It is often said that we live in a “throwaway” society. It is frequently easier, maybe even cheaper to dispose of things, rather than repair them. When was the last time you had your TV repaired, or your toaster, or your cell phone? When it breaks or is obsolete, or a new model appears on the scene, junk the current version.

DISPOSABILITY

We live in a world of convenience. When something, or someone, is no longer convenient our first reaction is to dispose of the offender. Even people have become disposable. Tired of your wife? Get a new one. Tired of your parents? Ship them off to an “old folks” home. This “out with the old, in with the new” mentality has become pervasive, and it is not without implications and consequences.

In the workplace the emphasis is on productivity. New employees typically bring more up-to-date knowledge and skills. It is easier to acquire these new “models” than it is to “repair” the old, by investing the time and cost of training. And there is frequently not an acknowledgment of the value of organizational memory and experience.

A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS

Business decisions are dollar-driven. The costs and benefits of each course of action is calculated and weighed. Emphasis is on cost-effectiveness, as the business must generate profits to survive. Although we may not always  do a careful analysis when making personal decisions, hopefully in business we will be more objective, as the overriding concern is profitability.

William Bliss, President of Bliss & Associates, has a formula for calculating the cost of employee turnover. In The Advisor (www.isquare.com) he outlines a detailed list of considerations totaling over thirty-five separate cost items. The primary categories include: Costs Due to a Person Leaving, Recruitment Costs, Training Costs, Lost Productivity Costs, New Hire Costs, and Lost Sales Costs. The calculations reach an impressive 150% to 250% of annual salary, depending on the position. So, before you terminate that $50,000 employee think of the $75,000 to $150,00 you will spend in replacing them.

Of course the turnover costs may not apply to every situation. If you don’t plan on replacing the employee you are not confronted with this problem (although you may have others). With a straight layoff you will not experience many of the turnover costs but you may have severance pay and benefits, decreased productivity, and other direct and indirect costs.

DECISIONS

Human Resources decisions are seldom easy. Whenever these decisions involve employee separation, either by the employee’s volition or a business decision it can be a painful and costly process. Company policies and practices which contribute to a reduction in employee turnover usually pay off. Employee retention has its benefits and these benefits can be dollarized. Other intangibles like morale may also be considerations.

The decision to terminate an employee should not be taken lightly as it impacts both the employee and the employer. Carefully consider the decision before taking action. It might be cheaper to retain and retrain the employee, transfer them to another assignment, or just keep them on the payroll. You don’t really know what the replacement employee will be like, how they will perform, or how long they’ll stay.

We may live in a “throwaway society” but this norm is based on convenience and low cost. When it comes to people it may be neither.

Copyright © 2008, Dr. Ben A. Carlsen, MBA. All Rights Reserved Worldwide for all Media.

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - by Chris Newmarker Staff Writer

There may be grumbling that the country is slipping into another Great Depression, but firms in the advertising and public-relations industry want to put the situation in the best light, and treat the economic crisis as an opportunity.

At Fallon Worldwide, a new sign posted in the meeting room at the firm’s Minneapolis headquarters states: “Fortune favors the brave.”

Fallon was started during the early 1980s recession and has come out of previous recessions pretty well. Chief marketing officer Rob Buchner said the reason is Fallon tries to keep its advertising campaigns clever but affordable, and that ad firms that do the same will be served well in the coming year.

Buchner mentioned a recent ad campaign by Hyundai Motor Co.in which the South Korean automaker said it would allow customers who lost their jobs to bring their car back through a 12-month vehicle return program. He said people should expect to see more daring advertising gambits, especially as some companies use the recession as a chance to grab larger market share.

“If you do work with advertising that is memorable and provocative, you’ll be rewarded at the cash register in the end,” Buchner said.

Howard Liszt, a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota and a retired CEO of Minneapolis-based Campbell Mithun, said, “All boats are not going to be lifted.”

Still, there’s opportunity to get clients to try new things.

“Undoubtedly, there will be some agencies who flourish in spite of this economy and that’s going to be a direct result of their ability to be innovative and resourceful,” Liszt said.

Carmichael Lynch President Mike Lescarbeau said he thinks it’s going to be a tough year for everybody. His own firm laid off around 5 percent of its workers in December.

