American workers are feeling a lot better about their jobs.
Propelled by a stabilizing economy, employee satisfaction is at its highest level in more than a decade, according to a new survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, an association of HR professionals.
Eighty-eight percent of the employees polled reported being satisfied overall with their jobs in 2015. Of them, 37 percent described themselves as “very satisfied,” and 51 percent said they were “somewhat satisfied.” Compare that to results from the organization's 2005 survey, which found just 77 percent of people were pleased with their jobs.
As you can see in the chart below, satisfaction took a hit between 2009 and 2013, the years following the recession. By now, though, people are feeling more confident about the job market, and workers who were unhappy and switched jobs five or six years ago have likely settled into their new roles, contributing to the higher satisfaction level, the SHRM researchers say.
SHRM
Age apparently has little to do with how much people enjoy their work. Millennials' satisfaction ranks about as high as that of older generations.
“Stop the stereotypes," SHRM researcher Christina Lee wrote in a paper released alongside the survey. "Although Millennials may have slightly different mindsets, on the whole, they tend to place significance on several of the same aspects of job satisfaction that Generation Xers and Baby Boomers do.”
Compensation remains highly important in how employees feel about their jobs, with 63 percent of those surveyed citing it as a contributor.
Paychecks, meanwhile, just aren’t growing fast enough. A report last year from the Economic Policy Institute found that growth in worker productivity is outstripping wage growth. From 2000 to 2014, productivity increased by 21.6 percent, while median compensation in the U.S. rose by only 1.8 percent.
Yet compensation ranked only as the second-highest factor contributing to job satisfaction, per the new survey. Topping the list was “respectful treatment of all employees at all levels,” which 67 percent of respondents cited.
“The day-to-day experience is what governs their perspective on their work,” Evren Esen, director of survey programs at the Society for Human Resource Management, told The Huffington Post. “That’s where corporate culture comes into play. You want your supervisor to ask for your ideas.”
Workplaces that promote openness, community and equality are increasingly becoming the norm. While these are aspects valued by all employees, millennials in particular have helped to push that shift forward by being direct about what they expect from their employers.
“They see themselves as equal with who they work with in terms of expressing ideas,” Esen said of millennials. “In that way, by sharing their beliefs with the higher-ups, they are heard more than other generations.”
The expectation that employees are treated equally and fairly, in addition to things like having trustful leaders and transparent management, will only grow as millennials take over the workforce.
Take parental leave: Having a family and young children is hardly a new development, but millennial workers have been more vocal than their older counterparts about having decent company support when they have a newborn. Paid time off is gaining traction quickly, and more and more companies are now offering paid time off to new moms and dads.
“It’s just what they think is normal,” Esen added. “Millennials say, ‘It’s not that way? Why isn’t it that way?’”
The two deaths came in quick succession, shocking the close-knit community of health care workers at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center.
First, in August 2013, an administrative assistant was fatally shot by her estranged husband while she was helping her 3-year-old son get into a car. Five months later, a nurse who worked with oncology patients was stabbed to death by her son after a history of domestic altercations.
"She was very optimistic and positive," said Michele McKee, director of nursing services. "The staff is still struggling with the loss. There was denial. Tears. Anger. And then, guilt. What did we miss? What could we have done?"
While hospital staff had been trained to identify patients who were experiencing domestic violence, they didn't pay the same attention to warning signs in their own peers, said Leslie Hott, St. Joseph's human resources manager.
"Our value statement says, 'loving service, compassionate care,'" Hott said. "We typically think about that for those we care for, but not each other."
That is now changing.
St. Joseph is undergoing an ambitious effort to address domestic violence among its workforce, rolling out an intensive training program to help staff members identify -- and hopefully prevent -- domestic violence, as well as a new workplace policy to support employees who are suffering.
The hospital partnered with Futures Without Violence, a nonprofit that has helped organizations across the country address how domestic violence hurts its workforce. In 2014, Futures began a pilot site project called Low Wage, High Risk to develop best practices for workplaces where employees may be vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. The nonprofit is currently collaborating with tomato crop workers in Florida and restaurant employees in New York, as well as health care workers at St. Joseph in Towson.
The hospital didn’t have a formal workplace domestic violence policy in place when its staffers were killed. Most organizations across the country don’t, even though domestic violence affects 1 in 4 women in the U.S.
