HR Corner

Satyam to lay off 5,000 employees?

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:22:00 +0000

This could be shocking news for the employees of the Satyam Computers, as new board of the company may press to lay-off 5,000 employees. The meeting of new board members of Satyam Computer is scheduled to be held on June 11, and likely to take core decision including the laying off 5000 employees.

IT firms are hit due the economic crisis in the world. The board of directors will take final decision on the lay-off on the scheduled meeting on June 11. It would be tough time for the employee of Satyam Computers, as they might come know about the lay-off after the board meeting.

Due to the corporate fraud, Satyam Computers has los many contract from its clients across the world. There will pressure on the management to maintain the staff due to having less contacts in the process. Many IT companies have been adopting cost cut measures to keep themselves fit during the economic crisis. The employees of the scam hit Satyam Computers are facing two blows – one the impact of the global crisis on IT sector and other the management decision to reduce strength.

In order bring the company on the development tracks, the management of Satyam might opt the decision to lay-off employees. However, this would be clear after the board of directors meeting. The employees of the company will be waiting for the board of directors meeting that will decide their fate.

Like other companies, Satyam Computer may also take decisions related to lay-off and cost cut measures. The company has lost around its 600 customers due the fraud. In May, CP Gurnani, Sanjay Kalra and Ulhas N Yargop of Tech Mahindra joined Satyam Computers as the new directors. Now the company has ten board of directors including six government appointed directors. Now the board has to take final decision on lay-off, which will decide fate of around 5,000 employees of Satyam Computers.

Airline-Sector Woes Slam India's Highflier

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:09:00 +0000

Running an airline is a reliable way to lose money. The turbulent ride of India's Jet Airways shows why.

Naresh Goyal shook up Indian aviation when he founded Jet in 1992. With punctual flights, new planes and friendly service, Jet was the first carrier here to truly modernize air travel.

Jet controlled nearly half the domestic market by early this decade, with most of the rest going to state-owned Indian Airlines. In Jet's 2004 fiscal year, as many of the world's carriers were still recovering from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., it outpaced the industry with net profits of $33 million. Jet's initial public offering, in 2005, valued Mr. Goyal's 80% stake at $2 billion.

Now, Jet is scrambling to stay aloft.

Low fares from no-frills competitors ravaged revenue. Staff costs soared as rivals poached pilots and mechanics. Airport congestion in India made for a logistical nightmare -- forcing Jet to open an international hub 4,000 miles from home, in Brussels. Amid a glut of capacity, Jet's market share slid from a high of almost 49% in 2003 to roughly 25% this year.

The airline started posting sharp losses in late 2007. Jet eked out a net profit in its latest quarter by selling assets, slashing costs and booking tax credits, but the outlook remains tough.

"It's been hard," said Mr. Goyal, the 59-year-old founder, in an interview at his $15 million London townhouse. "We were making so much money, and now we're losing money."

The carrier's woes began as India's economy boomed in 2005, thus highlighting a broader problem for the global airline sector: Even in good times, the industry struggles to generate sustainable profits.

U.S. carriers have lost billions of dollars in recent decades despite soaring passenger numbers. Jet Airways has similarly struggled to capitalize on growth as it got squeezed between uncontrollable costs and increasingly unfettered competition.

Jet's slide can be traced to a sea change in the global aviation business. Deregulation, the rise of Internet ticket sales and other factors have made it easier than ever for upstarts to challenge bigger, established carriers.

In India, where state-run carriers and government policies stymied air travel for decades, the sudden transition proved tumultuous. Last year was particularly rough. The airline business floundered as fuel prices surged, the credit crunch hit and world-wide travel plunged.

Jet is reacting by cutting staff, closing offices around Asia and reducing flight frequencies. Searching for profitable routes, Jet recently took planes from India's crowded domestic market and expanded service to Dubai. It soon plans to start flying to Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Goyal cut his teeth in the airline business by working -- and sleeping -- at his uncle's New Delhi travel agency while he was an 18-year-old student. Seven years later, in 1974, he started his own agency, bankrolled by personal savings and a gold bracelet of his mother's that he pawned. As the Indian sales agent for overseas carriers including Air France and Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., he learned the ins and outs of upscale air travel.

Jet was one of several carriers launched after India began deregulating domestic aviation in 1991, and initial competition was fierce. Jet survived as rivals failed, thanks in part to Mr. Goyal's longstanding links to foreign carriers with which Jet cooperated to fly international passengers.

Although Indian law had granted state-owned Air India a monopoly on foreign flights since 1953, Mr. Goyal prepared for the day that Jet would be allowed to extend its network overseas. He entertained politicians, aviation officials and travel professionals in his London townhouse overlooking tony Regents Park. "I was convinced one day India would have to open up," he says.

Anticipating the change, Mr. Goyal focused on creating a passenger experience to rival the world's best carriers. He poured tens of millions of dollars into cabin entertainment systems, ergonomic seats and staff training.

He also turned the trend of outsourcing to India on its head by hiring American pilots, recruiting managers from leading Asian and European carriers, and unabashedly aping the innovations of up-market trailblazing airlines such as Singapore Airlines Ltd.

"Naresh Goyal's policy of hiring expats broke the mold in India -- he was a pioneer," says Craig Jenks, president of Airline/Aircraft Projects, a global aviation consulting firm in New York.

In 2004, India allowed private airlines to fly overseas. Mr. Goyal jumped at the opportunity. He ordered 10 Boeing 777s, and fitted the first-class cabins with spacious private compartments modeled after those created by Dubai's upscale Emirates Airline. Jet's initial public offering in 2005 was 16-times oversubscribed amid national enthusiasm for the airline and its whole industry.

Jet Airways India Chairman Naresh Goyal, above, celebrates the carrier's new European hub at Zaventem Airport in Brussels in May 2007.
But Jet's success also spawned competition. Vijay Mallya, chairman of Indian brewing and distilling giant United Breweries (Holding) Ltd., launched upscale Kingfisher Airlines. It was meant to double as a flying promotion for his top beer brand, Kingfisher.

A tiny upstart launched in 2003, Air Deccan, proved even more damaging to Jet. Copying the no-frills approach pioneered by Southwest Airlines Co., it served secondary cities that Jet didn't touch. Deccan opened a floodgate by showing the low-cost model could work in India. In 2005, a group of entrepreneurs started a similar low-cost carrier, SpiceJet Ltd. That same year, a major Indian travel-services company started its own budget carrier, IndiGo.

Mr. Goyal fought back by acquiring no-frills competitor Air Sahara, which he rebranded as JetLite.

Indian carriers grabbed the spotlight at the 2005 Paris Air Show, the aviation sector's big industry event. There, they announced orders for planes valued at more than $15 billion. IndiGo ordered 100 Airbus airliners even before it secured government permission to start flying. Although Kingfisher had only been flying for two months, Mr. Mallya splashed out by ordering five Airbus A380 superjumbos, the world's largest passenger planes.

India's growing middle class was helping tug the global aviation industry from its post-9/11 slump. "Everyone is talking about China," observed Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy at the Paris Air Show that year. "But the biggest growth story we see is India."

Foreign investors, financiers and leasing companies, all hungry for new markets, raced to bankroll India's breakneck airline expansion. Indians who had long squeezed onto wheezing, sweaty trains began jetting about the country.

Jet soon faced another hurdle: India's outdated aviation infrastructure clogged up. Air-traffic delays added 10% to flight times and cost $80 million in wasted fuel during 2006, Jet executives said, and things were getting worse. "The average 70-minute domestic flight spends another 35 minutes circling," Mr. Goyal complained last spring.

The lack of modern aircraft-maintenance facilities in India forced Jet to send planes overseas for routine upkeep, adding millions of dollars to its bills. The cost of retaining veteran mechanics, flight attendants and pilots soared as new rivals poached qualified staff.

Even Jet's budget subsidiary, JetLite, and other no-frills carriers struggled. "There are no low-cost airlines in India, only low-fare, no-profit carriers," Mr. Goyal said at a Jet media gathering in 2007.

Yet Indian carriers kept chasing market share by slashing fares and adding planes, even as losses ballooned.

By last June, Mr. Goyal saw that competition had made business untenable. "We're all in trouble," he lamented at an industry conference, saying each domestic carrier should slash capacity by 30%. Kingfisher's Mr. Mallya scoffed that Mr. Goyal "doesn't know how to do math."

But Kingfisher was losing so much money that it soon canceled airplane orders and new routes vital to its overseas expansion. In a sign of the industry's distress, the bitter rivals last October announced an alliance to share airport facilities, coordinate schedules and reduce capacity. The deal still faces regulatory approval.

Mr. Goyal had enjoyed a major edge over rivals in one key battleground: overseas flights. Indian deregulation in 2004 opened up international routes only to private carriers that had flown domestically for at least five years. Jet's experience allowed Mr. Goyal to move first, launching flights to Singapore, London and Kuala Lumpur in 2005.

Jet quickly grabbed traffic from state-owned Air India, which had struggled to compete globally due to its poor service. Wealthy Indians who had preferred foreign carriers such as British Airways PLC were glad to have a local alternative.