Still, he’s hopeful that the Minneapolis-based firm’s double emphasis on advertising and public relations will serve it well. He said there was a recent case of a public-relations client also picking up the firm for advertising, and a prospective client seeking advertising who instead decided to sign up for public relations.

“They want some efficiencies. They want one-stop shopping. They also want a one-stop idea,” Lescarbeau said.

Public-relations firm Padilla Speer Beardsley Inc. may be handling fewer new product introductions for companies, but the Minneapolis firm’s CEO Lynn Casey said there’s another service that clients need: crisis management.

“You really want to get that critical communication right and PR firms that have that capability, for better or worse, exercise a great deal of that in an economic downturn,” she said.

In light of the troubling economic climate and tightening job market, what is the one thing that job-seekers must do in order to be successful in landing a good job in 2009?

Exhaust All Options

Tell everyone you know about the type of position you are looking for, network online and at industry events, go on informational interviews, work with a recruiting firm, take on temporary assignments, and be flexible when meeting with prospective employers.

When developing your cover letter and resume, quantify the value of your contributions to previous employers, including how you helped cut costs, reduce inefficiencies or improve profitability. There are opportunities available, but job seekers will have to work harder to find them and cannot afford to leave even one stone unturned.
- DeLynn Senna, executive director of North American permanent placement services, Robert Half International

Network With Smarts

Candidates must be building and strengthening their network - ideally before it’s needed. Find networking events to go find other like-minded individuals and connectors. Build your online presence through your social networks and be an active participant in the community. And remember to give more than take - share your knowledge, help others be better, and invest time in building strong, long-lasting relationships. These are the relationships that could turn into future job leads.
- Lindsay Olson, partner, Paradigm Staffing

Flexibility Is Key

Stay open to opportunities in new or related industries, companies of a different size, or in a different location; and be aware that with the advent of technology, a new location just may be your home office.

Be flexible. You may or may not have to travel a bit more, take a different title, or give up some of the perks you’ve had in the past to assume your new role. All things being equal, if you’re flexible around these topics you’re chances of getting hired increase considerably.
- Cheryl Ferguson, recruiter, The Recruiter’s Studio

Diversify and Listen

My advice is two-fold: Be ready to diversify the ways in which you communicate your experiences AND listen well.

First, make a laundry list, just for yourself, of all the projects, contributions, ideas, etc., from your last three positions. This is what’s not on your resume. It jogs your memory about how you have differentiated yourself. You’ll recall and distill examples of your success, and you’ll be ready for more questions.

Second, listen closely to what the recruiter and/or hiring manager is asking you. They are looking for something very particular, whether the opportunity is leadership or entry-level. Walking someone through your resume or citing examples that they’re not seeking could hinder your ability to seem specific to their job. You want to be very clear about your transferable skills and your willingness to adapt to their environment.
- Ross Pasquale, recruiting/sourcing consultant, Monday Ventures

Tailor Your Resume

The most important thing that job seekers must do in 2009 to be successful is to diversify the content of their resumes based on the roles that they are applying for. For example, a job seeker may have worked in the past as a Java engineer, and also obtained project management along the way. However, a resume that is oriented strongly toward being a Java engineer has only a slight chance of being considered for a project-manager position.

For job seekers to increase their chances at success, they should shape their resumes to reflect relevant matching skills with the job posting(s) they are applying to. By doing so, a recruiter and/or hiring manager will more easily understand how a job seeker’s past experiences apply to the posted role. This method increases the chance of being considered a strong candidate, receiving an interview, and, ultimately, a new position. 
- Joanna Samuels, senior account manager, GravityPeople

Online site has advantages, risks for businesses trying to draw customers

The Business Journal of Milwaukee - by Rich Kirchen

Steve Thuilliez posted a video for his window and door business on YouTube recently as he strives to determine which online advertising venue will best attract customers.

He hired a California Web advertising firm to produce the video and is paying $200 per month for the firm’s services, including the video. Since the video was posted in September 2008, it received 270 views for Thuilliez’ HomePro Window & Door LLC - but no indication of any sales leads.

“I’m trying to increase my ‘Net presence,” said Thuilliez, who runs the window and door replacement business from his Delafield home.

YouTube is one of the most rapidly emerging frontiers in advertising and marketing via the Internet, but advertisers are only in the early stages of figuring out how best to tap YouTube.

