems to leave little room for doubt when he promises that his health care plan will let people keep the coverage they have. This is hopefully a good thing for the employees who work at the health care plan companies as they may be nervous that their jobs could be challenged due to Obama’s proposal for a national health care plan.

So what’s it like within the walls of a health care plan company in America today? We selected a UnitedHealth Group company review as the winner of the May review of the month to help give a better idea.  The review provides an overall look into what’s working at UnitedHealth Group and what needs improvement. As of today, UnitedHealth Group receives a 2.7 company rating (neutral) and CEO Steve Hemsley receives a low 20% approval rating and a 43% disapproval rating. This winning review from a Technical Support Analyst in Minneapolis, MN gives a pretty interesting snapshot into the private health care plan industry.

What’s Working:

Job Security

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Obama Extends Benefits for Domestic Partners of Federal Employees. How Does Your Company Rate?

Posted by • June 18th, 2009 • 24 Comments

President Obama signed an order Wednesday afternoon that extends dependant care rights and other benefits to the partners of gay federal employees. That means the federal government has joined the increasing number of employers across the country who provide equal benefits to domestic partners (which are often unmarried opposite sex or same sex partnerships) of their employees.

With this step forward for government jobs, we were curious which private-sector employers offer domestic partner benefits. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) provides a list of private companies that offer such – more than 8,600 businesses are listed. HRC reports that in 2008, 39% of Fortune 1000 companies and 83% of Fortune 100 companies offer partner benefits. For example, Expedia (Fortune 699; 3.4 Company Rating) offers comprehensive health benefits to: opposite-sex spouses, same-sex partners and opposite-sex partners. To top it off, the benefits package at Expedia is frequently noted as a ‘Pro’ among the company reviews on Glassdoor. In fact, close to 20% of Expedia company reviews favorably comment on the benefits offered by the organization.

While Glassdoor is not on the Fortune 1000 list – yet – we were disappointed there wasn’t a public list to promote our domestic partner benefits and figured there ...

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How Obama and his Predecessors Approval Ratings Compare to Top Rated CEOs

Posted by • May 5th, 2009 • 1 Comment

Did you know that on Obama’s 100th day in office his approval rating was at 65% according to a Gallup poll reported by MSNBC? When compared to Presidents who held office throughout the past 40 years, Obama comes in second after Reagan, who marked his 100th day in office with a 68% approval rating.

We were curious to see how corporate leaders fare against current and most recent US leaders according to their respective communities, whether its voters or employees. Using MSNBCs Gallup poll and Glassdoor’s CEO ratings, we did some analysis to see how ratings for Obama and the previous ten Presidents on their 100th day in office compared to the 25 top rated CEOs (with more 100 reviews). We discovered that there are 13 CEOs who receive higher approval ratings than Obama.  World-famous Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes top spot with a 91% approval rating…perhaps if Obama invented the next iPod he’d be set for a second term!?!

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GM CEO Ousted; CEO Approval Ratings Were Up

Posted by • March 30th, 2009 • 2 Comments

Last night General Motor’s CEO Rick Wagoner was ousted from office in a move that was prompted by the government. As the Wall Street Journal reports “The Obama administration used the threat of withholding more bailout money to force out General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and administer harsh medicine to Chrysler LLC, marking one of the most dramatic government interventions in private industry since the economic crisis began last year.”

When we last reported in December on the CEOs for the three major US auto manufacturers, we analyzed employee sentiment around the pending government bailout and found that many employees had pride for their jobs and work but were frustrated – and even embarrassed – with the current situation, the number of management layers and poor decision-making processes.

It’s interesting that throughout the past three months, all CEO approval ratings have increased at least 2 percentage points and most of the companies’ ratings remained stable except for a very slight drop at Ford and GM.

Glassdoor Report: Top 3 US Automakers Comparison (data based on employee sentiment)

 
Company Rating
(Max: 5 Pts.)
3/30/2009
Company Rating
(Max: 5 Pts.)
12/10/2008
CEO
CEO Approval Rating
3/30/2009
CEO Approval
Rating
12/10/2008
CEO Disapproval Rating
3/30/2009
CEO Disapproval
Rating
12/10/2008

Chrysler
2.6
2.6
Bob Nardelli
25%
17%
62%
66%

Ford
3.0
3.1
Alan R. Mulally
65%
63%
14%
14%

GM
3.1
3.2
Rick Wagoner
45%
42%
33%
32%

Focusing back on GM’s Rick Wagoner, our question becomes ...

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Tips on How to Approach Suspected Pay Inequity

Posted by • March 11th, 2009 • 1,037 Comments

Glassdoor’s recent analysis on the gender pay gap in the engineering sector raises important questions that should be answered by both employers and employees. As Glassdoor pointed out, the data doesn’t give a tremendous amount of insight into elements that may be behind the numbers – like someone’s performance reviews or special skills – but it does provide helpful inputs to gather information and foster more meaningful conversations between talent/employees and employers.

(Since the equal pay act was passed, this is specifically important to women) If you are in the engineering field or suspect you may be paid less than your peers, you have every right to ask the “why” questions and make an inquiry of your supervisor/manager.  As someone who has sat on the employer side for many years, I can tell you that many things like performance ratings, practical experience or skill set, seniority and even something like location, will often affect overall compensation packages.  And most of these are invisible to anyone other than the manager, HR and the specific employee. The challenge is to wade through what’s performance, skill-related or retention-based inequities versus the things outside of an employee’s control.  For example, Lilly Ledbetter was doing the ...

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Caterpillar Employees Satisfied Overall; Company Offers 2,000 Early Retirement

Posted by • February 12th, 2009 • 3 Comments

In today’s tight economy, companies are being forced to take a step back and look at their operation as a whole, and reevaluating what makes sense for them into terms of both workforce and operations.  For many, this means laying-off individuals in order to survive, for others this means finding creative ways to save money and for some its a combination of the two.

Some of the most recent news on this front comes out of Caterpillar, who offered 2,000 of their employees the option of early retirement.  While in January the company announced the layoff of more than 22,000, this most recent effort seems to be gesture of goodwill toward their current employees.  The company has been seeing sales drop significantly as with construction tapering off, the need for bulldozers, excavators and the like are in much less demand.  CEO Owens did, however, note that if Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan passes, that he’d be able to hire back some of those individuals that were previously let go.

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Obama Political Win Means Job Loss and Job Win

Posted by • January 23rd, 2009 • 6 Comments

Although debatable, there may be no other place in the country feeling such intense shifts in the workplace as in Washington DC.

In a series of moves to tighten up operations involving the White House, President Barack Obama moved to freeze the salaries of high-paid aides in a mostly symbolic nod to the country’s economic turmoil. Obama was quoted saying “Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington.”

In addition to the cut backs felt by high ranking aides, there is one group of government employees in particular, Schedule C employees, that may be feeling the shifts in jobs and salary more dramatically than others. Schedule C are usually political appointed positions and are employees who are subject to change at the discretion of a new Administration.

According to Politico.com, there are about 2,000 Schedule C political appointments that younger campaign staffers can hope to fill. However they report that “most of those jobs will remain empty until Cabinet nominees and agency administrators fill the 900 to 1,000 senior executive service positions, including chiefs of staff. According to one estimate, many of those Schedule C positions won’t be filled before March or May, so buckle in for a long ride.”

As reported by About.com, ...

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