Ajit Balakrishnan, founder of India's largest Internet portal, says Jet staff "deliver a superb product" on the domestic flights he takes weekly from Mumbai, and so he jumped at the chance to fly Jet overseas. The 60-year-old veteran advertising executive often books on Jet, which began offering service to New York-area airports in August of 2007. He recommends Jet to foreign friends for its "modern luxury."

But Mr. Goyal's intercontinental ambitions faced huge obstacles at India's overtaxed airports. Flights from India to the U.S. or Europe require big planes to carry sufficient fuel, and big planes need lots of passengers to run profitably.

In mature markets, airlines generally fill long-haul flights with traffic from many smaller planes arriving at a hub for connections. To coordinate this, airlines need lots of boarding gates, airplane parking spots and runways slots. India's major airports lacked all of them.

Anxious to expand, Mr. Goyal hit on an unlikely option during a state visit to India by the King of Belgium in 2005: using the Brussels airport as a hub for North American-bound flights. The facility had sat largely empty since the collapse of national carrier Sabena four years earlier. Talks with Belgian officials at Mumbai's luxurious Taj hotel quickly yielded an action plan.

"It was a proper business meeting with an agenda," recalls Mr. Goyal, who was more accustomed to India's glacial bureaucracy.

Winning regulatory approval for the unusual arrangement from Belgium and the U.S. took months, but by late 2007, Jet's wide-body airliners were arriving in Brussels each morning from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, mixing passengers and departing again for New York's JFK International Airport, Newark Liberty Airport and Toronto. Another three planes did the same trip in reverse.

The four-hour Brussels stopover lengthens passengers' trip time compared with a nonstop flight. It also forces Jet to move hundreds of passengers and their bags quickly through a foreign airport at great expense. But thanks to close cooperation with the privately owned airport, which was hungry for business, Jet was able to offer nine different connections between Indian and North American airports, compared with only three connections possible with nonstop flights.

But as fuel prices rose in 2008 and America's financial problems rippled to India's outsourcing operations, Jet flights through Brussels grew emptier. Costs rose. Only weeks after adding a seventh Brussels flight last Oct. 31, from Bangalore, Jet reversed course on Nov. 25 and canceled the route, citing economic turmoil. Jet now serves 60 destinations, including 19 outside India.

"The crisis has forced us to look much more closely at costs," Mr. Goyal said at his London mansion.

Mr. Goyal says he remains committed to Brussels and predicts the North American operation will break even this summer. But many rivals doubt the long-term viability of a hub so far from home. "It doesn't work," says Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, chief executive of Air France-KLM SA, which operates huge hubs in Paris and Amsterdam. Successful hubs rely on big traffic volumes, which Jet cannot guarantee, he says.

Mr. Goyal says falling Indian wages now give him a leg up, because labor accounts for only around 15% of Jet's costs, compared with more than 20% for most Western carriers. Still, he says Jet will refocus on cutting costs and expanding in less-competitive markets of Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

"I want to learn how to buy my insurance for the next four years," Mr. Goyal said of his efforts to protect Jet. "I'm the biggest shareholder, so I suffer the most."

Courtesy : WSJ

IT- Hinduja group unveils big plans for Difiance Tech

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:04:00 +0000

CHENNAI: The diversified multi-billion Dollar conglomerate Hinduja group, with global presence across 30 countries, unveiled its big plans on
Thursday for its engineering and design services company — Defiance Tech.

It is set to ramp up operations, enter more markets and add more industry verticals. It is also looking at setting up a facility in Bangalore.

The Detroit-based Defiance, founded in 1976, was acquired for $17 million by the Hinduja Group in 2007. Its global clientele include 30 of the global\Fortune 500 companies.

It has 1000 resource pool, largely working in the US and Chennai engaged in delivering high-end solutions . Defiance has a 2.40 lakh sq ft facility in Detroit and it is on par with leading OEMs in engineering, IT and manufacturing services space.

The company has appointed a new CEO — Subu D Subramanian (former senior VP, Satyam) — to support the vision of Defiance to emerge as a global market leader in providing integrated engineering, manufacturing and enterprise solutions (EMEs).

He said the company will utilise the strong manufacturing strength of group companies and their domain expertise to offer a comprehensive range of engineering, manufacturing and enterprise services across the industry value chain leveraging global delivery model.

"Our vision is to be recognised as among top ten global players for solution excellence in less than three years in this space. We are targeting to scale up our strength to 5000 and revenue to $ 250 Million during this period", he told ET on Thursday.

It will be leveraging its capabilities with a 3-dimensional business approach of integrating technology, global service delivery and domain knowledge, Mr Subramanian said.

The group is looking at expanding the scope of Defiance by taking it beyond engineering. From product testing and validation services and design and engineering services, it has included enterprises services and manufacturing as its thrust areas.

It will widen the area of sectoral focus to include automotive, aerospace, defence, industrial and high-tech and general manufacturing. On the locational front, it would now evaluate opportunities in the Middle East and APAC regions besides US and Europe.
The Hinduja group always had a visible long-term plan, signified by the emerging pattern. It has adopted a long-term strategy to diversify and overcome vulnerabilities of the cyclical commercial vehicle industry, Defiance chairman and Hinduja automotive executive vice chairman, V Sumantran said.

Instead of being a plain vanilla product company by confining itself to being a general service provider, "we have aggressive growth plans for Difiance", he said.

Referring to the group’s strengths and the several partnerships that had been forged, Mr Sumantran said the Nissan joint-venture is proceeding quite well.

Increasing use of embedded electronics in vehicles, infotainment and green technology focus had brought in a new era of transportation economics that calls for an integrated solution. The acquisition of Defiance has bolstered its design and service offering capability, he said.

"The other dimension of growth we are seeking is to serve customers beyond automotive to other industry verticals including aerospace and defence," he said, adding if the auto business is all about volume, the aero industry revolves around value, he said noting that globally, and companies are re-orienting themselves.

Under the EME framework, it will offer design-to-build option and shop floor to top floor integration solutions and business process cost optimisation for its customers. "Our goal is to be recognised as among top ten global players for solution excellence in less than three years in this space," he said.

Defiance has 2.40 lakh sq ft facilities in Detroit which is on par with leading OEMs.

Stating that it is not interested to jump into the IT-commodity bandwagon, Mr Subramanian said "we are at the next wave of providing high-value solutions. Our aim is to bring superior value creation for global customers accelerated by innovation and intellectual property creation.".

Globally, Defiance is scouting for talent, creating a network of thoughtleaders. They would be assembled as an advisory pool, who would suggest right investments.

Tech Mahindra writes to World Bank

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:01:00 +0000

Tech Mahindra, the new owner of the troubled Indian IT services firm Satyam, has officially written to the World Bank seeking an end to the
eight-year ban against Satyam Computer Services for allegedly providing improper benefits to the bank's staff.

The company has rebranded itself as Mahindra Satyam.

'We wrote to the bank a few weeks ago. We don't expect an immediate response as these things take time but we disagree with the claims they've made,' Australian IT quoted Tech Mahindra executive vice-chairman Vineet Nayyar as saying in Sydney.

Satyam was blacklisted last September and a month later was forced to deny reports that its contractors had installed spy software on World Bank computers.

Tech Mahindra also said that it remains committed to developing a $75 million IT facility in Geelong and will continue to service Telstra despite losing a $30 million-plus contract.

Nayyar reaffirmed the company's commitment in talks with Victorian Innovation Minister Gavin Jennings this week.

"We're committed to the project (but) we've got due diligence in place. The goal is to complete the project but we need to investigate how much investment is needed," Nayyar said.

The Geelong project was announced more than a year ago with Satyam as the main financial backer, in partnership with the Victorian government, the City of Greater Geelong and Deakin.

The software hub was to create 2,000 jobs, a welcome reprieve for a region afflicted by automotive industry job losses.

Satyam's local chief, Venki Prathivadi, said Telstra was still a customer despite reports that TELCO had severed all ties.

"We had a five-year contract with Telstra from 2003 and we fully served it. Telstra put out a request for proposals and we made it to the short list," Prathivadi said.

Satyam still has contracts worth $135 million with Qantas and $12 million with Suncorp.

Courtesy : Economic times

Scam-hit Satyam Computers renamed Mahindra Satyam

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:57:00 +0000

Scandal-hit Satyam Computers has been named Mahindra Satyam. The logo will be adopted from the Mahindra Group.

Speaking on the rebranding initiative, Mr. Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Mahindra Group, said, “Customer centricity, high standards of corporate governance, unimpeachable ethics form the cornerstones of the Mahindra Group. This rebranding exercise symbolizes an amalgamation of the Mahindra Group’s values with Satyam’s fabled expertise, even as it retains that part of Satyam’s identity which signifies commitment, purpose and proficiency of the organization and its people.”

Vineet Nayyar, Executive Vice Chairman, Satyam Board, commenting on the new identity, “This is a significant milestone towards the recovery of the company. We are optimistic that this new brand will re-energize the organization and will be well received by all our stakeholders. With this initiative, we will witness steps by the Management to adopt and inculcate the values of ‘performance and customer first’, ‘good corporate governance and citizenship’, which are drawn from the Mahindra Group. With this synergistic approach, Mahindra Satyam will learn from the best management practices of the Mahindra Group while focusing on nurturing Satyam’s innate skills and capabilities.”

