Category: Management & Leadership

Employee engagement has become a buzzword for professionals in recent years. But, many business leaders may be unsure of how to create conditions in their workplace that will facilitate increased engagement among employees.

And, with the economy still struggling, many firms remain focused on survival, leaving leaders with little time to spend on team building. However, most continue to acknowledge the importance of maintaining employees’ morale and interest in their work. A 2010 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 84 percent of employers believe alienated employees form one of the greatest threats to their businesses.

Psychologist Robert Hogan told attendees of the American Psychology Association’s annual conference in August that bad management contributes significantly to workers’ stress levels and can affect their engagement and productivity.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a business psychology professor at University College in London, told USA Today one part of the problem may be that individuals are often placed in situations that do not suit them. The effect can be greatly exacerbated when unsuitable candidates are selected for executive offices or other leadership positions.

“People choose jobs that are not ideal for them,” he says. “The realities of the job market today is to have a job or take an offer without thinking whether it’s the right job for them. That leads to dissatisfaction and complaints.”

This highlights the importance of placing the right professionals in the right positions. Recruitment firms can provide expertise that helps their clients place individuals in jobs where they will be well-suited to their work and remain engaged over the long-term.

Through a comprehensive individualized assessment of each candidate – including an in-depth interview process and contextual research – professional recruiters help companies evaluate their needs, identify leading candidates and recruit their top choice for any given position.

A number of public school districts in the Boston area have begun accepting tuition-paying students from overseas in a bid to bolster their strained budgets.

Arlington, Marblehead and Hopkinton have hosted international students in the past five years. And, communities including Natick, Avon and Burlington are currently awaiting approval from the federal government to begin issuing student visas.

Administrators from these school districts told The Boston Globe that hosting students from abroad offers a “win-win” opportunity for their communities. On the one hand, it adds to the area’s cultural diversity and offers native students a chance to broaden their knowledge of the world. And, it also brings in much-needed revenue for their education systems, many of which have been strained by deep budget cuts in recent years.

“I’m not opposed to pulling in revenue,” said Kevin Meagher, acting business manager of Marblehead, which will host five full-time international students in the coming school year. “We’re not in business for the sake of business, but if we have an open seat, we’re not averse to charging a student who is coming from another country.”

U.S. colleges have been in the business of attracting international applicants for many years. The full tuition paid by foreign students helps institutions offset the rising cost of higher education and expand their program offerings.

For budget-conscious school districts, local governments, non-profit organizations and even private businesses, it is sometimes essential to find creative ways to increase revenues or cut costs. Working with a financial project consulting service can help any organization identify and take advantage of opportunities to put itself on a stronger financial footing.

According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July.

This is being taken as a very positive sign, as the report offered a significant rise in job creation, compared to the figures reported during the preceding three months.

For those firms that are looking to capitalize on the current bout of economic growth by hiring new workers, it may be in their best interest to partner with a firm of professional recruiters. Working with experts offers several key benefits to a company.

Partnering with professionals eliminates the need to rely on personal connections to come up with candidates in a timely manner, which can lead to imperfect outcomes. Also, professional recruiters have a level of experience and focus that allows them to provide a significant aid to their clients throughout the recruitment process, helping companies to identify, evaluate and recruit their top choices for the positions that they are looking to fill.

However, it is important for businesses to ensure that they are prepared to expand their staff before taking on new payroll and benefits commitments. The news in last month’s jobs report was not all positive, as the unemployment rate rose slightly to 8.3 percent, due to the expansion of the workforce. And, as we’ve reported previously, global events such as the European financial crisis continue to exert a drag on the U.S. economy.

Working with a financial project consulting service can help your company determine whether this is the right time to be making significant long-term commitments by bringing in new staff members.

Key committees in both chambers of the U.S. Congress recently approved legislation that would remove decades-old restrictions on trade with Russia, which were implemented in 1974 to pressure the Soviet Union to change its human rights policies.

The removal of these outdated trade barriers may create a significant number of opportunities for U.S. businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has estimated that U.S.-Russian trade, which was about $10 billion in 2011, could double or triple as a result of normalized trade relations.

The Chamber has also asserted that the Russian state will require nearly $500 billion worth of infrastructure development over the course of the next five years. This could present a particularly lucrative opportunity for American construction firms, especially given that the domestic real estate market has still not fully recovered from the bursting of the housing bubble.

