Shifting expat population creates benefits challenges While the number of employees on international assignments has remained relatively stable over recent years, the percentage of “global nomads” and long-term expatriates has increased, causing new challenges for employers when it comes to providing benefits to this important employee population. Mercer’s 2011/2012 Benefits Survey for Expatriates and Internationally Mobile Employees provides an overview of expatriate policies within 288 large multinational firms worldwide that collectively have 119,000 expatriates. “More than ever, multinational organizations face challenges in providing benefits to mobile employee populations,” says Mark Price, a Principal with Mercer. “There are often conflicting objectives of cost containment, governance and control versus the need to motivate globally mobile employees and treat them fairly. “There is, understandably, a continued preference for maintaining home-country benefits irrespective of the assignment type,” he adds. (Click image to enlarge)
What Kind of Misfit Are You? - Umair Haque by Umair Haque | 9:43 AM August 4, 2011 Here’s a confession that may surprise no one who regularly reads this blog: I’m a misfit. And I always have been. And having spent a few decades on this planet as a slightly octagonal peg facing an endless vista of square, machine-made holes, I’ve developed a hypothesis about achievement. It’s this: great accomplishment usually takes the impertinence not to fit into the suffocating status quo. Consider the following. It’s not that every misfit accomplishes something fundamentally unexpectedly awesome (for example, yours truly). So here’s my question: what kind of misfit are you? I’d bet there’s a misfit just itching to be released inside each and every one of us. Hence, I’d say: the biggest and most unforgivable crime industrial age institutions commit against our humanity is to deny us the freedom of our own singular humanity.
How to avoid job search burn-out Clare Whitmell offers advice on how to ensure your enthusiasm doesn't burn out during your job hunt. Photograph: Aleksandr Ugorenkov/Alamy Job hunting can be a long and lonely experience – especially if you're dedicating most of your time to it. But when 'job search fatigue' sets in, you can lose the appetite for tailoring each application. Involve other people Keep other people up-to-date with your progress, as well as any disappointments or setbacks. Get out and about It's tempting to conduct all your job search activities from behind your computer screen. Organise your job search Set yourself daily and weekly goals, tracking your progress and logging activities. Take time off A job search is hard work. Keep the dream For many graduates and career-changers, the dream job is probably not the first. This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional.
America's Best Leaders: Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo CEO She played lead guitar in an all-women rock band in her hometown of Madras, India. She was a cricket player in college. She sang karaoke at corporate gatherings. Today, Indra Nooyi presides over 185,000 employees in nearly 200 countries as the chief executive of PepsiCo. And she still performs on stage at company functions. Nooyi came to the United States in 1978 at age 23 to earn her M.B.A. at Yale, where she worked as a dorm receptionist—opting for the graveyard shift because it paid an extra 50 cents per hour. When Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994, it was as the company's chief strategist. By 2006, Nooyi was one of just two finalists to succeed CEO Steven Reinemund as leader of one of the world's best-known brands. A caring CEO. As CEO, she has continued to pursue her unusual, and tremendously ambitious, vision for reinventing PepsiCo. By 2010, Nooyi has pledged, half of the firm's U.S. revenue will come from healthful products such as low-cal Gatorade and high-fiber oatmeal.
Eve Tahmincioglu: Hillary Clinton: Work-life Is Not Just a Women's Issue Shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere. This is the U.S. Department of State's mission statement. With such a bold mission you'd think employees at the agency have to focus on their jobs above all else, every second of the day. Clearly their jobs are important but like every other workplace in America, employees at the State Department have lives beyond work, and many at the agency recognize employees can be more engaged in their mission if their personal and home life are working well. Work-life "is not a women's issue, it is a human issue and a family issue," Clinton said Thursday at the agency's headquarters in Washington before introducing Families and Work Institute founder Ellen Galinsky, who was the featured speaker at State Department's the 2012 National Work-Life and Family Month Event. Balancing Act's mission:
Privilege: A User's Guide - Gianpiero Petriglieri - HBS Faculty by Gianpiero Petriglieri | 10:41 AM January 25, 2012 Have you ever been confronted with your privilege? I recently was, when a former INSEAD student told me that his MBA class would recognize my teaching with an award. It meant a lot, and I promised on the spot to attend the graduation ceremony and accept the honor in person. I was away from campus, so I made travel arrangements and decided to treat myself to an evening in Paris before the event. I felt a bit ashamed. Privilege, that is. I also felt annoyed. I have witnessed similar mixed feelings among many people I meet in my work with leaders in business and education. All those are privileges not only because they are unequally distributed, or because they may event translate in wealth and status. Being ashamed of our privilege, claiming our right to it, or denying it altogether are hardly the best ways of dealing with it. Here is how. Recognize your privilege. Accept its price. Forget where it came from. Use it well.
How to Set Up a Sales Compensation Plan, Page 2 One of the biggest management challenges for a growing business is compensating salespeople effectively. You know you need an incentive compensation plan that encourages your sales force to land new accounts and continue to upsell existing customers, but where do you begin figuring out the best way to compensate them? It often boils down to finding the right balance between base pay and commission. But other questions also may come in to play: Will a commissions-only model work for you? How do you set parameters for performance? How do you measure that performance? If these issues seem daunting at first, don't worry. "It's probably one of the fundamental keys for success for a business, provided they have a sales force -- which would apply to vast majority of businesses," says Jim Stoeckmann, senior practice leader for sales compensation for WorldatWork, a not-for-profit professional association focusing on compensation, benefits, and work-life issues. Strategy. Timing.
Wang Lijun sentenced to 15 years in prison CHENGDU, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese court on Monday sentenced Wang Lijun to 15 years in prison and deprived him of his political rights for one year after finding him guilty of bending the law for selfish ends, defection, abuse of power and bribe-taking. Wang, the former vice mayor and police chief of southwest China's Chongqing municipality, was charged with several crimes and received a combined punishment for all offenses, according to a verdict announced by the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Wang received seven years in prison for the charge of bending the law for selfish ends, two years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year for the charge of defection, two years in prison for the power abuse charge and nine years in prison for the charge of bribe-taking. He received a combined punishment of 15 years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year.
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