EJobdescription.com - One Stop HR Department

CIO begin to think about growing the their IT organizations

Webmaster — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:05:32 -0700

According the Hackett Group's, company leaders have identified the need to grow their emerging market presence as one of the most important priorities for 2012, compared to 2011. They now want their current level of globalization to triple within two to three years, and among their top goals is expanding the reach of their IT service delivery models.

But simply growing and tapping new markets isn't enough. Companies want to remain agile so they can adapt quickly and intelligently to volatile changes in customer demands and costs, according to the firm. "Getting the right information to permit quick action can only be accomplished when mechanisms are in place to gather high-quality data, conduct rigorous analysis, and make decisions with confidence. IT and other support functions overwhelmingly recognize this fact and are focusing their technology priorities for 2012 around the themes of improving the foundation of unified data (to create 'one source of truth') and being able to provide analysis and access to those findings."

H-1B Visa program continues to grow

Webmaster — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:42:12 -0700

The data comes from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. One list shows new applications for H-1B visas; the second list shows the combined totals for new visas and renewals. A H-1B visa must be renewed every three years.

The U.S. issues 85,000 H-1B visas annually. Of that number, 20,000 are reserved for advanced degree graduates of U.S. universities.

In total, the new visa applications from the top 10 users account for 22% of all the visas allowed by the U.S. each year. But offshore providers probably have a much larger percentage of the visas issued under the 65,000 cap, which includes graduates for foreign universities. An exact breakdown isn't available.

H-1B Visa Renewals and Approvals

Cognizant - 5715
Infosys- 4042
Wipro - 2817
Tata - 1758
Larsen & Toubro - 1608
Microsoft - 1586
Accenture - 1370
HCL America - 1128
IBM - 1063
Google - 615

H-1B New Visa Applications

Cognizant - 4222
Infosys - 3962
Wipro - 2736
Tata - 1740
Accenture - 1347
Larsen & Toubro - 1204
HCL America - 1033
Microsoft - 947
IBM - 853
Google - 383
TOTAL - 18427

Recruiting using social media

Webmaster — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:43:49 -0700

Social media sites provide distinct clues that help identify top talent. Look at the candidate's presence on Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, or blogs, and look at:

Writing style: Many top-tier recruits have blogs with at least a small readership. Take the time to read his or her blog posts - and not just the most recent ones, but the early ones as well. It will give you an idea about his or her professionalism, communication skills, and ability to evolve and progress.
Followings: A good way to differentiate between two seemingly equal candidates may be to see how many people are commenting on their blog and, more significantly, how many followers they have on Twitter. Followers are a rough vote of interest and confidence in an individual.
Word of mouth - online: Wall posts, Twitter @replies, blog comments, and LinkedIn recommendations provide insight into what people think of an individual.

Social media has proven to be a valuable resource in bad times, and it may also be a compelling resource for businesses in times-a-plenty. Tracking potential talent across social media venues is smart business because the top players in any industry or profession are likely to be actively engaged in online communities.

Talent in high demand at large firms

Webmaster — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:56:12 -0700

CIOs and other top organizational executives foresee a global talent shortage looming for the next several years, according to recent research from Deloitte. The consulting firm released the results of its survey in a new report, "Talent Edge 2020: Redrafting Talent Strategies for the Uneven Recovery." When it comes to adequately appointing leaders and staffing key operations, the report says fallout from the talent shortage could be significant. In addition, retaining younger workers has emerged as a key issue for many organizations.

Ultimately, companies that invest aggressively in talent management and development programs will reap rewards, the report concludes. "Today's top talent organizations are not sitting back and waiting for a slow recovery to solve their talent challenges," says the talent services leader for Deloitte Consulting. "These executives are more likely to invest ‑ by a two to one margin ‑ across the board on talent priorities." More than 375 senior executives and talent managers at large companies worldwide took part in the research.

Hiring is on the uptick

Webmaster — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:44:08 -0700

Janco Associates and eJobDescription.com have found that hiring seems to be on the move up. In the last few months they have found that companies are beginning to look into the future.

Mobile workers to drive IT

Webmaster — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:35:45 -0700

By 2015, the world's mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2 percent of the total workforce, according to an updated forecast from an IT analytics firm. The report projects the most significant gains will again be in the emerging economies of Asia/Pacific thanks to continued, strong economic growth. The Americas will experience a slower growth rate due to a protracted economic recovery and high rates of unemployment, the analysts concluded.

This bundle contains the following policies:

CIO IT Infrastructure Policy Bundle
Backup and Backup Retention Policy
Blog and Personal Web Site Policy
Incident Communication Policy
Internet, e-Mail, Social Networking, Mobile Device, Electronic Communications, and Record Retention Policy
Mobile Device Access and Use Policy
Outsourcing Policy
Record Management, Retention, and Destruction Policy
Sensitive Information Policy (HIPAA Compliant)
Service Level Agreement (SLA) Policy Template with Metrics
Social Networking Policy
Telecommuting Policy
Travel and Off-Site Meeting Policy

http://www.e-janco.com/Salary.htm

Webmaster — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:53:10 -0700

The 2012 Salary Survey, just released by Janco Associates, is mixed news for IT Professionals. The survey shows that hiring and salaries are up in some sectors of the IT job market, salaries have stopped falling and for selected positions there has been an increase in compensation.