Tech Mahindra will finalise this weekend a new identity for Satyam Computer Services, the scam-tainted IT company it bought in an open auction last April.

The decision was taken at a closed-door meeting attended by top executives of Tech Mahindra Hyderabad this weekend. The new brand has drawn on the strengths of both Satyam and Tech Mahindra.

The meeting was attended by Mahindra & Mahindra vice-chairman Anand Mahindra, group HR head Rajeev Dubey, Tech Mahindra CEO Vineet Nayyar, international operations head CP Gurnani and strategic initiatives head Rajeev Kalra.

Senior executives at Satyam, TechM and M&M had been working on the re-branding exercise with select external advisors ever since TechM acquired the company.

Satyam Computers, one of the top IT companies of India, shocked corporate India last January when its founder and then CEO B Ramalinga Raju confessed to cooking its books over years. The government launched a massive probe, took control over its board, and after three months, put the company up for sale.

Tech Mahindra did not want to continue with the Satyam brand in its present form, though it wanted to leverage the strengths of the firm. The new brand will convey the synergies of Satyam, well-known for its expertise in areas such as enterprise resource planning, M&M group’s global brand and corporate governance and Tech Mahindra’s strength in telecom.

Apart from re-branding, Tech Mahindra and Satyam senior executives also discussed the joint go-to-market strategy of the two companies.

Courtesy : Economic times

Indian Railway Employees: Sixth Pay Commission Pay hike after budget

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:28:00 +0000

As we had reported in our previous article New Pay Band of Indian Railway Employees: Sixth Pay Commission. Now, the news is getting hotter in expectations for the Railway Budget, which is slated to come out on July 8th 2009. The new Railways Minister Mamta Banerjee will be presenting the budget.

How much amount of money is expected to be included for Sixth Pay Commission Railway Employees Salary Hike?

Around 14,000 Crore Rs. are expected to be included for the Indian Railways employees for their salary hike as per the Sixth Pay Commission.

What are the developments for implementation for New Pay Band of Indian Railway Employees as per Sixth Pay Commission?

The most recent development has been the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission Salary Hike in Tamilnadu TN. Like TMC< DMK is also a close ally of UPA government. Since DMK has gone ahead and implemented the Pay Commission Salary hike in TN, the same is expected from Mamta Banerjee who is expected not leave any stone unturned for the benefit of the Railways employees.

What will be the expected salary hikes for the Indian Railway employees?
The Indian Railway employees can expect a sweet bonanza, if the reports are to be believed.

According to the arrear payment plan, Railways would make 40 per cent of arrear payment in the current financial year.

Rest 60% of the arrears would be paid in the next fiscal. The government on Friday finalised the notification on the pay panel report. It would cost the exchequer Rs 22,000 crore this year.

It is expected that each Railway employee will take home an average of 21 per cent higher salary next month. That is a big amount.

The salary increase for Group A officers will be much more than 21 per cent and in cases of some senior Railway Board officials, the hike is almost 50 per cent

Hewlett-Packard HP Layoffs Job Cut: may fire 6400 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:21:00 +0000

The news is not good for the employees of the Hewlett-Packard HP, which is the world famous computers and printers & accessories company. We had reported about Hewlett-Packard HP Layoffs Job Cut and now the news has added to it. Now the situation is getting worse for the employees as the recession is taking a toll on all sectors and all of the sectors are feeling the heat. The latest on to add to the list is the Hewlett-Packard HP Organization, which may be going for layoffs.

How many employees may be fired in the Hewlett-Packard HP layoffs?

As per the reports, there can be around 6400 layoffs by Hewlett-Packard HP.

What is the total no. of employees of Hewlett-Packard HP?

The total no. of employees of Hewlett-Packard HP is around 320000 as of now.

What will be the cost and savings by Hewlett-Packard HP layoffs?
No info about that.

When will the Hewlett-Packard HP layoffs happen?

The layoffs will occur in a planned and phased manner over the next 1 year.

Which locations and department of employees will be affected by the Hewlett-Packard HP layoffs ?
No info is available location or department wise.

What is the primary reasons for Hewlett-Packard HP layoffs?
The primary reasons for layoffs is cost cutting and structural changes in the organization with an aim to improve effectiveness of business.

Any other news about Hewlett-Packard HP layoffs
As per IndiaTimes, HP said net profit fell to $1.7 billion, or 86 cents per share, in the second quarter of its fiscal year from $2.1 billion, or 87 cents per share, a year ago, in line with the expectations of Wall Street analysts.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of Hewlett-Packard HP Layoffs Job Cut

Indian Railway Employees: Sixth Pay Commission Pay hike after budget

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:14:00 +0000

As we had reported in our previous article New Pay Band of Indian Railway Employees: Sixth Pay Commission. Now, the news is getting hotter in expectations for the Railway Budget, which is slated to come out on July 8th 2009. The new Railways Minister Mamta Banerjee will be presenting the budget.

How much amount of money is expected to be included for Sixth Pay Commission Railway Employees Salary Hike?
Around 14,000 Crore Rs. are expected to be included for the Indian Railways employees for their salary hike as per the Sixth Pay Commission.

What are the developments for implementation for New Pay Band of Indian Railway Employees as per Sixth Pay Commission?
The most recent development has been the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission Salary Hike in Tamilnadu TN. Like TMC< DMK is also a close ally of UPA government. Since DMK has gone ahead and implemented the Pay Commission Salary hike in TN, the same is expected from Mamta Banerjee who is expected not leave any stone unturned for the benefit of the Railways employees.

What will be the expected salary hikes for the Indian Railway employees?
The Indian Railway employees can expect a sweet bonanza, if the reports are to be believed.

According to the arrear payment plan, Railways would make 40 per cent of arrear payment in the current financial year.

Rest 60% of the arrears would be paid in the next fiscal. The government on Friday finalised the notification on the pay panel report. It would cost the exchequer Rs 22,000 crore this year.

It is expected that each Railway employee will take home an average of 21 per cent higher salary next month. That is a big amount.

The salary increase for Group A officers will be much more than 21 per cent and in cases of some senior Railway Board officials, the hike is almost 50 per cent

List of Recession proof Countries: Surveyed by Servcorp

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:59:00 +0000

So you were wondering when will this factor called Global Recession end and whether your country has been affected by the recession
Servcorp has recently published results of the survey in which they have disclosed about the countries which are least hit by recession. Here, we provide the list (Courtesy of ServCorp) as below:

Rank Country

1st Australia

2nd China

3rd equal India, Singapore

5th Hong Kong

6th Canada

7th equal Japan, Qatar

9th New Zealand

10th equal Malaysia, Sweden, Vietnam

13th equal Netherlands, United States of America

15th Indonesia

16th South America

17th France

18th equal Belgium, England, Korea, South Africa

22nd equal Austria, Taiwan

24th equal Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Lebanon, Russia, United Arab Emirates

30th equal Brazil, Morocco, Philippines, Scotland, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand

What I am particulary surprised about is the inclusion of USA at the 13th spot. It has been the front runner for the recession due to its global influence, yet it managed to end up at the 13th position in the recession proof countries. That's interestng!
Anyways, these are survey results

GE Money Layoffs Job Cut: may fire 250 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:11:00 +0000

First it was GE Security Layoffs Job Cut and then it was GE Aviation Layoffs Job Cut. Now, The news is from GE Money, the division which provides private-label credit cards to retailers, is reported to be going for layoffs. The news is not good for the employees of the GE Money as the organization is going for job cuts. Now the situation is getting worse for the employees as the recession is taking a toll on all sectors and all of the sectors are feeling the heat.
How many employees may be fired in the GE Money layoffs?
As per the reports, there are going to be 250 job cuts by GE Money.

What is the total no. of employees of GE Money?
The total no. of employees of GE Money is not known as of now.

What will be the cost and savings by GE Money layoffs?
No information available on the cost and savings by the GE Money layoffs.

When will the GE Money layoffs happen?
The layoffs will be completed by June 29, 2009.

Which locations and department of employees will be affected by the GE Money layoffs ?
The layoffs would mainly be in the Tampa office where ALL the employees will be laid off (customer service center at 3802 Northdale Blvd)

What is the primary reasons for GE Money layoffs?
The reason being quoted is the GE Money is consolidating some of its customer service operations into other offices and hence all the work being done in Tampa will now move to GE Money center in Kansas.

Any other news about GE Money layoffs
As per TBO, Workers at the Tampa call center will be offered severance payments, job placement assistance and career counseling.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of GE Money Layoffs Job Cut

Barclays Layoffs Job Cut: may fire 700 UK employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:04:00 +0000

The news is not good for the employees of the Barclays Corporation, the major banking organizations, as the organization may be going for job cuts. Now the situation is getting worse for the employees as the recession is taking a toll on all sectors and all of the sectors are feeling the heat. The latest on to add to the list is the Barclays Organization, which may be going for layoffs.
How many employees may be fired in the Barclays layoffs?
As per the reports, there can be around 700 layoffs by Barclays. Out of this, around 50% or 350 are new job cuts while the rest are what was announced last year as a part of 1800 job cuts.

What is the total no. of employees of Barclays?
The total no. of employees of Barclays is not known as of now.