There was denial. Tears. Anger. And then, guilt. What did we miss? What could we have done?Michele McKee, director of nursing services
In addition to creating serious safety issues in the workplace, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that domestic violence costs the U.S. at least $8 billion a year in lost productivity and health care costs.
The federal government is trying to set a good example. President Barack Obama issued a memorandum in 2012 that requires all federal agencies to develop policies to support employees whose working lives are affected by domestic violence.
It is often thought to be something that occurs in private, but the pervasive effects of domestic violence can spill over into victims’ work lives. When that happens, experts say, many organizations are ill-equipped to properly support their employees -- in the worst cases, employees may even be penalized or fired.
Maya Raghu, a former lawyer with Futures Without Violence who was involved with the launch of this program, said only a handful of jurisdictions prohibit employment discrimination against survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and about 15 to 20 states provide survivors with unpaid leave.
“Having a source of income is critical to helping survivors and their families separate from the dangerous situation,” she said. “Especially if you are in a job on the lower end of the income spectrum, you may not be able to accumulate savings that you can rely on if you lose your job.”
Being a victim of violence can affect employees in overt and subtle ways. Workers may experience violence on the job, including stalking, threatening calls or physical assaults. Homicide is the second leading cause of injury death for women at work, according to the CDC, and intimate partners commit a significant percentage of those murders.
But even if the actual violence doesn’t take place at work, being in an abusive relationship can still disrupt a victim’s ability to do her job. Abusers may try to sabotage their victims’ financial independence and purposely do things to get them fired, like cut up their work clothes or steal their car keys so they miss their shifts, Raghu explained.
Victims may need to take days off to appear in court, apply for a protection order or seek medical attention. But missing work can put victims of violence in peril of losing their job -- at the exact time they desperately need a regular paycheck.
Hott said the hospital's new policy spells out the support services available to victims, so they know they won’t be penalized for seeking help, and outlines what managers should do if a staff member discloses that they are experiencing domestic violence.
"If it’s brought to our attention, we can respond appropriately," she said. "We want employees to know, we are here for you, we want it safe for you here."
Courtesy of University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical CenterSt. Joseph Medical Center is working to institute a new workplace policy to help employees who are domestic violence survivors.
St. Joseph now works with victims to change their work schedules or location, and can assign them a new phone number or parking spot if requested, Hott said. Victims can also ask for an escort between buildings and to their car, and photos of prohibited people can be distributed to security staff.
Every employee will eventually go through a training about domestic violence and learn what resources are available in the community, Hott said. Educational posters featuring employees will be plastered across the facility, and bathrooms will include pamphlets about warning signs of domestic violence and phone numbers for help.
Ideally, she said, the hospital want to make it easier for employees to come forward and not feel like they have to handle it alone.
"In health care, we want to fix, we want to repair and get you out the door and back into your life. But intimate partner violence isn’t cut and dry," she said. "That’s OK. The goal is to make it not a secret anymore."
Hott said she hopes the hospital’s policy and training program will be used as a model for other health care organizations across the country. It’s an especially important sector to target, she said, as women make up nearly 80 percent of the health care workforce.
A young crepe myrtle tree stands at the entrance of the parking lot at St. Joseph.
Each morning when employees arrive for work, they pass the flowering tree, which was planted in memory of the two employees who were fatal victims of domestic violence.
"I pull into the garage that way every morning and I look at it," McKee said. "Now that it’s spring time, we look forward to it blooming."
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Melissa Jeltsen covers domestic violence and other issues related to women’s health, safety and security. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow her on Twitter.
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Mitsubishi Motors Corp said it falsified fuel economy test data to make emissions levels look more favorable, and its shares slumped more than 15 percent, wiping $1.2 billion from its market value on Wednesday.
Tetsuro Aikawa, president of Japan's sixth-largest automaker by market value, bowed in apology at a news conference in Tokyo for what is the biggest scandal at Mitsubishi Motors since a defect cover-up over a decade ago.
Toru Hanai / ReutersThe scandal prompted Tetsuro Aikawa, president of Mitsubishi Motors, to bow in apology at a news conference in Tokyo.
Shares in the company closed down more than 15 percent at 733 yen, the stock's biggest one-day drop in almost 12 years.
In 2000, Mitsubishi Motors revealed that it covered up safety records and customer complaints. Four years later it admitted to broader problems going back decades. It was Japan's worst automotive recall scandal at the time.
The company said on Wednesday the test manipulation involved 625,000 vehicles produced since mid-2013. These include its eK mini-wagon as well as 468,000 similar cars it made for Nissan Motor.
