By Elizabeth Harrin (London)
The Wall Street Reform Act introduced a raft of new rules with the aim of stabilising the U.S. financial systems. These rules now need to be implemented, and someone has got to do the implementing. Are you in the market for a new job? Maybe a move to the public sector is the right move for you.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alone is expecting to recruit for about 800 positions [PDF], according to Chairman Mary Schapiro. “A principal lesson learned from the financial crisis is that, because today’s financial markets and their participants are dynamic, fast-moving, and innovative, the regulators who oversee them must continuously improve their knowledge and skills to regulate effectively,” she said. “In response, we have created and begun staffing a new division, the Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation.” This new division will look at new products and trading practices.
“As part of the now completed reorganisation of the Enforcement Division, we created five new specialised units, as well as a new office dedicated to the handling of complaints, tips, and referrals,” Schapiro added in her testimony to a House of Representatives sub-committee meeting. These units cover areas like asset management, structured and new products, and securities. “Each of the specialised units is in the process of hiring additional professionals with specialised experience to assist in investigative and enforcement efforts,” Schapiro said.
The SEC is not the only agency hiring. “The next year of rule writing will test the very talented staff of the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission],” said Gary Gensler, Chairman of the CFTC. “Our staff has significant expertise regulating the on-exchange derivatives markets that will translate well into regulating the over-the-counter swaps markets. Still, we need significant new resources.”
In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a completely new creation, and will need staffing from the ground up. Although we can assume that some federal staff will transfer in from other agencies, it’s also fair to assume that the Bureau will be recruiting.
So if you have always wanted a public sector job, this could be the moment to jump from the private sector. Be warned though, making the move to the public sector isn’t like getting another private sector position.
5 Ways to Make Quality Time Count with Your Kids
Work-LifeA recent University of Maryland study, cited in this Washington Post article, finds that moms today are spending more time with their kids (an average of 14.1 hours a week) than they did 40 years ago (10.2 hours a week). But despite reports that moms are doing better balancing their time at home, many working moms still worry about spending quality time with their kids.
Alleviate the concern by focusing on the time you have together, and aiming for quality over quantity. Read on for five ways to spend time with your children and make it count.
1. Eat.
Eating is, of course, a necessity, but eating with your kids can have more benefits than just relieving hunger. Research has found that meal time together as a family can have numerous positive effects. For instance, Purdue University’s Center for Families says shared family meal times can contribute to “improving dietary quality, preventing obesity, enhancing language acquisition and academic performance, improving social skills and family unity, and reducing risk-taking behaviors.”
Read more
Are Family-Friendly Benefits on the Decline?
Money TalksThe Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently released the results of its annual study [PDF], which gathers information on the types of benefits employers offer their employees. It was found that most benefits remained stable this past year, though many benefit offerings are down from five years ago. It was also discovered benefits for working parents took some unexpected turns.
One of the hardest hit areas was flextime, with only 49 percent of employers offering flextime in 2010, down from 57 percent in 2006. Paid family leave also took a major hit, with just 24 percent of companies currently offering it, compared to 32 percent in 2006. The findings, which are based on a survey of 534 human resources professionals, aren’t very surprising. During rough economic patches it is not uncommon to see medical benefits reduced or 401(k) matching eliminated. What is perplexing, however, is sorting through the numbers and not being able to detect any rhyme or reason as to why certain benefits stay, while others go.
For example, 7 percent of HR respondents said they plan to reduce or eliminate paid-maternity leave policies within the next 12 months, while paid paternity leave is offered by 17 percent of companies today vs. 13 percent in 2006. The figures are also similar for paid maternity leave and 16 percent of firms now offer adoption leave. So, how do companies juggle different family friendly benefits during a tough economy? And more specifically, why would they decide to cut flex time while increasing maternity/paternity paid time off? How are these tradeoffs considered?
Read more
In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-Up
NewsThe Basel Committee on Banking Supervision revealed new capital requirements. The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged. Yields on peripheral eurozone bonds rose with renewed sovereign debt issuance. A Beige Book survey revealed economic growth mixed or slow in USA.
Economic Backdrop
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Connect the Dots to Solve Workplace Conflict
Expert AnswersHandling conflict is a major part of leadership development. You can have the best product in the world yet, if the marketing team, sales team, or administrative team is at odds with each other the dissention will tumble to customers who will find another product elsewhere.
Think about the word conflict. What is your initial reaction? Do you think “Not another ##&%!! Issue?” Do you say “Not my fault” as you look for the nearest exit? How about playing Scarlett O’Hara brushing past the upset with “I’ll think about it tomorrow”? Or are you one of the few who says “Oh great, I know I can learn from this mess.”
Whatever your first response, be kind to yourself. Your knee-jerk reactions are those you have developed over time for security and survival. Yet, there is a better way. Once you learn to think in terms of connecting the dots of an experience you can find a better way to handle all conflict.
Begin to think larger, holistically, about “if-this-then-that.” When you think in terms of a system your thinking is integrated and interdependent. It takes into account the big picture and long range thinking.
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Innovation – The Key to Workforce Engagement
Office PoliticsThis article originally appeared on our new corporate citizenship site Evolved Employer.
Should companies encourage their workforce to innovate? Innovation is a big buzz word lately, with companies striving to embed it within their cultures and looking within their ranks for new ideas rather than outsourcing or working with consultants to find the next big product. But all the clamor has left some to ask – is innovation a distraction?
