New World ~ Old Europe. Compare and contrast.

From Britain's Management-issues.com blog [scroll, no permalinks]:

Digging your own grave
07 April 04 | Management Issues
Categories: Globalisation. 

More emotive stuff here about offshoring, this time from USA Today. If just seeing your job shipped overseas isn’t bad enough, it seems that some US employers are asking (OK, make that forcing) their employees to train their offshore replacements before they get given the pink slip.

Here's what typically happens: U.S. workers getting pink slips are told they can get another paycheck or beefed-up severance if they're willing to teach workers from India, China and other countries how to do their jobs. The foreign workers typically arrive for a few weeks or months of training. When they leave, they take U.S. jobs with them. The U.S. employees who trained them are then laid off.

What really grabs attention, though, is the statistic from a survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers that almost one in five information technology workers has lost a job or knows someone who lost a job after training a foreign worker. And seven out of ten say they would support legislation requiring companies to inform local officials if they plan to use US workers to train foreign replacements.

In an election year, numbers like these are hard to ignore, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised to feel a wind of protectionism blowing in from the US if things continue as they are. With reporting like this, it isn’t hard to see what side USA Today is on in the debate.

Employees forced to train their replacements say the practice is a stark illustration of how the hiring of foreign workers is plundering U.S. jobs. In the next 15 years, American employers will move about 3.3 million white-collar jobs and $136 billion in wages abroad, according to Forrester Research. That's up from $4 billion in wages in 2000.

Here comes the Sun, doot-n-doo-doo.....

Big bonuses again at B&Q
29 March 04 | Management Issues
Categories: Compensation & Benefits. Motivation.

Staff at UK DIY superstore chain B&Q are to share in a £34m bonus bonanza following a 13 per cent rise in profits to £372 million.

The average bonus for employees in the chain's 320 stores will be equivalent to about 10 per cent of their salary. This equates to roughly £845 for a ' customer adviser' and almost £3,500 for a store manager.

B&Q's staff are benefiting from big bonuses for the second year running. Last years' pay-out of £28 million gave them an extra nine per cent of their salaries.

It is company policy to offer all staff a guaranteed profit-share bonus of six per cent with the remainder based on the individual worker's salary and how well their store has done.

B&Q marketing director David Roth said: "The success of our stores, and ultimately the company as a whole is determined by the people who work here and it is only fitting that their hard work, enthusiasm and dedication is rewarded in this manner.

"I know that many of our staff have already made some special plans for their bonuses and they thoroughly deserve it."

John Lewis employees' bonus bonanza
11 March 04 | Management Issues

The 59,000 staff of UK retailer the John Lewis Partnership will be sharing a £87 million bonus this year, an increase of 29 per cent over 2003 and equivalent to just over six weeks pay for each employee.

This year's increase follows a 10 per cent increase in profits at the group to £277 million.

The company, which has no outside shareholders and is run as a partnership for the beneift of those who work in it, distributes a proportion of its profits every year as bonuses.

The success of the business is largely due to the vision of John Spedan Lewis, whose personal belief that the the real advantages of ownership should go to those who gave their time and labour to the business rather than to those who had supplied the capital led to the creation of the company's unique structure in the early part of the 20th century.

"The Partnership was meant to enable people to feel that they might be making a contribution of real value to the ceaseless experimenting that is necessary to human progress. It was meant for people who need not only something to live by but something to live for," he said.

How sad that more than half a century later, so many organisations still ignore the simple message that John Spedan Lewis saw so clearly - and which the company he led still thrives on today.

La-la-la-la-la.Cha-ching.