The CEO of Janco stated, "Our main conclusion from analysis of the data and interviews of CIOs is that for Information Technology the recession has bottomed out for and that hiring of IT professionals will increase in 2012." He also said, "However there still are a number of companies who are continue to be cautious and are concerned that the recovery will not be strong enough to support increased IT spending." He added, "Cost control is still the rule of the day; however we have seen an increase in the number of part-timers and contractors who are focused on particular critical projects. This is strong indicator that IT hiring and salaries will go up in 2012."

42% CIO report to the CFO

Webmaster — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:51:50 -0700

The Financial Executives Research Foundation found that 42% of IT organizations report directly to the CFO. The percentage soars to 60% at smaller businesses with revenues between $50 million and $250 million.

The same survey pointed out that finance chiefs alone authorize 26% of all IT investments, while chief information officers approve only 5%. This makes sense: in tough economic times finance inevitably asserts itself and casts a gimlet eye on spending. In fact, an October 2011 report by CDW, one of the worlds largest technology resellers, said that only 40% of IT decision-makers expect their budgets to rise this winter, down 8% from last year and the lowest level of IT investment increase since October 2009.

Overtime may be thing of the past for ALL IT workers

Webmaster — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:27:17 -0700

The Computer Professionals Update Act (CPU Act) was proposed by a Democrat, Sen. Kay Hagan, whose state is home to a heavy concentration of technology-related companies, as well as financial services outfits, including Bank of America, that are huge employers of IT workers.

The bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA), which mandates that workers be paid time-and-half for work beyond 40 hours in a week -- in some cases, beyond 8 hours in a day. There are already numerous exemptions to that requirement, including salaried executives, professionals, and any IT worker "who is a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer, or other similarly skilled worker." The current version of the FSLA goes on to specify that exempt-from-overtime jobs include "systems analysis techniques and procedures design, documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs."

The CPU Act would broaden that exemption so much it appears that any IT worker who is paid more than $27.63 an hour would lose the right to overtime. Here's what it says:

Any employee working in a computer or information technology occupation (including, but not limited to, work related to computers, information systems, components, networks, software, hardware, databases, security, Internet, intranet, or websites) as an analyst, programmer, engineer, designer, developer, administrator, or other similarly skilled worker, whose primary duty is

the application of systems, network, or database analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine or modify hardware, software, network, database, or system functional specifications; or
the design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, securing, configuration, integration, debugging, modification of computer or information technology, or enabling continuity of systems and applications.

Security jobs may be in high demand

Webmaster — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:51:33 -0700

IT security professionals are projected to see higher salary increases, compared with the overall IT market in 2012, according to one national recruiting firm.

Salaries for IT security professionals are projected to increase by 4.5 percent in 2012, according to this firm. The increasingly hostile threat landscape and growing demand for cloud computing has made security the hottest IT career in terms of salary growth.

The guide listed projected percentage increases over 2011 salaries as well as estimated base salaries. The IT salaries in general are expected to see a 3 percent increase in 2012; security jobs are expected to outpace the projected average.

Dumb move by creater of CityVille and FarmVille soical network games

Webmaster — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:42:24 -0700

Attracting top employees is difficult for cash-strapped startups. To address this many of these companies give out company stock to supplement salaries that employees might feel is below-market.

Zynga followed that strategy. The creator of CityVille and FarmVille, Zynga apparently wishes it hadn't, according to a the Wall Street Journal.

The Zynga CEO, along with his top executives, decided last year as they were preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) that they had given out too much stock to employees. But rather than accept that reality, the executives reportedly tried a different tactic: demand employees give back not-yet-vested stock or face termination.

In order to determine which employees would be asked to give stock back, Pincus and his executives tried to pinpoint workers whose contributions to Zynga--in the execs' eyes--didn't necessarily justify the potential cash windfall they could receive when the company went public, the Journal claims. One Journal source said that Zynga executives were especially concerned with not creating a "Google chef" scenario.

That reference relates to Google's 2004 IPO when one of the company's chefs, who was hired in the firm's early days, walked away with $20 million worth of stock after the shares went public.

After finding people to target, the Journal's sources say, the CEO offered his ultimatum. However, as one might expect, he faced some anger from employees who didn't believe they should be required to give back the stock. The Journal cited two employees--one who has left Zynga and another that still works with the company--who hired attorneys to reach a settlement that saw them give up some, but not all, of the unvested shares.

Apple reacts to Job's passing

Webmaster — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 06:00:55 -0700

Apple last week awarded six senior executives $60 million each in stock contingent on them staying with the company through mid-March 2016.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Friday, Apple said it had granted 150,000 restricted stock units to each executive. At the close of trading Friday, the options were worth just over $60 million.

Those awarded the grants included chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer, general counsel Bruce Sewell and senior vice presidents Scott Forstall, Philip Schiller, Bob Mansfield and Jeffrey Williams.

Forstall heads Apple's iPhone software group, Schiller is Apple's chief marketing officer, Mansfield leads the company's hardware engineering efforts, and Williams is the head of operations, responsible for the work once done by now-CEO Tim Cook.

Eddie Cue, another senior vice president who oversees all online work at Apple -- including the App Store and iCloud -- was awarded 100,000 restricted stock units that vest in September 2014 and September 2016.

In September 2011, Cue was given a grant of 100,000 shares when he was promoted to senior vice president.