According to Businessweek contributor and founder and president of the Table Group Pat Lencioni, employees are being asked to do far too much innovating. He writes, “[business leaders] should stop overhyping innovation to the masses and come to the realization that only a limited number of people in any company really needs to be innovative.”
He continues:
Lencioni believes the relatively recent hyperfocus on innovation is causing business leaders to be seen as hypocritical – which actually decreases employee engagement. He writes:
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Encouragement vs. Criticism – How Should We Manage Rising Women?
Breaking the Glass CeilingIn a recent article, Peter Ranscombe quotes Laura Morse, visiting lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as saying that women get more encouragement than criticism. She also said that bosses should push their female employees to realize their full potential and instead of patting them on the head, they need to push them through the door.
After reading the article, I was curious about what female managers in the financial industry thought of regarding the “criticism versus encouragement” debate. Are women receiving more encouragement than criticism? Does that stunt their professional growth? And are their other differences in the way men and women manage office behavior?
Same But Different
Robin Ross, managing director of interest rate products at the CME Group, the largest futures exchange in the world, said even if her male managers held back because she was a women, she always saw herself as equal to her male counterparts.
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Power, Ambition, Money, Failure: Confronting Career Taboos
Featured, Industry Leaders, LeadershipPower. Ambition. Money. Failure. These are taboos that haunt women today, stunting their climb to leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. We may not like to talk about them, and we don’t necessarily need to conform to typically masculine styles of approaching them, but women must learn to overcome our discomfort with these demons if we are to achieve parity in the workforce.
The statistics are all too familiar to many of us. While today we can see women in positions of power — from heads of state to university presidents to Wall Street executives – more broadly women are stuck, holding only 16% to 22% [PDF] of the leadership positions in many arenas, and in some areas, such as the military and Fortune 500 CEOs much less. For women of color, the numbers are even worse; of the 15.7% of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies that are held by women, just 1.7% [PDF] are held by women of color.
Part of our inability to advance to leadership positions in the numbers that we’d like, of course, is due to longstanding discrimination and cultural biases that lead men in high-ranking positions to want colleagues that look and act like them.
Part is also due to the fact that women who off-ramp, to raise their children and care for family members, are disadvantaged by skeptical, inflexible employers who view such moves with suspicion. The Center for Work-Life Policy’s May study, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Revisited [PDF}, found that “73% percent of women trying to return to the workforce after a voluntary timeout for childcare or other reasons have trouble finding a job.” Of those who do return, more than 25% reported a decrease in their management responsibilities and 22% returned with a lower job title.
But whether we like to discuss it or not, part of the problem stems from the fact that many women are uncomfortable with power, ambition, money and failure. In some cases women handle these issues differently than many of their male colleagues.
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New Regulations Mean New Jobs
Managing ChangeThe Wall Street Reform Act introduced a raft of new rules with the aim of stabilising the U.S. financial systems. These rules now need to be implemented, and someone has got to do the implementing. Are you in the market for a new job? Maybe a move to the public sector is the right move for you.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alone is expecting to recruit for about 800 positions [PDF], according to Chairman Mary Schapiro. “A principal lesson learned from the financial crisis is that, because today’s financial markets and their participants are dynamic, fast-moving, and innovative, the regulators who oversee them must continuously improve their knowledge and skills to regulate effectively,” she said. “In response, we have created and begun staffing a new division, the Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation.” This new division will look at new products and trading practices.
“As part of the now completed reorganisation of the Enforcement Division, we created five new specialised units, as well as a new office dedicated to the handling of complaints, tips, and referrals,” Schapiro added in her testimony to a House of Representatives sub-committee meeting. These units cover areas like asset management, structured and new products, and securities. “Each of the specialised units is in the process of hiring additional professionals with specialised experience to assist in investigative and enforcement efforts,” Schapiro said.
The SEC is not the only agency hiring. “The next year of rule writing will test the very talented staff of the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission],” said Gary Gensler, Chairman of the CFTC. “Our staff has significant expertise regulating the on-exchange derivatives markets that will translate well into regulating the over-the-counter swaps markets. Still, we need significant new resources.”
In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a completely new creation, and will need staffing from the ground up. Although we can assume that some federal staff will transfer in from other agencies, it’s also fair to assume that the Bureau will be recruiting.
So if you have always wanted a public sector job, this could be the moment to jump from the private sector. Be warned though, making the move to the public sector isn’t like getting another private sector position.
Read more
In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-Up
NewsThe European Central Bank left its key lending rate at 1%. Encouraging job creation numbers came out of the US, but unemployment is still rising. We also saw agreement in the EU on the creation of a European Systemic Risk Council.
Economic Backdrop
When news came that the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) index of national service activity had fallen from 54.3 in July to 51.5 in August, which was worse than expected, this added confusion to the markets and limited the gains in equities and falls in bonds.
Read more
Happy Labor Day!
Work-LifeDear Readers,
The Glass Hammer is taking a few days off to celebrate Labor Day. In the meantime, check out some of our recent popular articles.
Also, don’t forget to check out our upcoming events – we’re hosting a panel on Dodd-Frank for women investment management in October, and in November, we’re hosting a career development panel called Navigating, Negotiating, and Building Your Network. For more more information on either event, click here: https://theglasshammer.com/events/.
Finally, The Glass Hammer is always looking for new writers. If you’ve got something to say, email melissa@theglasshammer.com with a writing sample and an idea.