The New York state Senate recently passed a bill that will allow women to pump breast milk while on breaks at their workplaces, writes Sarah Wolff for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

The bill, called the “Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act,” will permit women to take paid or unpaid work breaks in order to express breast milk up until their child is 2 years old. The bill also mandates that employers must create spaces for the nursing mothers to pump, discouraging them from inadvertently forcing nursing women to pump milk in bathroom stalls or storage areas.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) supports the bill, adding that if a woman who nurses is unable to pump milk during the day, she will slowly stop producing it until she ceases to lactate milk altogether, creating a possible health risk to her child.

The Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act will apply to both public and private employers in New York State. The bill was passed by the State Assembly on March 26, 2007, and will be given to Gov. Elliot Spitzer to sign into law.

Karen Kerrigan, for Hawaii Reporter, writes that small firms are at risk under mandatory "card check" approach sought by labor bosses.

Editor's note: It is anticipated that the United States Senate will vote Tuesday, June 26 on the controversial "card check" mandate bill, which eviscerates the long-standing private vote that employees currently enjoy in deciding whether they want to join a union.

Washington, D.C. — So, you make the daily trek to the office one morning anticipating a typical business-owner type of day. At the early morning staff get-together it is announced by one employee: "We are on our way to becoming a union shop."

How could this be? Doesn't the federal government get involved here? How does this person know how the rest of my employees feel on this issue?

Well, a bill moving through the U.S. House, ironically called the "Employee Free Choice Act," H.R. 800, aims to fully change the rules of the game when it comes to union organizing. The long-standing "secret ballot" system, where employees cast a private vote for or against union representation in a federally-supervised election, would be replaced with a mandatory "card-check" approach.

Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer, reports on perks on the job for those who are flexible.

Employees at the Seattle office of the U.S. Government Accountability Office know that they have to put in 80 hours of work every two weeks. But they can configure those hours pretty much how they'd like, with the exception of the one day a week their managers require all employees to be at the office at the same time.

Plus, they can work from home for some of the week, or they can work compressed weeks so that they can take every fifth or tenth day off and still log their 80 hours.

Those policies are why that GAO office is among the recipients of the Alfred P. Sloan awards for excellence in workplace flexibility given by the Families and Work Institute (FWI) every year.

Three-quarters of big organizations now offer flexible-work benefits, according to Hewitt Associates. Watson Wyatt in its survey of mid- and large-sized companies found that flexible work schedules was the most commonly offered benefit, followed by telecommuting and compressed work weeks.

But just because an HR policy exists doesn't mean that your employer has your back if you're afraid to take advantage of it.

When a woman leaves an employer to care for her family, she takes all of her skills and experience with her. Now more firms are working to retain that talent, offering flexible hours and easing re-entry into the work force, writes Julie Forster for the Pioneer Press.

Managing partner Jeffrey DeYoung was disheartened when one of his auditors, a 35-year-old working mom on a flexible work schedule, walked into his office recently and said it wasn't working out.

She had taken a new job and was leaving.

While the agreement she had with the accounting firm Virchow Krause to work reduced hours was nice in theory, she made it clear: In reality, it wasn't working. Enough was enough.

DeYoung tried to salvage the situation, but the auditing manager was determined to leave.

We just lost one of our top performers, DeYoung thought. Out the door walked money invested in recruiting and training, not to mention client relationships and the expertise she brought. In short, it was an expensive loss.

Becky Lewis, the departing employee, later told DeYoung that she should have been more insistent about the deal she had with the company. Her reduced hours were supposed to allow her to take her son to kindergarten and meet him at the bus later in the day.

Keeping employees like Becky Lewis in the fold is moving from rhetoric to action at a growing number of U.S. companies staring at seismic shifts in demographics ahead, changes that come as the labor force is growing slowly and competition for top talent intensifies.

The challenge is particularly acute for a small number of companies in highly demanding industries like financial services.

Inside Recruiting reports One-Third of Women Claim Weekly Discrimination at Work

Thirty-three percent of female workers said their gender works against them when applying for a job, while 11% said it works in their favor.

Another 56% think their gender has no influence on whether they are hired.

Once on the job, 31% of female workers said they experience discrimination or unfair treatment at least once a week; 26% percent said once a month; and 34% said it happens occasionally.

In terms of involuntary termination, 12% of female workers said they believed they had been fired at some point in their career because of their gender.

These figures are from a new study, "Diversity in the Workplace," designed to gauge how diversity impacts hiring, compensation, and career advancement.

Unfortunately, the survey shows that a lot of this discrimination is swept under the rug. Almost 50% of female workers who experienced discrimination or unfair treatment said they did not report the incident; 72% said they didn't think reporting the incident would make a difference; 46% feared being labeled as a trouble-maker; and 34% feared losing their jobs.

Judith Sills, for Psychology Today, writes, various psychological factors explain some of the challenges females face.

A gentleman complained recently that, though his private club had committed itself to increasing female membership, the admissions committee had thus far been unsuccessful. "No matter which woman is proposed," he said, "some other woman blackballs her."

Two women are comparing career trajectories, one complaining that she was stalled for two years, until she finagled a lateral move.

"What was the problem?"

"Woman boss."

Could it be true? A woman's worst workplace enemy is another woman?

There are psychological factors that may explain this perception.

Anthropology. "Yo, Bernie. How's about bringing that bison over to my cave?" Since the beginning of social organization, female survival and the survival of their young depended on how well they could compete with other women for the resources that men could provide. Surely such competitive instincts are hard-wired. Why would they not surface clearly in the gladiatorial arena of the office?

Female gender expectations. Women train primarily for and highly value the cooperative skills so necessary to maintaining family and community. Open competition with each other is a direct violation of these social expectations. A man after the credit or the clout is, after all, only being a man. But a woman concerned with the same rewards is a backstabber.

'Workplace Princesses' can be royal pains, writes John Eckberg for the Cincinnati Enquirer

A survey earlier this year from Rachelle Canter, author of the executive career handbook "Make the Right Career Move," (Wiley, $21.95), found that 48 percent of American workers say there is a Workplace Princess at their job site.

According to the survey of 506 adults, which is accurate to plus or minus 5 percentage points, 48 percent of Workplace Princesses expect special favors from employers; 47 percent believe they are being treated unfairly; and 35 percent make other people do their work for them.

Women do not have a monopoly on such entitlement either, according to the survey conducted by Opinion Research Inc. of Princeton, N.J., in March. One of every six workers, about 16 percent, believes that the Workplace Princess on their job is a man.

To find out if you are one, answer these questions:

Do most of your questions begin with "I want" or "I need"?

When things go wrong, do you blame the situation and other people?

Do you know the career goals of your friends and co-workers or only your own?

Megan Dowd for Fox News writes about women in leadership positions.

According to the American Association of University Women, men account for 82 percent of engineering majors. In other words, women are taking themselves out of the running for this high-paying field before they even enter the job market.

Time and time again, one reason given for the absence of women from high-paying and power-player positions is a lack of mentors. Here’s your cue, dads — you are the grassroots mentors (and of course moms are too, but Father’s Day only happens once a year so I’m dedicating this one to the dads).

Make sure you remind your little (or grown) girl often that she can do whatever she can dream in life. Be sure to tell her about the many options open to her. Encourage her to speak her mind and explore different opportunities as often as possible. Never underestimate the influence you have on her outlook on life; I know from experience that that influence is indeed powerful.

New York Time’s segment What’s Offline reports “How Great Leaders Juggle Ideas.”

WHEN we look for ways to improve our life at work, how we can make better decisions, for example, or try to figure out the next step in our career, invariably one thing we do is look at what great leaders have done. This is why books like “Straight From the Gut,” by John F. Welch Jr., and those by Lee A. Iacocca sell so well.

But focusing on what a successful leader does is a mistake, according to Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto Business School.

“That’s because moves that work in one context often make little sense in the same company or within the experience of a single leader,” he writes in The Harvard Business Review.

Mr. Martin contends that the more beneficial thing to do is study how great leaders think.

He has, and he has concluded that they process information differently than the rest of us do.

“They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their head two opposing ideas at once,” he writes. “And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both.”

Mr. Martin calls this process of consideration and synthesis “integrative thinking,” and contends that it is this ability and not a “superior strategy or faultless execution that is the defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.”

Intriguingly, Mr. Martin, who interviewed 50 exemplary leaders in doing his research, says many successful executives aren’t aware that this is the way they go about processing information.

Sheryl Berk, for New York Daily News, writes about workplace changes.

It's not the life most men imagine for themselves: swapping the boardroom for the nursery, the briefcase for a diaper bag. But Jeffrey J. of Brooklyn wouldn't have had it any other way. An interior designer and architect, there was no question in his mind that he would stay home and care for his newborn son while his wife, a corporate lawyer, returned to work after maternity leave.

"It just made the most sense. My work could be done from our apartment while the baby napped - and my wife's work brought in the steady paycheck. We knew it was the right decision."

At first, he got teased and taunted by other fathers - the ones who couldn't understand why he wanted to watch back-to-back episodes of "Barney." "You know, 'Oh, so you're Mr. Mom now, huh?'" Jeff recalls.

The neighborhood moms weren't much kinder: "I'd go to birthday parties or playgroups and I could sense the whispers. They felt like I was intruding.

"What people don't get is that it's the hardest job in the world. It's the most responsibility I had ever known in my entire life - and also the most rewarding thing I've ever done."

Plenty of other men feel the same way. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 150,000 stay-at-home fathers (SAFH) in the United States. But researchers estimate the real number to be closer to 2 million; the Census Bureau figures do not take into account fathers who work part-time or from the home.

Meanwhile, Phyllis Korkki writes in the New York Times that times haven’t changed as much, since stay-at home fathers are still a rarity.

Times have certainly changed since the days of “Leave It to Beaver,” when Ward Cleaver, in a business suit, won the bread and June Cleaver, in an apron, served it. But we are far from being a “Mr. Mom” society, too.

In 62 percent of married-couple families with children under 18, both the father and the mother are employed, according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A sizable 31 percent adhere to the traditional ’60s sitcom mold, with the father being the sole wage earner.

A mere 5 percent of the fathers are not working while the mother is employed, the data show. The statistics are silent on which of these fathers are jobless by choice.

But it is clear that the urge to earn remains strong among fathers, and that a man’s ego may suffer a blow if he decides to stay home.

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, for Time magazine, writes about going green at the office.

We can compost and conserve all we want at home. But as soon as we hit the office, we turn into triplicate-printing, paper-cup-squashing, run-our-computers-all-night-so-the-boss-thinks-we're-working earth befoulers. One office worker can use a quarter ton of materials in a year--which includes 10,000 pieces of copier paper. Heating, cooling and powering office space are responsible for almost 40% of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. and gobble more than 70% of total electricity usage. Commuters spew 1.3 billion tons of CO2 a year. Computers in the office burn $1 billion worth of electricity annually--and that's when they're not producing a lick of work.

All our unnecessarily generated company waste adds up to unnecessarily wasted company cash. Goosed by the color of money, companies from global empire to mom-and-pop, from high tech to local government are embracing environmentally friendlier architecture, supplies and attitudes. Wal-Mart is placing solar panels on its stores. Los Angeles County may soon offer its 90,000 commuting employees incentives to buy hybrid vehicles; UCLA already does. The San Francisco Federal Building, Dallas' McKinney Green office building, and New York City's Hearst, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs towers were all designed under green principles. Want a tipping point? Here's one: in May, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corp. would go carbon neutral.

Author Penelope Trunk, for Boston.com, shares myths about the workplace.

Each generation revolutionizes something. Today's younger generation is revolutionizing work. The goals people have, their values and opportunities have all changed drastically in the last 10 years. The new workplace demands new rules for success, yet people continue to get outdated advice based on persistent workplace myths.

Find out if job-hopping looks bad on your resume and if good things will absolutely happen with hard work.

Of those responding to the Business Journal's most recent online survey, opinion was roughly split over whether their office leadership reflects enough diversity.

Of the 132 responses to the question, "How diverse is your office leadership?," 49 percent answered by saying either, "neither enough minorities nor enough women," or "not enough minorities." Another 6 percent checked the answer, "not enough women."

The remaining 43 percent answered by saying, "diverse enough."

The poll ran between May 30-June 5. Here's a sampling of voter comments, which were made anonymously.

"Attempts are being made, but still not diverse enough."

"I think our company is run only by white men."

"We need more women in management, along with comparable pay. The 1950s model is dead. Women work, pay bills, raise the kids and must have (pay) equal to men."

Carrie Napoleon, Post-Tribune correspondent, looks at how office design has changed over the years.

For years women entrepreneurs and managers have been taking their place in the business community and now their presence is influencing how the workplace looks and functions.
Tib Schultz, owner of Tib Office in Crown Point, said the influence by women entrepreneurs can be felt in the office furniture industry. Whether as owner of their own business or as a key decision-maker for a company, woman are taking charge when it comes to how an office comes together.

Schultz said he has seen a dramatic change in the way offices look during the past 21 years he has been selling and installing office furniture.

Certified interior designer Phylis Butler Mamula, ASID, owner of Designtech in Hammond, specializes in office environments. "In the case of professional women, it's a natural instinct to want people to be comfortable in your environment," Butler Mamula said. That means softer woods like maple, birch and cherry, a comfy sofa or seat for guests and furniture with storage and the potential to hide office work.

"You're spending so much time in your office it becomes your environment. You want to feel at home want to be comfortable there," she said.

Sue Davis, for Workers World, writes, In a 5-4 decision on May 29, the Supreme Court ruled that it didn’t matter that supervisor Lilly M. Ledbetter had over the course of 20 years been paid less than her male peers. What mattered was a technicality. She hadn’t filed her case (Ledbetter v. Goodyear) with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days of the first time the discrimination occurred.

In 1998 Ledbetter, the only woman among 16 supervisors at the same management level, discovered she was being paid as much as 40 percent less than the men, even those with less seniority. Though she started at the same salary, she received smaller and smaller raises between 1979 and 1998.

No wonder there’s been a firestorm of reaction against the reactionary decision. Groups like the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Women’s Law Center and the National Organization for Women have all denounced the decision for severely limiting all workers’ legal options.

Meanwhile business groups are clinking champagne glasses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Litigation Center hailed the decision as a “victory” because corporations will now be protected from “employees trying to dredge up stale pay claims.”

Gerald Skoning for the National Law Journal provides examples of workplace wackiness, from a family-leave hoax to a profitable panic attack, read the top ten here.

Stanley Bing, Fortune contributor, says bosses aren't the only looneys in the workplace.

In the previous issue of this magazine there was a tasty excerpt from my new book, "Crazy Bosses," which investigates the irrationality of executives and offers some solutions to their care and feeding. When I consider this matter, which possibly afflicts everyone on the planet who does not work for Warren Buffett, I find a tiny grain of sand in the oyster of my self-possession. In this small space I will attempt to transform that morsel of agitation into a pearl of wisdom.

The problem is this: For years I have been considering the bad behavior of people in positions of authority. This is not only fun but also exorcises the anger, frustration and hurt feelings that roil within each of us against our boss at one point or another. While doing so, however, I may have turned a blind eye to one of the most important causes of managerial madness: the crazy employee

Hannah Seligson writes that employers value youthful energy but not childish behavior that often goes with it.

You might be able to recite Proust from memory and hold forth on how migrant laborers are changing the demographics of the Chinese workforce, but your intellectual prowess is only one component of professional success. A host of other challenges await, such as learning how to decode the social mores of the workplace, fi guring out how to act and speak like a professional, and otherwise discovering how to get by and get ahead in a new environment.

There are no do-overs when it comes to making a first impression. And unfortunately, just putting on a swanky new suit doesn’t make you a professional. In practice, the process takes time, some good strategies and a certain degree of faking it.

Dawn Anfuso for DailyBreeze.com thinks mentoring shouldn’t just be for American Idol competitors.

Last week, the country (or at least the country's youth) selected the latest American Idol.
It's amazing to watch the transformation of the young men and women in this competition. They enter as regular folks with raw talent, and leave as polished, coiffed stars.
Of course they get a little help with this journey. They've got voice coaches training their technique, professional music industry people selecting their songs and stylists making over their hair, faces and wardrobes.