Steps to take before starting the termination process

Webmaster — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:52:54 -0700

When stating the process of terminating an employee it is important to have a process in place to justify the termination and will help to minimize the exposure to wrongful termination lawsuits.

Hire the right person for the job Sometimes managers are so desperate to fill positions that they bring candidates on board who aren't the best fit for the jobs. That often sets up the individual for failure and leads to termination.
Manage all employees' performance Many managers think it's too hard to coach people or to have those difficult, direct conversations with employees about the behavior that needs to change. But failing to train an employee or set clear expectations with the employee about his or her performance can lead the employee to allege wrongful termination. Most people want to know if they're doing something wrong that could possibly get them fired. They need an opportunity to correct it before the employer terminates them
Make jokes or disparaging comments about the employee and or their performance Comments about employees should not "cross the line". Not only can they hurt the employee but they could be used to define a hostile work environment which in turn can put your company at risk. The same is true for nicknames.
Inform employees of the consequences (they could be terminated) for not improving their performance Managers need to not beat around the bush with employees during conversations about their performance. Managers need to be clear that whatever the employee is doing or not doing could result in termination.

Employers should not leave employees guessing that they're at risk for termination. A termination for a performance or behavioral issue should never be a surprise. Managers have a hard time saying these words, but they need to be clear about the severity of the situation because most employees operate under the assumption that everything is fine even though they know their boss would like them to work a little bit better or faster.
Document performance - both good and bad If there have been problems with an employee, it must be reflected in performance reviews and if not, you must be write up employees' performance deficiencies. Many managers terminate employees for cause after having multiple conversations with employees about their performance, but they never document any of these conversations in employees' personnel files. Without documentation an employee has a stronger case for wrongful termination.
Make inappropriate comments about the employee via email or social networks Managers need to be careful about the things they write in emails regarding employees whose performance may warrant termination. Emails are all discoverable in a case. Those are documents that could become public.
Give employees appropriate notice Under the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) Act, employers with 100 or more full-time employees that are closing a facility and laying off at least one-third of their workforce are required to give those employees 60 days' notice of the layoff.

Criteria for hiring direct reports to the CIO

Webmaster — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:17:46 -0700

Among the multiple hats CIOs wear, "hiring manager" doesn't always lie at the top of the priority list, transcending fundamental concerns like implementing new technology and meeting compliance requirements. But since IT chiefs will surely interview candidates for key positions on their staffs, and a poor choice could be quite damaging, it could be invaluable to know about the psychological aspects of interviews and how to tell high performers from poor ones.

First, even for IT roles, technical skills may be an overblown component of selection criteria. A consulting firm monitored hiring effectiveness and employee engagement at 1,500 companies across many industries and tracked 20,000 new hires over a three-year period. Among the 46% of hirees who failed within their first 18 months, only 11% failed because of technical incompetence. The other 89% failed in attitudinal areas: coachability, emotional intelligence, motivation, and temperament.

Retirement is now a far away dream for many IT Pros

Webmaster — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:23:45 -0700

Americans have emerged from the economic recession with a new set of expectations around the purpose, timing and funding of their retirement. Not only is retirement being postponed, but it no longer means an end to workingretirement is now a new chapter in life.

Expectations for retirement have changed in the wake of the Great Recession. Forget moving someplace warm and sipping margaritas between golf and shuffleboard games; the "New Normal" for Americans involves less wealth and more work, says a survey from SunAmerica Financial Group, which focused on people aged 55 and older.

Still, the research shows people as more upbeat and philosophical than pessimistic, with a sense that the new experience of retirement can be fulfilling. "Americans are emerging from the experience with new knowledge, new discipline and have re-set their vision of an ideal retirement," says the president/CEO of SunAmerica Financial Group. "Americans have also proven themselves to be both resilient and resourceful. They are course-correcting: intending to work longer, save more, spend less, be more disciplined and adjust their lifestyle expectations."

Over 60% of dot.com bubble jobs exist today

Webmaster — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:40:54 -0700

Ten years after the peak of the bubble, only one in six of the high-tech companies founded in 2000 still survive, and only one in three of the jobs created then still exist, according to a new study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Internet-related startups, the darlings of Wall Street, fared even worse: Only 8 percent, or about one in twelve, survived.

In the six-county San Francisco Bay Area, it turns out that about 30 percent of businesses started 10 years ago are still around, a survival rate that's nearly double that of high tech, says Amar Mann, chief regional economist in the bureau's San Francisco office. "You would have done better to open a restaurant," he says.

As interesting as the study is from a historical point of view, its real value may be more in the nature of a warning: Technology appears to have its own business cycle, and like all cycles it reaches a peak and then descends, sometimes very rapidly, to the bottom of the curve. Too much money poured into companies that hire too many people without a clear idea of how to make money is what creates a bubble.

Definition of career success

Webmaster — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:34:31 -0700

The survey of young professionals, ages 21 to 31, and hiring managers, indicates Millennials believe doing work that is personally meaningful to them and achieving a sense of accomplishment are just as important as earning a high salary for a successful career. In fact, 30 percent of Millennials identify meaningful work as the single most important measure of a successful career.

Conversely, hiring managers believe high pay plays a greater role in Millennials perception of career success. Forty-eight percent of hiring managers rank high pay as the number one way Millennials measure their career success. Only 11 percent of hiring managers say Millennials consider meaningful work as the number one measure of success.

