YES WE CAN!

SMALL BIZ VENTURE CAPITAL BOON?

Federal lawmakers on have gone and unanimously approved legislation that just plain overhauls the Fed’s primary small business targeted lending programs. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. The bill in question, the aptly named: “Small Business Investment Improvements Act” was introduced by Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman Jason Altmire and will purportedly create a “new angel funding initiative” that will funnel much needed investment into low-income localities and to minority-owned businesses. (Just one, well two, among the bills numerous aims).

Said legislation will also help guarantee that businesses on the receiving end of venture capital maintain their small-business status, while decreasing fees for borrowers and surety companies.

The bill may work to improve the overall climate for investors interested in putting their money into small firms, benefiting current and future entrepreneurs and the neighborhoods dependant on the jobs/services they provid.

SINGLE FEATURE FRIDAY: THE CUSTOMIZED CAREER

Ok, so it’s time to lend an ear to another not to be missed episode of the folks here at the Horsepower Blog’s favorite business related podcast … Harvard Business School Publishing’s One Hundred percent free “IdeaCast” … In the latest episode host Steve Singer sits down for a chat with the co-author of “Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce” Cathleen Benko. Mass Career Customization is one of those high-concept biz books (Wired Magazine has an entertaining piece making fun of them in this month’s issue) that tracks changes in family structures and attitudes that’ve been redefining the workforce for over two decades and argues that the career options offered up by the global economy have to accommodate the rising and falling phases of workforce engagement as it shifts over time – of course the authors provide a framework for “organizational adaptability” that does just that.

For those of you having trouble keeping track of the list of authors offering up such books Benko is the National Leader of the High Technology sector for Deloitte, served as Deloitte’s first “Global” e-Business leader, is an accomplished work/life balance speaker and is a respected advisor and mentor. She’s also the co-author of “Connecting the Dots” and was apparently recognized by Consulting Magazine on their list of her Industry’s: 25 Most Influential Consultants.

You can listen to the episode HERE. 

GLOBALIZATION HAS ALTERTED A KEY ASPECT of HUMAN CAPITAL BASED COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

Not so long ago, realizing that having a workforce boasting sharp strategic minds, leadership skills, communications expertise, entrepreneurial instincts and functional talents that deliver results and having the ability to attract, inspire, retain and deploy those individuals was virtually the same thing. These days, things are a bit more complicated. No, the talent pool isn’t shrinking – in fact it’s growing. The complication arises out of the fact that the number of personnel recruiters fishing it has grown at an even faster pace.

In response, organizations must redefine their concept of SHRM, and learn re-task formerly tangential human resource solutions (project-based recruiting, interim staffing and the like) as sources of competitive advantage. There has to be greater recognition of the fact that recruiting issues can no longer be taken for granted. Valuable skill-sets must be added to organizations without the preconceptions that have defined our traditional nine-to-five/twenty-years to retirement employment cycle. Whenever interim or project-based working arrangements offer the most effective interface between highly skilled professionals and distinctive workplace cultures, management processes and systems, they have to be employed. That’s the reality of Friedman’s “Flat World.”

Yes that is a contrast to the aforementioned traditional emphasis on transferable resources (technology, equipment, branding). But, organizations have to recognize that the prevailing scarcity of talent has upped the bar on the brand of competitive advantage can be obtained with a top notch workforce that allows an organization to compete on the basis of market responsiveness, solution and service quality, differentiated products and technological innovation.

You can read the rest HERE!

BOOM GOES the DYNAMITE!

Ok, so you’re thinking about putting together and posting a video resume and taking a look at semi-legendary YouTube clip “Boom Goes the Dynamite” hasn’t forced the notion out of your pretty little head INC Magazine has gone and published an online feature that may or may not help you on your way.

Take a look at their take on the subject HERE.

THE BEST PLACE to LAUNCH YOUR CAREER?

Rather than employers I thought I’d address today’s Horsepower post to those often forgotten heroes of the republic (sorry … I’ve just finished watching the Rome Season 2 DVD) those ever eager, pre graduation day, prospective creatives and highly skilled professionals. Well not so much me as the latest issue of business week:

“Using the survey data on individual industries … BusinessWeek compiled a list of nearly 150 companies, nonprofits, and government agencies that were eligible for the final ranking. This was a two-step process. The first step involved identifying the five high scorers in each industry. For every career-services director who ranked a company No. 1 in its industry, the company received five points. Every No. 2 ranking was worth four points, every No. 3 ranking was worth three points, and so on. After tallying the points, including ties, we had a total of 85 companies.