Wouldn't it be nice if all of us got this kind of help in our jobs? Someone who could provide insight into office protocol, groom us for advancement and teach us how to handle sensitive situations at work?

Unfortunately, a recent Accountemps survey reveals that it's uncommon for new hires to be matched with mentors, either formally or informally, within their organizations.

"Mentoring is a valuable way to transfer wisdom, foster talent and promote best practices within a company," says Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps and author of Motivating Employees For Dummies. "The faster a business can help new employees get up to speed, the more quickly these professionals can begin contributing."

Sentinel staff writer Harry Wessel writes that there is job discrimination for those sporting tattoos.

Russell Parrish would like a better job. He manages his father-in-law's small restaurant, but other prospective employers won't even give him applications, let alone interviews. By his count, he's been turned down for more than two dozen jobs in the last couple of months, and he's pretty sure he knows why.

"It comes down to skin color," said Parrish, 29, who has dozens of tattoos that cover his arms, hands, torso and neck. "I want a career; I want same the shot as everybody else."

He reports receiving literally hundreds of supporting calls from the tattoo community, though he acknowledges having little luck in getting legislators or government officials to listen to his complaints of discrimination.

His complaints have merit on one level, employment lawyers agree. There is no doubt people with visible tattoos suffer workplace discrimination, "but it's legal discrimination," said Gary Wilson, a Winter Park employment lawyer.

Cary Silverstein, for Small Business Times, provides strategies for a healthy workplace atmosphere.

Since the Virginia Tech tragedy, more companies are deciding to focus on strategies that could help them create a more psychologically healthy workplace.

Each year, the American Psychological Association recognizes companies that work proactively to provide employees with an opportunity to feel more in control of their lives both at work and in their homes. These programs not only benefit the employee, but they pay large dividends to the employer.

Why institute a program that will lead to a psychology healthy workplace? Here are a few reasons for you to consider:

1. Two-thirds of both men and women say, “Work has a significant impact on their stress level.”
2. One-fourth of employees view their jobs as the No. 1 stressor in their lives.
3. Productivity losses related to personal and family health problems cost U.S. employers $1,685 per employee year or $225.8 billion annually.
4. Employers could save $3.50 for every dollar spent on improving their work environment in terms of reduced absenteeism and health care costs.
5. In 2001, 8.8 million sick days were used due to untreated or mistreated depression.

The weather's getting warmer and necklines are dipping lower -- sometimes, too low.

From the beach to the mall to the office, women seem to be showing off their cleavage more than ever before. Why? According to Elisabeth Squires, author of "Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls," American breasts are getting bigger while shirts are getting smaller.

"We are seeing more cleavage these days for a few reasons. First, the fashion of the day is tight and skinny. At the same time, women are bigger than they were even 15 years ago. Bra fitters tell me that an E cup is the new C cup," Squires said on "Good Morning America."

"We have to remember that while more women are showing more cleavage, you really have to use your breast power responsibly," Squires said.

Syndicate columnist Tom Purcell writes, The Wall Street Journal article nearly brought me to tears: Crying has become acceptable in the workplace.

A growing number of workers, especially those in their 20s and 30s, no longer see crying at work as a bad thing. They think it's bad to conceal their emotions.

Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State, said those workers were raised by parents who encouraged them to express their feelings -- parents who continually told them how smart and talented and perfect they are.

Now that these runts are in the workplace -- now that they're in reality -- they can't handle the pressure. Their meany bosses -- greedy fellows who care about turning profits -- are demanding and critical. No wonder everybody is crying.

One woman -- an accountant in her early 30s -- broke into tears when her boss asked her to install software on her computer. When the boss asked her why she was blubbering, the woman said, "You scare me!"

It's not just women who are crying. Although they are more likely to cry than men, it has become more socially acceptable for both men and women to cry, according to Stephanie Shields, a psychology professor at Pennsylvania State University.

We may say as a country that we value families and mothers, but a rise in job discrimination complaints by moms highlights how far most workplaces are from that ideal, writes Nathan Newman for The Coffee House. Yesterday, to help clarify the responsibilities of employers, the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued new guidelines on what kinds of discrimination against parents is illegal.

John Schwartz asks in The New York Times, “When did the office become funny?”

Not your office — but that office on screen. You know, the paper supply company where Steve Carell tortures his employees on “The Office” on NBC. Or the high-tech company that a band of misfit cubicle slaves tries to rip off in “Office Space,” the 1999 cult hit by the director Mike Judge.

Television sitcoms, of course, have taken us to the office before. On “Bewitched,” Darrin Stephens’s advertising agency, McMann & Tate, was one of the few places that viewers saw outside of the cozy home at 1164 Morning Glory Circle.

Comedy may have been slow to exploit the world of work fully because television and movie writers have been more likely to see the office as a place of high drama and manipulation — a trend that seems to parallel, in some ways, the sensibility of novels.

The Associated Press reports that America’s lowest-paid workers won a $2.10 raise Thursday, with Congress approving the first increase in the federal minimum wage in almost a decade.

President George W. Bush was expected to sign the bill quickly, and workers who now make $5.15 an hour will see their paychecks go up by 70 cents per hour before the end of the summer. Another 70 cents will be added next year, and by summer 2009, all minimum-wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour.

Stephanie Armour, for Gannett News Service, reports on employers who are accommodating moms who breastfeed.

As the number of working mothers grows, more employers are responding by offering lactation programs and schedule changes that allow new moms to continue breastfeeding.
The number of employers with lactation programs has grown from 16 percent in 1999 to 23 percent in 2006, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. These include major employers such as S.C. Johnson, Ford Motor and Ernst & Young.

The Nation’s Liza Featherstone writes, When you pay $4 for a cup of coffee-flavored foamy milk at Starbucks, part of what you're buying is an illusion of environmental responsibility. How they treat their workers is a different story.

Last week Starbucks faced legal and political trouble from its own workers. On the third anniversary of the founding of the IWW Starbucks Union, baristas in Chicago marched into a shop and told the manager they were signing up. (Starbucks workers have chosen to organize without government-mediated elections, through an interesting model called "solidarity unionism.")

Meanwhile, baristas in Grand Rapids, Michigan announced that they were filing a legal complaint against the company for violating their organizing rights through unlawful surveillance and other questionable tactics. All over the world -- Austria, England, Spain and Australia, as well as the United States -- Starbucks workers demonstrated in front of stores to protest the company's union-busting practices.

Marcia Heroux Pounds, for the Sun-Sentinel, reports on how to address employee complaints.

Get information from several people relevant to the situation. In one case Dionne investigated, an employee's sexual harassment claim initially was called "unsubstantiated," but workers interviewed observed several instances of the woman frantically crying as she was coming out of a manager's office.

Interview subjects in person. Dionne said that's important because body language, eye contact and other signals can be important to a witness' credibility. Choose a confidential setting and seat the interviewee closest to the door so he or she doesn't feel trapped, he advised.

Ask open-ended questions. Similar to a job interview, questioning should not be those that can be answered with a "yes" or "no."

Establish a relevant time frame. "When is the first time you met this person?" might be a beginning question, for example. He keeps drilling down to obtain relevant information.

Pause once in a while during the interview. That often prompts the other person to talk rather than sit through an uncomfortable silence. Repetitive questioning also can be effective, he says.

Ask the toughest questions last. Obtain a statement from the person at the end of the interview. Dionne recalls when he was a rookie investigator he failed to get a written, signed statement and the person later denied saying what he had said in the interview.

Lisa Belkin, for The New York Times, revisits a “nasty and noisy debate” inspired by a past article on “opting out.”

A study by the Families and Work Institute shows that 24 percent of women and 13 percent of men who work full-time would like to work part-time. And among the youngest workers, those now having children and most actively juggling family and career, Fortune magazine found that 61 percent would leave their job if they could find another that allows them to telecommute.

Which is leading companies to look deeper for flexibility. The law firm of Heller Ehrman, for instance, created a group called the Opt-In Project, which has spent the past year studying the way the firm does business. At the end of the month, the group plans to unveil a proposal to abandon the idea of billable hours that is deeply ingrained in the profession. “We can’t afford to keep losing all these people,” says Patricia Gillette, founder of the project. “The way we currently reward spending more and more hours at work makes no sense in a world where people demand balance.”

This growing demand for balance, or what I prefer to call sanity, is also leading businesses to accept that some employees will leave no matter how much flexibility exists, and that it is better to keep the door open for their return, rather than slamming it tight.

Connie Glaser, bizwomen columnist and author of GenderTalk Works: Seven Steps for Cracking the Gender Code at Work, dissects the differences between the way men and women communicate in this Q&A first published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Find out the answers to these questions:
What is the main difference between the way men and women talk?
How can women get out of the habit of apologizing excessively?

Stepanie Armour reports that English Only Policies in the Workplace are Creating Lawsuits

Some companies are adopting policies that require employees to speak only English on the job, spurring a backlash of lawsuits alleging that such rules can discriminate against immigrants.

The English-only policies are coming as the number of immigrants in the U.S. soars: Nearly 11 million residents are not fluent in English, according to U.S. Census data, up from 6.6 million in 1990. Nearly 34 million residents are foreign-born, according to 2003 U.S. Census data. That's up from 24.6 million in 1996.

"This is becoming a much bigger issue," says Amy McAndrew, an employment lawyer at Philadelphia-based Pepper Hamilton. "Employers want to have policies because of safety and customer service, but they have to be careful not to be discriminatory."

For Bend Weekly News, Michael Kinsman writes that discrimination was supposed to have been put to rest 44 years ago. President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963.

The law said employers must pay equal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility, and that are performed under similar working conditions.

There is no ambiguity there. The law is straightforward.

The arguments beg for us to move ahead of this issue and start treating women more equitably in our workplaces.

Julia Feldmeir, Washington Post Staff writer, reports on how to give yourself praise at work without sounding like a braggart.

Trouble talking yourself up in the workplace? Focus on the positive.

Tory Johnson, chief executive of the job assistance company Women for Hire, says people worry too much about being judged, a fear that can prevent some from touting their achievements. Johnson says that when she tells an anecdote about a brief call she received from Bill Clinton, who congratulated her on a career fair she held after Sept. 11, 2001, she gets two responses: "One is a smile, as if to say, 'You go, girl!" she says. "The other is much more of a look to say, "Well, well, isn't Tory pleased with herself?" Ultimately, as a small-business owner, Johnson chooses to be proud of her accomplishments and share them. "If I focused on the naysayers, I'd never speak up," she says.

Associated Press Writer, Bradley S. Klapper, reports on a recent U.N. Study.

The disabled, gays and lesbians, and people living with HIV/AIDS are suffering from new and more subtle forms of workplace discrimination, the U.N. labor agency said Thursday.

Despite major advances in the fight against discrimination, gender, race and religion continue to determine how people are treated in the employment market and at the workplace, the International Labor Organization said in its flagship report on global working conditions.

Women are especially prone to labor discrimination, the ILO said in outlining only a mixed bag of success since the last installment of its "equality at work" series four years ago.

This month, men and women across the nation will graduate from college and enter the world of work. Yet, many will do so without the skills they'll need to survive and thrive in the workplace.

(PRWEB) May 8, 2007 -- The National Association of Colleges and Employers recently reported that communication skills top the list of what employers look for the most in employees and job candidates. Ironically, communication skills also top the list of skills most lacking in new college graduates.

It's no wonder why employers value good communication as much as they do. It's a skill that prevents accidents and mistakes; saves time and money; and resolves problems among coworkers, bosses or customers, according to Marsha J. Ludden, M.A., author of the new workbook Effective Workplace Communication, Third Edition.

Despite its impact on workplace efficiency, communication is still a skill everyone from new graduates to seasoned professionals struggle to perfect. Often this is because people forget about the most important component of good communication -- active listening. Ludden believes listening is not only essential in the workplace, but to an individual's career success as well.

Stephanie Armour, for USA TODAY, writes, Some companies are adopting policies that require employees to speak only English on the job, spurring a backlash of lawsuits alleging that such rules can discriminate against immigrants.

The English-only policies are coming as the number of immigrants in the USA soars: Nearly 11 million residents are not fluent in English, according to U.S. Census data, up from 6.6 million in 1990. Nearly 34 million residents are foreign-born, according to 2003 U.S. Census data. That's up from 24.6 million in 1996.

"This is becoming a much bigger issue," says Amy McAndrew, an employment lawyer at Philadelphia-based Pepper Hamilton. "Employers want to have policies because of safety and customer service, but they have to be careful not to be discriminatory."

Newsday columnist Patricia Kitchen writes that emotional outbursts at the office are usually considered taboo.

Hannah Seligson says she's not prone to crying. But one day, just four months into her first job, she was called into the big boss's office and told that her immediate supervisor was not happy with her work.

Seligson, now 24, lost it.

She was running on four hours of sleep and immersed in creating an elaborate PowerPoint presentation. So instead of a flicker of a choke-up that might have gone unnoticed, she flipped into full water-sprinkler mode. It came to a point where "I was dry-heaving. I couldn't control myself," she says. "I was just floored. I had been working so hard."

Five months later she had another bad day -- she got fired. But this time she says she shed no tears: "I was just angry I hadn't quit first."

Yes, emotional outbursts at work are generally considered taboo. Just listen to what Martha Stewart said on the TV show "The Apprentice" to a young woman who insisted she was so embarrassed that she wanted to cry: "Cry and you're out of here," Martha told her. "Women in business don't cry, my dear."

Lawson Wulsin, for the Cincinnati Enquirer, writes, “Bullying in the workplace does not have to be a career buster.”

Twice your new boss has proposed that you "transfer over." Over and down. "We're restructuring your division," she said.

What's the problem? Where's my performance evaluation? "We'll get back to you," she said, and never did.

Why have my lunch buddies not been available? Why do I not find out about key meetings? When will the ax fall?

In the past month, I've heard tales like this from patients, a colleague and a friend. Like sexual harassment 30 years ago, workplace bullying is a blooming focus of talk and study.

Defined by the Workplace Bullying Institute as "repeated, health-harming mistreatment of an employee by verbal abuse or threatening or intimidating conduct that interferes with work," workplace bullying is usually perpetrated by bosses (71 percent of the time) on women (80 percent). Half of all bullying is woman-on-woman.

/PRNewswire/ -- Although many organizations,
including the federal government, tout breastfeeding babies during the
first six months of life as the healthiest choice new mothers can make for
their child, a new survey by the not-for-profit National Women's Health
Resource Center (NWHRC) and Medela, Inc. reveals 32 percent of new mothers
give up breastfeeding less than seven weeks after returning to work because
of significant barriers. This is particularly true of women in retail
settings, younger moms and those with lower paying jobs.

Many work environments are falling short of supporting women and
providing the resources they need to succeed at breastfeeding while
working. The biggest barriers include no privacy, inflexible schedules,
lack of refrigeration to store breast milk and insufficient or lack of
company policies to allow them to take an adequate number of breaks to
pump. In fact, while 60 percent of the survey respondents believe that the
perception of breastfeeding in the workplace has grown more positive in
recent years, 35 percent feel that there has been no change, and five
percent consider it to have grown more negative.

Kim Perez threw in the towel on commuting three years ago, writes Cindy Krischner Goodman for the Miami Herald.

Now, Perez gets to work by climbing a dozen stairs in her sweats to a desk in her bedroom. The Weston mother of three works as a home-based customer service agent and sets her shifts in half-hour blocks, around school schedules and PTA meetings. Perez says she has permanently ditched the stress of Corporate America. ``When I take my headset off, I'm done with work.''

Working from home has long been attractive to some. And there's a growing number of American workers who crave control over their schedules, hate their commutes, are frustrated with high gas costs and want to become home-based customer service agents.
These things, combined with more innovations in technology, are fueling industry growth as more customer service companies begin using home-based agents.