IT hiring decline adds to continuing poor economic conditions

Webmaster — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:53:09 -0700

Employment issues are adding to business concerns about the state of the U.S. economic recovery

The continuing uncertainty about the U.S. economy is impacting staffing levels at IT companies. In the quarterly survey, 54 percent of IT firms say they are understaffed by five percent or more. Another 22 percent of firms are fully staffed, but would like to hire more workers to expand their business.

The overall Business Confidence Index for the fourth quarter fell by 1.0 point to 51.9 on a 100-point scale. Although still in net positive territory (greater than 50), the report concluded that economic malaise has clearly set in. This marks the third consecutive quarterly decline in the confidence index this year. The survey found that looking ahead, the IT industry executives predict a 1.9 gain in the Index in the first quarter of 2012.

This modest gain is lower than previous outlooks, which typically exceeded five points. It s yet another sign of dimming confidence in a short-term fix to a shaky world economy. The survey found relative to the rating for the overall economy, executives are more confident in the IT industry and their own firms, but that sentiment provides little solace, given the widening gap of opinions regarding the economy. No industry operates in a vacuum, so even the relatively strong IT industry has felt the pain of global economic weakness, he said.

Data from the survey suggest that staffing shortfalls are most prevalent among larger companies ($100 million or more in annual revenue). Micro firms those with less than $1 million in annual revenue are most likely to report being fully staffed at their desired levels. The report noted, however, that micro firms tend to operate with lean staffs, compared to larger firms that have more organizational layers and therefore may experience more frequent changes in headcount.

The impact of the staffing crunch is felt most directly by workers now on the job, with 55 percent of IT firms are requiring workers to multi-task more and 45 percent are requiring salaried workers to put in more hours, according to the survey. Nearly a third of companies (32 percent) say they ve postponed or canceled projects due to staffing shortages.

Among the types of staff IT firms plan to hire or would like to hire, 56 percent of surveyed firms said programmers and application developers; 43 percent, help desk and support personnel; 41 percent, project managers; and 40 percent, sales staff. "Multiply this behavior across every industry sector and economic pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Firms refrain from spending, which signals to vendors a slowdown, which causes spending restraint in other areas. No one wants to move first. This vicious cycle ripples throughout the economy.

Even when companies decide to act on filling their staffing needs, they struggle to find qualified candidates despite the large pool of unemployed workers. In the survey, 74 percent of IT firms said it s somewhat or very challenging finding quality candidates with the right skills and experience when openings must be filled. According to the report, stalled economic recovery is the biggest threat, identified by 54 percent of surveyed IT firms. Ranking second on the list of business threats is a general lack of confidence, cited by 45 percent of respondents.

Immigration impacts job market

Webmaster — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:00:33 -0700

With the national unemployment rate hovering around 9%, the immigration policies established by Congress bring in 125,000 new foreign workers to the U.S. each month. This amounts to 1,500,000 foreign workers each year, who compete directly with Americans for U.S. job opportunities.

The current rate of immigration far surpasses our national traditional average of 250,000 new immigrants a year.

Some outsourced IT jobs are coming back

Webmaster — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 05:48:45 -0700

Best Buy is hiring some 200 IT professionals and expects its IT department to increase to as many as 350 employees once this round of hiring is completed. Best Buy, which saw its online revenues grow 13% in the last quarter, is putting IT at the heart of a strategy to respond to the expanding e-commerce market.

The IT skills Best Buy wants internally are what it calls "top of pyramid," or people with leadership qualities who can translate business strategies to IT needs, have strong technical expertise, take ownership of the technology and interact with business leaders strategically. The company will still use outsourcers to provide more direct technical needs, such as coding.

Best Buy's decision to expand its IT department may be part of a broader trend among retailers, others of which are also hiring. In May, Lowe's Companies Inc. said it planned to create 150 new IT positions to prepare for future platforms. Macy's is expanding its e-commerce technology staff Home Depot hasn't announced any specific IT hiring plans, but the company has more than 100 IT jobs listed on its careers page. The company is working on both internal and external IT capabilities. It recently rolled out, for instance, new handheld devices across its stores that can provide everything from business intelligence capabilities to customer receipts.

At a quarterly meeting with financial analysts this month, Home Depot's Chairman said the company has an "entire focus" around what it calls "interconnected retail" that involves more than selling online and providing research help. "They get project knowledge online, so there's a lot of ways in which our bricks connect with our online presence and we want to make sure we have the best experience in all of retail for that," he said.

Economy slows pay increases for contractors

Webmaster — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:34:27 -0700

Pay for federal contractors increased by only 2.1 percent in 2011 compared to 2010, according to an analysis of 448 jobs reported by more than 100 government contractor companies. The salaries of 105 jobs declined, while 137 jobs increased in pay, said the executive vice president and counsel of the Professional Services Council, discussing the annual survey of contractor pay released in September.

Chvotkin presented a few of the results from the compensation survey of Washington-area businesses. PSC cosponsors the survey on government contractors with the Human Resources Association.

"We see the effect that the economy is having on the pay for the federal contracting workforce," the executive director said.