What will be the cost and savings by Barclays layoffs?
No info about the savings to be made.

When will the Barclays layoffs happen?
The layoffs are going to be done in phases through the year end.

Which locations and department of employees will be affected by the Barclays layoffs ?
All job cuts will be in UK. It will be the IT staff that will face the axe. These jobs are reported to be shifted to low cost countries like Hungry, India and Singapore.

What is the primary reasons for Barclays layoffs?
Cost Cutting and relocation of jobs to lost cosst countries.

Any other news about Barclays layoffs
As per CIO, A separate 4,200 job cuts are taking place in investment banking, wealth management and retail banking, outside of the GISD division, but expected to affect back office staff extensively.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of Barclays Layoffs Job Cut

Japan Airlines Layoffs Job Cut: may fire 1200 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

The news is not good for the employees of the Japan Airlines Corporation, which is the leading airline company of Japan, as the organization may be going for job cuts. Now the situation is getting worse for the employees as the recession is taking a toll on all sectors and all of the sectors are feeling the heat. The latest on to add to the list is the Japan Airlines Organization, which may be going for layoffs.
How many employees may be fired in the Japan Airlines layoffs?
As per the reports, there can be around 1200 layoffs by Japan Airlines.

What is the total no. of employees of Japan Airlines?
The total no. of employees of Japan Airlines is reported to be around 49,200 globally. Plans are to reduce it to 48,000 which means that there can be more layoffs.

What will be the cost and savings by Japan Airlines layoffs?
Plans are to cut costs by around 50 billion yen or USD 512 million.

When will the Japan Airlines layoffs happen?
The layoffs are going to be done this fiscal year.

Which locations and department of employees will be affected by the Japan Airlines layoffs ?
No info available location or department wise.

What is the primary reasons for Japan Airlines layoffs?
Cost Reduction due to falling passenger traffic is the main reason of the layoffs.

Any other news about Japan Airlines layoffs
As per Bloomberg, Japan Air had a net loss of 63 billion yen in the year ended March 31 compared with a previous forecast for a 34 billion yen loss
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of Japan Airlines Layoffs Job Cut

TeleTech Layoffs Job Cut: may fire 280 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:01:00 +0000

The news is not good for the employees of the TeleTech Corporation, which is in the call center business, as the organization may be going for job cuts. Now the situation is getting worse for the employees as the recession is taking a toll on all sectors and all of the sectors are feeling the heat. The latest on to add to the list is the TeleTech Organization, which may be going for layoffs.
How many employees may be fired in the TeleTech layoffs?
As per the reports, there can be around 279 layoffs by TeleTech. There were around 500 job cuts by the company in Halifax last month, while 1000 employees lost jobs in Ontario at two of the TeleTech facilities.

What is the total no. of employees of TeleTech?
The total no. of employees of TeleTech is reported to be around 28,000 globally as of now.

What will be the cost and savings by TeleTech layoffs?
No info about the savings to be made.

When will the TeleTech layoffs happen?
The layoffs are going to be done by August 20th, 2009.

Which locations and department of employees will be affected by the TeleTech layoffs ?
Mount Pearl call centre will be the one affected this time. There were around 500 job cuts by the company in Halifax last month, while 1000 employees lost jobs in Ontario at two of the TeleTech facilities.

What is the primary reasons for TeleTech layoffs?
Changes in the client needs are the main reason of the layoffs.

Any other news about TeleTech layoffs
As per CBC, The company blames changes in the business needs of its clients.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of TeleTech Layoffs Job Cut

NASA Layoffs Job Cut: may fire 900 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:59:00 +0000

The news is from NASA, the world famous space research agency of the USA, is reported to be going for layoffs. The news is not good for the employees of the NASA as the organization is going for job cuts. Now the situation is getting worse for the employees as the recession is taking a toll on all sectors and all of the sectors are feeling the heat.
How many employees may be fired in the NASA layoffs?
As per the reports, there are going to be 900 job cuts by NASA.

What is the total no. of employees of NASA?
The total no. of employees of NASA is not known as of now.

What will be the cost and savings by NASA layoffs?
No information available on the cost and savings by the NASA layoffs.

When will the NASA layoffs happen?
Around 160 notices were learnt to be given on Friday. The rest of the layoffs will happen in the coming next 5 months.

Which locations and department of employees will be affected by the NASA layoffs ?
The layoffs would mainly be in for the contractors producing the space shuttle fuel tanks outside New Orleans and the shuttle solid rocket boosters in Utah.

What is the primary reasons for NASA layoffs?
The reason being quoted is the NASA is set to retire its space shuttle fleet in 2010 and hence the contract workers associated with it are going to loose their jobs.

Any other news about NASA layoffs
As per Reuters, The prime contractors for those components are Lockheed Martin Corp and ATK Thiokol.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of NASA Layoffs Job Cut

Humility

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:38:00 +0000

The Most Beautiful Word in the English Language

Many years ago, one of my university professors mentioned that "windowsill" was voted the most beautiful word in the English language. Being an armchair linguist, this factoid naturally stayed with me. Words have enormous power. They can make us erupt into laughter or bring tears to our eyes. They can influence, inspire, manipulate and shock. They can build and destroy. Some words have different effects on different people. One such word is humility. It is one of those words that are seldom in neutral gear. Some, like me, love the word and all it stands for. Some almost fear it and interpret it synonymously with lack of self-confidence or timidity.

The dictionary defines humility as modesty, lacking pretence, not believing that you are superior to others. An ancillary definition includes: "Having a lowly opinion of oneself, meekness". The word "humility" first struck me in the context of leadership when Jim Collins mentioned it in his seminal work Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't. In this book, Collins examined companies that went from good to great by sustaining 15-year cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market, and after a transition point, cumulative returns at least three times the market over the next 15 years.

Among the many characteristics that distinguished these companies from others is that they all had a Level 5 leader. Level 5 leaders direct their ego away from themselves to the larger goal of leading their company to greatness. These leaders are a complex, paradoxical mix of intense professional will and extreme personal humility. They will create superb results but shun public adulation, and are never boastful. They are described as modest. An example of such a leader who epitomized humility is David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, who, in Jim Collins' words, defined himself as a HP man first and a CEO second. He was a man of the people, practicing management by walking around. Shunning all manner of publicity, Packard is quoted as saying: "You shouldn't gloat about anything you've done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do."

Another great leader is Patrick Daniel, CEO of North American energy and pipeline company Enbridge, who espouses two leadership attributes: determination to create results and humility, shifting the focus away from himself and continually recognizing the contributions of others. "I have learned through the lives of great leaders," he said, "that greatness comes from humility and being at times, self-effacing."

Clearly these leaders, and many others like them, don't espouse the meaning of humility as "meek". On the contrary, it is a source of their strength. But the notion of being self-effacing is one that we struggle with in our competitive culture, prescribing that we take every opportunity to toot our own horn, and that we don't dare leave the house without our dynamic elevator speech all rehearsed.
We often confuse humility with timidity. Humility is not clothing ourselves in an attitude of self-abasement or self-denigration. Humility is all about maintaining our pride about who we are, about our achievements, about our worth - but without arrogance - it is the antithesis of hubris, that excessive, arrogant pride which often leads to the derailment of some corporate heroes, as it does with the downfall of the tragic hero in Greek drama. It's about a quiet confidence without the need for a meretricious selling of our wares. It's about being content to let others discover the layers of our talents without having to boast about them. It's a lack of arrogance, not a lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit of achievement.

An interesting dichotomy is that, often, the higher people rise, the more they have accomplished, the higher the humility index. Those who achieve the most brag the least, and the more secure they are in themselves, the more humble they are. "True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes". (Edward Frederick Halifax). We have all come across people like that and feel admiration for them.

There is also an understated humility of every day people we work with who have the ability to get the job done without drawing attention to themselves. Witness the employee who is working at his computer into the late hours, purely motivated by a keen sense of duty, the executive assistant who stays after 5:30pm on a Friday night in an empty office to await a courier, or the manager who quietly cancels an important personal event to fly out of town to attend to the company's business.
This is akin to the philanthropist who gives an anonymous donation.

Humility is also a meta-virtue. It crosses into an array of principles. For example, we can safely declare that there cannot be authenticity without humility. Why? Because, there is always a time in a leader's journey when one will be in a situation of not having all the answers. Admitting this and seeking others' input requires some humility.

Another mark of a leader who practices humility is his or her treatment of others. Such leaders treat everyone with respect regardless of position. Years ago, I came across this reference: the sign of a gentleman is how he treats those who can be of absolutely no use to him.

Something interesting happens, too, when we approach situations from a perspective of humility: it opens us up to possibilities, as we choose open-mindedness and curiosity over protecting our point of view. We spend more time in that wonderful space of the beginner's mind, willing to learn from what others have to offer. We move away from pushing into allowing, from insecure to secure, from seeking approval to seeking enlightenment. We forget about being perfect and we enjoy being in the moment.

Here are a few suggestions on practicing humility:

1. There are times when swallowing one's pride is particularly difficult and any intentions of humility fly out the window, as we get engaged in a contest of perfection, each side seeking to look good. If you find yourself in such no-win situations, consider developing some strategies to ensure that the circumstances don't lead you to lose your grace. Try this sometimes: just stop talking and allow the other person to be in the limelight. There is something very liberating in this strategy.