Workplace expert Tory Johnson suggests anyone considering the career learn what accounts a firm has before signing on. ''It's difficult to deliver a high level of customer service if you're not passionate about the products,'' says Johnson, CEO of Women For Hire. She also recommends a basic aptitude for trouble shooting. ``If you panic at the slightest computer glitch, you could become sour on the industry.''

Fortune's Stanley Bing answers questions about what goes on at the office.

How do you handle a boss who is physically present at work, but never does any work? All day, every day, he spent his time taking care of personal stuff (rental properties, trading accounts, real estate deals, family matters, food and jokes, telling stories to other people).

All work that needs his approval or reviews are pending...for weeks if not months. Should I go above him? His boss is not that much better. Or simply do things my way?

M.P. McQueen for The Wall Street Journal reports that disabilities in the workplace are rising.

Disabilities among American workers are growing at an accelerating pace, prompting employers to accommodate more maladies in the workplace, according to new government and industry studies.

The problem is increasingly related to unhealthy lifestyles, including poor eating habits and lack of exercise, insurers and researchers say. Also, an aging work force and rising rates of obesity lead to ailments such as back pain, knee and hip injuries and diabetes. And improved treatments for diseases such as cancer and heart disease have meant that some patients who otherwise would have died survive, but with disabilities.

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen writes for Time Magazine, reporting that employee diversity doesn’t work.

Some decades ago, the powers that be declared that employee diversity was a good thing, as desirable as double-digit profit margins. It's proving just as difficult to achieve. Companies try all sorts of things to attract and promote minorities and women. They hire organizational psychologists. They staff booths at diversity fairs. They host dim-sum brunches and salsa nights. The most popular--and expensive--approach is diversity training, or workshops to teach executives to embrace the benefits of a diverse staff. Too bad it doesn't work.

A groundbreaking new study by three sociologists shows that diversity training has little to no effect on the racial and gender mix of a company's top ranks. Frank Dobbin of Harvard, Alexandra Kalev of the University of California, Berkeley, and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota sifted through decades of federal employment statistics provided by companies. Their analysis found no real change in the number of women and minority managers after companies began diversity training. That's right--none. Networking didn't do much, either. Mentorships did. Among the least common tactics, one--assigning a diversity point person or task force--has the best record of success. "Companies have spent millions of dollars a year on these programs without actually knowing, Are these efforts worth it?" Dobbin says. "In the case of diversity training, the answer is no."

Watercooler: 10 jobs in one, taking time off and staying in touch with the tech-shy, writes AP Business Writer, Jackie Farwell

I DO THAT, TOO: Ever given your boss a haircut or paid her rent? How about shooing trapped bats from your office? And surely you've stored cremation ashes in your desk at one time or another?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you're probably an office manager. A new study shows that more than half of office managers report performing at least 10 different jobs in a given week, including customer relations, computer support, human resources and accounting.

Nearly 75 percent of office managers consider themselves workplace housekeeping supervisors, while 71 percent lend an ear as office psychologist.

"They tend to be the glue that holds the office together," said John Giusti of Staples, which conducted the "My Real Job" study.

Other tasks falling safely under the "not in my job description" category were breaking up an office romance, cleaning pigeon poop off the sidewalk and unclogging the toilet while on the phone and signing for a delivery.

More than 8,000 office managers reported their job descriptions from Feb. 19 to March 16 on the Staples Web site.

Men are more than four times more likely than women to negotiate a salary, which typically translates to more money in their pockets. An employer may offer the same starting salary to both a man and a woman for the same position, but more times than not, the man will negotiate and the woman won't.

This morning Women For Hire CEO, Tory Johnson, appeared on ABC's Good Morning America to discuss the issue of equal pay while offering strategies for effective negotiation.

Stephanie Armour, for USA Today, writes, On a typical weekday, stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld has a marijuana cigarette before work, then goes to his firm's smoking area for another after he gets to the office. By day's end, he usually has smoked more than a half-dozen joints - and handled millions of dollars' in clients' holdings.

Some companies, wary of marijuana's impact on employee performance, continue to fire those who test positive for the drug, even when its use is sanctioned by their state for medical purposes.

There's been a steady rise in the number of women alleging unfair treatment in the workplace because of pregnancy, so today the government is looking into the matter, reports Janet Babin for Marketplace.

Rita Pyrillis, for ChicagoBusiness (powered by Crains), writes about the new awareness as bullies slander and isolate victims.

Office ogres can be bosses or co-workers, men or women — and they are everywhere, says psychologist Gary Naimie, director of the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute in Bellingham, Wash. "It's a dirty little secret and it's not catching the eyes of executives."

By far most victims are women, and about half of all bullying incidents involve women harassing women, Mr. Naimie says. Nearly 70% of bullied employees end up quitting, most without confronting the problem. Victims fear retaliation, ridicule or being labeled a troublemaker. Those who do seek help often encounter managers and human resources professionals who don't know how to handle the problem or blame the victim.

We start sexism in the family, carrying our patterns of behavior into the workplace, adversely affecting human relations, morale and performance, writes David Whitfield, founder of Integral Leadership, Inc. We perpetuate it in the workplace by making economic decisions that affect working women: less pay, fewer promotions, and certain jobs relegated to women because they are women, though there are exceptions to this.

Sexism can be financially devastating in the workplace, especially when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act comes rapping on your door.

Here are a few monetary examples of how the courts are righting the wrongs:

In a recent case, six women are suing one of the world's biggest investment banks for $1.4 billion for sexism. In 2004, Morgan Stanley paid $54 million. Publix Super-Markets out of Florida was successfully sued for $63.5 million. Depending on one's perspective, these are not small potatoes.

A 10-year study of 200,000 managers and employees suggests that praising people for a job well done may lead to bigger profits, says Fortune's Anne Fisher.

Many years ago, Fortune had a top editor who made a point of never praising anyone for anything. Asked why not, he replied, "People who are good know they're good. They don't need to hear it." Well, if any proof is needed that that approach to managing people is wrongheaded, here's where to find it: "The Carrot Principle" (Free Press, $21.00), a fascinating book by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, both consultants at Salt Lake City-based consulting firm O.C. Tanner (www.octanner.com).

The book's subtitle says a mouthful - "How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance" - but the basic idea is simple: People will work harder and more enthusiastically for an appreciative boss, and companies that praise topnotch performance are more profitable than those that don't. In a study of 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period, Gostick and Elton found that, in companies where few people agreed with the statement "My organization recognizes excellence", annual return on equity averaged a paltry 2.4 percent. By contrast, companies with a culture that emphasized thanking people for excellent performance racked up returns more than three times as high, at an average of 8.7 percent. (For the complete study, go to www.carrots.com, under Research.)

Sheila Norman-Culp for the Associated Press reports on breastfeeding in the workplace.

Breast-feeding at work – could there be a more uncomfortable topic?
I’d put money on “No.”

You can discuss the latest cars, cell phones or fashions with your co-workers, but just watch the place empty out when you start talking about breast pumps.

Alas, there were 4.14 million babies born in the United States in 2005, according to the National Center for Health Statistics – and every one of them had to be fed.

Tens of thousands of new moms are caught in the struggle between a baby’s need to have the most fulfilling nourishment possible and an employer’s desire to have workers back on the job. The good news is that many of them have gracefully managed to bridge that divide.

PsychCentral.com, out of Boston, MA, addresses a recent survey.

United Kingdom research study discovers millions of workers are likely to be suffering from depression and panic attacks because they are so stressed out by their jobs.
The internet-based poll has found that two thirds of respondents had been made ill by work, with 48 percent of these suffering from depression, and 43 percent suffering from anxiety or panic attacks.

Among the other findings were:
– Eight in 10 people have a problem juggling the competing demands of work and home.
– Eight in 10 workers feel that at times they cannot cope with the demands placed upon them.
– Women (69.6 percent) were even more likely to feel this way than men (63 %) although both figures have increased in the last 12 months.
– Many people work over their contracted hours (one in 10 does a minimum of 49 hours a week, while only one in 100 is contracted to do so). Most do so to keep up with their workloads.
– More than half of workers find their daily commute adds to the stress of their day.
– Stressed workers were 9 times more likely to make a mistake at work.
– A third of employees resent the hours they work, and more than a quarter miss family and social occasions for work.
– One in five do not see as much of their children as they would like, feel their marriage or partnership has been damaged by work and are left too tired for sex.

Alison Maitland for Financial Times reports on what to expect at the workplace when you're expecting.

Maternity coaches help mothers-to-be navigate their way at work and on leave and help firms retain female talent.

Employers are increasingly anxious to stem the costly brain drain of women from middle and senior ranks and boost the female population in their top teams.

With paid maternity leave entitlement rising from six to nine months in Britain this month, coaching firms and employers say the need to support women through maternity is likely to increase. Those mothers who take longer leave often find the transition back to work harder.

Maternity coaching is an unfamiliar concept to most people. It conjures images of midwives and prenatal relaxation classes.

"We've had problems with the label," says Geraldine Gallacher, managing director of the Executive Coaching Consultancy, which last year became one of the first firms to offer the service and says it coined the term.

People have no idea what to expect, Gallacher says. "When they meet us, they're a bit surprised and they think: Oh crikey, these girls mean business."

Power and Sexual Harassment: Men and Women See Things Differently, reports Physorg.com.

In the hands of the wrong person, power can be dangerous. That's especially the case in the workplace, where the abuse of power can lead to sexual harassment.

Issues of power, workplace culture and the interpretation of verbal and non-verbal communication associated with sexual harassment were the focus of a study by Debbie Dougherty, assistant professor of communication in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Working with a large healthcare organization in the Midwest, Dougherty examined the question: why does sexual harassment occur?

"Power," she said. "It was the common answer. It came up repeatedly. However, what I found were multiple definitions of power."

Senior Staff Writer for the Daily Aztec reports on a new study that says careers sink for U.S. Navy women who light up.

Most people have heard the surgeon general's warnings or seen commercials that say smoking cigarettes can cause cancer and other health hazards. A new study has found that smoking may damage more than just health.

The study, led by a San Diego State lecturer, reveals that smoking not only has the potential to damage one's lungs but also a person's ability in the workplace.

The report, titled "Women's Smoking History Prior to Entering the United States Navy: A Prospective Predictor of Performance," was funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command. It analyzed the career advancement of women who joined the U.S. Navy during a 12-month period from 1996-97.

Results found that women who smoke were not as successful in the workplace as non-smokers.

The measure would ban smoking in all enclosed public places and workplaces with two or more employees, including all restaurants and bars. The governor has said the blanket smoking ban is the logical next step after last year's ban on smoking inside state buildings, including the legislative complex.

Bredesen said smoking in Tennessee adds up to $2 billion in annual health-care costs, including more than $600 million for TennCare, the state's expanded state-federal Medicare program that provides health coverage to about 1.2 million mostly low-income pregnant women, children and disabled people.

Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer, offers suggestions about what to do if your employer hired an outside candidate for that big job you wanted.

It's doubtless no consolation, but recruiting-industry research shows that, when competing against outsiders for a bigger job, only about one-third of internal candidates win. John Salveson, a principal at headhunting firm Salveson Stetson Group (www.ssgsearch.com) says there are several reasons why companies launch external searches even when they have strong candidates already on the payroll.

The company may be trying to acquire skills the organization lacks, he says. Or they may want to bring a new perspective and fresh thinking - even from a different industry - into the fold. Hiring outsiders also "sends a message to internal candidates that they are competing against the best available talent, from both inside and outside."

Stephanie Armour, for USA Today, writes that anti-gambling groups seek moratorium on office pools to curb addiction.

The hype around March Madness and this weekend's Final Four is focusing attention on gambling addiction in the workplace, with anti-gambling groups calling on employers to stop sanctioning office betting pools.

Gambling on the job is especially commonplace this time of year because of NCAA basketball tournaments: Almost half of employees have participated in an office pool at some point, according to a study by Harris Interactive for Spherion, a recruiting and staffing company.
That focus on gambling can trigger an addiction or cause someone who has had a gambling addiction to relapse. More people seek help to stop or control their sports betting during March and April than at other times during the year, according to a March survey by Bensinger DuPont & Associates (BDA), a Chicago-based employee assistance provider that also runs a toll-free gambling addiction hotline.

Michael Kinsman looks at the sevens deadly sins in the workplace

Maybe it's just the profession I'm in or the era, but I've always been intrigued by the way co-workers have viewed themselves.

Frankly, I must have worked around optimistic people because by and large they seemed to have an inflated sense of their talent, skills and value.

I rarely have come across people who were actually better than they thought.

As the years pass and I meet more people, I've come to the conclusion that people need to think of themselves as good at their jobs if they are going to be productive at all. A measured ego is important, if only to serve as motivation.

Now, along comes John McKee with his 7 Deadly Workplace Sins, applying centuries-old Christian values to a modern job setting. McKee, a career coach and author of books such as "21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot" and "Career Wisdom,"
tweaks us with self-observations we all should be taking from time to time.

See what you learn about yourself in his list of workplace sins.

Tory Johnson offers information about on-the-job weight loss.

Rockford Acromatic Products is into serious competition. Not only is the company a player in the auto parts industry, its 80 employees are kicking butt on the fitness front too.
The company initiated a health and wellness program aimed at helping — and rewarding — staffers lose weight and exercise more. The benefits included shrinking waistlines and some padding in their bank accounts. The company says it spends about $12,000 a year on a fitness regimen, which covers administrative costs and the rewards they've paid to successful participants.

In addition to savings in health insurance coverage and lost productivity on sick days, perhaps the biggest benefit Rockford has realized from this investment is an increase in productivity and morale. Risk manager Jim Knutsen says there's a new energy and excitement among employees about going to work every day and that does wonders for any workplace.

Hanah Cho, for the Baltimore Sun, reports a record 4,901 pregnancy discrimination complaints were filed nationwide with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and state and local fair employment practices agencies in fiscal year 2006. That is a 23 percent increase since 1997, making it one of the fastest-growing workplace bias complaints, according to federal officials. (Though up nationally, the EEOC said Maryland complaints totaled 87 last year - down from 105 in 2005, the only figures the agency made available.)

The number of complaints, however, may not reflect the true scope of the problem, said EEOC spokesman David Grinberg. That's because officials believe many women, especially those on a professional track, see filing a complaint and litigation as a "career killer," he said.

Dalliance could be bad for your career and reputation, reports Keilani Best.

Sure, some of the best romances were started with a wink and a smile, but what happens when flirting enters the workplace?

A lot, those who have studied the phenomenon say. Not only can it hurt your career, but it can give you a bad reputation among your fellow co-workers. It can even make you look not as smart as the rest of your crew, dumbifying you even though you know your job inside and out.
Like the fallout of what could happen if you move forward with the relationship or if the person of your affection is none-too-pleased with your advances. If you end up in a relationship with the one you flirted with, how will that affect your career? What if you decide to get married? What’s your company policy? Many companies frown upon it — if not in written policy, certainly in unwritten policy.

Stephanie Armour, for USA Today, reports that businesses are becoming more creative in finding ways to impress prospective employees.

The escalating talent war has led Ernst & Young, the accounting giant, to recruit soon-to-be graduates by taking them rafting down a snow-covered mountain in Utah. In Washington, D.C., technology company Blackboard is wooing job candidates with wine-tastings and baseball games. And Esurance, an online provider of insurance products, is taking on the competition by erecting recruiting billboards right next to rival call-center companies in areas such as Sioux Falls, S.D.

"It's a fiercely competitive marketplace," says Bruce Tulgan, a management consultant and author of Winning the Talent Wars. "Employers are really stepping up their recruiting efforts. If they don't, the competition will steamroll them. Employers are getting more and more nervous. Unemployment is lower, so employees have more and more negotiating power."

Companies' rising demand for top talent is a boon to job candidates. Compared with the not-so-distant past, candidates now are likely to get more-generous job offers, more promotions and flexible work hours.

Some survey facts reported by the Star Bulletin may surprise you.

