A CBS video news report says a new phrase is buzzing among employees of some companies: "wellness incentives." The video says some employers are offering rewards for staying healthy. The video talks about IBM paying employees these wellness incentives. Employers are paid for performing healthy activities like quitting smoking and exercising three or more days per week. CBS says IBM has paid out over $130 million in wellness incentives. A few articles about wellness incentives can be found here, here and here.
Technology Keeps Employees Working During Vacation Days
Is modern technology having a negative impact on vacation time? That's the gist of an article from eWeek. The article says workers are using less of their paid vacation time. When workers do actually take a paid vacation day many say they are staying in contact with their employer thanks to technology. 72% of workers said they stay in touch with the office during their vacations.
Increasingly, workers are simply not taking paid days off from work, even when weeks are made available to them. More than one-third (37 percent) of respondents said they anticipate not using all of their time off this year.
Fourteen percent of respondents polled said they hadn't taken a vacation this year longer than a long weekend, while 24 percent of workers reported that they had not taken a single vacation day this year.
The news doesn't improve among those who are actually using their vacation benefits. Thirty-nine percent of professionals polled said they check in with their offices most days, if not every day, while on vacation. In total, 72 percent of respondents said they maintain at least some connection with their employment headquarters while away, via e-mail and phone.
It's not just the worker ants staying connected while they're supposed to be winding down—87 percent of managers in the survey reported that they keep in contact with their offices while taking time off.
Many argue that the technological advances in communication and connectivity have led to a state of over-connectedness and an inability to unwind.
If that isn't depressing enough the article also said that 38% said they return to work after a vacation just as stressed as they were before they left.
Red Bull's Office Includes a Slide to Lower Levels
Tired of cubicles and ordinary office space? The photograph on the right comes from the Red Bull headquarters in London. That's actually a slide on the right that takes people down to lower levels. Designverb has many more photos of the unusual office design at Red Bull's headquarters. If you think that's cool you might also want to check out The Chief Happiness Officer's post about 10 seriously cool workplaces. Pixar, Mindlab and Google all have unique designs. (via Creating Passionate Users)
Simply Hired has teamed up Dogster to offer a special job search that only shows you companies that have dog-friendly policies. The job search can be found here. Simply Hired and Dogster found over 400 dog-friendly companies.
On the list of dog-friendly employers gathered by Dogster and Simply Hired are over 400 companies, including notable Internet giants Amazon and Google. Small companies of less than 50 employees make up the majority of the list, with California being the state with the most dog-friendly companies. Autodesk, a San Rafael-based software company, recently made headlines for being dog-friendly and making it onto Fortune magazine's 2006 list of the nation's 100 Best Companies to Work For. Dog-friendly policies appear to come with the territory when it comes to most pet stores, humane societies, groomers and vet offices. Local branch offices of real estate and retail outlets also litter the list.
Simply Hired and Dogster also ran a study to see what dog owners would do if they could bring their dog to work. Here are the results.
What dog owners would do if allowed to bring their dog to work:
Workers love both coffee and the Internet but over 50% of workers would give up coffee before they would give up their Internet access. CNN reports on a new study of workers' Internet habits.
A quarter of employees watch or listen to streaming media at least once a week from work, and 18 percent have downloaded and stored nonwork music, photos and video clips, according to a telephone-based survey sponsored by Websense Inc., which makes software that helps companies filter and monitor Internet use.
Many companies have Internet policies that ban pornography but allow reasonable personal Internet use, such as e-mailing a doctor to schedule an appointment or buying a gift during a lunch break.
According to the survey, 61 percent of employees with Internet access have spent at least some time accessing personal sites.
The average is 3.1 hours a week, compared with 12.8 hours for work-related surfing.
3.1 hours per week is actually a pretty low number. Both coffee or websurfing are difficult to give up. Workers will want access to both.
SHRM Online reports on the findings of a study that show workers have vastly different needs when it comes to rewards and recognition. The findings show that rewarding employees can be complicated. One example is that what is considered enjoyable by one worker may be embarrassing for another.
"For some, being honored in front of one’s peers is a great award. For others, the thought of being put on display in front of their peers embarrasses them," he said in a press release. "It depends on the culture and preference of your particular employee base."
Here are some of the findings from the survey.
70 percent receive verbal praise, but only 49 percent want it. Then there's the 21 percent of workers who want verbal praise but aren’t hearing it.
40 percent who want written praise receive it.
30 percent who want to be singled out through a special event are recognized that way.
29 percent who want a cash bonus as recognition for their work receive it.
27 percent who want incentives such as award merchandise, gift cards or trips receive them.
27 percent who want an award such as a trophy or plaque receive it.
The article says that the widely varrying employee needs means that managers need to understood workers better to figure out what they want. Employees also need to try and indicate their wants and needs to employers. The article said only 10% are completely happy with their company's reward program so clearly there is a great deal of miscommunication going on. The 10% could also mean that employees have been unhappy with bonuses or the rate of salary increase because of the overall slow economy.
Valleywag has the inside scoop on Google's snack rooms which are filled with candy, drinks, bottled water, chips and other munchies. Another site called the Google Food Photo Blog provides a look at dozens of the meals served at Google. They look like healthy and nutritious gourmet meals. Smart companies like Google are using perks like healthy and abundant food choices to provide an extra benefit to employees.
