Know More HR for 2007-01-28

Senate Finance Committee puts a $1 million annual cap on executive deferred compensation. The Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act of 2007 will have HR Compensation professionals talking about Section 409A for a while. Going over the cap will trigger ordinary income plus a 20% penalty. And…162(m) payments after termination of employment won’t be deductible.

Wal-Mart to Pay $34 Million in Back Wages. Approximately 87,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees will receive checks for back pay that comes as a result of incorrect payroll calculations. Wal-Mart also overpaid other employees by about the same amount but will not be asking for the money back.

Workers are Tired and It Costs Companies Millions. WorldatWork reports that nearly 40% of workers are fatigued, which results in lost productivity and costs a fortune. One possible solution: Give them a nap.

Grammar Girl’s Tips for Better Writing

Grammar GirlI’ve enjoyed Grammar Girl’s podcasts lately. Her posts are crisp, clean and to-the-point. Most of here podcasts run just a couple minutes, so they’re easy to process and still leave me time to listen to Coffee Break Spanish. Here’s a quick tip from Grammar Girl about when to use bad versus badly :

The quick and dirty tip is that it is correct to say you feel bad when you are expressing an emotion. To say, “I feel badly,” implies that there’s something wrong with your sense of touch. Every time I hear people say, “I feel badly,” I imagine them in a dark room having trouble feeling their way around with numb fingers.

You can find Grammar Girl on iTunes and at her Grammar Girl site.

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Awesome Music, Innovative Business Plan

What do you get when you mix …

It’s SellaBand.

Users vote with $10 shares (or “parts”) who should get the green light for a trip to the studio. Sound familiar? Here’s the new twist — the investors in the winning band get some of the profits.

The totally liquid market lets you swap your investment to another band in a snap, but when $50,000 rests on one band their contract is triggered. I suspect this leads to some really interesting game theory applications as the totals get close (my math geekery is hard to suppress). Two bands have already made it - but this is not a competition that just ends, it is a continuing strategy to get new talent together with new money.

22 Percent of Philadelphians Have Dream Jobs

“Employees just wanna have fun” is what Harris Interactive’s Dream Jobs survey revealed yesterday. And 22% of Philadelphians are having fun in their dream job. The rest are booing Santa at Eagles games. They’re not alone:

Chicago, January 25, 2007 - CareerBuilder.com today announced the results of a national consumer employment survey conducted by Harris Interactive that reveals nearly four out of five U.S. workers (84 percent) are not currently in their dream job. More than 6,000 respondents were polled, weighing in with their thoughts and insights regarding top dream job choices for different professions and regions. [snip]

“What defines a dream job is surprisingly reminiscent of childhood wishes for many workers. Workers said they want to enjoy their work experience, apply their talents and feel like they’re making an impact. Having fun at work was the most important attribute of a dream job for 39 percent of workers, which heavily outweighed the 12 percent who said salary was most important.”

I’m among the 22% of Philadelphians in my dream job. Yay! But I still reserve the right to boo T.O.

Multi-Touch Computing

Perceptive Pixel Multi-Touch Computing

Okay, this doesn’t have much to do with human resources…today. But Perceptive Pixel’s multi-touch computing [video] is super cool, and I can just imagine in a few years, HR pros sitting in front of a multi-touch panel and moving data around, organizing information, and allocating bonuses with their ten fingers. It’s artistry. Wow, the possibilities. When multi-touch computing gets commercialized, you can be the Picasso of HR.

[via Data Mining]

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