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That means hospitals must look elsewhere for nurses by recruiting non-traditional students and retaining older nurses. Avera McKennan recently gave $500,000 to University Center in Sioux Falls to help build a lecture hall on campus dubbed Avera Hall and to help pay for programming at the Osher Life-Long Learning Institute.
"We've got to make sure people are interested in health care as a career," Slunecka said.
In Sioux Falls, registered nurses average $26.57 per hour, or about $55,000 per year, according to state labor department figures. The statewide average is $23.48 per hour.
As the state ages, it's no surprise that the age of the average nurse is increasing as well. During the next two decades, almost half the work force will be looking at retirement.
One saving grace is that many people are putting off retirement longer and working through their 60s and beyond. To keep those older nurses productive, hospitals are taking steps to make their work environments more efficient and to allow more flexible hours.
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Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com
Mar 17 04:04
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) -- Economic officials are striving to attract more workers to the Hot Springs area to help the business community to continue to grow.
"We have a number of companies in this community that are trying to grow, trying to add jobs to the community," said Dave Byerly, president of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce.
There is also a move to create a new industrial park for the area, which would only further increase the need for potential employees.
The chamber has taken on a research and marketing project to assist the business community and is working with the group Fifty for the Future and the Garland County Economic Development Corp.
The Chamber's Residential Recruitment Task Force is to identify the labor skill needs of area businesses and develop a marketing strategy to let workers elsewhere know they are wanted and needed in Hot Springs.
"This has been an overarching theme of the chamber and GCEDC for about a year when we realized that the way to serve the needs of our customers was to recognize that they were having trouble finding enough quality applicants to fill the positions they were trying to create," Byerly said.
He said a key element is learning the most effective way to reach workers who could move to Hot Springs.
"This is a fascinating research project or marketing study for us because it allows us to say we have something to sell. We've known for years that we are very successful in selling it and we can be very successful in recruiting people to the community."
The effort will help businesses that also move to Hot Springs, but the intent is for the program to have a more immediate effect.
"Our existing industries are growing and expanding. We must find ways to meet their job growth needs if we want to have any long-term success attracting new companies to the Hot Springs metro area. We want existing businesses, as well as new businesses to feel confident that they will have a dependable, qualified workforce to choose from when making staffing decisions," said Lee Richardson, Residential Recruitment Task Force chairman,
"We're hearing that from existing companies and from companies that are considering relocating to the area," Byerly added. "There are communities that have a 2-3 percent unemployment rate and there are some that can't grow because they don't have any labor to handle the growth."
Byerly said the effort is broad-based in its reach.
"It is a very comprehensive plan to move the economy forward. It is not getting bigger for the sake of getting bigger," he said.
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Information from: The Sentinel-Record, http://www.hotsr.com
Mar 16 13:56
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Technology and training have improved to the point that blind people can adeptly perform a dazzling array of jobs -- soon to include the governorship of New York. The biggest obstacle still in their way, advocates say, is the negative attitude of many employers.
The most recent available statistics suggest that only about 30 percent of working-age blind people have jobs. That figure was calculated more than 10 years ago, but the major groups lobbying on behalf of blind Americans believe it remains accurate despite numerous technological advances.
"Most people don't know a blind person, so they assume that blind people are not capable of doing most jobs when in fact that's not true," said Chris Danielsen, spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind.
Exhibit A, for the moment, is David Paterson, the legally blind lieutenant governor of New York from Harlem who will be sworn in Monday as governor, replacing scandal-tarnished Eliot Spitzer.
However, blind people hold all sorts of jobs these days -- judge, fitness trainer, TV show host, registered nurse, lawyer and so on.
"Unfortunately we're still living in an age of misperceptions of what blind people can do," said Carl Augusto, president of the American Foundation for the Blind. "We're hoping that an employer considering hiring a blind person will say that if David Paterson can be governor and be legally blind, maybe this applicant who is blind can be a good computer programmer."