2. Here are three magical words that will produce more peace of mind than a week at an expensive retreat: "You are right."

3. Catch yourself if you benignly slip into over preaching or coaching without permission - is zeal to impose your point of view overtaking discretion? Is your correction of others reflective of your own needs?

4. Seek others' input on how you are showing up in your leadership path. Ask: "How am I doing?" It takes humility to ask such a question. And even more humility to consider the answer.

5. Encourage the practice of humility in your company through your own example: every time you share credit for successes with others, you reinforce the ethos for your constituents. Consider mentoring or coaching emerging leaders on this key attribute of leadership.

There are many benefits to practicing humility, to being in a state of non-pretence: it improves relationships across all levels, it reduces anxiety, it encourages more openness and paradoxically, it enhances one's self-confidence. It opens a window to a higher self. For me, it replaces "windowsill" as the most beautiful word in the English language.

Emotional Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:39:00 +0000

Developing Strong "People Skills"

We probably all know people, either at work or in our personal lives, who are really good listeners. No matter what kind of situation we're in, they always seem to know just what to say - and how to say it - so that we're not offended or upset. They're caring and considerate, and even if we don't find a solution to our problem, we usually leave feeling more hopeful and optimistic.

We probably also know people who are masters at managing their emotions. They don't get angry in stressful situations. Instead, they have the ability to look at a problem and calmly find a solution. They're excellent decision makers, and they know when to trust their intuition. Regardless of their strengths, however, they're usually willing to look at themselves honestly. They take criticism well, and they know when to use it to improve their performance.

People like this have a high degree of emotional intelligence, or EI. They know themselves very well, and they're also able to sense the emotional needs of others.

Would you like to be more like this?

As more and more people accept that emotional intelligence is just as important to professional success as technical ability, organizations are increasingly using EI when they hire and promote.

For example, one large cosmetics company recently revised their hiring process for salespeople to choose candidates based on emotional intelligence. The result? Salespeople hired with the new system have sold, on average, $91,000 more than salespeople selected under the old system. There has also been significantly lower staff turnover among the group chosen for their emotional intelligence.

So, what exactly is emotional intelligence, and what can you do to improve yours?\

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

We all have different personalities, different wants and needs, and different ways of showing our emotions. Navigating through this all takes tact and cleverness - especially if we hope to succeed in life. This is where emotional intelligence becomes important.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they're telling you, and realize how your emotions affect people around you. Emotional intelligence also involves your perception of others: when you understand how they feel, this allows you to manage relationships more effectively.

People with high emotional intelligence are usually successful in most things they do. Why? Because they're the ones that others want on their team. When people with high EI send an email, it gets answered. When they need help, they get it. Because they make others feel good, they go through life much more easily than people who are easily angered or upset.

Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, developed a framework of five elements that define emotional intelligence:

1. Self-Awareness: People with high emotional intelligence are usually very self-aware. They understand their emotions, and because of this, they don't let their feelings rule them. They're confident – because they trust their intuition and don't let their emotions get out of control.

They're also willing to take an honest look at themselves. They know their strengths and weaknesses, and they work on these areas so they can perform better. Many people believe that this self-awareness is the most important part of emotional intelligence.

2. Self-Regulation: This is the ability to control emotions and impulses. People who self-regulate typically don't allow themselves to become too angry or jealous, and they don't make impulsive, careless decisions. They think before they act. Characteristics of self-regulation are thoughtfulness, comfort with change, integrity, and the ability to say no.

3. Motivation: People with a high degree of emotional intelligence are usually motivated. They're willing to defer immediate results for long-term success. They're highly productive, love a challenge, and are very effective in whatever they do.

4. Empathy: This is perhaps the second-most important element of emotional intelligence. Empathy is the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs, and viewpoints of those around you. People with empathy are good at recognizing the feelings of others, even when those feelings may not be obvious. As a result, empathetic people are usually excellent at managing relationships, listening, and relating to others. They avoid stereotyping and judging too quickly, and they live their lives in a very open, honest way.

5. Social Skills: It's usually easy to talk to and like people with good social skills, another sign of high emotional intelligence. Those with strong social skills are typically team players. Rather than focus on their own success first, they help others develop and shine. They can manage disputes, are excellent communicators, and are masters at building and maintaining relationships.

As you've probably determined, emotional intelligence can be a key to success in your life – especially in your career. The ability to manage people and relationships is very important in all leaders, so developing and using your emotional intelligence can be a good way to show others the leader inside of you.

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

The good news is that emotional intelligence CAN be taught and developed. Many books and tests are available to help you determine your current EI, and identify where you may need to do some work. You can also use these tips:

• Observe how you react to people. Do you rush to judgment before you know all of the facts? Do you stereotype? Look honestly at how you think and interact with other people. Try to put yourself in their place, and be more open and accepting of their perspectives and needs.

• Look at your work environment. Do you seek attention for your accomplishments? Humility can be a wonderful quality, and it doesn't mean that you're shy or lack self-confidence. When you practice humility, you say that you know what you did, and you can be quietly confident about it. Give others a chance to shine - put the focus on them, and don't worry too much about getting praise for yourself.

• Do a self-evaluation. What are your weaknesses? Are you willing to accept that you're not perfect and that you could work on some areas to make yourself a better person? Have the courage to look at yourself honestly - it can change your life.

• Examine how you react to stressful situations. Do you become upset every time there's a delay or something doesn't happen the way you want? Do you blame others or become angry at them, even when it's not their fault? The ability to stay calm and in control in difficult situations is highly valued - in the business world and outside it. Keep your emotions under control when things go wrong.

• Take responsibility for your actions. If you hurt someone's feelings, apologize directly – don't ignore what you did or avoid the person. People are usually more willing to forgive and forget if you make an honest attempt to make things right.

• Examine how your actions will affect others – before you take those actions. If your decision will impact others, put yourself in their place. How will they feel if you do this? Would you want that experience? If you must take the action, how can you help others deal with the effects?

Key Points

Although "regular" intelligence is important to success in life, emotional intelligence is key to relating well to others and achieving your goals. Many people believe that emotional intelligence is at least as important as regular intelligence, and many companies now use EI testing to hire new staff.
Emotional intelligence is an awareness of your actions and feelings – and how they affect those around you. It also means that you value others, listen to their wants and needs, and are able to empathize or identify with them on many different levels.

Leadership styles

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:32:00 +0000

Using the right one for your situation

From Mahatma Gandhi to Jack Welch, and Martin Luther King to Rudolph Giuliani, there are as many leadership styles as there are leaders. Fortunately, business people and psychologists have developed useful, shorthand ways of describing the main leadership styles. This can help aspiring leaders to understand and adapt their own styles, so that they can improve their own leadership.

Whether you are managing a team at work, captaining your sports team or leading a major corporation, your leadership style is crucial to your success. Consciously, or subconsciously, you will no doubt use some of the leadership styles featured, at least some of the time. By understanding these leadership styles and their impact, you can become a more flexible, better leader.

This article helps you understand 10 of the most frequently talked-about leadership styles, some good, some bad.

Understanding Leadership Styles

The leadership styles we look at here are:
• Autocratic leadership.
• Bureaucratic leadership.
• Charismatic leadership.
• Democratic leadership/participative leadership.
• Laissez-faire leadership.
• People-oriented leadership/relations-oriented leadership.
• Servant leadership.
• Task-oriented leadership.
• Transactional leadership.
• Transformational leadership.

Autocratic Leadership

Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where a leader exerts high levels of power over his or her employees or team members. People within the team are given few opportunities for making suggestions, even if these would be in the team's or organization’s interest.

Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Because of this, autocratic leadership usually leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. Also, the team's output does not benefit from the creativity and experience of all team members, so many of the benefits of teamwork are lost.

For some routine and unskilled jobs, however, this style can remain effective where the advantages of control outweigh the disadvantages.

Bureaucratic Leadership

Bureaucratic leaders work “by the book”, ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances or at heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as cash-handling).

In other situations, the inflexibility and high levels of control exerted can demoralize staff, and can diminish the organizations ability to react to changing external circumstances.

Charismatic Leadership

A charismatic leadership style can appear similar to a transformational leadership style, in that the leader injects huge doses of enthusiasm into his or her team, and is very energetic in driving others forward.

However, a charismatic leader can tend to believe more in him or herself than in their team. This can create a risk that a project, or even an entire organization, might collapse if the leader were to leave: In the eyes of their followers, success is tied up with the presence of the charismatic leader. As such, charismatic leadership carries great responsibility, and needs long-term commitment from the leader.

Democratic Leadership or Participative Leadership

Although a democratic leader will make the final decision, he or she invites other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. This not only increases job satisfaction by involving employees or team members in what’s going on, but it also helps to develop people’s skills. Employees and team members feel in control of their own destiny, and so are motivated to work hard by more than just a financial reward.

As participation takes time, this style can lead to things happening more slowly than an autocratic approach, but often the end result is better. It can be most suitable where team working is essential, and quality is more important than speed to market or productivity.