Youth and women hate long hours
Employees younger than 44 have less tolerance than their older counterparts for workweeks that reach 60 hours and beyond, a study found. The dislike among women was even more prevalent.
From 30 to 36 percent of the younger employees holding those high-pressure "extreme jobs" expected to leave in the next two years, the study found. That compares with 19 percent of older workers, according to the study, published in the December issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Deception at work is common

Deception ranging from white lies to fibs about sales numbers can help maintain employee harmony and efficient workplace operations, according to David Shulman, author of "From Hire to Liar: The Role of Deception in the Workplace," and a professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.
"Lies are not necessarily evil, unethical lies," he said.
Blurting out your true feelings about a slacking co-worker or an incompetent boss, while truthful, can disrupt the workplace, most of us recognize.

Who you know really does count
Wallflowers take note: A job well done may not be enough to land you a promotion.
Available jobs drop off as you climb the corporate ladder, so who you know can become as important as what you know, according to Fran O'Brien, a networking instructor and chief underwriting officer at Chubb Insurance. For networking newbies, start schmoozing with these tips.

The New York Times asks, would you be willing to have nonurgent medical procedures done overseas, if you could recover in a fine hotel and your employer not only picked up all the costs, but actually paid you for having the work done outside the United States?

You may be faced with that decision, if HR Magazine is right in its prediction that “medical tourism” will become one of the benefits corporations will be offering soon.

Medical tourism, or medical travel as it is also called, involves traveling to “respected medical facilities” in countries like India, Thailand or Singapore to have non-life-threatening medical procedures done, Betty Liddick writes. “It also often involves recuperation at a resort, or tourist destination, all for less than what treatment alone would cost in the United States.”

The price is obviously the appeal to employers. According to examples cited in the article “Going the Distance for Health Savings,” the cost of sending a worker overseas for procedures like removing a gallbladder can be at least 50 percent less than that of having the work done in the United States, even if the employer pays for the worker to spend recovery time in a fine hotel.

To encourage employees to go overseas, some companies are willing to give employees a percentage of what is saved in medical costs.

Linda Hirshman, for TPMCafe.com, writes about the tale of two workplaces.

People keep proposing to change the paid workplace to make it easier for women to do both mothering and waged labor. It all sounds so appealing – months of paid maternity leave, part time work with full benefits. America’s current maternal policies are like something from an obscure third world country. Lesotho. Totally missing from the happy discussion is the cost. Not to the employers, the cost to the women. The work/family story is not a tale of one workplace. It is the tale of two workplaces.

But, you will hear, the new laws are gender neutral. They don’t just put a ceiling on women’s hours; they offer paid “family and medical” leave, benefits for part time workers, a mandatory ceiling on all hours. The laws won’t hurt women competing with men at work, because men are just dying to stay home with the kiddies, too, if only we’d stop acting like Lesotho and start acting like Luxembourg. Problem is, as Judith Stadtman Tucker honorably reports in these pages, similar European programs did not produce anything like that outcome. Immediately after the UN conference on women in 1995, the EU signed on with full force to the platform of “Equal rights, opportunities and access to resources, equal sharing of responsibilities for the family by men and women, and a harmonious partnership between them . . . the involvement of women in economic and social development and equal opportunities and the full and equal participation of women and men as agents and beneficiaries of people-centred sustainable development” and so on.

According to Theresa Younger, executive director of the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, women are just 15.5 percent of the top corporate earners nationwide and about 15 percent of the members of boardrooms.

A census study in 2004 showed a woman's earning power is severely limited because of, one expert said, a lack of flexible, family-friendly workplaces. Also, from the census report:
Women in the workforce are more likely to leave the labor force for longer periods of time than men, further suppressing women's wages. This suggests working women are penalized for their dual roles as wage earners and those who disproportionately care for home and family. But, Younger said, the pay disparity can be found at any stage of a woman's career and even among women who have not taken lengthy maternity leaves.

The picture does not get much better when you look at government, reports the Norwich Bulletin. In the state,women hold four of the six constitutional offices in the state. But, in the General Assembly, women are only one third of the legislators. According to the secretary of the state's office, women are only 35 percent of appointments to state boards and commissions.

Stephanie Armour takes a closer look at workers being under surveillance.

Employers have long warned their workers that company e-mail, Internet use and even phone calls are subject to monitoring.

But what many employees don't realize is that spying is going high-tech. In the spirit of James Bond wizardry, companies are tracking workers' whereabouts through Global Positioning System satellite, implanting employees with microchips with their knowledge and hiring private investigators to check up on what employees are really doing at work.

Hewlett-Packard became embroiled in a spying scandal after being accused of hiring private eyes to spy on its directors, sending computer spyware to reporters and probing private phone records to ferret out boardroom leaks.

The developments suggest that a Brave New Workplace is here. Employers in today's highly competitive and lawsuit-driven work environment are monitoring employees with unprecedented zeal

S. Brent Ridge, for Forbes.com, reports that the new workplace perk is balance.

You work 90 hours a week. You take Aderall to make it through the day. The only balance in your work life is the energy bar you grab en route to your 13th red-eye flight this month, and you have about five years between now and complete burnout. As one frazzled executive, an associate director at investment bank UBS, described it: "You can have time and no money or money and no time."

Does that sound like fun to you? No? Well, you're not alone. While some ambitious young go-getters are willing to make that sacrifice, a growing number of employees are not. According to a recent survey by the Association of Executive Search Consultants, 85% of recruiters have seen candidates reject a job offer because it wouldn't include enough work-life balance. And 90% of recruiters say work-life balance considerations are more important now than they were five years ago.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is making news by saying women are better managers than their male counterparts.

Reno, who was the first female Attorney General in the U.S. spoke Friday morning at Citigroup’s Latin American Women's Council in Miami.

In addition to talking about her career, past leadership roles and challenges she faced as Attorney General, she also said that women make better managers because women interact with their employees.

“Women can manage, can understand the conflicting pressures that are brought to bear on people who are trying to work and trying to build families and it is so important that you hear from the people that you work with to understand what they are faced with and what problems can be resolved by people working together,” Reno told CBS4’S Art Barron

The Buffalo Reflex reports how violence at home affects the workplace.

Andrew Bary of Barceda Resource and Violence Education says that 94 percent of abusers nationwide are male and that by the time physical signs become apparent, the abuse is generally far along. He recommended that workplaces have well-stated policies against violence and said that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Web site at www.uschamber.com is a good place to look for issues pertaining to large and small businesses.

Signs of abuse in the home can often become apparent in the victim's workplace. Those signs might include a worker becoming withdrawn and isolating herself/himself from co-workers. Bary said businesses should keep an eye out for changes in behavior not only for their employees' well being, but also to limit their own liability.

On factory floors, within engineering rooms and in executive offices there is a noticeable difference: the number of female faces, reports Adrienne Selko for Industry Week.

As of December 2006, almost 30% of the manufacturing workforce were women (4.06 million women out of 14.12 million manufacturing workers).

While that number shows progress, companies are still pushing hard to attract female employees. "Enrollment of women in our program has increased as our corporate partners sponsor more women," explains Don Rosenfeld, director of Leaders for Manufacturing, MIT's joint MBA and engineering degree program.

Katherine Putnam, president of Package Machinery Co. looks to associations to provide the support that female business owners need. "Networking is something that many women don't pursue enough," she says. "I have found great business leads by participating in groups and sitting on boards." Putnam serves on the board of the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute.

But with all these strides, manufacturers still have other factors to consider when it comes to attracting women. "What fields women choose, as engineers, can be viewed as how a company directly affects society, and manufacturing companies can seem further down the loop," says Helene Finger, director of California Polytechnic State University's women's engineering program.

Entrepreneur.com shares how to make sure your work environment is welcoming to employees of both genders.

"The times they are a-changin'," as the 1964 Bob Dylan song goes. That's especially true in the workplace where men and women are finding themselves in jobs not traditionally associated with their gender. You've likely noticed more men working as flight attendants, court reporters, administrative assistants and hair stylists. On the other hand, it's becoming more common to see women serving as construction workers, fire fighters and stock traders.

That might seem like old news, yet employees who feel uncomfortable in the workplace because of their gender are far from uncommon. This can be true even in offices or departments that just happen to employ mostly one gender, such as a small accounting firm with one male and three female employees or a marketing department that consisted only of men before the "new woman" was hired. So, how can you make sure your workplace is welcoming for all employees, regardless of gender?

Keep in mind that change is hard for most people. It can be disrupting for employees who've grown used to a certain environment. While it may seem basic, remind your employees that different workers bring diversity to the workplace in terms of work habits, skills, perspectives and resources.

Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer, reports that when Sun Microsystems compared the career progress of about 1,000 employees over a five-year period, it turned out that both mentors and mentees were more than 20% more likely to have gotten a raise than people who didn't participate in the mentoring program at all. But here's the surprising part: 25% of mentees got a raise, while 28% of mentors did (vs. just 5% of managers who were not mentors).

And that's not all. Employees who received mentoring were promoted five times more often than people who didn't have mentors, but again the mentors fared even better: They were six times more likely to have been tapped for a bigger job.

Of course, in any company, people who step up and volunteer to be mentors tend to be the most energetic and engaged employees, so their chances for promotion may be better than average from the get-go. And some companies may value mentoring more than others, hence be more likely to reward mentors. Still, the Sun study does offer welcome evidence that it isn't only mentees who gain from these programs.

(AFP) Office workers who spend long hours at their desk may be more prone to potentially fatal blood clots than passengers on long-haul flights, according to research cited Monday.
A study by Professor Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute in Wellington found that a third of patients admitted to hospital with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) were office workers who spent long periods at a computer.

A total of 34 percent of the sample of 62 people admitted with blood clots had been seated at their desks for long periods, compared with 21 percent of patients who had recently travelled on long-distance flights, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported.

Tory Johnson, Good Morning America’s workplace contributor and CEO of Women for Hire, offered advice on how to avoid Cybersabotage.

In this lightning-fast Internet age, information spreads like wildfire.
Sometimes that's a good thing, and other times … well, it's not so hot — especially if what's being spread isn't kind toward you.

Usually each of us is our own worst enemy when it comes to posting questionable content — words and images — about ourselves. But a new form of free speech sabotage may be emerging in which other people's comments and opinions are being posted about us.
The jury's still out on how much of this is going on, but one thing is for certain: Social networking sites are now the big rage, and if you're not careful they can pose a danger to your career.

Working mothers in Missoula are spending their breaks in parked cars, utility closets and bathroom stalls because there's no place else for them to pump breast milk for their newborns.

70 percent of mothers in the United States return to their jobs when their babies are around 3 months old, reports Tyler Christensen

Eve Tahmincioglu, MSNBC contributor, reports that the power of attraction rules in the workplace.

Last year, Dr. Andrea "Andy" McGuire, vice president and chief medical officer for a large insurance company in Iowa, decided she wanted to run for lieutenant governor of the state.

The advice she got from a campaign manager? “Wear three-inch heels every day because you’ll look much more powerful.”

It’s all about image, says McGuire. She realized long ago she had to look the part and look good to make it in corporate America and beyond. “People judge you on how you look, whether we like it or not,” she laments.

The Work & Power Survey conducted by Elle and MSNBC.com suggests that stereotypes about sex and leadership are alive and well.

While more than half our 60,000 respondents said a person's sex makes no difference to leadership abilities, most who expressed a preference said men are more likely to be effective leaders.

Of male respondents, 41 percent said men are more likely to be good leaders, and 33 percent of women agreed. And three out of four women who expressed a preference said they would rather work for a man than a woman.

The survey, conducted early this year, found a bonanza of stereotypes among those polled, with many using the optional comment section to label women "moody," "bitchy," "gossipy" and "emotional." The most popular term for woman, used 347 times, was "catty."

There are still few women in the corner office today, and the numbers appear to be declining. Our survey sheds light on one obstacle blocking women from the boardroom: negative attitudes about women leaders — attitudes women themselves still harbor.

When Jim Schneider was the boss, he viewed older workers as dead weight. "I had the perception that older employees were tired, not as productive and couldn't do work that younger people do," says Schneider, the former owner of a major regional auto parts recycling center, now 63. When he came out of retirement a few months ago, however, he found himself on the other side of the age divide. Tara Weiss investigates the “Young boss, older employee dilemma.”

Just because older employees like Schneider want to work, doesn't mean they want to be in charge. After 25 years as the boss, Schneider wanted to be active and challenged without all the responsibility of running a business. That task rests on his new boss, Jeffrey Schroder, who is 20 years younger.

CEO of Women For Hire and the workplace contributor for "Good Morning America" Tory Johnson offers suggestions on how to cope with annoying co-workers.

Sometimes it's the little things that drive us bonkers at work. You know — the gum snappers, loud laughers and constant chatterers. In other offices, it's the people who leave food to rot in the refrigerator or the employees who heat up stinky lunches in the microwave.

At one company I visited, WallSt.net, the employee gripe was aimed at CEO Albert Aimers. His offense: Parking his Mercedes in two spaces unlike the 400 other cars in the lot. When I pointed this out, Aimers was good-natured and recognized that it wasn't fair for his doors to be protected from dings while everyone else had to squeeze into one space. He promised to use a single spot from that day forward.

This and other annoying habits at his California office are representative of more than 1,000 e-mails we received on this topic. Since I can't travel around the country like the Super Nanny mediating disputes, here are some ways co-workers can handle them on their own.

John Eller smoked his first cigarette as a college freshman in 1972. Then he spent 33 years trying to quit, using the standard arsenal of methods: gradual withdrawal, the patch and gum. Nothing worked.

Then Eller's employer, IBM offered him $150 to quit cold turkey. That was two years ago, and he hasn't picked up a cigarette since. Eller can't pinpoint why the cash worked when nothing else did. But there was something about his company supporting him in the process that made it effective. "It was the positive reinforcement of IBM," says the 52-year-old consultant. "There were times in my life you could have offered me $10,000 and I wouldn't have quit."

Other companies are betting employees feel the same way, reports Forbes.com. They are trying to entice employees to quit smoking and generally get healthier by giving them money, concert tickets, luggage or personal training sessions; some are rumored to be throwing iPods into the mix. The calculus: By paying

Since the Democrats took control of Congress last fall, they've made executive pay a target. Thursday, Congressman Barney Frank fired another shot.

The Massachusetts Democrat introduced a bill to give shareholders a non-binding up-or-down vote on a company's executive compensation program. If passed, the law won't force corporations to redesign their pay packages just because shareholders want them to. But it will probably have that effect anyway. It's hard to imagine a corporation fighting a "no" vote at a time of growing dissatisfaction with CEO paychecks.

Nevertheless, investors have reason to be concerned about any congressional foray into executive pay. In 1992, Congress passed a law limiting the tax deductibility of an executive's compensation to $1 million. No surprise: Many CEO salaries immediately rose to $1 million. And since the legislation contained an exception for performance-based pay, compensation started flowing into restricted stock awards and options. "It didn't work well," Frank acknowledged in an interview with Forbes.com last week.

Tamara Schweitzer for Inc.com reports where the United States rates when it comes to maternity leave policies.

The United States is one of only five countries that does not provide or require employers to provide some form of paid maternity leave, placing it behind a majority of the world when it comes to instituting family-oriented job policies, according to a new study.
In a study from McGill University's Institute for Health and Social Policy, the United States, Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea were the only countries out of 173 studied that didn't guarantee any paid leave for mothers. Among the 168 countries that do, 98 offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave.

Tara Weiss for Forbes.com asks, have you cried at work?

Kevin Martinez never expected the tears. And yet there he was sitting across from a guy on his team in Starbucks' community affairs department who was sobbing because he got a "great," but not a "stellar," performance review.

"He had a moment of emotional impact and then got so embarrassed he couldn't control it," says Martinez, who now works in community affairs at Home Depot
While you might think it's highly unusual--and limited to the less stable folks in your office--crying at work is relatively common. Not only are we at work more often than we're home, we're constantly being evaluated on our performance. That can make for some emotionally charged moments.

BusinessWeek online’s Carmine Gallo reports on the key to success in the workplace.

Let's say you're all set for your big interview—the one you're confident will change your career. You know you can wow the person across the desk with your accomplishments. Or you're ready to give the presentation that reflects months of hard work and success. But before you even open your mouth, the rest of your body has already spoken volumes.