IT job market shrinks

Webmaster — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:02:51 -0700

According to one analysis of BLS data, the IT industry employed 6.5 million people in 2001. That number had slipped to 5.9 million by mid-year. The U.S. tech industry as an employer is shrinking, even as it continues to regain jobs lost during the recession.

Although the U.S. continues to lead the world in everything from microprocessors to tablets to supercomputers, overall tech employment is being hurt by an erosion of manufacturing and telecommunications jobs. Some of that loss is being offset by growth in software services, according to the annual report by the TechAmerica Foundation, an industry group that tracks employment and other trends in the tech sector.

Tech firms have been, overall, one of the few bright spots in this economy. The industry added 115,000 jobs so far this year after losing that exact amount last year, according to TechAmerica.

Nokia cuts 3,500 jobs

Webmaster — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:28:51 -0700

Nokia will cut another 3,500 jobs as the handset giant continues to seek ways to lower its operating costs to run more efficiently.

The Finnish company will close a manufacturing facility in Cluj, Romania, and reduce workers in its supply chain operations, accounting for a loss of 2,200 employees. It will also cut 1,300 workers in its commerce and location business, which was made up of its Navteq operations and Nokia's social location services.

The cuts come on top of its initial wave of layoffs announced in April, slashing 4,000 jobs and transferring another 3,000 to consulting firm Accenture. As with the previous layoffs, the job cuts will take effect by the end of next year.

Getting a new job

Webmaster — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:34:37 -0700

Having the right skills gives you a chance to make more money than ever these days. You may even crack the six-figure club, according to research from Dice.com, which addresses what the online tech-jobs hub describes as an emerging tech-talent crunch. A lack of valuable experience in key areas - especially rapid-growth niches such as mobile tech and cloud computing - is boosting salaries even as prospects of a sustained, overall economic recovery appear shaky.

IT Job Descriptions
Salary Data

The upshot: If you've got the IT chops, don't undersell yourself on salary. Technology professionals are the basis for innovation, efficiency and creating an agile workplace. Now is the time to ask for more money. Negotiate hard at the outset of a new job because that initial salary may set the base for the next three years.

NY Mayor's H-1B statement out of step with reality

Webmaster — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:40:57 -0700

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is out of step with the reality of the IT job market wtih his call for "eliminating the cap on H-1B visas" and believes restrictive U.S. visa policies -- particularly the limiting of employment-based green cards -- are a form of "national suicide."

Bloomberg, who spoke Thursday at the U.S Chamber of Commerce about national competitiveness, has been an advocate for eliminating the visa cap, easing access to employment-based green cards, and doing more through visa policies to attract foreign entrepreneurs and encourage foreign students to remain in the U.S.

But Bloomberg's call for more H-1B visas comes at the same time the pace of visa demand is relatively low, as is IT hiring overall. In the immediate pre-recession years, available visas disappeared in a week.

Government to control IT salaries?

Webmaster — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:36:35 -0700

The Obama administration has proposed changing how the government sets limits on the reimbursement of salaries of contractor companies' senior executives.

The current formula for reimbursement sets the cap using a survey of commercial compensation but the administration wants to tie the cap to the salaries of senior-most federal officials - specifically, Executive Schedule Level I, which currently pays $200,000 a year, according to the White House's economic proposal released Sept. 19, "Living Within Our Means and Investing In The Future."

Congress will have to pass new legislation to make the change.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is legally required to determine the amount of compensation, such as salaries and bonuses, that the government will reimburse for, based on available surveys on executive pay at publicly traded U.S. companies with more than $50 million in annual sales. It's called the Executive Compensation Benchmark.

I-9 Audit Risk Faced by More Companies

Webmaster — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:24:51 -0700

Chances of facing an I-9 audit have shot up dramatically. I-9 Forms and immigration practices could be challenged.

In 2010, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted its highest number of I-9 audits ever. And that trend has continued in 2011. Its all part of the Obama administrations bold new audit initiative to find and punish employers that violate immigration laws and fail to properly complete I-9s.

Newest development: This year, ICE established an Employment Compliance Inspection Center to expedite Form I-9 audits, allowing ICE agents to audit EVEN MORE businesses.

A short list of some of the employer's risks relating to hiring unauthorized workers as well as simply for committing paperwork violations even if all workers are authorized to work.

More severe individual criminal liability is incurred for "harboring" illegal aliens, conspiracy to harbor and aiding and abetting harboring. The employer and its executives, manager, supervisors and key personnel are also subject to criminal prosecution for "money laundering."
Perhaps even more devastating to the employer are competitor RICO lawsuits for I-9 and EEV violations, which include treble damage awards and attorney's fees. A RICO lawsuit probably will become inevitable in the context of some ICE prosecutions of employer settlements with ICE.
Any ICE investigation or prosecution and any competitor lawsuit involves tremendous legal expenses.
Any company that has been involved with defending even relatively minor state or federal agency investigations, let alone prosecutions, well knows the attorny's fees costs pale compared to the substantial executive, manager and supervisor lost time and focus in managing the company's business.
An employer who is the subject of an ICE investigation, worksite raid or prosecution or competitor RICO lawsuit risks a public relations nightmare.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ("SOX"), though generally thought to apply only to large, publicly traded companies, impacts private companies and non-profit organizations in significant ways? SOX has provisions that apply to all companies, including whistle blower protection and records retention.

