1. Creating Value for Employees, [May 2006], by McKinsey

Summary: In today's global marketplace, a handful of companies that have developed massive scale and scope are generating enormous earnings: $10 billion or more a year. Such extraordinary profits, the evidence suggests, reflect the ability of these mega- institutions to make their talented professionals— tens of thousands of them—more productive.

2. Hiring Efforts Remain Extremely Strong for Job Seekers, [23 May 2006], by SHRM

Summary: May was another strong month for the U.S. job market, with nearly two-thirds of employers from the manufacturing and service sectors planning to hire in the next 30 days. Despite strong recruitment efforts, nearly a third of manufacturers say they cannot find skilled employees to fill vacant positions.

3. Employee Incentive Systems: Why, and When, They Are So Hard to Change, [May, 2006], by Knowledge at Wharton

Summary: Two researchers use Andersen Consulting, Kodak and other organizations to study conflict, especially with regard to incentive systems, that results when companies undergo major change, such as adopting new technologies or shifting into new markets.

4. CEO Succession 2005: The Crest of the Wave, [18 May 2006], by Chuck Lucier, Paul Kocourek, and Rolf Habbel

Summary: Global CEO departures reached record levels for the second year in a row, and may be peaking, according to the fifth annual survey of CEO turnover at the world’s 2,500 largest publicly traded corporations. The study also found that performance-related turnover set a new record in North America, and merger-driven successions were at their highest level globally of any year other than 2000.

5. CEO Pay: A Window into Corporate Governance, [17 May 2006], by Knowledge at Wharton

Summary: Once again, proxy season has revealed some eye-popping numbers in executive compensation packages, generating heat from shareholders, labor organizations and some analysts who contend the links between CEO pay and performance are frayed.

6. International Assignments Increasing, Mercer survey finds, [16 May 2006], by Mercer

Summary: Multinational companies are significantly increasing the number of international assignments, but the effectiveness of their expatriate policies varies, according to a new survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Some 44% of multinational companies report an increase in the number of international assignments to and from locations other than the headquarters over the past two years. The survey provides the latest practices and policy developments in employee mobility management among approximately 200 multinational firms worldwide, and across a variety of industries. Respondents cite overall professionalism, analytical skills, business knowledge and written and verbal communication as the skills that new employees lack most frequently. More than 25 percent of the respondents also indicate that there is a shortage of qualified candidates in positions that require degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. To address the skills shortage, organizations are offering undergraduate educational assistance (59 percent), graduate educational assistance (48 percent), job-related skills training (55 percent) and internships (38 percent).

7. Transforming Pay Plans: 2006, Compensation and Benefits Report, [17 May 2006], by Hudson

Summary: Most workers are satisfied with their compensation, but given the chance, many would change their mix of cash and benefits. This finding is one of many complexities uncovered in Hudson's latest survey, which reveals a work force with shifting compensation demands that can be hard for employers to decipher and even harder to satisfy.

8. Few Multinationals Have Implemented a Health and Productivity Strategy Outside United States, [30 May 2006], by Watson Wyatt

Summary: Multinational companies have developed a health and productivity strategy in the United States, but they have not been as proactive in other regions of the world, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt. However, as health care costs rise around the globe, multinationals are increasingly adding these programs worldwide. The survey of 90 multinational companies found that 65 percent currently have a strategy to improve the health and productivity of their workers in the United States but significantly fewer have programs in Canada (22 percent), Asia-Pacific (21 percent), Europe (16 percent) and Latin America (15 percent). Although many of these multinationals plan to develop a health and productivity strategy in these regions over the next two years, they will still lag behind their U.S. operations by a wide margin.

9. Company Efforts Positively Impact U.S. Employees' 401(k) Saving Habits, [16 May 2006], by Hewitt

Summary: Efforts by companies to help U.S. employees save for retirement -- including putting the 401(k) plan on autopilot, simplifying plan choices and targeting communication -- have resulted in improvements in employees' retirement saving and investing behaviors, according to a new study by Hewitt Associates. The annual study, which examined the saving and investing habits of more than 2.6 million employees eligible for 401(k) plans, revealed the positive effect of automatic enrollment on 401(k) participation rates. Approximately 36 percent of workers with less than one year of tenure participated in a 401(k) plan in 2005, an increase of 6 percentage points from the prior year. Further, among companies that offered automatic enrollment, the overall employee participation rate was 14 percentage points higher than the overall employee participation rate across all companies. Hewitt's study also revealed improvements in overall employee behavior around diversification, company stock and the use of lifestyle funds.

10. Telework Bench Marking Study: Best Practices for Large Scale Implementation in Public andPrivate Sector Organizations, [2 June 2006], by the Telework Coalition.

Summary: This study asked managers of several mature and well established telework programs, recognized as being among the most successful in both the private and public sectors, what worked, what didn't, and what they'd do differently if they could start again from the ground up.

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