It said it would stop making and selling those cars, and has set up an independent panel to investigate the issue.
Mitsubishi Motors sold just over 1 million cars last year.
Mitsubishi Motors is the first Japanese automaker to report misconduct involving fuel economy tests since Volkswagen was discovered last year to have cheated diesel emissions tests in the United States and elsewhere.
South Korean car makers Hyundai Motor Co and affiliate Kia Motors Corp in 2014 agreed to pay $350 million in penalties to the U.S. government for overstating their vehicles' fuel economy ratings. They also resolved claims from car owners.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Discount retailer Target Corp has started raising employee wages to a minimum of $10 an hour, its second hike in a year, pressured by a competitive job market and labor groups calling for higher wages at retail chains, sources said. Target management has informed store managers, who in turn have started informing employees about the wage hike and most employees who earn less than $10 per hour should see their base pay go up in May, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
The $1-per-hour raise marks the second time Target has followed Wal-Mart Stores Inc in raising base wages. It also comes as a union-led push for a $15 minimum wage, the so-called “Fight for Fifteen” movement, is gaining traction in cities across the country and even has become a topic in the U.S. presidential campaign, with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders calling for a $15 “living wage.”
Target's decision reflects growing competition for workers in an increasingly strong labor market. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has fallen to its lowest point in 42-1/2-years, and the jobless rate is only 5.0 percent.
Target last raised its minimum pay rate in April 2015 to $9 an hour, up from the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour at the time. The move last April matched a similar announcement by Wal-Mart. The world's largest retailer in February 2015 said it will lift its base pay to $10 an hour in 2016, a step it has implemented in recent weeks.
Target's plan will also raise pay for employees who already make over $10 an hour. Such workers will be entitled to an annual merit raise and a pay-grade hike, which is related to experience and position of the employee, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Target declined to confirm it is offering the pay increase. "We pay market competitive rates and regularly benchmark the marketplace to ensure that our compensation and benefits packages will help us to both recruit and retain great talent, Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said.
Snyder said the company does not disclose details of its compensation programs and declined to comment on how many of the retailer's roughly 341,000 employees at its nearly 1,800 stores would receive the raise.
The move to $10 an hour could put pressure on Target's earnings, especially at a time whenTarget is investing billions to upgrade its supply chain and technology infrastructure in order to tackle chronic stock shortages. Target also is pushing for higher online sales, which could potentially explain why it has lagged its larger rival in setting the lead on wage increases, analysts said.
"This move will make it difficult for Target to meet its aggressive profit projections," said Burt Flickinger, managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group.
At its 2016 Analyst Day in March, Target said it expects annual gross margin rates around 30 percent.
Even before the wage hike, Barclays Capital Inc last month had downgraded the stock from 'overweight' to 'underweight.' At the time, Barclays analysts called the retailer's gross margin projections "optimistic" due to the threat of rising labor costs and other concerns.
Of the 26 analysts who cover the stock, 11 rate it a "buy," and 13 rate it a "hold," according to data from Thomson Reuters StarMine.
LABOR PROBLEMS
Target, which generally is considered to be a better employer due to its competitive wages and compensation-related benefits than many retail rivals, has in recent months seen a spate of labor-related issues.
Last September, Target lost a bid to prevent the formation of a micro-union by pharmacy workers in a New York store, which would have marked the first time Target employed unionized workers in one of its stores. Target later sold its pharmacy business to CVS Health Corp.
Then earlier this month, a Target group leader filed a lawsuit accusing the company of failing to pay overtime to workers with low-level management responsibilities at its warehouses in New York state.
Current and former employees contacted by Reuters this month said the retailer cut hours in an apparent effort to offset the impact of rising costs after it raised pay to $9 an hour last March.
Target's Snyder said the retailer has not changed how it approaches scheduling and hours in its stores.
A current part-time employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said she averaged about 25-26 hours every week before March 2015, but has progressively seen her hours cut. She now averages at about 18-19 hours per week.
(Additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Chicago; Editing by David Greising and Nick Zieminski)
The nation's tax bill comes due on Monday, when Americans rushing to file their federal income tax returns may find themselves wondering: What am I paying for?
It can be a difficult question to answer, considering Washington's dysfunction and the bureaucratic nightmares often faced by everyday Americans wishing to accomplish mundane financial goals, such as making payments on their federal student loans.