Hiring best practices

Webmaster — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 04:30:30 -0700

Many CIOs beleieve they are not hiring the right candidate as often as they can. The reasons are complicated, but the reality is the same for almost every company. The hiring process is more art than science, more gut feel than database. Hiring managers bad at digging in with candidates to really determine if they can be successful in the job that they are trying to fill.

As a result, we subconsciously overvalue such things as attractiveness and smooth talking skills in the hiring process. Many CIOs agree that your company's hiring skill is limited by the following realities:

Hiring managers all think their hiring instincts are great, even when they're not. Hiring managers who have more than a year or two of experience in hiring often become so comfortable with their conversational style of interviewing that they actually think theyre good at it.
Your human-resources and recruiting teams don't know the jobs being filled like the hiring managers do. Nor should they. There might be 63 open positions in IT; it stands to reason that a hiring manager should know more about a single open position than a recruiter. As a result, the HR team defers to the autonomy of the hiring manager, which means hiring mistakes happen more often than they have to.
Attractive people are easy to hire. Science says we attribute a higher level of professional competence to attractive people in a subconscious way. Why grill attractive candidates in the interview process? Just look at them - it's obvious they can do the job!
Attractive people who are also strong communicators are almost impossible for average hiring managers to decline. Without question, higher-than-average attractiveness plus slick talking skills equals bad hires over time.

To fight the natural instinct of your hiring managers to hire the best-looking/-sounding candidate versus the be best performers, you can alter the outcome by following these best practices:

Teach your hiring managers to really delve deeply into candidates during interviews in an attempt to get to what's real. Regardless of the system you use, this involves training hiring managers to be unwilling to accept hypothetical answers from candidates. Good matches for this goal are systems like behavioral interviewing and topgrading.
Make consensus in the hiring process harder to reach for the hiring manager. If you're less than confident in your ability to make your hiring managers great interviewers, a typical hedge is to make sure they have to build consensus with other interviewers regarding who the best candidate is. Some firms do this effectively with group interviews; some simply force individual interviewers of the same candidate to compare notes extensively. One thing is sure: force conversation and fewer mistakes occur.
Conduct six month reviews of new hires' performance and rank your more successful hiring managers based on canidates performance. Rank you hiring managers based on successes.

Apply these best practices to your hiring process and over time you'll end up with fewer misses and a higher overall quality of hire.

Will IT budgets increase - Janco says No- SIM says Yes

Webmaster — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:36:44 -0700

According to SIM (Society for Information Management), funding for IT budgets - including allocations for salary increases - will go up next year, but cost cutting is still a major concern. Business intelligence - despite its expense and effort - continues to be a No. 1 technology investment priority in 2011.

Janco Associates say, IT budgets will stay flat. They have verfied this by looking at the preliminary 2012 budgets that are being prepared by companies now.

Janco's prediction is supported somewhat by SIM who say 61 percent of executives are planning to give technology worker salaries minor boosts in 2012. One third of employers will be keeping salaries flat and about 10 percent will be chopping salaries next year, according to annual data compiled by SIM.

Of most concern to executives such as CIOs and senior IT managers is business productivity coupled with cost reduction. Other major concerns include speed to market, business agility, business and IT alignment and the reliability and efficiency of IT practices.

Tips for managing disputes in the workplace

Webmaster — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:19:21 -0700

Coworkers should try to address their interpersonal problems on their own before they involve their managers. Tips for taking the steam out of workplace disputes.

Stay Calm - Victims of conflicts to express their concerns about their adversary's behavior in as calm and professional a manner as possible. You don't want to walk into that conversation hurling accusations.

If you address your adversary in a forceful, confrontational way, they will go on the defensive, react just as strongly as you, and the conflict will only worsen. If the person sees you're frustrated, they have more control over you. If you demonstrate that you're not frustrated, you're more in control of the situation.
Ask Questions - To avoid a heated confrontation, Dinkin recommends asking your adversary questions about his behavior that bothers you. For example, if his listening to loud music during the workday inhibits your ability to focus and hampers your productivity, Dinkin says you could open the conversation by asking why he likes to listen to music while he works. If a coworker is taking credit for your work, for example, you might ask why he didn't note your contribution to the project when he was talking about it with your boss. The object of asking these questions is for the victim to get a better understanding of why their adversary engages in a particular behavior.
Listen - It is important for the victim to listen closely to his adversary's response. The victim may believe that the adversary plays his music loud just to annoy him, notes Dinkin, but their dialog may reveal that the adversary is completely oblivious to the effect his music has on others and doesn't mean to bother anyone at all.

The next step in resolving the conflict is for the victim to paraphrase the aggressor's response and make it part of their question-seeking resolution.

Most Health Care Organizations Increase IT Head Count

Webmaster — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:31:23 -0700

The federal incentives for use of electronic health records are leading health care IT companies to increase staffing, according to aresearch firm.

In an annual report called IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2011/2012 an IT research and advisory firm, reveals that 61 percent of health care organizations are increasing IT staff head counts in 2011.

IT departments are adding jobs at the "peripheries" overall, yet health care did show progress in adding IT positions, according to a vice president of research for the firm.

Only 17 percent of health care providers will decrease staff.

Meanwhile, health care IT jobs will grow by 20 percent annually by 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Health care IT leads the market in hiring with about 176,090 jobs existing in IT nationwide, the bureau reports.

