Job descriptionProject management is the process of planning, organizing, staffing, and guiding the process of creating a solution or system. Project managers are responsible for providing a plan and the means on which to base management decisions throughout the life of a project. There are many scheduling software tools available to help project managers perform their job, including PERT, Microsoft Project, Scitor Project Scheduler, and many others. While such applications are usually designed for certain industries or projects, they all use Critical Path Methodology, or CPM. CPM plays a larg... view article details

Can You Learn from Your Cell? Back in the dark ages when cells were molecular and phones were for spoken communication, it may not have been simple but it was predictably segmented. Tasks were sequential, not simultaneous. People could disappear for minutes at a time and emails could languish undetected for whole afternoons when a recipient was off grid. Smartphone technology created expectations for increased and untethered productivity, because they allow us to engage in extreme multi-tasking. But, how well do you do it? Is your smartphone-ish office efficiency truly effective?Find ... view article details

Forty years ago, economists predicted that the U.S. workforce was heading into a crisis of leisure - that people would soon have so much free time they wouldn't know what to do with it. As the impact of technology made more and more human labor redundant, it was widely assumed that a four-hour workday, or a three-day week, or even a six-month year would eventually be the norm. Those forecasts couldn't have been more wrong. The amount of time Americans spend at work has increased relentlessly over the last two or three decades. Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor, in her book The Overworked Ameri... view article details

Compensation SurveysPaying people fairly is good for business. Underpay, and employees will eventually look for a better offer. Overpay, and the payroll budget and profitability will suffer. That's why companies use market data to research the value of their jobs. But what is 'market data' anyway?To determine the prevailing rate for a job, companies can 'benchmark' jobs against compensation surveys that are detailed and specific to the companies' industries and regions. A good compensation survey uses standard, proven methods of data gathering and statistical analysis to determine how much com... view article details

What do you want to be when you grow up?'Children are asked this question even before the start of kindergarten. They speak longingly and sincerely of becoming doctors, teachers, astronauts, ballerinas, rock stars, professional athletes and jet pilots. But when wide-eyed children face the harsh reality of ballooning education costs combined with adult life in the workforce, do any of them stick with their dreams? Or is the whole idea of a 'dream job' simply a fluid, ever-changing concept?Kenexa, the parent company of Salary.com, is hosting its annual Kenexa World Conference from October 11-12.... view article details

roductivity Nightmare or Communications Dream?No longer just a tool of the idle masses exchanging rumors and recipes, instant messaging (IM) applications have encroached into the working world, where professionals swap industry information, gossip, and expertise in the blink of an eye. Instead of traipsing down the hall, making an abrupt phone call, or waiting for an e-mailed response, employees can communicate with one another via online text, 'pinging' each other questions and requests, speeding up reaction rate and increasing productivity. According to a recent Jupiter Media Metrix report, ... view article details

The gap between the rich and the poor has been widening for the past 30 years.  The World Inequality Report uncovered that since 1980, the top 0.1 percent of wealth owners, about 7 million people, accounted for as much of the world's growth as the bottom half of the adult population — roughly 3.8 billion people. Below is a list of the top 10 richest people in the world, including their net worth for the year 2018, as well as the previous year, according to Forbes. This list makes it glaringly obvious that the gap between the rich and poor is at its highest level in decades with no signs of nar... view article details

Broadly, the engineer's job is to apply scientific and mathematical principles to solve problems and/or fill human needs. This can range from planning a bridge to sending a person in space to inventing medical instruments. Since an engineer's solution should be fully functional, economical, and compatible for human use, an engineer's job may also consist of testing for these many critical factors.Engineering is a field broken down into specialty areas, including but not limited to: Aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engine... view article details

Most people think of games as fun entertainment. But searching for a job and getting hired is a game too, and it's one that many people have been playing for far too long in these tough economic times. And one of the big problems is many of the people playing don't know the rules.So says Skip Freeman, author of Headhunter Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed...Forever, who is this week's Salary Talk guest. As a professional headhunter himself and president of an executive search firm, Freeman tells Aaron and Wendy the stunning truth: that many people don't know what they'r... view article details

Q. My performance review is coming soon, and I would like to learn more about the do's and don'ts of performance reviews. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.A. The review process is normally broken down into two parts. The first is spent discussing your overall performance during a defined 'performance period.' The second part of the process is how much you will receive based on your performance.I always advise managers that employees should never be surprised by their review. The purpose of a performance review is just that: to review an employee's performance. In other words, your manag... view article details