Americans' list of grievances with government is long, from the veterans care scandal to crumbling roads and bridges. As a result, the public no longer trusts the federal government. Just 19 percent of Americans tell pollsters that they trust Washington to do what's right a majority of the time.
That's probably why about three in five Americans believe they're paying too much in taxes -- the most in 15 years, according to polling firm Gallup.
Federal spending of all those taxpayer dollars represents the nation's priorities. "Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value," Vice President Joe Biden said in 2012.
Figures from the White House show what those values are.
About $1 of every $4 spent by the federal government in the 2014 fiscal year that was funded by income tax payments goes to health care, making it the nation's costliest expense. Most of that money is spent on health care for low-income and elderly Americans.
An additional one-fourth of federal expenditures go to military spending and related activities, White House data show.
That money, which represents about half of taxpayer-funded federal spending, dwarfs spending on education, programs designed to aid low-income Americans, law enforcement and foreign aid.
In fact, less than 2 percent of federal spending goes to education, White House data show.
The so-called taxpayer receipt mostly excludes federal programs not funded by traditional income taxes, such as unemployment insurance and Social Security.
So on Monday (or Tuesday if you live in Maine or Massachusetts), if you're waiting in line at your local post office to mail your tax forms to the Internal Revenue Service, take a moment to consider whether you're getting enough bang for your buck.
Would you like to improve your relationship with money? Sign up to join our 30-Day, More Money, Less Stress Challenge to demystify one of the most important and empowering areas of your life. We’ll deliver tips, challenges and advice to your inbox every day during April. Sign up here!
Soaring demand for the caffeinated brew could hasten destructive climate change by encouraging producers to chop down some of the last remaining tropical forests as they struggle to increase yields on existing farmland, according to a report released Thursday by the nonprofit Conservation International.
Coffee grows in tropical countries near the equator, such as Indonesia, Brazil and Uganda, where thick jungles rich with biodiversity provide fresh water and store tons of carbon. Farmers expand their fields by felling trees in these forests and burning the dense underbrush -- releasing that carbon into the atmosphere, where it traps other gases and warms the planet. As a result, deforestation is a twofold environmental catastrophe: Left intact, forests absorb many of the pollutants that cause global warming. Destroyed, they unleash even more emissions and speed up the pace of climate change.
Worse, it's a self-perpetuating cycle. As climate change worsens, the amount of existing farmland suitable for growing coffee shrinks.
The underlying market force in all this is the skyrocketing demand for coffee. Coffee growers may have to triple their production by 2050 to meet current demand forecasts, the report predicted. Coffee demand is expected to spike 25 percent in the next five years alone, according to a report last year by the industry group International Coffee Organization.
Consider the two maps below. The dark blue, red and yellow segments represent forested areas where certain types of coffee could be grown in Brazil in 2010.
Conservation InternationalDark green represents forests not suitable for growing coffee. Different colors represent areas where certain types of coffee, such as Arabica or Robusta, can be grown.
Now fast forward to the middle of the century. By 2050, much of the farmland where Arabica beans are produced, represented in light blue, is expected to recede. Farmland for Robusta, represented in light pink, nearly disappears.
Conservation InternationalQuite a change in just 40 years.
"Ideally, plant breeders will develop new varieties that are adapted to the harsher conditions of the future, while, simultaneously, improving productivity. That is a tall order, but not impossible," Tim Killeen, a lead author of the report, said in a statement. "If it doesn’t happen, then coffee production will shift to landscapes with conditions similar to today’s coffee growing areas.”
Tropical forests currently cover 60 percent of the land around the world that can be used for coffee production. By 2050, as much as 20 percent of the land suitable for growing coffee would fall within the boundaries of protected areas. That means farmers will either have to produce more with less land, or start clearing new lands on which to grow. Conservation International named the Andes, Central America and Southeast Asia as the regions of most concern.
There is a hope. Some of the world's biggest coffee sellers, such as Nestlé and Starbucks, have begun improving their supply chains to increase farmers' yields with more sustainable growing practices. But unless those efforts are stepped up, the quickened pace of deforestation and climate change may derail the progress already made.
"Unless we act now, the trend of coffee production towards full sustainability may well be reversed," Peter Seligmann, founder and CEO of Conservation International, said in a statement. "The good news is that we know from our experience working with Starbucks and others that we can put the right practices in place to grow coffee in a way that protects forests and farmers -- but we need to keep pushing these techniques on a global scale."
Corporate America’s accountants are having a tough week.