However, doing business overseas and dealing with foreign tax and regulatory systems can be challenging. It requires careful planning and attention to detail. Emerging markets can present a particularly high level of risk for investors.

Working with a financial project consulting service can help business leaders identify and act on opportunities in a way that maximizes returns and mitigates risks.

For firms that are seeking to take advantage of renewed trade with Russia and other opportunities abroad, retaining the services of an international tax consultant can be extremely helpful in navigating other nations’ taxation systems and ensuring that new business ventures will generate enough revenue to be worthwhile. An interim investment analyst can also aid companies that are looking to put their capital to work in emerging markets.

According to a new study conducted by research firm Truven Health Analytics, eliminating employees’ health benefits may put businesses at a significant disadvantage with regards to their ability to recruit and retain talented professionals.

Under the terms of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), businesses with over 50 employees that do not offer health insurance plans to their staff will be required to pay fees that will be used to support public health insurance exchanges. However, the Truven study asserts that employers’ calculations must account for more than simply balancing current healthcare costs against the nominal penalties established by PPACA.

The study states that “employers must provide market value – in benefits and compensation – to retain skilled workers.” It goes on to explain that employers will find it difficult to unilaterally eliminate benefits, due to the need to offer compensation packages that will be attractive to leading professionals.

Dr. Raymond Fabius, chief medical officer at Truven, asserts that “Not only is eliminating group health coverage not cost efficient, it would have an enormous negative impact on an employer’s competitive market position.”

Recruiting and retaining high-performing executives and financial professionals may turn out to be especially difficult for firms that eliminate health benefits, as the most talented individuals may be accustomed to a compensation system that includes comprehensive health coverage.

Working with professional recruiters can help companies identify and address obstacles in their recruitment process and position themselves to experience greater success during an executive or financial professional search.

On Monday, July 30, the Federal Reserve Board announced that it had established finalized standards for risk management at financial market utilities (FMUs) that are designated as “systemically important” by the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

FMUs are institutions that provide infrastructure to clear and settle payments and other financial transactions. Some examples include central securities depositories, payment systems and central counterparties.

The final rule – termed Regulation HH – implements two provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in 2010. The new regulations establish standards for managing the risks involved in payment, clearing and settlement operations at critical FMUs. Institutions that are registered as clearing agencies with the Securities and Exchange Commission or Commodity Futures Trading Commission are exempt from the new rules.

Regulation HH also establishes requirements for designated FMUs to provide advance notice before implementing material changes to their rules, procedures or operations.

The standards are based on those developed by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and the Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions.

The Board described the new rule as “substantively similar” to the version that had been proposed previously. It includes one new provision empowering the Federal Reserve Board to waive certain elements of Regulation HH for particular FMUs where the nature of its operational risk would make adherence to specific standards inappropriate.

For any firms that may be affected by these new regulations, which will officially go into effect on September 14, 2012, working with a financial project consulting service can be extremely helpful in navigating the transitional process and ensuring that compliance does not come at the price of operational flexibility and efficiency.

In the past few years, we’ve watched as major U.S. financial institutions went bankrupt, a global recession set in and a string of sovereign debt crises wracked Europe. Development has even slowed in China and India. Even the U.S. Postal Service is struggling.

This turmoil should serve as a reminder to financial professionals that no investment is perfectly safe and even a highly successful business model may become outdated over time.

For example, consider the situation currently confronting Facebook. As consumers shift toward mobile devices – tablets and smartphones – the social media company’s business model is being put under a considerable amount of stress, as it generates little revenue from mobile traffic.

According to documents the business filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 85 percent of its revenue came from advertising in 2011. However, the vast majority of this was derived from showing ads to users accessing the site through conventional computers – desktops and laptops.

With research firm Javelin Strategy predicting a 40 percent increase in consumer adoption of tablets by 2016, this is a serious challenge to Facebook’s business model. The company will need to develop new revenue streams in order to remain viable, especially now that its stock is being publicly traded, which means that disappointing projections regarding future profits could have drastic ramifications for the business’s financial health.

It’s important for businesses to make investments and operational decisions with a strong focus on the way things will change in the long-term. For any company that lacks the trained financial staff to conduct this sort of analysis, partnering with an interim investment analyst can provide an invaluable aid. And, for firms that are struggling with a particular challenge along the lines of Facebook’s mobile adoption dilemma, working with a financial project consulting service can help ensure that solutions strike a balance between short-term concerns and long-term needs.