Laissez-Faire Leadership

This French phrase means “leave it be” and is used to describe a leader who leaves his or her colleagues to get on with their work. It can be effective if the leader monitors what is being achieved and communicates this back to his or her team regularly. Most often, laissez-faire leadership works for teams in which the individuals are very experienced and skilled self-starters. Unfortunately, it can also refer to situations where managers are not exerting sufficient control.

People-Oriented Leadership or Relations-Oriented Leadership

This style of leadership is the opposite of task-oriented leadership: the leader is totally focused on organizing, supporting and developing the people in the leader’s team. A participative style, it tends to lead to good teamwork and creative collaboration. However, taken to extremes, it can lead to failure to achieve the team's goals.

In practice, most leaders use both task-oriented and people-oriented styles of leadership.

Servant Leadership

This term, coined by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, describes a leader who is often not formally recognized as such. When someone, at any level within an organization, leads simply by virtue of meeting the needs of his or her team, he or she is described as a “servant leader”.

In many ways, servant leadership is a form of democratic leadership, as the whole team tends to be involved in decision-making.

Supporters of the servant leadership model suggest it is an important way ahead in a world where values are increasingly important, in which servant leaders achieve power on the basis of their values and ideals. Others believe that in competitive leadership situations, people practicing servant leadership will often find themselves left behind by leaders using other leadership styles.

Task-Oriented Leadership

A highly task-oriented leader focuses only on getting the job done, and can be quite autocratic. He or she will actively define the work and the roles required, put structures in place, plan, organize and monitor. However, as task-oriented leaders spare little thought for the well-being of their teams, this approach can suffer many of the flaws of autocratic leadership, with difficulties in motivating and retaining staff. Task-oriented leaders can benefit from an understanding of the Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid, which can help them identify specific areas for development that will help them involve people more.

Transactional Leadership

This style of leadership starts with the premise that team members agree to obey their leader totally when they take a job on: the “transaction” is (usually) that the organization pays the team members, in return for their effort and compliance. As such, the leader has the right to “punish” team members if their work doesn’t meet the pre-determined standard.

Team members can do little to improve their job satisfaction under transactional leadership. The leader could give team members some control of their income/reward by using incentives that encourage even higher standards or greater productivity. Alternatively a transactional leader could practice “management by exception”, whereby, rather than rewarding better work, he or she would take corrective action if the required standards were not met.

Transactional leadership is really just a way of managing rather a true leadership style, as the focus is on short-term tasks. It has serious limitations for knowledge-based or creative work, but remains a common style in many organizations.

Transformational Leadership

A person with this leadership style is a true leader who inspires his or her team with a shared vision of the future. Transformational leaders are highly visible, and spend a lot of time communicating. They don’t necessarily lead from the front, as they tend to delegate responsibility amongst their teams. While their enthusiasm is often infectious, they can need to be supported by “detail people”.

In many organizations, both transactional and transformational leadership are needed. The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add value.
The transformational leadership style is the dominant leadership style taught in the "How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You" leadership program, although we do recommend that other styles are brought as the situation demands.

Using the Right Style – Situational Leadership

While the Transformation Leadership approach is often highly effective, there is no one “right” way to lead or manage that suits all situations. To choose the most effective approach for you, you must consider:
• The skill levels and experience of the members of your team.
• The work involved (routine or new and creative).
• The organizational environment (stable or radically changing, conservative or adventurous).
• You own preferred or natural style.
A good leader will find him or herself switching instinctively between styles according to the people and work they are dealing with. This is often referred to as “situational leadership”.

For example, the manager of a small factory trains new machine operatives using a bureaucratic style to ensure operatives know the procedures that achieve the right standards of product quality and workplace safety. The same manager may adopt a more participative style of leadership when working on production line improvement with his or her team of supervisors.

Winning Expert Power

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:14:00 +0000

Leading from the Front

There are many different power bases that a leader can develop and use.

These include problematic ones such as the power of position, the power to give rewards, the power to punish and the power to control information. While these types of power do have some strength, they put the person being led in an unhealthy position of weakness, and can leave leaders using these power bases looking autocratic and out of touch.

More than this, society has changed hugely over the last 50 years. Citizens are individually more powerful, and employees are more able to shift jobs. Few of us enjoy having power exerted over us, and many will do what they can to undermine people who use these sorts of power.

However there are three types of positive power that effective leaders use: charismatic power, expert power and referent power.

This article teaches you how to build expert power.

How to Use the Tool:

Expert power is essential because as a leader, your team looks to you for direction and guidance. Team members need to believe in your ability to lead in a worthwhile direction, give sound guidance, and co-ordinate a good result.

If members of your team see you as a true expert, they will be much more receptive when you try to persuade them to do something, and when you want to inspire them to make more of an effort.

And if they see you as an expert, you'll find it much easier to motivate them:

If team members respect your expertise, they'll trust you to show them how to work effectively.

If team members respect your judgment, they'll trust you to guide their efforts in such a way that you'll make the most of their hard work.

If they can see your expertise, they'll believe that you have the wisdom to direct their efforts towards a goal that is genuinely worthwhile.

Taken together, if your team sees you as an expert, you'll find it much easier to motivate your people to perform at their best.

So how do you build expert power?

Gain expertise:

The first step is fairly obvious (if time consuming) – gain expertise. And, if you are already using tools like the information gathering tool, the chances are that you have already progressed well ahead in this direction.

But just being an expert isn't enough, it is also necessary that your people recognize your expertise and see you as a credible source of information and advice. Gary A. Yukl, in his book "Leadership in Organizations," details some steps to build expert power. These are:

Promote an image of expertise: Since perceived expertise in many occupations is associated with a person's education and experience, a leader should (subtly) make sure that subordinates, peers, and superiors are aware of his or her formal education, relevant work experience, and significant accomplishments.

One common way of doing this is to display diplomas, licenses, awards, and other evidence of expertise in a prominent location in your office – after all, if you've worked hard to gain knowledge, it's fair that you get credit for it. Another tactic is to make subtle references to prior education or experience (for example, "When I was chief engineer at GE, we had a problem similar to this one"). Beware, however: this can easily be overdone.

Maintain credibility:

Once established, you should carefully protect your image of expertise. Avoid making careless comments about subjects on which you are poorly informed, and avoid being associated with projects with a low likelihood of success.

Act confidently and decisively in a crisis: In a crisis or emergency, subordinates prefer a "take charge" leader who appears to know how to direct the group in coping with the problem. In this kind of situation, your people will associate confident, firm leadership with expert knowledge. Even if you're not sure how to deal with a crisis, you'll lose influence with members of your team if you appear confused.

Keep informed:

Expert power is exercised through rational persuasion and demonstration of expertise. Rational persuasion depends on a firm grasp of up-to-date facts. It is therefore essential that you keep well-informed of developments within your team, within your organization, and in the outside world.

Recognize team member concerns: Use of rational persuasion should not be seen as a form of one-way communication from the leader to members of his or her team. Listen carefully to the concerns and uncertainties of your team members, and make sure that you address these.

Avoid threatening the self-esteem of subordinates: Expert power is based on a knowledge differential between the leader and team members. Unfortunately, the very existence of this differential can cause problems if you're not careful about the way in which you exercise expert power.

Team members can dislike unfavorable status comparisons where the gap is very large and obvious. And they are likely to be upset by a leader who acts in a superior way, and arrogantly flaunts his greater expertise.

In the process of arguing for what they want, some leaders lecture their team members in a condescending manner and convey the impression that the other team members are "ignorant." Guard against this.

Courtesy : mindtools.com

Job Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:50:00 +0000

The First Step in Managing Job Overload

We have all experienced that appalling sense of having far too much work to do and too little time to do it in. We can choose to ignore this, and work unreasonably long hours to stay on top of our workload. The risks here are that we become exhausted, that we have so much to do that we do a poor quality job, and that we neglect other areas of our life. Each of these can lead to intense stress.

The alternative is to work more intelligently, by focusing on the things that are important for job success and reducing the time we spend on low priority tasks. Job Analysis is the first step in doing this.

The first of the action-oriented skills that we look at is Job Analysis. Job Analysis is a key technique for managing job overload – an important source of stress.

To do an excellent job, you need to fully understand what is expected of you. While this may seem obvious, in the hurly-burly of a new, fast-moving, high-pressure role, it is oftentimes something that is easy to overlook.

By understanding the priorities in your job, and what constitutes success within it, you can focus on these activities and minimize work on other tasks as much as possible. This helps you get the greatest return from the work you do, and keep your workload under control.

Job Analysis is a useful technique for getting a firm grip on what really is important in your job so that you are able to perform excellently. It helps you to cut through clutter and distraction to get to the heart of what you need to do.

Note that this tool takes two forms - the short-form we discuss here assumes that your organization is already well organized and that its job descriptions, review criteria and incentives are well-aligned and correct. The long-form, helps you to deal with jobs where this is not the case – here, inconsistent job design can cause enormous stress.

How to Use the Tool:

To conduct a job analysis, go through the following steps:

1. Review formal job documentation:

• Look at your job description. Identify the key objectives and priorities within it.
• Look at the forms for the periodic performance reviews. These show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded and, by implication, show those that will be punished.
• Find out what training is available for the role. Ensure that you attend appropriate training so that you know as much as possible about what you need to know.
• Look at incentive schemes to understand the behaviors that these reward.