An ABC News article warns employees that they are probably being monitored at work and their surfing habits are likely being watched. It also lists these three penalties that some companies are coming up with.
Limiting access to sites: Employers are using software to block your access to specific Web sites, such as job search sites and personal e-mail accounts. However, if it's determined that you're visiting shopping sites too often, they have the ability to add them to the list of blocked sites, thereby cutting off your access.
Suspension of Internet privileges: If it's determined that your personal Internet and e-mail usage is excessive, expect your employer to suspend your privileges, especially if e-mail and Internet aren't essential to your job.
Monetary fines: This is perhaps where it hurts the most. I spoke to dozens of employers who say they already impose fines - or will begin imposing them - starting at $1,000 per violation for abuse or excessive use of Internet and personal e-mail.
$1,000? It may be time to upgrade to broadband at home if employers are going to take it that far. What some employers are missing is that most employee surfing at work is probably not cutting into actual work time.
ZDNet reports that Gartner, a company providing analysis of the IT industry, believes employers will soon request employees to buy their own PCs.
The majority of the technology adopted by businesses in the future will have its roots in the consumer market, said analyst Gartner which also believes that companies will soon start encouraging employees to purchase their own PCs.
In a research note released last week, Businesses Need to Explore Consumer Technology Before the Next Internet Revolution Leaves Them Behind, the analyst group claims that while traditional enterprise software remains critical, many functions can be accomplished through technologies designed for consumers.
Applications that are making inroads into enterprises include the Google Desktop, AOL IM, and Skype's voice-over-IP software, Gartner said.
One of the arguments behind it is that employees are already loading lots of unapproved consumer software applications, like Skype and instant messenger programs, on to their PCs and need these applications to stay competitive. Another Gartner study, according to the article, found that IT managers said 60% of their employees were already using consumer software programs. It may make sense for employees to own their PCs but asking employees to pay the bill would be pushing it.
Workers expecting a holiday bonus this year should not get their hopes up too high. An article on CNN says only 59% of employers plan a holiday bonus and of the 31% of employers giving a bonus only 13% are giving a cash bonus.
Fifty-nine percent of companies say they won't be giving out holiday bonuses in any form this year. And of those that will, only 13 percent said they will be giving out bonuses in cash.
The rest will opt to give food gifts, gift certificates or retailer gift cards, according to a survey released Monday by Hewitt Associates.
Among the companies that said they would be giving cash, the average holiday bonus planned is $683, but the cash bonuses slated range between $25 and $2,500.
Employers said they would spend between $10 and $150 on gift certificates; $10 to $50 for food gifts; and $10 to $100 on retailer gift cards, according to Hewitt's survey.
The article also said that 9% of employers are giving some or all of the money typically allotted as bonus money to charitable organizations which is kind but probably not what hard working employees want to hear.
The news media is discussing a Wal-mart memo which appeared in a New York Times article. The memo said Wal-Mart employees are sicker than average and this combined with the rising costs of health insurance was costing the company money. The memo proposes a number of ways to cut employee benefits.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could limit health and benefits costs by hiring fewer unhealthy workers, reducing subsidies for spouses and cutting payments to retirement accounts, a senior executive of the company said in a memo.
The retailer's employees are getting "sicker than the national population" and aging faster, causing benefits costs to grow faster than sales, M. Susan Chambers, executive vice president for benefits, said in the memo to Wal-Mart's board. Wal-Mart posted the 27-page document on its Web site after The New York Times reported about the memo Wednesday.
The WalmartWatch Blog has a link to the memo in a recent blog post. An article in the Ledger cites an employee-rights lawyer who calls the memo a "cesspool of violations."
"The memo is a cesspool of legal violations," said Jeffrey Winikow, a Los Angeles employee-rights lawyer. Even if the company accepts none of the questionable suggestions it contains, the memo will furnish plaintiffs' lawyers evidence to argue WalMart discriminates against some workers, he said.
The memo -- acquired and publicized this week by Wal-Mart Watch, a nonprofit group allied with labor unions -- virtually guarantees that the retailer, which already is fighting class-action lawsuits over its hiring and promotion practices, will face a slew of new discrimination claims, Winikow said.
A Baltimore Sunarticle says that concierge services offered by a small but growing number of employers are popular with employees. The concierge services can do errands for employees that are often difficult to accomplish without taking time of work or wasting the lunch hour.
When the economy began to slow at the end of 2000 and employers believed they didn't have to offer such perks, concierge services at work faded. But in recent months, employees are in shorter supply and companies are realizing that the service is a unique selling point, said Joyce Gioia, president of the Herman Group, a North Carolina think tank that focuses on work trends.
The article cites a 2005 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management that found 3% of 365 companies surveyed currently offer some kind of concierge service. The article also lists one concierge service, called Charm City, and lists some of the services they offer to employees.
Commercial (and some residential) real estate companies pay Charm City a monthly fee to keep a concierge in their building and use their services. From there, tenants can call the concierge to help with business and personal services including auto detailing, birthday cakes, limousines, flowers, gifts, shoe repair, corporate magicians or impersonators for events and restaurant recommendations.
Except for maybe the "corporate magicians" services like these can really save employees a lot of time. Concierge services may be another factor you want to consider when you are job hunting.
Tired of cubicles and ordinary office space? The photograph on the right comes from the 