There are an estimated 10 million visually impaired people in the United States, including about 1.3 million who are legally blind, according to Augusto's foundation. The foundation says legal blindness is generally described as visual acuity of 20-200 or less in the better eye, with a corrective lens. Paterson has enough sight in his right eye to walk unaided, recognize people at conversational distance and read if the text is close to his face.
In theory, those people are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which among its many provisions requires employers to give fair consideration and treatment to visually impaired employees and job applicants. But Augusto said employers routinely turn down blind applicants without incurring legal sanction.
"The ADA is a wonderful law, but many employers find a way not to seriously consider blind people," he said. "They look at themselves and then say, 'I can't imagine how a blind person can be a computer programmer. They can't possibly do it."'
Advocacy groups work persistently to change such attitudes, with employer education programs and public appearances by successful blind people to discuss their capabilities. One component of such campaigns is to raise awareness of the ever-evolving technology that helps blind people handle more types of jobs -- including software that reads aloud information on a computer screen and scanners that can covert printed material into Braille or an accessible electronic format.
"The assisted technology has made the playing field as level as it's ever been for blind people," said Kirk Adams, president of Seattle's Lighthouse for the Blind, a nonprofit agency that provides job help. "There are fewer and fewer jobs a blind person can't do."
Adams, 46, said being blind seemed a hindrance when he first began post-college job hunting, but he was hired as a securities broker and later served in various nonprofit fundraising jobs before moving to Lighthouse, which has 190 blind people on its payroll.
One problem he notes is the difficulty many young blind people face in getting short-term or part-time work during high school and college.
"There's a real divergence with sighted kids," Adams said. "It's very typical that a blind kid at 16 or 18 is not having success finding that first employment -- we see a lot of frustration around that age because employers may not be thinking about making those short-term jobs accessible."
The American Foundation for the Blind says the latest research indicates that once young blind people complete top-notch training and education programs, they attain an employment rate not much lower than sighted people. But Augusto said the overall portion of blind people with jobs remains low because many older workers who lose vision in middle age drop out of the work force rather than undergo retraining.
"You get a bunch of people in their 50s who all of sudden are visually impaired -- they can't drive anymore, they'll get Social Security benefits and maybe disability insurance," Augusto said. "They say, 'The heck with it, we're not going back to work. We don't want to go through the rehabilitation training -- it's too hard."'
Kevan Worley, a blind Coloradan, runs a company that provides thousands of meals a day to Army troops at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. About 70 percent of his 200 employees are blind or otherwise disabled.
"There are still stereotypes of blind people," he said. "When employers, educators, even parents of blind kids have those stereotypes and low expectations, many are being kept down and out."
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which tracks workplace discrimination cases covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, says 455 such complaints were filed last year by visually impaired workers -- the highest number since 1995.
"If someone's blind, there's a huge stigma to overcome and all kinds of myths and fears in the employer community," EEOC spokesman David Grinberg said.
"The fact is that in the 21st century workplace people who are blind are just as able to do a job as anyone else -- they just need to be given a chance," he said. "They know the deck is stacked against them. They work harder than others, and they end out being more effective workers."
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On the Net:
American Foundation for the Blind: http://www.afb.org/
National Federation of the Blind: http://www.nfb.org/
Mar 17 07:05
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MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Asia's aging population and an expected shortage of skilled workers in the future makes it important for the region's employers to offer cost-effective benefits to keep increasingly scarce talents, a survey released Monday said.
The 2007 study of workers' attitudes by management consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide showed Asian workers gave their employers low ratings on pay and benefits and effective internal communication practices. Those are key drivers for workers' "engagement," defined as commitment to the company and efforts to make it successful.
More than 6,500 full-time employees covering all major sectors in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand were surveyed, with a 1.2 percent sampling margin of error.
Some 27 percent of workers surveyed indicated they were actively considering leaving their current employer, the study found. Workers' engagement was found at a low of 39 percent of respondents in Japan to a high of 78 percent in India.
"Programs that increase engagement can improve individual performance and productivity as well as reduce employee turnover," the study said.
Companies need to offer a competitive pay and benefits package and to communicate their value effectively to workers, it added.
Forward-looking companies, it said, are replacing one-size-fits-all programs with flexible ones that target their most valuable employees.