2. Understand the organization’s strategy and culture:

Your job exists for a reason – this will ultimately be determined by the strategy of the organizational unit you work for. This strategy is often expressed in a mission statement. In some way, what you do should help the organization achieve its mission (if it does not, you have to ask yourself how secure the job is!). Make sure you understand and perform well the tasks that contribute to the strategy.

Similarly, every organization has its own culture – its own, historically developed values, rights and wrongs, and things that it considers to be important. If you are new to an organization, talk through with established, respected members of staff to understand these values.

Make sure that you understand this culture. Make sure that your actions reinforce the company’s culture, or at least do not go against it. Looked at through the lens of culture, will the company value what you do?

Check that your priorities are consistent with this mission statement and the company culture.

3. Find out who the top achievers are, and understand why they are successful:

Inside or outside the organization, there may be people in a similar role to you who are seen as highly successful. Find out how they work, and what they do to generate this success. Look at what they do, and learn from them. Understand what skills make them successful, and learn those skills.

4. Check that you have the people and resources to do the job:

The next step is to check that you have the staff support, resources and training needed to do an excellent job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them.

5. Confirm priorities with your boss:

By this stage, you should have a thorough understanding of what your job entails, and what your key objectives are. You should also have a good idea of the resources that you need, and any additional training you may need to do the best you can.

This is the time to talk the job through with your boss, and confirm that you share an understanding of what constitutes good performance in the role.

It is also worth talking through serious inconsistencies, and agreeing how these can be managed.

6. Take Action:

You should now know what you have to do to be successful in your job. You should have a good idea of the most important things that you have to do, and also the least important.

Where you can drop the less-important tasks, do so. Where you can de-prioritize them, do so.

Where you need more resource or training to do your job, negotiate for this.

Remember to be a little sensitive in the way you do this: Good teamwork often means helping other people out with jobs that do not benefit you. However, do not let people take advantage of you: Be assertive in explaining that you have your own work to do. If you cannot drop tasks, delegate them or negotiate longer time scales.

Summary:

Job analysis is a five-step technique for:

• Understanding and agreeing how to achieve peak performance in your job;
• Ensuring that you and your boss agree on the areas you should concentrate on when time gets tight; and the areas that can be de-emphasized during this time; and
• Making sure that you have the resources, training and staff needed to do a good job.

By using the Job Analysis technique, you should gain a good understanding of how you can excel at your job. You should also understand your job priorities.
This helps you to manage the stress of job overload by helping to decide which jobs you should drop.

Job Analysis is just one of many practical action-oriented techniques for reducing the stress of job overload. These and other types of technique help you to resolve structural problems within jobs, work more effectively with your boss and powerful people, improving the way your teams function and become more assertive so that other people respect your right not to take on an excessive workload. These are all important techniques for bringing job stress under control, for improving the quality of your working life, and for achieving career success.

10 Traits Entrepreneurs and Einstein Share

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:25:00 +0000

10 Traits Entrepreneurs and Einstein Share
You don't have to be a theoretical physicist to share a few character traits with Albert Einstein. Heck, you don't even have to know what theoretical physics means.

By Mike Werling

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"You're no Einstein." How many times have you heard that in your life? When people have compared you to the great thinker, has it been in the spirit of sarcasm--Nice one, Einstein?

Albert Einstein has become the benchmark by which everyone measures intellect, though few understand what made the man tick. (For more on that see Unleash Your Inner Einstein.)

Throughout his long life, the creator of E=mc2 (and one of a handful of people to know what it really means) indicated what he saw as the path to success through his words and actions. Entrepreneurs have more in common with Einstein than they think. Many of the traits that led him to be named Time magazine's Person of the Century--kind of an elite club--drive people to create businesses. Do you see a little of Einstein in you?

Imagination. Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." The fellas over at Google had all the computer skills and knowledge they needed to have successful careers in some firm's IT department--along with tens of thousands of other techies. What makes Larry Page and Sergey Brin household names is the fact they imagined there was a better way to search the web, and then they created it.

Always questioning. "The important thing is not to stop questioning." One of the most important questions an entrepreneur can ask is How can I make it better? Whether you offer a product or a service, improving it is the only way to attract new clients and retain existing ones. While Phil Knight was marketing Nike to the top of the athletic-shoe sales heap, Bill Bowerman tinkered with the shoes' designs and made sure Nike footwear was on the cutting edge of innovation. How can the new model, Bowerman wondered, be better? If Einstein had stopped questioning, we would have been left with his thoughts on relativity instead of an entire theory.

Old problems, new ways of thinking. "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." In the 1940s and '50s, book publishers printed paperback books based solely on hardback titles that had lost momentum; Ian Ballantine created Bantam Books Inc. to do just that. He soon realized he was limiting his profit potential by sticking to the old way of thinking. He decided--much to other publishers' and bookstores' chagrin--to produce original paperback titles for mass-market sales. Sixty years later, both models still exist. And Ballantine likely would have jumped at the chance to offer books electronically.

Intuition. "The only real valuable thing is intuition." Einstein worked in theoretical physics; he had to trust his intuition to move forward on anything. Entrepreneurs do the same thing every day. Intuition told Richard Branson the Sex Pistols were worth signing to a fledgling Virgin Records. Intuition told Hugh Hefner men would pay for a magazine filled with high-quality articles and fiction writing that was interspersed with photos of nude women. (Or was it the other way around?) Trusting one's gut led to many of the 20th century's greatest advances.

Strong positive attitude. "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." In the early 20th century, greeting cards were given for Christmas and Valentine's Day. In 1915, a few weeks before Cupid's favorite holiday, a warehouse fire destroyed J.C. and Rollie Hall's entire inventory of Valentine's Day cards and left them $17,000 in debt. They borrowed money, purchased an engraving firm, designed two new cards and printed them in time for Christmas. Nearly a century and countless new ideas later, Hallmark Cards sets the industry standard.

Naps. Einstein was supposed to be a big believer in midday siestas to recharge the brain. Some companies--Google and Nike, to name two--have created nap-friendly guidelines for their employees. There may be a lesson there for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Other entrepreneurs have utilized naps in a different way: bringing napping equipment to the workplace. No lie. MetroNaps installs sleep pods in companies' buildings for employee use.

Rise above the mundane details. The stories of Einstein having a closet full of the same suits are exaggerated, but the point of the story is made: He didn't want to spend intellectual and chronological capital wrestling with one of life's mundanities. The definition of mundane details will vary from person to person--you say spreadsheets, I say boring--but know what you consider mundane and hire someone to take care of those tasks before they get neglected and drag the company down. Howard Hughes--before he lost the keys to his sanity vault--didn't like the administrative day-to-day duties of the company he inherited from his father. He hired someone to handle it, and that person turned Hughes' $1 million company into a $75 million empire. The other lesson there is "hire well."

Willingness to try new things--and fail. "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." Just ask the people at Coca-Cola circa 1985. The Coke folks realized the error of their ways and reinstated the traditional formula, but many of their other forays into new flavors--cherry and vanilla to name two--have proved to be huge successes.

Maintaining balance. "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x, y is play and z is keeping your mouth shut." Notice Einstein didn't put absolute amounts on each of his variables. I doubt that was accidental. He knew--and now so do you--the ingredients to success; he also knew the formula was going to change from day to day. Whatever the ratio of x to y to z, entrepreneurs cannot forget Y.

Stay on top of tech. Early in his career at the Swiss Patent Office, Einstein was passed over for a promotion until he mastered the technology of his day: machines. The entrepreneurs who are remembered at the end of this century will be the people who maximize the use of technology. What is the next internet? Where will communications be in 25 years? How will information be delivered, and on what devices? The people who figure out the answers to those questions will be entrepreneurs at the forefront of their industries.

EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW SKILLS

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:59:00 +0000

EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW SKILLS

Life is full of challenges. We meet many confront in our daily life. When we are at the stage of entering school/college/university, we face many hard nut cracking challenges and learn many lessons of practical life through them. After acquiring graduation/post graduation, students usually move towards their specialization or adopt a profession of their choices, according to their own interest, keeping in view the market demand. Talents and Skills are the only tools, which could lead an individual towards the door of success in this challenging time. To qualify for a professional degree or a job, one should have strong past educational background along with integrated multi dimensional skills. It’s of no use acquiring higher degree without building character, confidence, and expressive personality.

To meet the challenges of professional life, one has to be familiar with many skills to grab the attention of an interviewer, out of which Interview skills are the basic necessities to meet up the future challenges with success. Either you are applying for a job or want to qualify an entrance examination for a professional degree; you should have to be prepared in advance for an interview. It’s the only way you through which you can gain the trust of an interviewer. An interviewer always attempt to decide that why they should select you? What are the qualities, which you have and other do not have? How can you benefit their organization? If you can show your trust, your confidence, your commitment, and appropriate skills, then you could win a successful future. Interview is a form of oral communication. It’s one to one, or one to group interaction, where an applicant proves themselves as a unique person to be the part of an organization. Remember that interview is always pre-planned and structured. It’s a formal presentation between an interviewer and an interviewee. Only those pass it with flying colours, who are original and show their interest with confidence and who present themselves appealing.