Business leaders should draw an important lesson from the recent break up of the partnership behind MSNBC. Microsoft and NBC terminated their cooperation after Comcast – the company that owns NBC – bought out Microsoft’s share in their joint venture.

NBC and Microsoft first teamed up in 1996 and, for a time, the partnership was mutually beneficial. By combining NBC’s broadcast experience and journalism resources with Microsoft’s technological capabilities, the two companies were able to produce a cable channel and website that offered quality news.

However, over time, the situation started to deteriorate as the two businesses began moving in different directions. Microsoft pulled out of the cable channel in 2005.

In recent years, this caused cross-media ad sales to become a major source of tension between the two partners. According to the New York Times, NBC was receiving an increasingly large amount of interest in the purchase of advertisements that would run on both the televised programming and the website. However, Microsoft ran the ad-sales for MSNBC.com – making the process unnecessarily complex.

Therein lies the lesson for CFOs and other financial professionals who may be tasked with evaluating the long-term outlook of particular partnership opportunities. Joint ventures and other cooperative efforts should enhance your company’s capabilities and empower your staff to achieve top-notch performance levels. If a deal with another organization will eventually restrict your business’ ability to innovate, adapt and succeed in a constantly changing market, it is not a partnership that is worth pursuing.

Working with an interim investment analyst can help your company thoroughly examine the long-term value that will be provided by a particular partnership opportunity, as well as the inherent risks.

The latest scandal afflicting the banking sector offers an important lesson for all businesses in terms of the importance of conducting regular internal audits and keeping a sharp eye out for any instances of indiscretion by its financial professionals.

The current controversy is centered around manipulation of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which is calculated daily by Thomson Reuters based on a number of major banks’ responses to a survey that asks what interest rates they would expect to pay loans in particular currencies. LIBOR is used to determine payments related to a variety of financial agreements, including mortgages. It was previously held that, because the rate was calculated based on multiple banks’ suggestions, it would not be possible for any one bank to manipulate the rate for its own benefit.

Of course, as the scandal has developed, investors’ confidence in LIBOR, and the financial institutions involved in setting it, has plummeted. Lawsuits have begun and many more are being contemplated by organizations that believe the return on their investments was affected by banks’ manipulation of rates.

Barclays has already admitted to manipulating LIBOR and paid out $450 million to settle the charges that had been laid against it. However, even after reaching a settlement, there will still be repercussions for any bank found to be involved in the price-fixing scheme. Especially for financial institutions, reputational damage can have a major effect on future revenue.

All of this goes to show that it is extremely important for businesses to ensure they are operating with appropriate practices. Guaranteeing that a LIBOR-like scandal isn’t around the corner can be invaluable for any firm that has long-term success as its goal.

Working with an internal audit consultant can help in this regard by bringing an outside perspective to a company’s auditing process. This enables internal auditors to uncover hidden liabilities or even discover a scandal-in-the-making before it becomes an albatross around the organization’s neck.

The United States’ quadrennial presidential campaign often creates economic uncertainty in the country and election results can have a significant impact on markets, as they influence the laws that will be passed and the regulations that will be enacted.

National elections can cause variations in the value of a company’s investments or alter the demand for its products and services, as the U.S. Federal Government is a major purchaser in various sectors and influences the economy through regulatory action. Businesses should take these factors into account in their strategic planning efforts.

This election involves an especially contentious set of issues that concern the direction of the U.S. economy and the policies of the country’s elected officials can have a dramatic effect on businesses across many industries, from energy production to finance.

If your company currently lacks the trained staff necessary to perform this kind of specialized analytical work, it may be beneficial to partner with a firm of professional recruiters in order to carry out a targeted financial professional search that will quickly match your company with a number of high-caliber candidates that can meet your needs. Recruitment firms offer their clients access to a vast pool of experienced financial professionals and provide human resource expertise that helps you identify, evaluate and recruit the right individual to bolster your team.

For businesses that are not currently interested in recruiting new financial professionals, working with an interim investment analyst can aid your company in preparing for election-related turmoil or any other events. Partnering with a qualified financial project consulting service can help your company manage risk, keep costs down and complete any project efficiently.