Facilities Management - News & Trends

Gaining at the desk

CHICAGO – Fully 45% of workers have gained weight at their current jobs, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey.

Fully 26% of employees polled report they have gained more than ten pounds and 12% say they gained more than 20 pounds while in their present positions. Comparing genders, women are more likely (50%) than men (42%) to say they have gained weight at their current jobs.

Comparing industries, 53% of financial services employees and 52% of government employees say they have gained weight in their current positions; the highest recorded weight gain among industries surveyed. Retail and leisure and hospitality had the lowest percentage of employees gain weight in their current roles, at 36% and 41%, respectively.

Eating habits can often be a culprit in workplace weight gain. Nearly two-in-five (38%) percent of employees surveyed eat out for lunch twice or more per week, making it difficult to control portions and calorie intake. An additional 12% buy their lunch out of a vending machine at least once a week.

Snacking can also be a slippery slope for those trying to cut back on calories, as two-thirds (66%) of employees surveyed snack at least once a day, while nearly 25% snack at least twice a day.

One of the ways employees can cut back on workplace weight gain is by heading to the gym during lunch hour, but according to the survey, only 9% of employees work up a sweat in the middle of the day. More employees may be inclined to take advantage of gym facilities during lunch and outside of work, though, as 28% of companies now provide gym passes, workout facilities or wellness benefits.

Here are some tips for fending off workplace weight gain:

Start the day off right – Eating a high-protein and fiber-filled breakfast can provide the energy you need to get you to lunch and avoid the temptation of break room donuts, candy or other high-fat treats.

Stay hydrated – Sometimes a snack craving can be mistaken for dehydration. Be sure to keep water or another healthy beverage at your desk throughout the day so that you can hydrate freely.

Write it down – Keeping a nutrition and food journal can help track how snacks and meals add up during the day, pointing out overindulgences.

Mix up the routine – Every little bit of activity helps, so take the stairs to your floor, walk over to co-workers instead of calling or emailing them or try parking your car farther away from the office.

Keep your cool – Stress can fuel poor eating habits, as you can tend to overeat or make inadequate food choices when feeling overwhelmed. Try to manage stress with regular exercise and speak with a supervisor if your workload is drowning you.

For more information, see www.careerbuilder.com

[ page top ]

Feds increase telework

WASHINGTON, D.C. – During 2006, there were 110,592 federal government employees who teleworking. Most teleworked at least one or two days a week, according to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM),

Federal agencies continue to demonstrate interest in telework as a tool to address emergency planning, human capital, and quality of life issues. Indeed, the number of federal agencies that have integrated telework into their emergency planning has increased to 42% in 2006, up from 35% in 2005. For more information, see www.telework.gov

[ page top ]

Boomers reluctant to retire

BOSTON — Baby boomers are no more eager to retire than their predecessors, according to a survey of more than 2,500 senior HR executives in North America by Novations Group, a consulting firm based in Boston.
“Like preceding generations approaching retirement age, boomers seem to have mixed feelings about leaving the workforce,” said Novations Executive Consultant Tim Vigue. “They’re not so anxious after all to leave the job, at least according to HR staff responsible for monitoring such trends.”

How would you characterize the attitude toward retirement of the baby boomers in your organization?

But boomer ambivalence has left many employers in an awkward and vulnerable position, warned Vigue. "If boomers are giving ambiguous signals to management, then it’s easy to see why employers may find themselves in a quandary. A majority of employers, 56%, either don’t expect a large loss of talent, or just aren’t sure."

With respect to retiring baby boomers, how would you describe the situation at your organization?

According to the survey, only 26% of employers have plans that will allow them to control the flow of talent into, within or out of their organization. For more information, see www.novations.com

[ page top ]

Hiring is down, says report

ALEXANDRIA, Va. ─ HR professionals who recruit and hire employees across the country say manufacturing and service sector hiring will drop sharply compared with one year ago, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

The data also show that increases in wages for new hires in the manufacturing sector dropped modestly in April compared to one year ago while those in the service sector fell slightly. The index of manufacturing employment expectations dropped 13.2 points compared with May 2007. This index declined from 43.2 in May 2007 to 30.0 in May 2008.

A look at exempt and nonexempt vacancies shows similar patterns — a drop — to those reported one year ago. Employers reported a lower vacancy rate index among exempt manufacturing jobs for April, the month leading into the May forecast — 16.3 during April 2007 compared with 9.4 in April 2008.

The April 2008 vacancy rate index of nonexempt manufacturing jobs is also lower than it was in April 2007 —17. 2 compared with 12.5. The May 2008 LINE recruiting difficulty index dropped substantially from April 2007 — 18.3 in April 2007 compared with 6.3 in April 2008.

Compensation dropped for new hires in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing new-hire compensation index for April 2008 dropped to 7.8 from 10.0 in April 2007.

In the service sector, the LINE index of employment expectations dropped 16.5 points from May 2007 to May 2008 (52.0 compared with 35.5). In May 2007, private service-sector employment rose by 165,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis and by 686,000 jobs on a not seasonally adjusted basis.

The service-sector exempt employment vacancy index dropped from 7.0 in April 2007 to 3.3 in April 2008 while the nonexempt employment vacancy index plummeted, from 27.0 in April 2007 to 11.4 in April 2008.

The recruiting difficulty index, too, fell sharply from 16.4 in April 2007 down to -10.5 in April 2008. The new-hire compensation index also decreased, slightly, from a year ago from 13.0 in April 2007 to 12.6 in April 2008. For more information, see shrm.org

[ page top ]

Managing risk is challenging

STAMFORD, Conn. — Many enterprises continue to take a narrow "siloed" approach to risk assessment and management, often developing risk practices that are not effective or appropriate to their specific needs, according to Gartner Inc.