The HITECH Act and the stimulus money now being awarded for meaningful use of EHRs is a major reason for a demand for health care IT jobs, according to Janco Associates Inc, a reasearch firm based out of Park City UTah.

"It's a contradiction that more sophisticated EMRs [electronic medical records - which are supposed to make everything electronic and make it go faster, cheaper - really require significantly more, not less IT support," said an executive with Janco. "It's going to take more people to run because they're very complex." They added, "In fact, finding qualified EHR experts is difficult."

With the health care IT job market growing, CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association for the IT industry, recently announced it will award a health care IT credential to professionals who complete training on how to install and manage EHR (electronic health record) platforms.

Now that funds are being awarded for implementation of EHRs, a real motivation exists to spend the necessary money on resources to build these services.

In addition, with health care facilities now required to use the ICD-10 diagnostic codes for medical claims, this change will create a rush for new jobs by the fall or winter.

Getting ready to hire new staff - Action Steps

Webmaster — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:42:22 -0700

The effects of bad recruiting don't show up for six to 12 months, but they're painful when they do. Dealing with a chronic procrastinator, a bad communicator, or a perfectionist can take its toll on the entire department. In addition, a negligent hire can expose a company to financial and reputational risk.

In the end, the burden of a bad hire will be felt more by the manager, who has to deal with that person on a daily basis, than by the recruiter. For IT managers, it's worth investing more time and energy in recruiting. Here are a few tips to get started:

Get more involved in recruiting - If you're a manager, cultivate a strong partnership with HR. You'll need it -- particularly if hiring does suddenly pick up. Pick up the phone, ask a recruiter to lunch, express interest in the recruiting process and offer your expertise, Winegardner says. "Create that relationship with your business partner in recruiting and HR because it will pay dividends."
Get your own house in order - In an ideal world, companies should always be in recruiting mode, scouting for new talent not only in the open market but also inside their own organizations.
Deal with poor performers - Now is the time for dealing with poor performers. Some managers have held onto subpar employees rather than risk losing headcount and not being able to replace it.
Ask for input from existing staff - The most efficient way to go about a talent search is to talk to existing staff members and ask them to weigh in on what's needed for a particular position -- the skills, experience and certifications, for instance.

HR Under Attack: Can Your Company Survive Washington’s Aggressive New Compliance Crackdown

Webmaster — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:45:19 -0700

Can Your Company Survive Washingtons Aggressive New Compliance Crackdown? Some meaningful quotes:

"There is a new sheriff in town. Make no mistake about it, the Department of Labor is back in the enforcement business. We are serious, very serious." - Secretary of Labor

The great Federal Compliance Crackdown of 2011 is in full force. What makes your organization a target? How can you stay in compliance? Can you fly under the feds radar? And what should you do if you're targeted?

An alphabet soup of federal agencies - DOL, IRS, EEOC, OSHA, DHS, etc - have ramped up their enforcement efforts. Theyre targeting employers for labor, safety, tax, immigration and employment law mistakes more than at any time in recent history. And theyre not shy about it

"Under this administration, (OSHA) is a regulatory and enforcement agency and were going to act like it." - OSHA chief
"Were shifting our focus to the enforcement side." - EEOC director

China is king of high tech maufacturing

Webmaster — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:23:10 -0700

One of the drivers of IT jobs in the US is the number of High-Tech Manufacturing jobs that there are in the US. Since 1998, when outsourcing began in earnest, the number of high tech manufacturing jobs in the US, as a percentage of the total has continued to decline. At the same time China has come to be a force that needs to be reckoned with.

Calming Voice Amid Jitters

Webmaster — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:40:21 -0700

New York Times says there is worry - companies relunctant to hire

The New York Times had a piece Monday about how the wave of worry about the economy could feed off itself, leaving companies even more hesitant to hire.

Gartner and IDC both recently boosted their projections of IT spending for 2011, but some IT leaders have noted some wariness among customers. Networking companies such as Cisco, Juniper Networks and Brocade expect to take a hit, for example, due to the belt-tightening going on in government. Governments at all levels, too, have been among the leading job-cutters of late.

That doesn't necessarily say anything about hiring, though. The unemployment rate for tech professionals, however, dropped from 5.3 percent in January to 3.3 percent in June, which Dice.com's Alice Hill calls "pretty close to full employment," in this Bloomberg piece in the San Francisco Chronicle. Recent IT hiring surveys for the rest of 2011 have been upbeat, though Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, who generally takes a more guarded view, on ejobdescription.com foresees more churn in IT employment as employers turn to more flexible staffing models and cloud computing.

Mandated requirements drive Healthcare job growth

Webmaster — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:22:19 -0700

CIOs and CTOs are given the responsibility of being agents of change, using the lessons learned in other industries to bring the healthcare industry up to speed. Healthcare has been a slow follower in IT adoption, but today is being driven by federal regulations requiring it to roll out electronic health records (EHRs) and to implement best practices in care through standardized medicine.

Among these regulations, the federal government is requiring a changeover from the current ICD-9 medical coding system to ICD-10 by Oct. 1, 2013. The effort has been under way since 2008, yet most hospitals have not begun the changeover, according to the American Hospital Association.

ICD-10 adds about 68,000 new codes that describe medical conditions and treatments, and will affect databases and EHRs, billing systems, reporting packages, and other decision-making and analytical systems. The changeover will require major upgrades or the replacement of current IT systems.

