By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

With many employees reporting that they are primed for a job change in the coming year, managers must find new ways to keep employees from jumping ship. But this doesn’t have to mean costly or extensive new human capital initiatives.

A recent study by Leadership IQ has revealed one simple (and free) change management can make right away to keep employees energized and engaged in their company: provide more feedback.

The study shows that one reason for this widespread job dissatisfaction is because they feel they are being ignored by management. According to Leadership IQ:

“While 67% of employees say they get too little positive feedback, 51% also say they get too little constructive criticism from their boss. Perhaps most troubling is that employees who said they didn’t get enough feedback were 43% less likely to recommend their company to others as a great organization to work for.”

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By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

While things are looking better for job seekers, the financial sector has not yet returned to its pre-recession state. There are still fewer jobs around. And even if you aren’t looking for a new job, the risk of more redundancies hangs heavy in the City. Nobody wants to be out of work at the moment, and although it’s a bit late for New Year’s Resolutions, you still have time to commit to improving your employability this year. Here are our top five tips for improving your CV or resumé.

1. Speak in public

   Enough already with the excuses. You will not die if you stand up and speak in front of a crowd. Cutbacks means fewer industry events this year but there are still plenty of conferences and seminars looking for speakers. You are an expert in something, and you only have to know a small amount more than the rest of the room to look like that expert. Speak at an industry conference about a project or initiative you have worked on – no one will know more about it than you and case studies are a perennial favourite on the conference circuit.How do you get to be a speaker? It’s really easy – just ask. Look at the fliers that fall out of your industry publications or look on the internet for forthcoming events. By the time the schedule is published it will be too late for you to attend that session, but ask for your details to be put on the call for papers list and next time they are looking for speakers you’ll get a notification. You’ll be asked to prepare a short abstract about your presentation. The organisers take all the abstracts and choose those that would make a coherent conference schedule.If that still sounds too scary then start small with a talk at your local professional institute branch. Or offer your services to a women’s network – they would love to hear about your career journey. If you are just starting out, talk to university groups about how you landed your finance job.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Over the last two decades, the computer science industry has seen almost a mass exodus of women – while other science fields have seen the number of jobs held by women rise significantly.

According to a new report by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the percentage of computer-related jobs held by women has declined steadily from its high of 36% in 1991, to just above 25% in 2008.

Dr. Catherine Ashcraft, co-author (with Sarah Blithe) of Women in IT: The Facts, explained that there are a number of reasons for the decline:

• the dot-com burst in the late ’90s leading to a perception that there aren’t any jobs in the field
• a perception that technology and computer-related jobs have been outsourced to people in countries outside the US
• a misunderstanding about what the field really is
• higher visibility of other science fields
• and an image that these jobs are “nerdy or geeky”

But it’s not just a decline in the number of women entering the field – women are leaving jobs in the technology field at a startling rate.

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By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

In July of 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a number of revisions to their rules. These amendments were designed to improve the amount of disclosure shareholders of public companies receive as it pertains to: compensation policies and practices that present material risks to the company, stock and option awards of executives and directors, director and nominee qualifications and legal proceedings, board leadership structure, the board’s role in risk oversight, and potential conflicts of interest of compensation consultants that advice companies and their board of directors.

At the time, the major hope was that these amendments would enable shareholders to better evaluate the leadership of public companies, but it quickly became clear that – if adopted – these new rules could greatly assist in promoting true diversity in the boardroom.

In response to these proposed revisions, the SEC received over 130 comment letters from various organizations offering their opinions and suggestions on the proposed amendments. Not only did the SEC take these opinions into consideration, but they even adopted several of the amendments to their rules late last year. One of the organizations that responded to the SEC’s rule revisions with a comment letter was the InterOrganization Network (ION), a nearly six-year-old organization dedicated to advancing the number of women in leadership positions as corporate directors and executive officers. Of particular interest to ION was the SEC’s decision to require disclosure of the qualifications of “directors and nominees for directors and the reasons why the person should serve as director of the company.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, the Whole Foods Markets grocery chain announced a plan that would allow staff members to receive a greater discount on health insurance if they maintained low blood pressure, cholesterol, and Body Mass Index (BMI) readings.

The discounts are substantial. Sarah Gilbert at Daily Finance explains:

“Those who want to take part can undergo biometric screening, which will determine what discount level they’ll receive: Bronze, silver, gold or platinum. The maximum discount is 30%, and to qualify, employees must have a BMI of less than 24, cholesterol levels below 150 mg/dL and blood pressure of 110/70.”

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By Janet Stocks (New York City)

According to Hewitt Associates, an international expert in human resources consulting, successful businesses “align their people practices with company strategy and create an environment that produces positive employee experiences and strong business results.”

Hewitt Associates recently released its 2010 Best Employer in Canada study highlighting 50 of Canada’s best companies to work for, as determined through a combination of employee, leadership, and HR surveys.

Neil Crawford, a principal at Hewitt Associates and the leader of the Best Employers in Canada study, told us, “the measure we use to determine the 50 Best Employers in Canada is employee engagement. A key aspect of the annual study is the employee opinion survey, where we collect feedback from those who actually work at the organizations that are vying for Best Employer status. Our perspective is that those in the best position to judge an outstanding workplace are the people who actually work there.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In a recent blog post, Clay Shirky, a world-famous new media scholar and consultant, wrote, “not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks.”

This is bad for women, he reasons, because, “people who don’t raise their hands don’t get called on, and people who raise their hands timidly get called on less. Some of this is because assertive people get noticed more easily, but some of it is because raising your hand is itself a high-cost signal that you are willing to risk public failure in order to try something.”

Men, on the other hand, seem to have less of a problem with stretching the facts in order to promote themselves. “There is no upper limit to the risks men are willing to take in order to succeed, and if there is an upper limit for women, they will succeed less.”

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