"In this war for talent, only those with the best competitive solutions can expect to win," said Adrew Heard, Watson Wyatt's Asia Pacific benefits practice director.
An earlier study by the company showed that by 2050, Asia will be home to a billion people aged 60 and above, causing workers' shortage in Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore unless they become more flexible in keeping older workers employed.
James Matti, Watson Wyatt Philippines' managing consultant, said in the Philippines, which has a young population, overall worker turnover is at 11 percent a year. Business process outsourcing companies, however, see at least 23 percent of workers leaving yearly.
Mar 17 17:54
By MELISSA RAYWORTH
For The Associated Press
Available @ Amazon
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How many Americans quietly shuddered while watching Eliot Spitzer's stellar career disintegrate last week? Even for those with far lesser embarrassments, word of a big mistake -- an affair between married co-workers, perhaps -- often spreads at lightning speed.
Is it best to keep your head down after a major personal blunder, hoping to weather the storm quietly? Should you start job-hunting, or wage a campaign to fix your tattered image?
There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer, says crisis management consultant Eric Dezenhall, co-author of "Damage Control: Why Everything You Know About Crisis Management Is Wrong." The popular advice is to admit guilt immediately and apologize, he says, but "cover-ups work all the time."
In our 24/7 news cycle world, people expect all the details, but "your objective is not to educate the world," he says. "Your job is to get out of the mugging alive."
The best method for accomplishing that depends on several variables:
Dezenhall describes Spitzer's situation as "a character event ... directly relevant to his job." With an image built on enforcing law and order, breaking the law was a career-ender for him. But a similar situation might not be lethal to someone in a different profession.
If so, ask their advice, says California Career Development Association board member Maureen White. "Discuss with them, 'Wow, I really blew it,' or 'This isn't really what happened."' It's vital, she says, to get an informed and "objective perspective on what's happening and what to do."
Just remember that anyone who hired, promoted or supported you in the past may suffer fallout from your blunder. So you may need to repair those relationships before requesting help.
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"As elitist as it sounds, some people are more important than others," Dezenhall says. If you're high profile enough that your actions affect the company's stock price or sales, personal mistakes can be deadly.
"When (Harry) Stonecipher, the CEO of Boeing, stepped down in the wake of his affair, it's wrong to say he stepped down because he had an affair. The real reason is, there were e-mails," Dezenhall says. "If something is a private, marital matter, that's one thing. But you start talking about e-mails that are all over the Internet ... that becomes a company problem."
Those in management can't afford to lose the respect of their employees, White says, so they must directly address anything that calls their ethics into question. "Staying low-profile is obviously a lot easier," she says, "if you're not management."
You don't have to be famous to have your personal scandal dissected on blogs and personal networking sites. If that happens, "scramble fast," says Michael Fertik, founder of ReputationDefender.com. "Try to address the problem by getting good, positive, clean material out in front right away ... a good LinkedIn page, a clean Facebook page, a MySpace page that you're proud of."
By flooding the Web with positive content, he says, you may be able to "confuse Google," so that embarrassing gossip isn't the first thing people find when searching for you online. Also, "remove the bad stuff immediately, if you can," he says, "so it doesn't propagate."
You may prefer to ignore gossip, but remember that its impact can be huge: "All our research on gossip is that everyone says they don't believe it but everyone does," Dezenhall says. "It's a function not of reason but emotion."
"Some people don't trust HR, but some HR people are wonderful," says White. They can offer perspective and possibly arrange a new assignment. "Sometimes people just quietly transfer" to another department, she says, to "defuse some of the damage."
Whatever the details of that damage, your job performance will be under scrutiny. Anxiety from a scandal may have you wishing to avoid the office altogether, White says. But doing good work will keep things from deteriorating further and may help you earn back some goodwill.
When in doubt, hiring a career consultant may help you navigate these waters. Also, consider exploring what caused the incident in the first place, White says.
"We all have shadow sides," she says. "Maybe you did something and it could damage your career and you've got another 20, 30 years to work. You don't want to repeat that pattern."
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