Men and women are accepting — and even embracing — the increasing role of women in the workplace, but many are still struggling with the repercussions  on family life.

Those are some of the findings of a nationwide survey released Thursday in conjunction with a major report on the status of women by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress.

"The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything" takes an in-depth look at what has happened, and what still needs to happen, now that women make up virtually half the work force, up from about one-third of the work force 40 years ago.

The survey found that around three-quarters of men and women believe that the growing presence of women in the workplace has been very or somewhat positive for American society and the economy.

Read the full article.

Tags: workplace, women, gender issues, trends

Categories: News | Research

It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government.

At the heart of this criticism is data. Researchers and workers in fields as diverse as bio-technology, astronomy and computer science will soon find themselves overwhelmed with information. Better telescopes and genome sequencers are as much to blame for this dataglut as are faster computers and bigger hard drives.

While consumers are just starting to comprehend the idea of buying external hard drives for the home capable of storing a terabyte of data, computer scientists need to grapple with data sets thousands of times as large and growing ever larger. (A single terabyte equals 1,000 gigabytes and could store about 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica.)

The next generation of computer scientists has to think in terms of what could be described as Internet scale. Facebook, for example, uses more than 1 petabyte of storage space to manage its users’ 40 billion photos. (A petabyte is about 1,000 times as large as a terabyte, and could store about 500 billion pages of text.)

Read the full article.

Tags: training, technology, generations, trends

Categories: News

Customer service positions among young and experienced candidates are gaining in popularity at U.S. contact centers like Ryla Inc., a leading domestic provider of outsourced call center and customer contact solutions.

“Because of the downturn and the need to build customer loyalty, U.S. contact centers are rapidly growing,” said Mark Wilson, co-founder and CEO of Ryla. “Companies are realizing it costs six times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing customers; great customer service is a vital link to customer retention.”

According to a recent Frost & Sullivan report, U.S. call center revenues are expected to hit $29 billion by 2014.

Read the full release.

Tags: customer service, trends, millennials, baby boomers

Categories: News | Research

(PRWeb UK/PRWEB) -- The Core Metric: The Executive Committee

Recent studies have drawn attention to the lack of gender balance on boards. Now, the consultancy 20-first has launched the WOMENOMICS 101 Survey to shine a light on the most senior executive teams in the top 101 companies in three key regions of the globe. "This survey invites you to look deeper into companies, and to use metrics that distinguish those serious about gender balance from the rest. That's what WOMENOMICS 101 proposes to do," says Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of 20-first, author, and publisher of the new annual survey.

Key Findings:
US Leads: The US is ahead in this survey, with 89% of companies having at least one woman on their Executive Committee. The American companies with the highest number of women on their executive boards are: Kraft Foods, WellPoint, Macy's, Allstate, Pfizer, and Wells Fargo.

Read the full article.

Tags: gender issues, executives, trends

Categories: International | News | Research

CHICAGO (PRNewswire) -- Bersin & Associates, the only research and advisory firm focused solely on enterprise learning, talent management, and talent acquisition, today announced the release of its latest study, Talent Management Systems 2010: Market Realities, Implementation Experiences, and Solution Provider Profiles. The study is the most comprehensive market review and buyers' guide for talent management software systems.

Despite the recession, Bersin & Associates' research finds that the talent management systems market has thrived over the last year as vendors have seen significant growth in adoption. Based on market data and information provided by vendors, Bersin & Associates projects that the market will expand by 15 percent over the coming year.

Read the full release here.

Tags: talent management, technology, software, trends

Categories: News

(BUSINESS WIRE)--As business globalization and cross-border trade and investments have accelerated over the last decade, companies have a more globally dispersed workforce than ever before. According to a new survey by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company, human resources (HR) departments have made steady progress in their ability to support the shift toward a more global business model and workforce. Yet, for many companies, questions remain on how exactly HR should be aligned from a strategy, organizational and delivery perspective. This issue is even more pressing in the current economic environment, as HR departments are being challenged to improve the effectiveness of their global HR programs and reduce global HR delivery costs.

Hewitt’s survey of 85 global companies, in Latin America, North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, found that organizations are moving in the right direction to develop global HR strategies that meet the diverse needs of their workforce across businesses and geographies. Almost half (49 percent) of companies indicated that their global HR strategy applies to all of their operating regions—not just their primary location—with most organizations conducting HR activities at a global, regional and local level depending on the process and the business needs. Additionally, HR is leading rather than lagging the business when it comes to moving to a more global focus; 30 percent of companies describe their HR organization design as global compared to 15 percent of companies that describe themselves as global.

Read the full article.

Tags: learning function, globalization, business acumen, research, trends

Categories: News

Web 2.0 is taking over the HR industry, and by understanding the basic principles, professionals can increase their productivity and streamline their processes. According to a recent white paper published by Berkshire Associates, Web 2.0 is quickly changing the HR landscape, and for the better.

Berkshire’s latest white paper discusses how HR professionals can take advantage of Web 2.0 technology and move their processes into the next era of on-demand platforms. This free resource shares expert information on everything from the principles of Web 2.0 and wikis, to the intranet and twitter.

Read the white paper.

Tags: trends, social media, learning function, web 2.0, technology

Categories: News

(afterdawn.com, James "Dela" Delahunty) MacProVideo, a company that is dedicated to producing and distributing training videos for Mac, is to release an application via the iPhone App Store. The application will allow users to watch MacProVideo's Mac video tutorials on an iPhone or an iPod Touch.

(Read the entire article.)

Tags: astd, technology, trends

Categories: News