What does your body language say? Does it say you're confident, smart, and enthusiastic—or just the opposite?

Only a small percentage of communication involves actual words: 7%, to be exact. In fact, 55% of communication is visual (body language, eye contact) and 38% is vocal (pitch, speed, volume, tone of voice). The world's best business communicators have strong body language: a commanding presence that reflects confidence, competence, and charisma.

The Wall Street Journal Online reports that women took on slightly more than half of U.S. jobs created in the first part of the decade and made gains in securing the most lucrative openings.
Women posted a net increase of 1.7 million jobs paying above the median salary, while men gained a net increase of just over 220,000 of such positions, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report for the years 2000-2005.

Overall, men gained 1,804,000 jobs and women 1,996,000, or 52.5% of the total increase, for the period studied.

She always considered herself a strong and outspoken person, yet she’s had two experiences where she was sexually harassed. Christian Avard reports on sexual harassment for the Vermont Guardian.

First, it was a colleague, and friend, where she taught. He invited her into his office, closed the door, and described in lurid detail what fun they could have. She left a year later with the incident never resolved.

Years later, she worked with a man who constantly expressed how people should not have relationships in the workplace. But that didn’t stop him from inviting her to go on a business trip to Russia — minus his wife. She turned down his request, left her job, and again did nothing.
Looking back, Wendy Love, now the executive director of the Vermont Commission on Women, wishes she could have handled those situations differently. And, she believes her experiences are not uncommon for most women — both nationally and in Vermont.

“According to the American Psychological Association, 71 percent of working women will be subjected to sexual harassment at some point in their careers,” said Love at a recent seminar held in Brattleboro. The seminar focused on sexual harassment in the schools and the workplace, and was sponsored by the American Association of University Women and the League of Women Voters in Brattleboro.

There is an epidemic sweeping through offices across America--it's called the "Tiara Syndrome," Hannah Seligson writes on the Huffington Post. Carol Frohlinger and Deborah Kolb, the founders of Negotiating Women, Inc., an organization that provides training and consulting to professional women, coined the phrase to describe how women often operate in the workplace, when it comes to salary and raise negotiations.

One young woman I interviewed--a high-powered Chicago-based consultant in her early thirties--told me that by the time she left for business school she was making 40 percent less than her male colleague.

The story of the Chicago consultant is emblematic of the Tiara Syndrome. Recounting her experience to me, she said, "I guess I just sort of thought I would get paid what I was worth." And she's not the only one. In a 2003 study of thirty-eight business students, Lisa A. Barron--an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Irvine--found that 85 percent of the men, but only 17 percent of the women felt that it was up to them to make sure their company paid them what they were worth; the remaining 15 percent of the men and the 83 percent of women assumed their worth would be determined by what their company paid them.

CNN’s “In the Money” crew placed the blame on corporate America for a lack of diversity in the workplace in its February 17 show, saying businesses have a long way to go on something “so simple,” reports Rachel Waters for Business & Media Institute.

The show’s hosts downplayed how much American companies spend on diversity training annually. Novations, a Boston-based consulting group, issued a press release earlier this year stating that nearly 75 percent of American companies plan to increase or maintain spending on diversity training this year.

Employers looking to hire workers with strong work ethic, leadership skills and diverse backgrounds are increasingly turning to a select group of recruits: members of the military.

Barbara Hagenbaugh, for USA TODAY, reports that companies across a broad number of industries, such as Union Pacific, Starbucks, Raytheon and Merrill Lynch, are seeking workers for a wide variety of positions as they recruit veterans, sometimes before their time in the service has ended.

Other companies are boosting their military recruiting efforts or even launching military hiring programs for the first time. LendingTree this month will attend a career fair at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, the first time the online lender will go to a military job fair. Recruiters from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles recently went to a military job fair to try to find security guards

A New Study Compares Office Surfaces Germ by Germ to Determine 'Germiest' Gender

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Forget chocolates this Valentine's Day. Buy her disinfectant.
In the newest installment of "Germs in the Workplace," researchers led by the University of Arizona's Dr. Charles Gerba set out to compare just who piles up the most germs at work: men or women. The results? Men across the country may need to rethink their Valentine's gift. According to the researchers, the bacteria levels in women's offices were nearly three times higher than in men's offices.

Women are more reluctant to have an office romance than men, reports Kathy Gurchiek for Society for Human Resource Management.

Love continues to be a many splendored thing at work, even though a sizable percentage of workers—especially women—think it could jeopardize their job security or put the brakes on their advancement, a recent survey found.

The number of workers overall who have dated a co-worker edged up from 36 percent in 2005 to 39 percent in 2006, says a January 2007 Spherion Workplace Snapshot online survey of 1,588 U.S. workers. Nearly four in 10 workers have considered dating a co-worker.
Women are more reluctant than men, though, to get involved with a co-worker—30 percent of women and 47 percent of men would pursue a workplace romance. Unlike 36 percent of men, 47 percent of women worried a workplace romance would hurt them on the job.

Many states require or encourage support for breastfeeding employees. With a few simple guidelines, employers can adhere to many state laws and help ease the stress new nursing mothers face when returning to the workplace.

Workplace Options (WPO), the largest provider of work-life employee benefits in America, recognizes the stress new mothers endure when returning to work after maternity leave. Through its Advantage Nursing Mother Support program, WPO offers breastfeeding support and education programs to employers and their employees. Advantage Nursing Mother Assist offers unlimited calls to a certified lactation professional as an employee benefit and provides breast pumps and other tools needed by nursing moms.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Labor (DOL) has introduced workplace health guidelines to help businesses understand their pandemic influenza risks and what they need to do to prepare.

The guidelines, released Feb 6 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), were developed with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and offer advice for all types of work settings, from retail stores to hospitals. The 47-page document is part of a national pandemic preparation effort detailed in President Bush's pandemic strategy, the DOL said in a press release.

"In anticipation of a flu pandemic, our top priority is protecting the safety and health of America's working men and women," said Edwin G Foulke Jr, assistant secretary of labor for OSHA. "Employers and employees should use this guidance to help identify risk levels and implement appropriate control measures to prevent illness in the workplace."

In a similar vein, the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) today announced that it is making available to all its members "The Purchaser Guide to Value-Driven Health Care," a guide to help employers make informed decisions about health care services for employees. As the world’s largest organization dedicated to serving the human resource community, SHRM will disseminate the guide to its more than 217,000 members representing every industry.

"Health care is the number one issue that HR professionals deal with every day," said Susan Meisinger, President and CEO of SHRM. "The valuable information in this guide will allow our members to make better decisions when purchasing health care."

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, in a 2 to 1
decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed the class
action status of the largest gender discrimination case in U.S. history,
Dukes v. Wal-Mart. In the case, more than 2 million former and current
female employees of Wal- Mart are suing the company for gender
discrimination. In total, Wal-Mart faces over 57 wage and hour lawsuits
across the nation.

The following statement is attributable to Paul Blank, campaign
director for WakeUpWalMart.com:
"Today's decision by the court is a huge victory not only for the women
who work at Wal-Mart, but for all Americans who care about equal rights and
a discrimination-free workplace.

The Miami Herald reminds readers that women bring valuable skills to the construction industry.

Few professions and industries have been more historically male dominated than the construction industry. However, if you visit any significant construction site in South Florida today, you are likely to see women involved in the trades, management and design. Women in construction in South Florida are making a significant impact, and their numbers are increasing.

Historically, women working in the construction industry were usually in office, secretarial and administrative support positions. Until recently, instances of finding a female tradeswoman, a woman in management at a construction company, a woman design professional or a female construction law attorney were few and far between, if they existed at all. As of year-end 2004, The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that women made up approximately 12 percent of the 6,964,000 total construction industry labor force nationwide. Slow but steady growth in the number of women in construction is expected for 2005 and 2006. Doors have opened for women, and they have responded to labor shortages in specific sectors.

It's that special time of year when romance is in the air and the American workplace is abuzz. In fact, nearly four in 10 workers would consider dating a coworker, and nearly four in 10 have done so, according to the latest Spherion® Workplace Snapshot survey conducted by Harris Interactive®. And with 25 percent of such romances leading to the altar, Cupid is busy.

Women are more likely than men to feel that a romantic relationship at work might jeopardize their jobs (47 percent versus 36 percent), so it's not surprising that -- of those who have had a workplace romance -- more women than men kept it under wraps (41 percent compared to 31 percent).

The American Journal of Public Health reports on the risks of second-hand smoke in the workplace.

People who light up on the job are putting their fellow workers at a higher risk of developing lung cancer, according to a study based on data from 22 studies of workplace secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer risk.
Researchers found a 24 percent increase in lung cancer risk among workers who are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. Risk for workers developing lung cancer doubled when they were highly exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke on the job. The longer a worker was exposed to secondhand smoke, the greater the risk of developing lung cancer.

David Crary, AP National Writer, compares U.S. family-oriented job policies with other countries’ policies

NEW YORK (AP) - The United States lags far behind virtually all wealthy countries with regard to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast-feeding, a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers says.
The new data comes as politicians and lobbyists wrangle over whether to scale back the existing federal law providing unpaid family leaves or to push new legislation allowing paid leaves.

Among the study's findings:

-Fathers are granted paid paternity leave or paid parental leave in 65 countries, including 31 offering at least 14 weeks of paid leave. The U.S. guarantees fathers no such paid leaves.

(CBS) There was a day when wearing a tattoo or body piercing drew stares and looks of disdain, but these days body art has broken out of the biker bars and headed into the mainstream.

It's even showing up in the workplace.

Tattoos and piercings are just not the career killers they once were. Many companies in all industries have no problem with body art. Employees of all walks of life are sporting body art nowadays from doctors' office receptionists to TV news anchors. Even those who are prepping the workforce of the future: college educators. The Army and Navy have also relaxed their tattoo policy on worries over a lack of recruits.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Practically every workplace has one - the employee who comes to the job aching, coughing and sneezing.

So-called "presenteeism," or going to work when sick, is a persistent problem at more than half of U.S. workplaces and costs U.S. business a whopping $180 billion a year, research shows.
Like its more notorious counterpart absenteeism, it takes on growing importance as employers try to keep an eye on productivity and the bottom line, experts say

Damon Cline for The Augusta Chronicle reports on the suggestion that men are more adept at advancing into leadership roles than women.

"The norms, the rules, the culture, the way things work have been designed by men for men," Mary L. Bennett, a corporate leadership expert and partner in Crowe Chizek and Co. LLC.

Bennett said that while gender discrimination still exits, it's the "adverse impacts" of male-crafted workplace culture that can derail women from their management track.
She pointed to statistics showing women account for 46.4 percent of the U.S. work force and 2 percent of the chief executive slots at Fortune 500 companies. "We have not made a tremendous amount of progress," said Bennett, whose Indiana-based partnership is the nation's eighth largest public accounting firm.

Corporate culture will evolve as more women enter the work force and gradually rise into leadership roles, she said.

Christina Rexrode for the St. Petersburg Times files a report on how the workplace has changed over the years.

Here's the bad news: Our employee benefits are shrinking, and the pink slips are multiplying. And, oh yeah, many of us seem to have screwed up our personal lives along the way.

My, how the workplace has changed since 1973.

James O'Toole, 61, and Ed Lawler, 68, were young men then, publishing research called Work in America, an extensive, well-publicized report commissioned by then-President Nixon's secretary of health, education and welfare, Elliott Richardson.
On Wednesday, 34 years later, the two authors, now University of Southern California professors, spoke via Webcast about what they got right, what they got wrong, and where the nation's work force is heading. Their new book, "The New American Workplace," was published this summer.

Researchers Examine the Workplace-cancer Connection, reports Elizabeth Keyser.

Looking at how the workplace can increase the risks of getting cancer is a new and emerging field that contains more questions than answers. Many work environments - no matter how seemingly innocuous - expose people to human carcinogens. Studies show higher incidence of breast cancer among women who work in offices, for instance.
"People who work in offices globally have a higher risk," said Suzanne Snedeker, "Why? Is there chemical exposure in offices and schools? Is there out-gassing from ceiling tiles and flame retardants?"

Snedeker of Cornell University came to the New Canaan Nature Center last Wednesday to talk about the relationship of offices, schools and factories and the chemicals found in them to an increased risk of breast cancer.

Forbes.com reports on the stress that possible layoffs have on employees.

Workers are familiar with corporate downsizing and the toll it takes on those laid off, but mental health problems can also rise in those who keep their jobs, a European study shows.
"Employees who remained in work after downsizing may be at increased risk of being prescribed psychotropic drugs," said lead author Mika Kivimaki, from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.
"In other words, enforced redundancies may boost mental health problems among those who keep their jobs," he added.

Sun Staff Writer, Jessica Lewis talked with Linda Winston, the president of the New York State Business and Professional Women’s Organization.

The information she gave me was quite astounding. Eighty-eight years after the 19th amendment was passed, women are still fighting for pay equal to that of their male counterparts.
Perhaps there is a difference on a nation-wide level, between the educational levels attained by women and their male counterparts, but if there is, the issue needs to be addressed. There is no reason in this day and age that women should be less educated than men, or settle for lesser degrees of success.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000, reports The New York Times.

Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.

ABC News shows how to appreciate your employees, calling it “the carrot principle.” In other words, showing appreciation creates productivity.

In job-hunting, as in love, finding a match can be a harrowing experience that all too often ends in unhappiness. Some economists think they know how to make it less painful — and they are using their fellow dismal scientists as guinea pigs, says The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Whitehouse.

At this past weekend's annual meeting of the American Economic Association, which hosts a vast job market for aspiring professors, academics tested a technique — borrowed from online dating — to more efficiently match job candidates and potential employers. It is called “signaling,” and it is designed to reduce the time and cost of hiring professors by weeding out those who aren't serious prospects and homing in on those who are.

BusinessWeek.com suggests it is time to make the office more “warm and fuzzy.”
Most workplaces could stand to be a little less buttoned-down. And if you work at one that's really cheerless, I bet you've had a hard time with reentry after the holiday break. So go ahead and experiment with some steps that could make your workplace a bit more human in 2007.

Staff writer, Liz Ryan, provides some ideas how to make the office less corporate feeling.

Newswise — Nearly 40 percent of U.S. workers experience fatigue, a problem that carries billions of dollars in costs from lost productivity, according to a study in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).
The study looked at the effects of fatigue on health-related lost productive time: not just absenteeism but also "presenteeism," or days the employee was at work but performing at less than full capacity because of health reasons. Nine percent of workers with fatigue reported lost productive work time. Fatigue reduced work performance mainly by interfering with concentration and increasing the time needed to accomplish tasks.

This is an emotional debate. It involves an exercise of government power over private behavior and over privately owned businesses. A ban will hurt some bars and restaurants. It is an issue that raises basic questions of government power. A lot of good people smoke. Many others fear government intrusion into private space, and see trans fats or obesity or even sexual habits as being equally vulnerable.
But smoking in public, unlike eating fatty foods, is not a private act. It draws a roomful of nonsmokers into the problem. That makes it fair game for public health scrutiny.

There has been a silent race war for quite some time now in the federal government, reports Cathy Harris for the American Chronicle. But unless you have a relative, friend, or neighbor that works there, no one will ever hear of the workplace abuse.
Today, many believe that federal government jobs are the most secure jobs in the country. They believe that it’s hard to fire or lay-off anyone in the federal government. But those who work there, especially African Americans and women, can tell you a different story.

EQ SQ Scores Challenge Workplace Gender Discrimination, Says EQSQ.com
PRWEB.

EQSQ.com's recent column explains workplace gender discrimination by suggesting that men and women have different aptitudes and are unlikely to be represented equally in any given career. Individuals who take the EQ SQ quizzes may be likely to make wiser career choices armed with insight into their personality types. This could lead to greater job satisfaction and lower employment turnover.

Stephanie Armour, USA Today and Tribune Staff writer, writes about people who work while dealing with serious illness.

More than four in 10 people say that the person in their household with cancer was employed when they were diagnosed, and three-quarters say they were treated very well by their employers, according to a USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health survey. Only 7 percent say the employed family member was treated not too well or not well at all.