The selling points are that it’s free and it’s already one of the most-used online communities in the world. The challenge for an advertiser is how to draw Internet surfers to its video.

Seventy-five percent of Americans watched a video online last month, and YouTube is the leader in the category with hundreds of millions of videos viewed daily, according to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., Mountain View, Calif.

The consensus among advertising executives is anything that smacks of conventional advertising won’t work on YouTube because people prefer not to watch commercials. Also, advertisers need to know their videos will run among thousands of amateur videos ranging from well-done and creative to cheap and distasteful.

“It’s very crowded - there’s a lot of really bad stuff on there,” said Steve Koeneke, owner of Milwaukee advertising agency Thirsty Boy.

The biggest successes on YouTube have either offered entertainment that coincidentally tied in to a product or surprised viewers at the end by identifying the advertiser.

An example of the former is blender-maker Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series where the host tries blending everything from an iPhone to a Chuck Norris toy. The latter approach was demonstrated by JCPenney and its “Doghouse” video that promoted Penney’s jewelry department in a humorous take on men “going to the doghouse” for buying their wives bad presents.

A growing number of southeast Wisconsin advertisers are posting their television commercials on YouTube and others are creating videos specifically to run on YouTube.

Videos of Russ Darrow Group’s TV commercials have generated fewer than 200 views each on YouTube, but owner Russ Darrow Jr. said it’s important to enter this relatively new advertising medium.

“It’s a start,” he said.

Paulo’s Pizzeria and Banquet Hall on Milwaukee’s southwest side created its own low-budget one-minute, 15-second video and posted it on YouTube after Christmas. Paul Ohalek said it’s one of the multiple avenues he’s using to promote his restaurant online and possibly generate Google searches from Milwaukee residents looking to order pizza. As of this week, the video had seven views.

An example of taking an entertainment and educational approach is Sub-Zero and Wolf, a Madison high-end appliance-maker that has attracted more than 70,000 views for its video “How to Make Perfect Pizza” in one of its ovens. The company already was producing “mini-Food Network-type segments” for its Web site and an Apple iTunes channel and jumped on YouTube when it launched in 2005, said Christopher Parr, marketing and creative director.

The attraction to YouTube is that it’s free and it offers the possibility that a video will become “viral” - that other Web sites or blogs will add or link to the videos, multiplying the number of viewers, Parr said.

“Being on YouTube is all about being social, linking and the viral component,” he said.

Risky venture

Risks to advertisers abound on YouTube as well. Viewers can comment negatively on a video and YouTube users can post their own critical videos on a company’s products, brand or service.

Menomonee Falls-based Kohl’s Department Stores has received positive spins for some of its commercials, including those featuring designer Vera Wang and pop star Avril Lavigne, that were posted on YouTube by adoring fans and viewed thousands of times. On the other hand, a bleach-blonde calling herself “TechnologyGoddess” posted a video on her experience shopping at a Kohl’s on Black Friday morning at 4 a.m., titled “Black Friday Part Two: Drunks in Kohls.” The video had 887 views as of this week.

“I noticed some of the people are drunk,” she says of other shoppers while in the store. “Like they think it’s a holiday party.”

Boston Business Journal - by Lisa van der Pool

As companies trim their advertising budgets, the ad agencies they work with are also learning how to survive the recession with less business than in recent years.

Jeff Freedman, co-founder and marketing principal of Boston-based ad shop Small Army, says that he has had to tweak his - and his clients’ - strategy.

Many of the agency’s clients, which include Bugaboo Creek Steak House, SolidWorks and Emerson Hospital, among others, are focused more on planning and how to spend their media dollars in this economy. For instance, some clients have trimmed print work, but beefed up their online advertising.

“There might be less ads, but more messaging and positioning work,” said Freedman, who is encouraging clients to be bold with their marketing messages to grab attention during the downturn.

As for his own business, Freedman, whose 18-person shop is on Newbury Street, has a positive outlook.

But Freedman is nevertheless taking precautions to keep costs in check by being conservative about hiring.

“We won’t hire people unless we know we can take care of them for a while. We never want to be in a position where we hire people and then the economy hits us. So we’re more dependent on freelancers,” said Freedman, who notes that there’s a large pool of talented freelancers in the market now.