A government report revealed on Wednesday that a significant percentage of large, profitable U.S. corporations pay no federal taxes at all. A study released Thursday gives fresh insight into some of the practices that make those light tax burdens possible.
The 50 largest U.S. corporations currently stash about $1.4 trillion in offshore tax havens, according to the analysis by anti-poverty group Oxfam America.
Between 2008 and 2014, these titans of big business -- a group that includes Apple, Coca-Cola and Disney -- together received approximately $27 in federal loans or similar aid for every $1 they paid in federal taxes, Oxfam America calculated.
All together, the 50 biggest companies’ overseas tax avoidance techniques allowed them to pay an effective corporate income tax rate of 26.5 percent during those years, the nonprofit estimates. That is well below the official top rate of 35 percent.
Released just days before the deadline for Americans to file their tax returns, "Broken at the Top" seeks to expose how corporate tax dodging limits global governments' ability to address poverty.
“The vast sums large companies stash in tax havens should be fighting poverty and rebuilding America’s infrastructure, not hidden offshore in Panama, Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands,” Oxfam America president Raymond Offenheiser said in a statement accompanying the study.
Oxfam America relied primarily on data from the companies’ annual financial filings to the Securities Exchange Commission.
Other organizations have come up with slightly different numbers using similar research methods. A March study from the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice found that the 500 largest corporations are holding $2.4 trillion overseas, allowing them to avoid paying $695 billion in taxes.
The vast sums large companies stash in tax havens should be fighting poverty and rebuilding America’s infrastructure, not hidden offshore in Panama, Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands.Raymond Offenheiser, Oxfam America
There are a number of ways that American companies can legally offshore their profits to countries with lower tax rates. Technology and pharmaceutical companies, for example, often create subsidiaries in tax havens like Bermuda, to which they transfer the intellectual property and patents that earn them a large share of their total profits. Companies whose workforces and sales are primarily in the U.S. and other high-tax nations end up claiming that a disproportionate share of their profits were earned overseas.
Another tactic that has grown more popular in recent years, but which has also come under increased scrutiny, is corporate inversion. American companies that “invert” acquire foreign firms in order to reincorporate in lower-tax countries.
Oxfam America’s report could add to the recent uptick in public awareness of corporate tax avoidance and the pressure on policymakers to address it. The release of the Panama Papers, a leaked cache of documents from a Panamanian law firm, made waves earlier this month by exposing the elaborate tax-dodging schemes of the super-rich.
President Barack Obama cited the Panama Papers while touting a new Treasury Department rule aimed at curbing corporate inversions.
The main purpose of tax reform should be to fund the government, and anything else is just a waste of time.Bob McIntyre, Citizens for Tax Justice
Defenders of corporate tax strategies blame the official U.S. corporate tax rates, which are among the highest in the world. The United States, they note, is also one of the few countries that taxes foreign earnings at domestic rates. A “territorial” system in which profits are taxed at the rates of the countries where they are earned is more common.
But thanks to a tax "deferral" loophole, U.S. companies only pay domestic taxes on foreign earnings if they "repatriate" the earnings by bringing them back to the U.S. That gives companies a particular incentive to hoard money elsewhere -- sometimes indefinitely -- in order to defer taxation.
Obama has proposed a framework for corporate tax reform that would embrace lower rates and fewer loopholes with the goal of at least maintaining current revenue levels from corporate taxes -- and increasing corporate investment at home.
“Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, you want to get that tax rate down,” said Martin Sullivan, chief economist at the tax news and analysis website Tax Analysts.
“If the Obama administration, which I think has been the most aggressive of any administration in recent history in trying to shut down this problem,” does not think it can be solved through enforcement alone, no president will, Sullivan argued.
Many progressive fair taxation advocates, however, contend that the government can and should rely solely on closing corporate tax loopholes to bring companies into line and replenish federal coffers.
Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said one simple way to do that would be to end the foreign tax deferral loophole that allows companies to avoid domestic taxes until they repatriate the earnings. That way they would have to pay domestic taxes on foreign profits even if they are holding it elsewhere.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has made the change part of his campaign platform.
To stop inversions, McIntyre suggested, the government could force companies to pay a so-called exit tax before leaving the U.S., taxing the profits they had earned overseas up to that point. Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, backs that idea.
McIntyre rejects the notion of lowering corporate taxes to compete with lower tax nations.
“The main purpose of tax reform should be to fund the government, and anything else is just a waste of time,” he concluded.