In addition to ICD-10, by 2012, healthcare providers must upgrade from the current version of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) to the HIPAA 5010 standards, which address new rules for claims management systems, including transaction uniformity and the streamlining of reimbursement transactions.
IT administrators

Flush with federal funds and under the gun of federal regulatory deadlines, the healthcare industry is leading the market in IT jobs creation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics job placement services.

The bureau indicated that IT jobs in healthcare are expected to grow by 20% annually through 2018, "much faster than average." There are currently 176,090 healthcare IT jobs, according to the agency.

Since November 2009, healthcare IT positions have increased 67%, according to online job search engine SimplyHired.com, which lists 7,200 open healthcare IT positions out of 4.9 million jobs on its website.

Leading the pack from a percentage of increase perspective are CIO and CTO positions, according to Janco Associates, Inc. of Park City UT. Since 2009, CIO positions in the healthcare field have increased 101% (more than 200 current job listings) and chief technology officer positions have increased 127% (about 100 job listings).

Jobs in healthcare IT administration are also seeing strong growth. Since 2009, database admin jobs have grown by 94% (400+ jobs); network admin positions have grown by 64% (100+ jobs); sys admin jobs have increased 43% (about 100 jobs), and storage admin positions have grown by 37% (about 100 jobs).

Private sector downsizing costs 66,414 jobs

Webmaster — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:12:46 -0700

It was reported in eWeek that private-sector downsizing pushed the number of announced job cuts to a 16-month high of 66,414 in July, according the latest report on downsizing activity released this week by an outplacement consultancy. Similarly depressing figures regarding the U.S. job market have made headlines for the past few months, but IT professionals can take comfort in some more encouraging news.

The July surge in job cuts was dominated by a flurry of large layoffs by a handful of private-sector employers, the report noted, including Merck, Borders, Cisco Systems, Lockheed Martin and Boston Scientific. The job cuts from these five companies alone accounted for 38,100, or 57 percent, of the July total. Despite the increase in job cuts last month, the pace of downsizing in 2011 remains slower than 2010, but it is quickly gaining ground. So far this year, employers have announced 312,220 cuts, 8 percent less than the 339,353 announced in the first seven months of 2010.

Optimism among small-business owners plummeted from 67 percent in June to 47 percent in July. For the last several months. The small-business economy is in neutral and teetering on the brink of improvement or downturn. Now, some believe the economy is in reverse, adding that the turmoil surrounding the U.S. debt-ceiling debate certainly played a role.

Will IT jobs ever recover?

Webmaster — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:28:01 -0700

Few tech companies have returned to staffing levels seen before the economic downturn according to KPMG. In addition they say that many organizations may never match their headcounts from the mid '00s. More encouraging: Executives anticipate increased spending on R&D, a strong M&A market, and greater revenues. Among nations expected to enjoy robust growth, the U.S. is at the head of the pack up from third place a year ago. Technology executives clearly see a sustained recovery and a strong appetite for technology related purchases by U.S. companies and consumers, which has helped raise the position of the U.S. market says another industry pundant.

Janco says that CEOs and CIOs intend to take advantage of their strong liquidity and cash positions by investing in emerging technologies and new business models, like cloud computing. That may be the one hope IT pros have to see an improving job market.

Health Care IT jobs growth surges

Webmaster — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:59:05 -0700

While the number of open IT jobs posted on Dice.com overall has climbed 24% since last year, demand for health IT talent has shot up the most, said the managing director of Dice.com.

Health IT jobs are up 75% over last year.

Although health IT jobs make up a relatively small segment of overall tech jobs posted on Dice.com, "nothing has been as large" as the surge in demand seen by Dice for health IT postings, she said. Approximately 3,000 health IT jobs are currently posted on Dice.com, she said.

It's not just the number of health IT job openings that are spiking, but pay for those positions is climbing too, she said.

Overall, technology salaries have been flat for some time, even going down in some areas. By contrast, average pay for health IT-related job postings in the medical and pharmaceutical segments has increased about 7% since 2009 to $85,244.

Health IT annual pay averaged in the mid to upper $70K range for many years till recently when it broke the $80K mark, she said.

Of health IT, the set of skills being most sought after are those related to e-health records or e-medical records, she said.

That's not surprising, considering the mad dash underway by thousands of hospitals and doctor offices nationwide to comply with federal government deadlines so that the healthcare providers can qualify for the more than $27 billion in incentive money allotted by the HITECH Act for the Meaningful Use of health IT, including EHR and EMR systems.

New Draft of H-1B Bill in the Works

Webmaster — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 05:56:14 -0700

There are also new efforts by lawmakers to address high-skill immigration issues. In the US House Judiciary Committee there is a draft that would eliminate the per-country caps on green. The tech industry has pitched elimination of the per-country green card caps before, but this approach is not without controversy.

The federal government sets a cap of 140,000 employment-based green cards a year, but it now limits the number of green cards per country to no more than 7% of the available visas to people from any one country. This limit has meant that for people from countries where green card demand is high, namely India and China, the wait for a green card can exceed six years.

The US Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security will hold a hearing that will feature proponents of high-skill immigration.

While eliminating the cap could reduce wait times for Indian and Chinese workers, many of whom may be on H-1B visas and are seeking green cards, it could also increase the wait times for applicants from other countries with lower green-card demand.