Do you want to end up like Robert Nardelli, the recently resigned CEO of Home Depot? On Jan. 3, the company announced that its embattled chief executive was resigning, capping a year of conflict with shareholder activists unhappy with his outsized paychecks and Home Depot's floundering stock price.
This year, CEOs are up against more challenges than ever before, reports Forbes.com. If you want to survive, you need to make a few New Year's resolutions.

Michael Starr and Christine M. Wilson, for The National Law Journal, report that workplace proselytizing may be a cross employers have to bear

The culture wars are coming to a workplace near you. There was a time when religious discrimination cases arose from the claims of certain employees that their work requirements be waived or that their work schedules be adjusted because of a conflict with their religious obligations.

Federal law prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion. If an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs require that employee to engage in observances or practices at work that conflict with the employer's policy, it is the employer that must reasonably accommodate the employee's needs unless doing so would cause an undue hardship.

Tory Johnson, Women for Hire CEO and Good Morning America’s workplace contributor, offers tips on how to make the workplace more fun.

Matt Villano for The New York Times addresses the issue of parents bringing their children to the office.

Your baby sitter canceled at the last minute, leaving you no time to make alternative arrangements for child care. Should you bring your youngster to work?

BostonHerald.com reports statistics indicate that we’re seeing the tip of a very big iceberg. Though women still face 4-to-1 odds against being chosen for senior executive posts, several early indicators herald significant changes ahead, including more than half of the Fortune 500 companies have more than one female corporate officer and women-owned businesses have more than doubled in the past 12 years.

Kathryn McConnell, USINFO Staff Writer, reports that young international professionals increasingly are coming to the United States for work-based learning experiences to help boost their careers back in their home countries.

BusinessWoman.com echoes a recent study about working parents’ worries.

Millions of working parents are less productive at work due to concerns about what their children are doing in the after-school hours, according to a new study released Dec. 4 by Catalyst, the leading nonprofit research and advisory organization working to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women at work.

The report, titled “After-School Worries: Tough on Parents, Bad for Business,” was conducted in cooperation with the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. The study outlines many factors that contribute to employed parents’ concern about the impact of after-school hours (called “PCAST,” for Parental Concern about After-School Time).

Tory Johnson, workplace contributor for "Good Morning America" and the CEO of WomenForHire.com, says that holidays are rare for small businesses.

For most of the executives surveyed, the standard work week does not apply. Nearly two-thirds work well beyond a 40-hour week, and more than one in five (21 percent) work a double week, logging an extra 40 or more on-the-job hours. I count myself among that group.
It's not healthy for us or our businesses if we don't create opportunities to relax and rejuvenate. Even though none of us can add hours to the day, all of us can learn to work hard and play hard if we're more mindful and selective of how we spend our time. That's a resolution all of us can proudly focus on in 2007.

Mike Drummond weighs in on the changes Family and Medical Leave Act may face this year.

Human resources organizations want the Labor Department to tighten the definitions of "serious health condition" and "intermittent leave." About 6.1 million workers took FMLA leave in 2005, according to labor statistics.
Too many workers game the system by treating common colds as eligible for leave or by shaving a few minutes here and there and chalking it up to intermittent leave, said Kenny Colbert, president of The Employers Association in Charlotte.
Such absences "create a record-keeping nightmare," he added.
A variety of groups representing seniors, veterans, women and others fear the Labor Department could go too far.
The National Partnership of Women and Families, a Washington nonprofit group that helped draft the law, said the request for information "is cause for real concern."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s top public-health authority, considers "one of the greatest health achievements in the 20th century," reports Frank Greve.
Today’s workplaces are roughly 40,000 lives a year safer than they were in the 1930s, according to the CDC. By way of comparison, 40,000 U.S. women died of breast cancer last year, and 42,000 Americans died on highways.

Only 22 states and Puerto Rico specifically prohibit employers from inquiring about applicants' marital status. That means "maternal profiling" is a real problem for many women, reports Sheila Gibbons for Women’s eNews.

Alicia Kismet Eler, for the Windy City Times, weighs in on reports from the Human Rights Campaign.

Until recently, it has been nearly impossible for many gays and lesbians to be out in the workplace or to obtain benefits. Reports from the Human Rights Campaign show that many U.S. companies are expanding their benefits for LGBT people, but still there is not 100 percent equality. Through telephone and e-mail interviews, Windy City Times spoke with three prominent Chicago lesbians in the non-profit and legal workplaces regarding their personal experiences being out in the workplace and where they think the workplace is headed.

Michael Mason, for The New York Times, says that ill employees who come into work are turning cubicles into sick bays.

In a telephone survey of nearly 1,000 adults conducted by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, more than one-third of workers said they felt pressured to go to work when sick. About the same number reported that they had picked up the flu from a colleague in the workplace.
In a recent survey of 326 human resources executives by the research firm Wolters Kluwer, 56 percent said presenteeism had become a problem in their companies, up from 39 percent two years ago.
“We work in a Dilbert environment these days,” said Brett Gorovsky, an analyst at Wolters Kluwer. “We’re in closed office spaces, where germs are a bigger concern. And there’s downsizing. There are fewer people to backfill now, so workers more often feel they have to show up.”

Diabetics in the workplace confront a tangle of laws, reports The New York Times.

Diabetics contend that they are being blocked by their employers from the near-normal lives their doctors say are possible. But the companies say they are struggling, too, with confusion about whether diabetes is a legitimate disability and with concern about whether it is overly expensive, hazardous and disruptive to accommodate the illness.
The debate will probably intensify. The number of diabetics in America swelled by 80 percent in the past decade. Experts say the disease is on its way to becoming a conspicuous fact of life in the nation’s labor force, raising all sorts of issues for workers and managers.

Robin Givhan, Washington Post Staff Writer, writes about what wearing a business suit can mean.

"To look professional and be taken seriously, you need to wear a jacket," noted retail consultant Susan Rolontz of the Tobe Report. Rolontz made this comment not with a drumroll, but in the most nonchalant manner possible. How could anything other than a jacket epitomize power, confidence and authority?
What a woman needs for her workday is a sharp jacket and a good handbag, says Rolontz, whose research focuses on the women's designer market. (She is not talking about the attire of the junior assistant but rather the woman who is signing the checks.)

David Leonhardt for The New York Times writes that the gender pay gap is stuck in place.

Throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, women of all economic levels — poor, middle class and rich — were steadily gaining ground on their male counterparts in the work force. By the mid-’90s, women earned more than 75 cents for every dollar in hourly pay that men did, up from 65 cents just 15 years earlier.
Largely without notice, however, one big group of women has stopped making progress: those with a four-year college degree. The gap between their pay and the pay of male college graduates has actually widened slightly since the mid-’90s.

Eilene Zimmerman for The New York Times reports on how some employees’ hide their learning disabilities.

When Donna Flagg was growing up in suburban New Jersey, she struggled through reading and math in school and had trouble following directions. It was not until she took a college course from an instructor who was dyslexic — and who sensed that Ms. Flagg might also have a learning disability — that she discovered she had a form of dyslexia. The disability affects her brain’s ability to process what her eyes see.
When she got her first job as a sales representative for Chanel in Manhattan in the late 1980s, Ms. Flagg kept quiet about her disability. She phoned her father frequently for help with sales-related math and closed the office door to talk out loud.

Sandra M. Klepach, for the News Herald, writes about the scars that cruel bosses leave behind.

Respondents to the bullying institute survey reported that 37 percent of targets were fired or involuntarily terminated as a result of the alleged abuse, while 33 percent quit.

Kelley M. Butler for Employee Benefit News reports on a study that reveals how gender, age and family status all play a part in employees' voluntary elections.

"We're no longer in a one-size-fits-all world," says Kevin McCarthy, executive vice president of risk operations. He stresses employers need to "determine specific plan designs for specific employee groups and better determine an overall workable, sustainable and suitable benefit plan that better meets the needs of all workers."

WorldWIT, the world’s largest online community for professional women spanning 25 countries, recently asked workplace managers among its 50,000 members, “Do you plan to give a gift to your employees this holiday?”ˇ

Only a third of these managers said “yes.” Of the gift-giving managers surveyed, just 5 percent will be offering a monetary gift – bonus or salary increase. Yet, nearly 20 percent of all the professional women surveyed said that they feel pressure to give a gift to their boss around the holidays and plan to do so.

Wall Street Journal’s Phred Dvorak reports on executives who are being forced to have diversity in the workplace.

TWO YEARS AGO, Rod Bond, an executive at a U.S. unit of French food-services company Sodexho Alliance SA, accompanied female colleagues to a meeting of the Women's Food Service Forum, where he was a rare man among roughly 1,500 women.
"That's a profound experience," says Mr. Bond, 57 years old. It prompted him to wonder how women managers of his generation had felt when they started their careers amid a sea of men. "I can begin to feel what it must have felt like to be different," Mr. Bond says.

Julie Creswell for The New York Times reports on the lack of female bosses in the workforce.

While top business schools are churning out an increasing number of female M.B.A.’s, only about 16 percent of corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies are women, according to Catalyst, an organization that studies women in the workplace. The numbers are even sparer at the top of the pyramid: women fill only nine, or less than 2 percent, of the chief executive jobs at Fortune 500 companies.

Stephanie Armour, for USA TODAY, reports on firms’ abstemious festivities.

Party carefully. That's the new motto from employers who are trying to curb drinking at office bashes by limiting drinks or taking other steps to avoid potential legal pitfalls.
The annual end-of-the-year holiday party, replete with alcohol, has long been a company tradition. But more than 30 states now have laws or court precedents that hold those who serve alcohol liable if drunken driving occurs, the Insurance Information Institute says. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 16,885 people died in alcohol-related crashes in 2005.

Research Roundup by Diverse staff reports on workplace studies.

A new University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business study concludes that employing workers of diverse races has little effect on average turnover in a retail workplace, although Black and Hispanic employees are more likely to remain on the job when there are other Blacks and Hispanics.

In an article called “The Effect of Diversity on Turnover: A Large Case Study” that appeared recently in the journal Industrial and Labor Relations Review by professors Jonathan Leonard and David Levine, the article contradicts an argument of some diversity consultants, who claim that having a workforce that is both gender- and racially diverse reduces turnover.

Ieva M. Augstums, for the Associated Press, reports on how times have changed regarding what women wear in the office.

"The casualization of the workplace, it is not as strict as before," said Romaine Sargent, vice president and general manager of marketing for hosiery at Hanesbrands, the nation's leading seller of women's sheer hosiery. "Women have more options and some are choosing to wear sheer hosiery less."
According to the company, women ages 25 to 54 wear pantyhose an average of 1.8 times a week, down from 3.5 times a week a decade ago. Hosiery sales at Hanesbrands, which includes sheer hosiery (pantyhose, knee-high and thigh high), leggings, tights and trouser socks, totaled $290 million in fiscal 2006 - a nearly 68 percent drop from the $895 million in sales the company did in fiscal 1995.

Tory Johnson shares helpful information for employees who have a difficult time saying no at the workplace.

Most of us are eager to give and give and then give some more of ourselves — whether it's offering advice to friends, taking on extra tasks at work or volunteering on countless committees at our kids' school. And we spend too much time refusing to request help for household chores. We think we're required to do it all.

While some of that stuff is essential, and some of it is even fun, there's also quite a bit of it that robs us of time for ourselves.

Business Today offers advice on how to avoid gift-giving problems in the workplace.

A survey by careerbuilder.com found 56 percent of managers will spread holiday cheer in the form of gifts to their staffs. Workers should expect tokens of appreciation, rather than expensive rewards. Nearly one-quarter of respondents (22 percent) will spend less than $10 per person, with 11 percent staying in the $5 and under bracket.

Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer, reports on modest wage gain.

Employers are working hard to keep a lid on wage increases - and to a large extent they're succeeding - even though the unemployment rate of 4.4 percent is the lowest it's been in more than five years. For those with college degrees, the unemployment rate of 1.9 percent is not far above the lowest reading since the Labor Department started tracking those stats back in 1992.

Stephanie Mehta, Fortune senior writer, reports on a new concern at the office.

Anyone who works in an office - or watches "The Office" - knows how torturous cubicle life can be: unflattering fluorescent lights, insecure supervisors and clueless co-workers can all take their toll. Now, it seems, there's a new indignity: bosses who steal their employees' identities.
Terrence D. Chalk, a well-known White Plains, N.Y., entrepreneur, may have done just that. The Justice Department says Chalk, CEO of a computer services company called CompuLinx, applied for loans and credit cards using the names of employees or clients, falsely claiming they were officers of his firm.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Millions of working fathers and mothers are less productive at work due to concerns about what their children are doing in the after-school hours, according to a new study released today by Catalyst, the leading nonprofit research and advisory organization working to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women at work. The report, entitled After-School Worries: Tough on Parents, Bad for Business, was conducted in cooperation with the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.

Bob Rosner for ABC News answers one writer’s concern about how to handle a disaster at work.

Recently there has been a string of workplace shootings. What do I need to know to respond to a disaster at work?

With the Democratic Congress expected to move quickly to raise the minimum wage, many Democrats, women’s organizations and liberal groups are gearing up for a fight on another workplace issue: paid sick days.

Steven Greenhouse, for The New York Times, writes about supporters who are pushing for paid sick days.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a bill last year to require companies with at least 15 employees to provide seven paid sick days a year, but that bill languished in the Republican-led Congress.
Now that Democrats have won control of Congress, Mr. Kennedy, the incoming chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is more optimistic.
“It has a wildfire of support across the country,” he said. “When you talk to workers, this is, besides an increase in the minimum wage, the most important issue for these families. This is a families issue. This is a values issue.”

Tory Johnson offers some tips for gift-giving during the holidays.

With holiday mode in full swing, everyone's busy making their lists, including, quite probably, you and your boss.
Almost 60 percent of managers say they'll spread good cheer around the office this year by giving presents to their employees, according to a recent survey by CareerBuilder.com.
Their spending varies.

Michael Barbara and Steven Greenhouse, for The New York Times, report how Wal-Mart is addressing employees’ discontent.

Faced with public demonstrations of discontent by its employees, Wal-Mart Stores has developed a wide-ranging new program intended to show that it appreciates its 1.3 million workers in the United States and to encourage them to air their grievances.
As part of the effort, Wal-Mart managers at 4,000 stores will meet with 10 rank-and-file workers every week and extend an additional 10 percent discount on a single item during the holidays to all its employees, beyond the normal 10 percent employee discount.

(Alexandria, Va., December 1, 2006)—The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) today applauded the U.S. Department of Labor's announced plans to seek information on the current rules governing the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). An official Request for Information on the FMLA's regulations was published in the Federal Register on December 1, 2006.
"Today's announcement by the Department of Labor is welcomed news for both employers and employees," said Susan Meisinger, president and chief executive officer for SHRM. "While the family leave benefit has worked fairly smoothly, the FMLA's medical leave protections have been hindered by the regulatory ambiguity about what is and what is not covered under the Act."

Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Business Writer, reports on electronic evidence and new federal rules.

Companies that help businesses track and search their e-mails and other electronic data are experiencing a surge of interest in the wake of federal rule changes that clarify requirements to produce such evidence in lawsuits.
The new rules, which took effect Friday, require U.S. companies to keep better track of their employees' e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents in the event the companies are sued, legal experts say. They are part of amendments to federal rules governing civil litigation and were approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in April after a five-year review.

Tory Johnson answers questions you may have on how this may affect you.

There’s a movement in corporate America, according to Marc Gunther, Fortune senior writer.

A platoon of Raytheon employees wearing identical blue-and-black bowling shirts, pins with the company's logo and black pants proudly walked the halls of this fall's convention of Out & Equal, an organization that brings together the networks of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people - GLBT, in the argot of the moment - that have taken root at America's big companies.
For three days in Chicago, with about 1,700 delegates from other companies, the 67 members of Raytheon's GLBT network could attend workshops with such titles as The Cost of Transgender Health Benefits, Breaking Through the Lavender Ceiling and Male-on-Male Sexual Harassment: An Emerging Issue.