Gartner said that in many enterprises, specialists with functional areas of responsibility for risk management operate independently from one another, use different definitions of risk, record information inconsistently and fail to share information beyond the boundaries of their specific business or support areas. As a result, there is little transparency across processes and no holistic view of risk, which is necessary for enterprise-level analysis of exposure and mitigation decisions.

Gartner has identified seven key steps to enable IT managers to understand and manage the risks facing them and allow them to quickly contribute to an enterprise-level risk management effort as their enterprises evolve in that direction:

• Implement a framework for risk assessment and mapping.
• Establish the responsibilities of risk managers with their areas of responsibility.
• Identify and define the risks to which the business is exposed and what constitutes a risk event or "near miss" so that incidents can be mapped to specific risks.
• Determine the threat level, and focus on those risks with the highest impact on performance.
• Establish levels of controls for processes commensurate with the perceived threat.
• Record and retain risk incident and near-miss information.
• Conduct periodic risk assessments to determine changes in the operation's risk profile and assess control performance.

Additional information is available at www.gartner.com

[ page top ]

Nonprofit boards failing

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Most heads of midsize nonprofits give their trustees low marks for fundraising and monitoring board performance, an Urban Institute study of nonprofits with annual expenses between $500,000 and $5 million has found. Fully 62% of the chief executive officers say their boards do a fair or poor job raising revenue and 60% assign similar marks for boards’ self-examination.

More than a quarter of CEOs rate their boards as fair or poor when it comes to evaluating the CEO, planning, monitoring programs and services, dealing with the community, and educating the public about the organization
Most CEOs rate their boards as good or excellent in most roles. Just under half (48%) say their boards are doing an excellent job of financial oversight.

More than two-thirds (69%) of leaders at midsize nonprofits say it is at least somewhat difficult to recruit new trustees; 20% say it is very difficult. This challenge affects all areas. For nonprofit boards that do not have recruitment problems, 24% are said to be very active fundraisers, for instance; that figure drops to 12% among those that have great difficulty. 

Boards that emphasize a willingness to give time as a recruitment criterion are more likely to be active in every specific board role. Boards that emphasize business and financial skills are more likely to be active in almost every role.

In most midsize nonprofits, the board chair and CEO are very influential in setting the agenda for board meetings. The level of influence given to other board members in determining the agenda is positively associated with greater activity in every board role.

The demographic profile of board members reveals considerable ethnic and racial homogeneity. On average, 83% of trustees are white (non-Hispanic), 9% are black, and 4% are Hispanic. And 36% of boards have no minority members. Furthermore, 48% of midsize nonprofits say that racial or ethnic diversity is not an important criterion when they select new board members.

Nonprofits whose clientele include higher percentages of ethnic or racial minorities are more likely to include board members from those groups. Still, many nonprofit boards have no minority representation, even among organizations serving a high percentage of minorities. Other groups underrepresented on nonprofit boards are those under age 35 or over age 65. On average, only 6% of board members are under 35 and only 13% are over 65. The report, Boards of Midsize Nonprofits: Their Needs and Challenges, is available at www.urban.org

[ page top ]

Better late than never?

CHICAGO – If the minutes on the clock seem to fly by in the morning as you frantically run around collecting your keys, getting your kids out the door and grabbing your bills to make it to work on time, you’re not alone.

According to a CareerBuilder.com survey, 15% of workers say they arrive late to work at least once a week, while nearly one-in-four of all workers (24%) admit to making up fake excuses to explain their tardiness.

While 43% of hiring managers say they don’t mind if their employees are late as long as their work is completed on time with good quality, others are much stricter, and would consider terminating an employee if he or she arrives late several times a year.

When asked to identify the primary cause for coming in late, more than 32% of workers claimed traffic was the culprit. Falling back asleep was the reason cited by 17%, while 7% pointed to a long commute as the main cause. Other popular reasons included getting kids ready for school and daycare, forgetting something at home and feeling sick.

While the majority of hiring managers believe their employees’ reasons for being late to work, more than 27% say they are skeptical of the excuses.

Hiring managers provided the following top ten examples of the most unusual excuses employees offered for arriving late to work:

• While rowing across the river to work, I got lost in the fog.
• Someone stole all my daffodils.
• I had to go audition for American Idol.
• My ex-husband stole my car so I couldn’t drive to work.
• My route to work was shut down by a Presidential motorcade.
• I wasn’t thinking and accidentally went to my old job.
• I was indicted for securities fraud this morning.
• The line was too long at Starbucks.
• I was trying to get my gun back from the police.
• I didn’t have money for gas because all of the pawn shops were closed.

For more information, see www.careerbuilder.com

[ page top ]

Cutting PFOA

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eight companies have reported significant drops in the release of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and related chemicals, putting industry on target to meet a 95% reduction goal in PFOA emissions and product content by 2010, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Further reductions are anticipated by 2015.

PFOA, also known as C8, is a processing aid in the manufacture of fluoropolymers, which are used to provide non-stick surfaces on cookware and waterproof, breathable clothing. PFOA can also be generated by the breakdown of telomers used to impart soil, stain, and grease repellency in carpets, textiles, and paper. PFOA is a persistent chemical that has been found at low levels both in the environment and in the blood of Americans.

In early 2006, EPA launched the 2010/15 PFOA Stewardship Program, in which eight companies voluntarily agreed to reduce facility emissions and product content of PFOA and related chemicals globally by 95% no later than 2010. They intend to work toward eliminating emissions and product content of these chemicals by 2015. The companies include Arkema, Asahi, Ciba, Clariant, Daikin, DuPont, 3M/Dyneon, and Solvay Solexis. For more information, see www.epa.gov

[ page top ]