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December 8, 2008  |
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| Adobe Cuts Jobs
The survey was developed by Robert Half Technology, a provider of information technology professionals on a project and full-time basis, and conducted by an independent research firm. It was based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States with 100 or more employees. CIOs were asked, “Do you feel more or less connected to your coworkers given the prevalence of new technologies in the workplace?” Their responses:
Respondents also were asked, “What is the preferred way for IT staff to communicate with each other in the office?” Their responses: E-mail (43%); in-person conversations (36%); phone (10%); instant messaging (4%); and text messaging (2%).
For more than 30 years, Xerox Corporation social scientists have been studying how workers communicate, organize and generally get things done. Inspired by their Future of Work study, they provide nine tips to help workers save time and manage information overload.
Though not a surprise, 56 percent of workers surveyed admitted to being worried about losing their jobs. Alarmingly, in preparation, more than half have already downloaded competitive corporate data and plan to use the information as a negotiating tool to secure their next post:
“Layoff” is a harsh word and rumors that they were looming would send 46 percent of the global workers interviewed scurrying about trying to obtain the “layoff” list. Half said they’d try using their access rights to snoop around the network and if this failed, they’d consider bribing a “mate” in the IT department to do it for them. Luckily some companies seem to be heeding the danger that data leakage poses. The survey reveals that workers globally believe it’s becoming harder to take sensitive information out of the company -- 71 percent in the UK acknowledged it was difficult and 46 percent in Holland agreed. Yet in the US, the message still isn’t getting through with only 38 percent of respondents admitting that they had found it difficult to sneak information away.
As indicated in Towers Perrin’s 2008 Survey on Qualified Retirement Plan Governance, 54% of respondents from U.S. companies said selecting a fiduciary is the responsibility of a board member. This compares with 71% the last time the study was conducted in 2005. Under Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) guidelines, whoever appoints a fiduciary has a duty to monitor the appointee for continued compliance and faces potential liability in the event that the appointment of the fiduciary is questioned. Towers Perrin recommends that a sponsor consider having legal counsel examine whether the board or a board committee making fiduciary appointments may in fact increase the organization’s liability risk by making it potentially more likely that the board or board committee -- and quite possibly the organization itself -- may be named as a defendant in an ERISA lawsuit. The wide-ranging and comprehensive responsibilities of a typical board or board committee may result in too little attention being paid to the duty of fiduciary monitoring. This scenario can increase the potential for liability and make it possibly more difficult to successfully argue for the suit’s dismissal, at least with respect to the organization or the board. Further, both the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) and Department of Labor’s (DOL) scrutiny of compliance violations in the management of many benefit plans is reinforcing the need to regularly evaluate operational compliance. While 37% of respondents say their companies review operational compliance of qualified plans annually, an astounding 21% note their firms hadn’t – or weren’t aware if they had – performed the review. Finally, when it comes to review of 401(k) fees, nearly half of the survey respondents (47%) say they look at them once per year. This high response rate may in fact suggest companies are concerned over lawsuits being pursued against many large employers and service providers over 401(k) fees. The survey results indicate that, although great strides have been made in fiduciary training since the initial survey, conducted in 2004, organizations still have work to do to get their fiduciaries fully up to speed. While 41% of respondents said that “all” of their fiduciaries have undergone training, 31% said that only “some” have. And 28% of organizations either have fiduciaries that have not been trained or don’t know if they have received training. The 2004 survey found that 39% of organizations indicated their fiduciaries had received training, and 61% had either not provided training to their fiduciaries, or didn’t know.
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| The Dislocated Americans
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Dilbert navigates through the same corporate 9 to 5 existence in which his readers physically dwell. Dilbert, Dogbert, the boss, Wally, Alice, and Catbert tackle corporate indolence, avarice, and pretense one strip at a time, from the neighboring cubicle whistler to the project naysayer to the guy who's always just too busy to lend a hand. Get
it here! |
| 2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey Results Get your free copy of the survey results today! http://www.supportindustry.com/2008supportmetrics.htm |
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