Betsy Stark, for ABC News, says a 60-hour workweek is not so unusual any longer.

A new study in the upcoming issue of the Harvard Business Review estimates that 1.7 million Americans now hold extreme jobs. The study defined "extreme" as any job that requires more than 60 work hours per week and fits various parameters regarding work flow, travel, responsibilities away from the office and outside commitments.

Lisa Lerer for Forbes.com weighs in on a job applicant’s video resume.

Perhaps UBS job applicant Aleksey Vayner was on to something. Bankers and bloggers slammed Vayner last month for his boastful--and unintentionally hilarious--video resume. (See: How Not to Get A Job.) But while Vayner may have only managed to earn himself notoriety, his idea of a video resume is proving to be noteworthy at Morgan Stanley, which is accepting video resumes for its coveted internship program

Cheryl Wetzstein, for The Washington Times, writes that women’s careers may finally catch up due to the change in congress.

Supporters say that despite advancements for women's rights since the ERA's official death in 1982 -- primarily prohibitions against sex discrimination -- the constitutional amendment is needed because women lag in career advancement and pay equity.
In 1972, for instance, the ratio of female-to-male earnings for full-time, year-round work was 58 cents on the dollar. Last year, it was 77 cents on the dollar, according to Census Bureau data.

Stephanie Armour for USA TODAY reports on cancer fears in the workplace.

In the 1970s, Dorlene Walker began working at an IBM (IBM) manufacturing plant handling machinery and various chemicals.

Today, the 55-year-old spends most of her days sitting in a kitchen chair. She suspects she developed bladder cancer, emphysema and an extreme sensitivity to chemicals in the environment because of toxins she was exposed to on the job.

Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer, responds to the query, must I buy my boss an expensive gift?

As the holidays get closer, I'm wondering what to give my boss for Christmas. Last year, she gave me a beautiful watch that I'm sure was very expensive and, while I love the watch, I felt terrible because I had nothing for her. Should I try to drop a hint that I don't expect any fancy presents? If she gives me something anyway, should I give her something of equal value (even though I can't really afford to)? Please advise! -Tight Budget in Tacoma

Christian Zappone, CNNMoney.com staff writer, reports on paid sick leave.

A national movement to mandate paid sick leave for all workers has gotten a lift from a proposition passed by San Francisco voters this month.
Under Proposition F, all businesses with 10 or fewer workers must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year to employees, while larger companies must guarantee up to 72 hours.

WorldWIT™, the world's largest online community for professional women spanning 25 countries, asked its nearly 50,000 members, "What are your top holiday office party regrets?" The leading five holiday indiscretions listed by respondents are drinking too much, forgetting a colleague's name, brown nosing with upper management, becoming romantically involved with a colleague, and getting caught gossiping. In addition, 60 % of those surveyed changed their opinion of a co-worker after witnessing such a blunder.

Stephanie Armour for USA TODAY writes about employees who work through serious illness.

More than four in 10 people say that the person in their household with cancer was employed when they were diagnosed, and three-quarters say they were treated very well by their employers, according to a USA TODAY/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health survey. Only 7% say the employed family member was treated not too well or not well at all.

The Mercury News reports that male executives outnumber female executives.

For every nine men in the executive suites and boardrooms of California's largest companies, there's only one woman -- and Silicon Valley firms have the fewest females at the top, according to a University of California study released Thursday.
``The numbers are very low, very disappointing. Women are being ignored,'' study author Katrina Ellis, an assistant professor at the UC-Davis Graduate School of Management, told Bloomberg News.

Tara Weiss, for Forbes.com Business Basics, addresses the topic of comparing your salary with your co-worker's.

Finding out that someone with the same job description and title is making more than you can be infuriating. Even the slightest discrepancy between office mates is enough to drive down morale and divide otherwise harmonious departments. But before a serious case of salary envy propels you into your boss's office to demand more money, stay calm. Putting your paycheck on par with others requires a calculated approach.

StatesmanJournal.com reports on a new concern for companies.

Employment lawyers are warning companies that they could face liability or workers' compensation claims related to employee injuries from personal digital assistants.
The American Physical Therapy Association in Alexandria, Va., and other occupational organizations warn that improper use and overuse of personal digital assistants can lead to hand throbbing, tendinitis and swelling, a condition known as BlackBerry Thumb, named after the PDA.

Matt Villard for the Career Couch addresses the dos and don’ts for job seekers.

You’re applying for a high-powered job and you want to impress the hiring manager. What can you do to make your application stand out from the stack?

Bob Rosner, reporter for ABC News, looks at political lessons learned for the office.

It behooves all of us to think about what we can learn from the campaigns and how we can take those lessons to work.

This election brought many changes, including a minimum wage increase in six states.

Voters in six states have approved proposals that raise their state's minimum wage and tie it to changes in inflation, according to several media outlets.
This year, there were ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage in six states--Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio. While the votes are still being counted in some of the states, the Washington Post and CNN are projecting that all of the minimum-wage proposals will pass.

Senior writer for CNNMoney.com, Jeanne Sahadi, offers suggestions for pay negotiations.

Managers will pay what the market demands to get the right candidate. So in a tight job market the starting salary of a new hire at your level may come close to or even match yours, despite your seniority and institutional knowledge.

Salary.com gives clues when it’s time to leave your job.

The leading reason why people want to leave their current job is because they think they are underpaid. In Salary.com’s 2006 Job Satisfaction Survey released earlier this year, 57.2% of respondents that were looking for a new job cited ‘Inadequate Compensation’ as the primary reason. While this was the most commonly cited reason, there are many underlying factors of working life that influence an employee’s decision to leave their employer in search of greener pastures.

Forbes Magazine reports on the most dangerous jobs.

Other common causes of workplace deaths were run-ins with equipment or objects (18%), assaults and violence (14%) and workplace falls (13%), which accounted for a third of last year's 339 construction site fatalities and two-thirds of the 130 carpenter deaths.
The overwhelming majority of dangerous jobs are held by men, who accounted for 93% of all workplace fatalities last year while comprising 54% of the overall workforce.

A recent survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM) found that 36 percent of organizations are
allowing employees paid time off to vote, an increase from 30
percent in 2004.

What is your company's policy?

Society for Human Resource Management reports on a Yahoo! Survey, asking employees what they wear to work.

When it comes to looking for something to wear to work, nearly half of U.S. workers throw on jeans or whatever is comfortable, according to a recent Yahoo! Hot Jobs “Dress in the Workplace” poll of workers and job recruiters.
It’s the choice of 42 percent of men and 39 percent of women, although business casual is a close second choice for 37 percent of both men and women, with men opting for trousers and a collared shirt and women slipping on trousers or a skirt and a collared shirt.

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer, reports on a recent study about bullies in the workplace.

The office might be far from the playground, but it’s not off limits to bullies. From a screaming boss to snubbing colleagues, bullies can create a “war zone” in the workplace.
In a recent study, bullied employees likened their experiences to a battle, water torture, a nightmare or a noxious substance. Understanding the seriousness of workplace bullying and what it feels like to get bullied could help managers put the brakes on the behavior, shown to afflict 25 to 30 percent of employees sometime during their careers.

Swingline Workplace Tools did a recent survey and The Washington Post reveals the results.

Two-thirds of workers reported that they have some kind of physical problems because of job-related stress and exertion. The most common ailment was fatigue followed closely by stress-related headaches. More than one-quarter of respondents said they've experienced back pain or neck strain.

In a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM), 58 percent of human resource (HR)
professionals said their organization has increased its
monitoring of their employees' Internet use.

The survey was conducted September 29, 2006. There were 442 HR
professionals from SHRM's membership surveyed for this report.

CNNMoney.com reports that this time of year is scary for employees because their employers are looking at budgets and the outcome may affect their job status.

Tory Johnson offers advice in this political season, saying that politics is for the voting booth and not the office.

Forbes offers a slide presentation on how to behave professionally in the office.

ABC News reports on the Dow Jones setting record highs.

While millions of American workers are feeling the pinch of increased personal debt, stagnant wages, and a slowing real estate market, the companies they work for are enjoying an undeniable boom time.

Some employers allow Halloween costumes, some don’t. Make sure you know what your workplace policy is before donning that witch’s hat at the office.

Some businesses ban costumes. For those that allow them, Halloween celebrations at work can be filled with peril in an age of anything-goes outfits. But the benefits can outweigh the risks, reports William Ryberg, Register Business Writer.

Tory Johnson offers advice for creating a flexible work schedule.

Size doesn't matter. Any type of flexible work arrangement, including a compressed week, will work for companies and departments — big or small — if the people are willing to devote the time and effort to ensuring success. Policies and protocols aren't valuable if the people responsible for executing them aren't dedicated to making them work.

Leslie Taylor, for Inc.com, reports the innovations in what had once been slide presentations.

Until now, if you wanted to share slideshow content with someone in a remote location, you needed to e-mail them an enormous file or burn them a DVD, and send it via snail mail. Slideshare, a new beta Web application, aims to make sharing presentations online as easy as sharing video clips on YouTube.

In a similar vein, Cisco launches a tool for orchestrating corporate meetings between far-flung parties that it claims will deliver a vastly more intimate experience, reports JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Business Writer.

The San Jose-based networking gear maker is releasing Cisco TelePresence, the company's first foray into the fledgling "telepresence" market.
The term is industry jargon for attempting to simulate real-time interactions between people in different locations using high-definition monitors, highly sensitive audio equipment and integrated networking gear.

The median weekly earnings of the nation’s 108.2 million full-time wage and salary workers were $675 in the third quarter 2006, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday.

Data drawn from the Current Population Survey also indicated that the usual weekly earnings of women who were full-time workers were 80 percent of the median earnings reported by men: $599 a week for women, compared with $749 for men.

A study released this week by global research firms Nucleus Research and KnowledgeStorm found companies' attempts to tighten information technology (IT) security by regularly changing passwords and making them more complex by adding numbers as well as letters had no impact on security.

Staff still had a tendency to jot down passwords for systems designed by such firms as McAfee (Charts) and CA, Inc (Charts)., on a piece of paper or in a text file on a PC or mobile device.

"This is really a lot like mom and dad buying a great new security system for the house and junior leaving the combination under the door mat," David O'Connell, senior analyst at Nucleus Research, told Reuters.

Stephanie Armour for USA TODAY reports on companies that are trying to educate teen workers about harassment in the workplace.

Some employment lawyers are using the allegations as part of sexual harassment training programs and urging employers to be more aware of the liability risks that arise when minors are on the job. Addressing teen harassment has been cited as a priority by federal agencies, and more employers and organizations — including the National Restaurant Association and National Retail Federation — are now tackling the topic.
"These (young workers) are a group of employees that don't tend to bring allegations. They have a lack of awareness," says Michael Cohen, an employment lawyer in Philadelphia. "The Foley example is pretty bad because it's someone in an extremely powerful position who allegedly took advantage of the situation. I've been using it in my harassment training."

Tech companies are offering their employees commuter benefits, reports Reuters.

Computer chip maker Intel tops the list of the 20 best workplaces for commuters, offering vanpools, subsidies for public transit use and rides home from its Santa Clara, California, campus in case of a family emergency.
The ranking, culled from a group of 133 companies with more than 700,000 employees, is part of a government push to eliminate the American habit of driving to work alone, which is considered a major contributor to traffic congestion and air pollution.

A Society for Human Resource Management survey finds that companies are becoming more diverse.

More than half of human resource (HR) professionals agreed that diversity in the workplace had advanced significantly in the past ten years, according to the 2006 Workplace Diversity Practices and Changes to the EEO-1 Process Survey Report. The survey was conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Of the 438 HR professionals surveyed, 75 percent indicated that their organizations had policies or practices that addressed diversity and 79 percent stated that their organizations offered training on diversity issues, such as anti-discrimination and diversity awareness.

Marilyn Gardner reports that nice guys do not have to finish last.

In comic strips and movies, tyrannical bosses produce plenty of laughs. Think of Mr. Dithers, Dagwood Bumstead's nemesis in "Blondie," or Miranda in "The Devil Wears Prada." But in real life, managers like these are hardly funny. Today, in a competitive age that sometimes takes a "nice guys finish last" approach to business, a quiet cultural change appears to be under way.

San Diego Business Journal says that an employee preoccupied with money may not be right for the job.

Before you do anything, from placing a help-wanted ad to conducting the first interview, make sure you know exactly what you want in a new employee. Not only does the person need to have the necessary experience, he or she will also need to share your basic work philosophy.
Never hire anyone until you’ve conducted a thorough interview. Interviews provide a way for you to assess whether the candidate completely lacks skills, knowledge and attitude that are necessary to perform the job

Society for Human Resource Management releases survey that finds human resources help the bottom line by adding strategic planning role.

More than one-half of human resource (HR) professionals report that strategic planning is part of their function, according to the 2006 Strategic HR Management Survey released today by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). The survey reveals a transition from administrative functions to strategic planning role.
In addition to traditional organizational tasks such as employee relations, recruitment and selection processes, benefits and compensation management, responses from the 427 HR professionals at manager and executive levels surveyed state that HR departments can also contribute at the strategic level.
The complete 2006 Strategic HR Management Survey is available to SHRM members online for free at www.shrm.org/surveys. Non-members may purchase a survey by calling the SHRM Store at 1-800-444-5006.

The Denver Post reports that some employers do not accommodate a pregnant employee, which may mean a lawsuit.

Andrea Wolff-Yakubovich, a former finance director for a John Elway AutoNation dealer, claims she got the boot three weeks after she announced that she was pregnant.
"Why would Andye want to be in the car business?" her boss allegedly asked her husband, who also worked at the dealership. "She should just be at home barefoot and pregnant."
Now Wolff-Yakubovich is in U.S. District Court in Denver, suing for discrimination and alleging the above comments as part of her claim. The auto dealer denies her claims. "We acted appropriately," said AutoNation spokesman Marc Cannon. "We will vigorously defend ourselves when it goes to trial."

Balancing work with the rest of life at a doctor's office in Arlington, Texas.

Watch this clip from ABC's Good Morning America featuring workplace contributor Tory Johnson.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2558039

Tory Johnson says that there is power in numbers.

Sometimes there's safety and leverage in numbers.
Maybe you don't want to be the only one asking for a flexible work arrangement, especially if you get the sense that other colleagues would benefit from the same thing, but are either afraid to ask or just don't even realize that asking might be an option.

Laura Morsch, CareerBuilder.com writer, shares mistakes interviewees have made.

In a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, hiring managers shared hundreds examples of applicants who made glaring mistakes that cost them the job.

Rob Kelley, CNNMoney.com staff writer, reports that job cuts are on the rise.

The top five job areas for hiring were health care, sales, accounting, finance and engineering, based on the fact that job postings in those areas on CareerBuilder.com had increased by over 20 percent year over year.

Mark Roth reports that employees who are in control of temperature and ventilation tend to work better.

Clark Blatteis, a thermophysiologist at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, said individual temperature perception can be affected by a person's body size and weight, level of activity, what time of day it is, the amount of clothing worn and sitting near a window.

James Sherk, Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, writes about the present state of our economy.

The long-term trends show that the economy is in fact doing well. Since January, businesses have created over 1.2 million new jobs. Over the past four quarters GDP has increased by 3.5 percent, above historical rate of growth. Inflation-adjusted worker compensation has risen at over a six percent annual rate in the first half of the year. These are not the signs of an anemic economy.

Alison Doyle asks, Did Your Boss Catch You Job Searching?

I've heard from more than a couple of job seekers who were in a panic after inadvertently emailing their resume and cover letter to their boss, instead of a prospective employer. That AutoFill tool that automatically enters email addresses in Outlook, Eudora, and other email packages can be dangerous. One solution is to set up a separate email account for job seeking. That way you won't send your applications to the wrong person by mistake.

Vinnee Tong for the Associated Press writes that the Human Rights Campaign reports a number of companies are adding gay-friendly policies.

Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, attributes that to the growing sentiment among both gay and straight employees that companies should not only tolerate but encourage diversity of all kinds, including sexual identity.
“The phenomenon of competition is actually an interesting one,” Solmonese said. “What we’re seeing when we’re looking at specific industries, we see an emerging sense that if more than a few are at 100 percent, then we all need to be at 100 percent.” 

Kristen Gerencher for Marketwatch reports that tattoos, ubiquitous in both the world of the street punks and stockbrokers, still present employment concerns.

Employer reactions vary widely, said Amy Maingault, information specialist for SHRM, a trade group of 200,000 human-resource professionals in Alexandria, Va. While many have lightened up about the presence of visible "tats," others may take a conservative stance, especially if the job involves a lot of customer contact, she said.

Just in time for back-to-school, internship hiring is on the rise, according to a nationwide survey.

Forty-nine percent of hiring managers say they expect to hire college interns through the end of 2006, and 36 percent plan to increase their interns' pay above 2005 levels. The survey, "Intern Hiring," was conducted in June 2006 and included more than 1,000 hiring managers.

Laura Morsch for CareerBuilder.com offers tips on how to manage with a bully in the office.

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute's Web site, bullying is more prevalent in today's workplaces than sexual harassment and racial discrimination. Approximately one-in-six U.S. workers have directly experienced destructive bullying in the last year.

Women are most often on the receiving end of the workplace abuse, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute. Although 58 percent of bullies are women, they make up 80 percent of targets. "Targethood hinges on two characteristics: a desire to cooperate and a nonconfrontive interpersonal style," the organization's Web site states.

Joy Hallof, a human resources consultant at the Small Business Development Center, told reporter Teresa Thomae what employers need to know before hiring.

Many of the clients calling the SBDC have general questions regarding new hires, compliance issues and termination and leave questions. Frequently, the questions lead to the recommendation that an HR audit be performed. This audit can reveal compliance issues, gaps in your policies and procedures, and other areas that may require attention. The Small Business Development Center recommends an overall HR Audit be conducted to see what may be needed in the current operation prior to any business expansion.

Is there tension at the office because your co-workers get on each other’s nerves? Bob Rosner for ABC News offers suggestions on how to mend those working relationships.

Do you criticize rather than offer constructive complaints? Negativity is contagious, but lucky for us so is a positive attitude. Try to accentuate the positive — avoid pointing out problems without offering a solution.

According to Reliable Plant Magazine, the link between diversity on the job and turnover is weak, as reported in a study by Haas School professors Jonathan Leonard and David Levine.

Leonard and Levine's findings contradict one argument by some diversity consultants who claim that having a gender and racially diverse workforce reduces turnover. Leonard and Levine also failed to find support for another line of thinking that argues that diverse workplaces experience more friction and thus require special training.

According to a recent study done at the University of Georgia in Athens, UGA doctoral student Matthew Harrison found that black job candidates whose skin matches Colin Powell's were recommended more highly for employment than applicants with darker skin like Seal.
"Colorism is another form of racism, but it's looking at differences in perceptions and treatments of people based on skin tones," says Harrison, 24.

Cornell's second Annual Disability Status Report found that only 38 percent of nearly 21.5 million people with disabilities between the ages of 21-64, or what is determined as "working-age," were employed last year. That figure compares to just over 78 percent of people without disabilities.

Ruth Hagg, author of a series of management books, says that if you as an employee are not getting respect from your boss, perhaps it is simply a reflection of your attitude.

Hagg, a former supervisor who got into writing after analyzing her own management style, says respect for one's workers starts with the hiring process.

Rebecca Winchester for Westside Weekly reports on October as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Violence can occur anywhere. Even on the job.

The criminal behavior can become intolerable and dangerous in the workplace. Mary Kay Bernosky, Executive Director, BWIC, noted the health and safety concerns. She explained one million women and 370,000 men report being stalked at the workplace, and that homicide is the Number Two cause of death for women in the workplace.

Betsy Stark for ABC News reports on women who are leaving their corporate jobs to spend more time focusing on their home life.

The exodus of working women is now occurring in numbers too large for employers to ignore. According to the Harvard Business Review, 43 percent of professional women with children step off the fast track at some point. On average, they stay off for 2.2 years.
"You're suspected of having lost your edge. You're not a player anymore," said Sylvia Hewlett, founder of the Center for Work Life Policy.

How does a nation with an overweight population begin to attack the problem? It makes sense to start where most Americans spend at least 40 hours a week - the workplace. Work environments can present extreme challenges for calorie management. Employees often work sedentary jobs in the constant presence of high-calorie foods and snacks - unless an employer can create a healthier scenario.

Dale Dauten, author of a new book, (Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success (John Wiley & Sons), addresses the topic in The Boston Globe.

The book summarizes what I've learned from spending more than a decade studying great bosses, observing them as they work and noting what they do differently from typical bosses. One of the striking divergences is that the great ones spend almost no time supervising employees.

Kevin Liles, AOL Business & Career Coach, tells you how to become a better employee by keeping your ambition in perspective.

Are you guilty of leaving your cubicle a mess? If so, it may be hurting your career growth.

A recent study conducted by the Journal of Labor Research, published quarterly by the Department of Economics at George Mason University, and the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank found that social drinkers make more money than those who do not imbibe.

Regular drinkers make 10% to 14% more money than those who do not drink, according to the study, conducted by the Journal of Labor Research, published quarterly by the Department of Economics at George Mason University, and the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank.

The study also concluded that men who drink socially -- defined as visiting a bar at least once a month -- earn an additional 7% more than those who do not. The same correlation was not found for women, however.

Entrepreneur.com says that companies are discovering benefits to hiring older employees. Besides the fact that they are usually more reliable, they have other qualities that younger employees often do not share.

U.S. employers spends millions of man hours each year placing ads, prescreening and interviewing candidates, and hiring and training workers, only to find that many of the employees they hire work for them for just a few months only to decide they don't want to "just be a clerk anymore" or feel "something better's come along" as they work their way up the corporate ladder.

A government report released last week shows that 56 percent of female-owned businesses are run from home, says Reuters.

The report was based on information collected from more than 2.3 million firms as part of a survey of business owners, part of the bureau's 2002 Economic Census, conducted by mail among a random sample of U.S. businesses.

The Associated Press reports that there is a downward trend of U.S. workers being hired by foreign firms.

In a new report looking at all 50 states, the number of workers in the U.S. employed by foreign companies dropped by 2.4 percent in 2004 to 5.12 million, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline.
Since hitting an all-time high of 5.66 million workers in 2000, foreign-company hiring of Americans has fallen by 9.6 percent.
That four-year performance contrasts with a 43.1 percent hiring surge in the six years from 1994 to 2000.

Anne Fisher, Fortune Senior Writer, offers tips on how to ask your boss for that much-needed raise. One suggestion is to persuade the boss that you are worth more.

"The trick is to head it off at the pass. Get out in front of it and start doing certain things six months to a year before you're going to ask for a raise," says David Lorenzo, a partner at the Gallup Organization (the management consulting side, not the pollsters) and author of Career Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs (Ogman Press, $29.95).

According to Forbes.com, the proposed rules, which will include three types of safe harbor defaults, will be published today in the Federal Register.

The Department of Labor today proposed "safe harbor" regulations that would allow employers to adopt certain default investments for indecisive workers without worrying that they'll be held liable if those investments go sour.
In the past, employers fearing liability have typically used low-return money market funds as their default, notes U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. That's hardly a good choice for a long-term investment.

Celebrities get them, but so do employees. Mark Roth, reporting for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, writes that research shows many businesses in the United States and Europe have employees who bargained for special workplace arrangements, such as flexible hours, working from home or child-care arrangements.

What perks are you getting?

Stephanie Armour reports on cell phones that become video cameras with a push of the button. How does this fare at the office?

Employees are using technology to make videos of the workplace and post them on well-trafficked Internet sites, creating new legal worries and public relations issues for companies.
In some cases, the videos have also created welcome publicity. But there is growing concern that company trade secrets or embarrassing employee behavior could be released online to an audience of millions.

Erica Noonan reports that companies are discovering that it pays to hire someone who is able to walk in another employee’s shoes.

This is the age of emotional intelligence, often called EQ, and today’s hiring managers want proof you have got it.
Employers are looking for "better-rounded workers these days," said Marilyn Edelson, founder and chief executive of OnTrack Coaching and Consulting Inc. "If you’re just a grabber, looking for what you can get for yourself, you might be seen as a bright spark in the beginning, but it won’t carry you through a career."

Who do you socialize with, friends from work or those outside of the office? Does it matter? Columnist Laura Lewis asks the question, Are Work Friends Real Friends?

Many people will tell you that workplace romances are a bad idea -- and I've confirmed that the hard way. But I never thought platonic work friendships would have the same problems.
As long as relationships don't turn sexual, no one gets hurt, right?

Employees who don’t answer their emails or return phone calls in a timely manner may be doing more harm to their company’s production output than they realize, reports Forbes.com.

According to a study commissioned by network-equipment maker Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) published Tuesday, a successful boss of a multinational company should draw up protocols on response times, establish rules for the selection of media and clarify the frequency of communications to build trust amongst colleagues scattered around the globe.

According to a survey by Harris Interactive for the Marlin Company, vending machines in the workplace are stacked with candies, cookies and potato chips.

"It's a shame that while companies are finally getting the message out to the workforce about maintaining healthy lifestyles, their employees are often being tempted to snack on junk food," says Frank Kenna III, president of the Marlin Company. "Why aren't companies backing up their positive behavior messages with healthy snacks and an environment that doesn't encourage workers to eat the wrong foods?"

According to Lawrence H. Summers, former president of Harvard, the reason there is a lack of women in the higher positions of science and engineering could be a result of “innate” intellectual deficiencies. The New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences thinks otherwise.

Women in science and engineering are hindered not by lack of ability but by bias and “outmoded institutional structures” in academia, an expert panel reported yesterday. The panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences, said that in an era of global competition the nation could not afford “such underuse of precious human capital.” Among other steps, the report recommends altering procedures for hiring and evaluation, changing typical timetables for tenure and promotion, and providing more support for working parents.

Progress is being made by women in the workplace, but is it enough? Michael Applebaum writes about women who preside as CEOs over Fortune 500 companies in his article Beyond the Glass Ceiling.

To be sure, women still face resistance in conservative business cultures, and the number of boardroom tables at which they hold seats varies widely by industry. While statistics for marketing executives specifically are difficult to come by, research firm Catalyst, New York, recently found a higher percentage of female corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies in the apparel (31%), beverage (24%), healthcare (25.6%) and insurance (23.8%) industries, for example, than in automobiles (11.5%), banking (13.1%), computers (16.9%) or television entertainment (15.7%).

These numbers represent encouraging progress even as they point to lingering disparities for today's corporate women. Which begs the question: Are women in marketing achieving greater success than their predecessors? And if so, why—or why not?

Employers are going on the defensive as employees use new technologies to make videos of the workplace and post them on well-trafficked Internet sites. Most recently, Michael De Kort was fired from his job as a Lockheed Martin engineer after posting a video on YouTube, in which he claimed the company incompetently redesigned a fleet of Coast Guard patrol boats.

Monster Senior Contributing Writer John Rossheim addresses the phenomenon of employees being bullied by their supervisors. Are you being targeted?

According to The Workplace Bullying & Trauma Institute Web site, telltale signs you're being bullied at work manifest themselves both in and outside the office. Just a few include apprehension about going to work and agitation and anxiety while you're there, surprise, agenda-less meetings where you're humiliated, never being left alone to do your job, and false accusations of incompetence

Women restarting their career are finally discovering that getting back to the workplace is more accessible than it has been in the past. Daniel McGinn from Newsweek writes that companies are helping women in this transition.

The problem may not be that so many women take a break from salaried life; the more troubling issue is why it's so difficult for them to restart their careers when they're ready. Instead of persuading women not to leave their jobs and to stay on track toward leadership positions, lately the talk among work-family advocates has focused on finding ways to support women's "non-linear" career paths—and to build better "on ramps" for women wishing to return to work after career pauses.

Orlando, Fla., is a relative hotbed of female sports journalism, with women accounting for one-quarter of broadcasters' sports staff. Female journalists talk about working in a pocket of the industry that has made an effort to hire more women.

At the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, the city's largest circulation daily, women are 25 percent of the sports staff. Three women work as sports anchors on local television stations, amounting to 25 percent of that niche.

According to a new Allegheny County Bar Association survey released yesterday, female lawyers are not receiving equal pay.

The report noted that men in the profession are older on average, with more years out of law school. That could be a factor in more men rising through the seniority ranks to positions of higher pay, but disparities also showed up when looking at groups of men and women in the profession for similar periods. The pay differential showed up although men and women reported working similar hours, about 48 per week.

Kirk Johnson, of The New York Times, reports that Michigan’s struggling workforce is being wooed by Wyoming’s booming market.

Labor-starved Wyoming, with its energy boom in coal, oil and natural gas, is vigorously courting the workers of the Rust Belt — in particular, those in Michigan’s struggling auto industry. And the workers are responding, and adjusting to a very different life in the West.

Wyoming economic development officials and company representatives are planning their third recruiting trip this year, visiting job fairs next month in Flint, Lansing and Grand Rapids. A billboard depicting a lush Wyoming will go up on the highway outside Flint later this month and be seen by an estimated 65,000 people a day.

Matthew Harrison, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, recently offered his research findings at the 66th annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Atlanta, reports the Louisiana Weekly.

Everyone knows about the insidious effects of racism in American society. But when it comes to the workplace, African Americans may face a more complex situation-the effects of their own skin tone. For the first time, a study indicates that dark-skinned African Americans face a distinct disadvantage when applying for jobs, even if they have resumes superior to lighter-skinned black applicants.

Heraldtoday.com reports how companies save by employing non-payroll workers. Temporary or part-time, now these employees are often referred to as “just-in-time delivery.”

There's a practical business reason that companies shift to just-in-time labor: They can adjust their payroll expenses more easily in response to fluctuating demand for their products or services.

Workers are encouraged to take vacation time, reports Molly Selvin from the Chicago Tribune.

Worried about employee burnout and turnover, some employers are forcing workers to take the vacation time they are entitled to. Employers are encouraging workaholics to switch off their cell phones and log out of e-mail while they're away.

Some employers even go a step further--giving weaker performance reviews or lower pay raises to those who don't make use of their allotted time. The 400 employees of the American Management Association, for example, risk being dinged for poor time management, said Manny Avramidis, head of human resources for the New York-based training group.

Bostonworks.com reports that there is a new hiring criterion.

For companies, emotional intelligence is not just some trendy HR phrase. It's costly for employers to replace managers who fail to connect emotionally, and to regain the trust of burned subordinates. Moreover, the ever-increasing business emphasis on technology and globalization means more communication, cooperation, and teamwork is necessary to get projects completed on time and on budget. Companies have to hire good communicators if they want to survive.

The New York Times reports that officials from New York City reached an agreement with several of the biggest ad firms to hire more black managers.

The city’s Human Rights Commission found that hiring of black workers had barely improved since an inquiry found similar problems 40 years ago. Of 8,000 employees working for 16 agencies the commission examined, Patricia L. Gatling, chairwoman of the commission, said about 22 percent make more than $100,000 a year, and only 2.5 percent of those are black.

Feminist Daily News Wire reports that the US Office of Special Counsel has been criticized for publishing a newsletter with gender specific clothing tips. According to representing attorney, Debra S. Katz, the newsletter offered “sexist and patronizing advice” to professional women in the workplace.

Katz adds that under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, employers are legally accountable for “rigid gender-based stereotypes [which] operate to the detriment of their female employees.”

Kate Klonick, from ABCNews.com, asks if there is a war being waged on working women.

Two weeks ago, when Forbes published its now infamous article attempting to answer what qualities a man should look for in a wife, it wasn't looks, education or compatibility. Instead, the story advised men to avoid marrying women with careers — advice that ignited a firestorm of objection across the Internet.

Six days later, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed a static wage gap. Women working full-time and year-round continued to make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, a number that remains virtually unchanged from 2004.