There are many types of interview like Information gathering interview, appraisal interview, exit interview, hiring interview, college/ university interview, persuasive interview, counseling interview and many more. In this article, we are going to learn about College/ university entrance and Hiring interview.

Hiring/Entrance Interview is one of the best known and the most widely experienced type of interview, where an interviewer is taken by Human Resource Manager/ Educational Expertise. To reduce your chances being rejected, here are some basic professional skills, which will lead you towards the path of success in your interview.

BEFORE INTERVIEW

First of all, prepare your mind in advance, that you are going to have an interview next morning. Relax yourself and do not get nervous, tense or tired at any cost. Before going for an interview, pre-planned few things:

1. Learn about the company, organization or educational institution and do some research in advance.

2. Why should you perform an advance research?

3. Simply to develop good answers and to prove yourself unique.

4. What you have to Research?

5. You can gather information about organizational structure; type of their clients/ students; departments and its branches; past and present achievements etc. Simply search yellow pages or ask your friend or family member/relative who are familiar about organization or you can collect information through newspapers and websites.

Prepare answers to typical questions. Practice your answer and never rote learn it. Here are few of the sampling questions, which you can practice in advance.

1. What do you feel about our organization?

2. What are your weaknesses?

3. Why do you want to become a part of our organization?

4. Tell me about your self and about your hobbies.

5. Who is your role model and why? If you are lucky to know the name of a person, who will interview you, then memorizes his/her name properly. Decide what to wear. Remember to Dress simply but elegantly. Dress should be well ironed without crease. Wear comfortable shoes. remember to wear basic hosiery. You can even check what management wears and dress similarly without over kill. Do not Dress casual or wear Athletic Shoes. Do not spray lots of cologne or wear lots of jewellery. Do not wear wrinkled attire or flashing tie. Prepare your file having your portfolio, educational degree copies and extra copies of your resume. Find proper address in advance, that where are you going in the morning. Last but not the least;get a good night sleep.

ON THE DAY OF INTERVIEW

Take a bath. Do not apply heavy makeup. Always carry a purse or a small handy briefcase with you. Do carry your portfolio file. Dress effectively. Do not eat anything containing garlic or onion in your breakfast. Arrive 15 minutes earlier to show your prompt and seriousness. DURING INTERVIEW Start it off winner. Offer your hand and give a firm shake, else greet them with your pleasant smile. Take a permission to sit on a chair. Show a positive confident attitude and introduce yourself. Don’t get tense. Be comfortable and face the interviewer effectively. Listen to their questions effectively and answer it genuinely. Answer every question with confidence. Have a proper eye contact towards your interviewer. Remember that the interviewer might be more than one, so keep your eye contact with every individual interviewer to make them feel unique. Whatever you want to answer, speak clearly with a normal tempo voice. Do not shout. Show your confidence level at every moment of an interview. Show your certifications or achievements only when they ask you to show. Always sit straight. It might help them to analyze your personality and your traits. Use the medium of answer, in which you feel comfortable. Remember to use good grammar and strong vocabulary with neutral accent. Always clarify your answer. Do not say Yes or No. Never complains about your past organization or employees. While giving effective answers. Do not argue and always give respect to your interviewer. Always keep neutral thinking and try to mould your answer according to your interviewer personality. Do not eat chewing gum, while answering questions. If they give you a chance to ask any query or question, only ask relevant question.

TRADITIONAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Few of the traditional interview questions, which an organization might ask are

1. Tell me about yourself (in two minutes).

2. Why do you feel that you will be successful in ...?

3. Why did you decide to interview with our organization?

4. Are you willing to relocate?

5. Tell me about your scholastic record.

6. Tell me about your extra-curricular activities and interests.

7. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

8. Why should we hire you?

9. Why did you choose to become a teacher, nurse,...?

10. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?

11. Why do you want to leave your current job? AFTER INTERVIEW With a pleasing smile, say thanks and ask about the next step in the process. Follow up. Call them if you do not get a call within a given time frame and don't forget to write a thank you letter to an organization for taking out their precious time for your interview. Few reasons for not getting a job. Might be you lack oral communication skills or writing skills. Your inappropriate attitude could also let you down in your interview. Lack of knowledge about the working world. Lack of confidence. Inappropriate/fake degree. Lack of experience. Lack of motivation. PRACTICE INTERVIEW SKILLS. CHIN UP AND GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT INTERVIEW !

satyam chief admits fraud: Raju resigns and admits incorrect balance sheet

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:28:00 +0000

In a shocking development, Ramalinga Raju of Satyam has resigned from the Chairmanship of Satyam. What is more shocking is that he has revealed about the incorrect details in the Balance sheet of Satyam, which is having inflated values of almost 5040 Crore Rupees. This has come as a big shock to the entire world. Satyam is one of the big IT companies of India and has been sensing some trouobles since last few weeks.

Initially, it was the Maytas Infrastructure deal which was alleged to have all inconsistencies and beign favourable to the family members of Raju. Then the World bank created another uproar by charging Satyam of data theft. And now, the resignation and revelations by Ramalinga Raju seems to be the last nail in the coffin, informing about inconsistencies in the balance sheet of Satyam talking of inflated cash and bank balances.

Till yesterday, there were rumors about a possible Satyam-Tech Mahindra Merger, but the latest news of today will make it more difficult for Satyam. There were issues of Corporate Governance overlooking, and even relationships between Indian School of Business ISB and Satyam have come under the scanner of SEBI and other regulatory authories. Let's hope that something worthwhile comes out of all this unfortunate development. There will be severe implications of all these revelations for other Indian Stock listed companies as well. Worst situation is of the shareholders which saw 20% decline in the Satyam Share price in less than 10 minutes of Raju's resignation news.

JP Morgan WaMu Layoffs Job Cut: layoff 3400 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:05:00 +0000

Intially, we had reported that JP Morgan will go for a big layoffs and now there is the official announcement about it.The ailing financial giant Washington Mutual or WaMu, which was recently taken over by the J P Morgan has finally annouced the correct number of layoffs.

So its all happening in real. J P Morgan controlled WaMu will be eliminating 3400 jobs in various sectors.

How many employees will be affected in the JP Morgan WaMu Layoffs Job Cut?
Around 3400 employees will be asked to quit their jobs.

Where will the JP Morgan WaMu Layoffs Job Cut happen?
The layoffs will happen in Seattle. This was confirmed by the spokesman Tom Kelly.

What percentage of employees will be loosing their jobs in JP Morgan WaMu Layoffs Job Cut?
Around 80% - as there are 4,300 people employed by WaMu in the Seattle. Most branch workers will however retain their jobs.

Fortunately it sounds like those that are losing their jobs are at least being given pretty nice severance packages, and many will have lots of time to find new jobs. It still hurts to lose a job though, and I sincerely hope that those affected by the massive bank failure are able to keep on their feet through these difficult economic times.

Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of JP Morgan WaMu Layoffs Job Cut?.

Pratt & Whitney Layoffs Job Cut: layoff 350 employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:01:00 +0000

Now, it is the Jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney which has decided to go for layoffs. It is reported that most of these job cuts will be made at Connecticut.

What are the reasons for Pratt & Whitney Layoffs Job Cut
Same old reasons as quoted by many other companies - falling demand, falling sales, global financial crisis and so on.

How many employees will be fired in Pratt & Whitney Layoffs Job Cut
Around 350 employees will loose their jobs in the country.

Any specific details of the location where Pratt & Whitney Layoffs Job Cut will be made?
Out of 350, around 280 job cuts will be made at Connecticut alone. Rest 70 will be spead across the other locations.

Any previous job cuts by Pratt & Whitney ?
Pratt had already cut more than 100 blue-collar workers in Connecticut this year, as well as an undisclosed number of salaried workers nationwide. Whitlow said the latest reductions would help mitigate falling revenue. The latest cuts amount to about 1 percent of Pratt's global workforce of 38,000 and 2 percent of its Connecticut workforce of 12,000.

Many of Pratt's business lines have been affected by the recession, including the highly profitable work of servicing and repairing engines for commercial airlines, company spokeswoman Jennifer Whitlow said. U.S. airlines have been cutting capacity and grounding aircraft all year.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of Pratt & Whitney Layoffs Job Cut.

Electrolux Layoffs Job Cut: layoff more employees

noreply@blogger.com (sundar) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:50:00 +0000

Now, it is the Electrolux plant at Webster City which has decided to go for layoffs. And these layoffs are in addition to the 100 job cuts which were made by the company last month.

As per the news, there are more layoffs planned for Electrolux workers for the Electrolux washer and dryer plant in Webster City.

How many employees will be laid off in the Electrolux Layoffs Job Cut?
Thouogh there is no concrete detail available about the number of job cuts, but it is reported that there will be 20 layoffs and it will be in addition to the 99 layoffs that happened last month.

When will the Electrolux Layoffs Job Cut be done?
Officials say 20 workers will be laid off on Dec. 8.

Company spokesman Tony Evans says both rounds of layoffs are due to the economy and a softening demand for appliances.

Before the layoffs, the Webster City plant had 1,400 workers.

Electrolux announced in 2006 that it would eliminate 700 jobs in Webster City because production of its front-loading washing machines and companion dryers would move to Mexico. Those layoffs haven't happened.

Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of Electrolux Layoffs Job Cut.