The JRW Report

Perk of the Year

JRW — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:34:00 GMT

Bank of America is offering employees a $3,000 reimbursement if they purchase a hybrid car. The vehicle must be identified by the federal government as qualifying for tax credits. So the employee would get the tax credit as well. An example: for a Toyota Prius, which is listed at $22,000, the employee would get a total price break of $6,150 ($3,000 from Bank of America, $3,150 tax credit.)

There are at least three other companies in California offering the same perk. Google gives their employees a $5,000 incentive for hybrid purchases, Hyperion Solutions Corp. offers $5,000 and Integrated Archive Systems has a $10,000 rebate plan.

Now looks to be a good time to buy a car what with Ford and GM offering very low or no interest financing plus gas cards.

Merchandising

JRW — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:41:00 GMT

Disney/Pixar wins the summer merchandising award for greatest quantity - 70 licensees for its movie "Cars." The movie is supposed to be good but holy moly. Here is the link to view them all:

http://kokogiak.com/cars/index.html

The Management Myth

JRW — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 01:12:00 GMT

Interesting article in the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It is called "The Management Myth" and is written by Matthew Stewart, a former management consultant. Excerpt from the article:

"As a principal and founding partner of a consulting firm that eventually grew to 600 employees, I interviewed, hired, and worked alongside hundreds of business-school graduates, and the impression I formed of the M.B.A. experience was that it involved taking two years out of your life and going deeply into debt, all for the sake of learning how to keep a straight face while using phrases like "out-of-the-box thinking," "win-win situation" and "core competencies." When it came to picking teammates, I generally held out higher hopes for those individuals who had used their university years to learn about something other than business administration."

One could argue that even "teammates" is M.B.A. consultant/corporate speak. But I totally agree with everything Mr. Stewart says in his excellent article which gives a history of where the whole notion of management experts started. Mr. Stewart's background is in philosophy and he argues that "management theory is a sadly neglected subdiscipline of philosophy" and hopes that "philosophers will soon reclaim their rightful place as the educators of management." Noble goal.

The Numbers

JRW — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 15:11:00 GMT

The Numbers will be a recurring feature of The JRW Report. We will gather information on important numbers that have been reported and summarize them and maybe even give our two cents. So here are The Numbers for the last few days:

Gasoline - average gasoline prices are up less than a penny across California making the average of self-serve regular in California $2.424 a gallon, an increase of .7 cents in the last week. This information is according to the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the federal Energy department.

Lay-offs - Daimer-Chrysler is eliminating 6,000 jobs white-collar jobs. They expect to save $1.8 billion a year by doing so. About 60% of those jobs will be in ermany and 25% in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining 15% is spread throughout the world. The positions are mainly management and administrative staff. Industry analysts are viewing the layoff positively.

Lawsuits - IBM is being sued for denying overtime pay to their workers who install and maintain computers. The JRW Report will be providing a more detailed report on this lawsuit and the overtime laws.

The Economy - The Pew Research Center released a report that people are skeptical about the economy. They are worried about the costs of gas, heating oil, and healthcare. There are sharp partisan differences with Republicans being more optimistic than either Democrats or Independents.

The Conference Board reports that the U.S. index of leading indicators rose .1% in December to 138.5. This number is just below market expectations but is considered positive because it showed growth for the third straight month.

The Beginning

JRW — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 02:47:00 GMT

This blog is under construction and will be a work in progress. My initial thought is to use this space to write articles and updates - The JRW Report - about happenings in the Human Resources and business community. Anything I find of interest and think you might find of interest too. Stay tuned!