OFFICE POLITICS

TIPS FOR EMPLOYERS CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

It’s still fairly early in the first quarter and many businesses are still be firming plans for the year. Employee reviews can be an important part of that process, helping to guide staffing and job goals for 2005’s initiatives. More than three of every four workers found reviews either very or somewhat valuable, according to a survey of 612 employees by OfficeTeam, a staffing firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. But there are some common pitfalls in this process employers would be wise to avoid, according to the company:

* Saving feedback: A performance review is not the time to spring all your complaints and compliments on an employee. Regular communication to workers about how they’re doing is far more useful.

* Being secretive: Nothing in the review should be a surprise for an employee. And discuss ahead of time how each of you should prepare for this meeting, how long it will last, and what topics will and should be covered.

* Failing to consult others: If an employee interacts with others in the department or company, ask around. This data can provide insight for a far more comprehensive review.

* Not following through: The goals and ideas developed through the review need to be revisited, not consigned to a personnel file and forgotten.

– Associated Press

TECH SECTOR

SALARIES DROP IN 2004, WITH EXCEPTIONS

American technology industry salaries continued dropping last year, down 2.6%, but with a notable niche of gains: Those in the defense and government tech sectors, according to an annual salary survey of tech professionals. The average tech field salary was $66,300 last year,$3,100 less than in 2003, according to the 2004 salary survey by Dice Inc., a New York-based online job recruiting company for tech professionals. But instead of taking a pay cut, workers in government and defense tech sectors saw a 2.9% gain, to $66,500 in 2004. The financial industry continued to pay the most, at an average of $77,700 yearly. Silicon Valley and New York continued to offer the best tech salaries, at $84,200 and $76,500 respectively. But Atlanta supplanted Boston as No. 3 on that list, with an average annual survey of $75,500, $200 more than Boston. The results are from data collected from 23,000Dice.comusers last year.

– Associated Press

INVESTING

VIGILANCE URGED WHEN TINKERING WITH A 401(K)

If you’re like many American workers with a 401(k), you probably tinker with your investments’ composition. Vigilance of the market and financial adjustments are smart, right? Um, sure. But many of us do silly things with our investments and don’t even realize it. Understanding a few basic principles of behavioral finance and how it affects our decisions can help, according to Douglas Mangini, head of Nationwide Financial Services Inc.’s Financial Planners Channel. The company is a division of insurance giant Nationwide Mutual Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Mangini has a few tips:

* Don’t look to “strike while the iron’s hot.” Statistically, there is no “hot hand” when it comes to investing, just as casinos don’t go bankrupt because of gamblers going on a roll.

* Admit mistakes and move on. Don’t allow a short-term error to become a longterm problem.

* Don’t follow the herd. Staying put or selling out on a company just because everyone else is doing so isn’t always wise.

– Associated Press

DOWNSIZING

FOR AT&T WORKERS, ANOTHER BRUTAL ROUND OF CUTS

A job with AT&T Corp. used to be a job for life; as steady as the company’s dependable stock. That held true until the Bell System broke up in 1984. Now, “Bellheads,” as AT&T’s longtime employees are nicknamed, face another of the relentless rounds of job cuts that have reduced the company from 1 million employees in 1984 to 47,000 today. With SBC Communications completing its $16 billion purchase of Ma Bell, the combined companies can cut more than $500 million in corporate overhead by 2011. That can only mean one thing for AT&T employees: time to start reading the “help wanted” ads. The company’s days as a paragon of stability are long gone; its stock changed from a rock-steady investment to Internet high-flyer, to a post-bubble loser. As a lifetime employer, the company fared even worse, cutting so many jobs so often, it has become synonymous with corporate downsizing. It’s a mark of how bad things are at AT&T that the merger – complete with its certainty of more job losses – was greeted as good news by the company’s main union, the Communications Workers of America. “In recent years, AT&T has been contracting its business and shedding jobs,” union president Morton Bahr said in a statement. “With the integration of its operations into SBC, there is now the opportunity for a new strategy that instead focuses on dynamic growth and creation of new services and technologies.” In the last six months alone, the company has cut 14,000 jobs.

– Associated Press