To flesh out the list, we reviewed the remaining companies suggested by the career-services directors and identified those with the highest industry point totals among all the industries. That added an additional 62 employers to the list, for a total of 147.

Next, we invited each employer to answer an extensive survey seeking information on hiring, pay, benefits, training programs, and retention. Of the 147 organizations, 95 completed the survey, for a response rate of 65%. We then compared the employers’ responses to each question with the responses of others in its industry.”

You can read their entire take on the subject right HERE.

INVESTMENTS in WORKFORCE BENEFITS PAY-OFF

Lets play a game, you’ll enjoy it because it’s related to the best micro-businesses from an employee perspective … Ready? Ok, tell me what these three micro-businesses have in common: One mining company, one financial services firm and one business-consulting group? No answer? Well, as it happens they were amongst the employers singled out for providing outstanding benefits packages for their employees and thus ranked in a recent listing of “The Best Companies for Employee Financial Security.”  They were, by name rather than description (and in order of mention above) Badger Mining of Berlin, Wisconsin, National Futures Assoc of Chicago, Illinois (thumbs up to the home team entry!) and Washington D.C.’s own Business Roundtable.

The top employers highlight more than a few workforce-retention strategies specifically designed to address the nation’s tightening labor market – from one-on-one benefits guidance and employee wellness programs to “auto pilot” retirement savings plans. Think about it this way … Micro-businesses are facing the same challenges as large corporations when it comes to their recruiting and retention needs – (i.e. everything from the ever present stiff as get-out competition for top creatives and other highly-skilled professionals to skyrocketing health-care costs, and the ubiquitous pressure to do more for their employees benefits-wise with a shallower pool of resources. The thing is they also demonstrate what too many larger concerns have yet to lean … that wise investments in workforce benefits WILL (as opposed to can) pay off in the end.

DEVELOPMENT and ENTREPRENEURS

Ok … so here’s a bit of news related to yet another one of them there recent surveys (this time of eighty-four countries and courtesy of the World Bank) This particular survey found that there just happens to a noteworthy relationship between global economic development and global entrepreneurial activity. Of course, retail based activities made up around forty-seven percent of said entrepreneurship springing up in developing countries and just twenty-five percent in industrialized nations. Meanwhile service sector activity accounted for roughly seventeen percent of entrepreneurship in developing countries and around forty-one percent of entrepreneurship in industrialized countries.

It’s fair to say that this report reveals lower requirements in terms of financial investment, human resources, knowledge, and capital among the reasons that entrepreneurs make the retail sector a pretty darn good bet for eager entrepreneurship readying start-ups in many (so-called) “developing” countries.

1,000 SMALL-BUSINESS EMPLOYEES CAN’T BE WRONG

Ready or not, the latest survey of more than 1,000 micro-business employees has arrived and revealed that seventy-five percent would rate their job a rating of eight or more in terms of job satisfaction (that’s on a scale of one to ten by the way). Less than three percent rate their job as a three or less. Most workers employed by micro-businesses seriously enjoy their jobs and the associated commutes of twenty minutes or less, according to the latest new “workforce trends” report.

To boot, seventy percent spend twenty minutes or less commuting to work. Females have a shorter commute time than males, while sixty-eight percent spend ten minutes or less on the road. Women are also more likely to work from home. While most small-business employees work between forty and sixty hours each week, the survey also found guys work longer hours. Roughly fifty percent or so of males claimed that they work fifty-one or more hours a week, compared to twenty-nine percent of females.

THE FUTURE of WINDY CITY RECRUITING & RETENTION

SHRM managers, executives and entrepreneurs from private and public sector will be interested in this one. We’re (read Horsepower’s parent cavalryHR is mulling over hosting a web-conference aimed at the professional talent pool prospects facing staffing firms based right here in Chi-Town.

Our take on “The Future of the Windy City as the World’s Personnel Hub” web-conference would take a look at Chicago’s improving infrastructure, increasing population of sought-after transnational talent (read: the never more elusive than now holders of H-1B visas), and of course how the city’s natural insulation from the much ballyhooed-sub prime mortgage crisis can be leveraged as competitive advantages by local executives, managers and entrepreneurs. O’ and it would doubtless be capped off by a keynote question-and-answer session with cavalryHR’s fearless leader Keith S. Price.

So let us know what you think folks?

The summit would take place sometime in Oct. if you folks out there let us know you’re up for it.