Almost one-quarter of employers around the globe say they can't fill crucial positions.

From our Problems We Didn’t Expect to See in 2010 Department comes news that despite continuing layoffs, economic crashes and exorbitant unemployment numbers, there is still a huge talent shortage among employers worldwide. In fact, it’s only gotten worse.

Last week, Manpower released their 2010 Talent Shortage Survey, a study of more than 35,000 companies in 36 countries. In all, 31 percent of employers said they were having trouble filling critical positions in their company, up one percent from last year. The ten countries hardest hit were Japan (76%), Brazil (64%), Argentina (53%), Singapore (53%), Poland (51%), Australia (45%), Hong Kong (44%), Mexico (43%), Peru (42%) and Taiwan (41%), although China was right behind that with 40%. In the U.S., 14 percent of employers reported trouble filling positions.

So how exactly can there be a talent shortage when unemployment rates are so high around the globe? Manpower calls it a talent “mismatch”; in other words, job seekers aren’t well-suited for the available jobs.

The list of top unfillable jobs looks nearly identical to last year’s: 1. skilled trades; 2. sales representatives; 3. technicians; 4. engineers; 5. accounting and finance staff; 6. production operators; 7. administrative assistants and production assistants; 8. managers and executives; 9. drivers; 10. laborers.

“As the global economy slowly recovers, employers will remain focused on maintaining financial flexibility and doing more with less,” said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO. “Applying the same mindset to their workforce, employers have gotten more specific about the combination of skill sets that they are looking for, not only seeking technical capabilities in a job match, but holding out for the person that possesses the additional qualities above and beyond that will help drive their organization forward. This conundrum is upsetting to the ubiquitous job seeker, who will need to take more responsibility for his/her skills development in order to find ways to remain relevant to the market.”

However, some believe that the whole idea of the talent shortfall is a myth. Kevin Wheeler of the recruiting site ere.net writes:

Even in this recession, everyone I speak with is moaning about not being able to find the quality candidates they think they need. Maybe they have caused their own problem by narrowly defining jobs, by using yesterday’s criteria to solve today’s problems, and by a lack of imagination. We (hiring managers, executives, HR folks, and recruiters) set up expectations and define jobs based on what is traditional. We work from habit and past experience. This is not necessarily bad, but may not match our current needs or the available supply.

Wheeler believes there are two keys to correcting the “mismatch”: better training that will allow employers to mold the skill sets of their employees better, and expansion of the pool of candidates, which he sees as widening job expectations and definitions. Recruitment and outplacement services are another resource for “matching up” talent with openings.

Wheeler’s main point is that whether or not there is a talent shortage in 2010, there doesn’t have to be one; whatever mismatches exist, they can be fixed. That’s the best thing for both employers and employees, and his conclusion—while admittedly idealistic—is a reassuring thought: “There are no labor shortages or surpluses — there are just shortages of imagination and an unwillingness to accept responsibility for filling our own needs.”

For anyone who thought anonymous reviews on Yelp didn’t have enough potential for abuse comes the Internet’s creepiest new idea: Unvarnished. Now in beta testing at getunvarnished.com, the site allows users to rate co-workers, managers and subordinates in an anonymous forum that has virtually no controls on fairness, accuracy or accountability.

For instance, one company’s employee could log into Unvarnished and write of a co-worker, “Has no ability to finish projects—incompetent,” and this review would shadow that employee for the rest of his career, easily accessible to future employers who can then not hire said person based on information that has no proven veracity, and may be written for any number of malicious reasons unrelated to anyone’s actual performance. Mad at your boss for not giving you that raise? Just don’t like the way a certain employee looks at you? Unvarnished could be your revenge.

The gimmick is that in order to defend yourself, Unvarnished wants you to come to the site, take ownership of the fact that the person being slandered is you, and defend yourself with a response. In a cringeworthy moment that revealed creator Peter Kazanjy knows exactly how terrible and wrongheaded this idea is, he was asked by TechCrunch’s Evelyn Rusli if there are any circumstances under which a user could take down their own profile. “No,” he replied, “because if we did that, everyone would take their profile down.”

Exactly, and therein lies the insidious truth about this site: there is basically no upside. Yelp, which works under a similar system, has thrived on the fact that users want to be seen as “in the know” about the best places to eat or otherwise do business; thus, they have an incentive to share their experiences fairly honestly and praise spots they love. Even so, the abuses on Yelp are legendary. Fake reviews both positive and negative, planted by companies or their rivals, are widespread. Personal vendettas are commonplace. Try to find a business owner who doesn’t have a complaint about the site.

Now that same concept is being shoehorned into a forum where there is no real reason for users to write anything positive, unless they are personal friends. Meanwhile, the possibility for malicious abuse is exponentially higher even than a Yelp. It would seem then, that both positive write-ups and negative write-ups would have to be considered so potentially biased so as to be worthless.

Of course, the new site has all kinds of workplace watchers and cultural critics up in arms, though many of them seem to have taken a “wait and see” attitude. Rusli does not, as when she tries to give the site the benefit of a doubt:

Let’s look at the few, real safeguards on Unvarnished: if a user has a dummy Facebook account (recently opened, no friends) and writes a negative review that post is automatically blocked. In addition, the community votes on how helpful a review is and positive ratings improve the trustworthy rank of the reviewer— a modest incentive to be fair. The truly vile and illegal trash– like false allegations of homicide– will be flagged and immediately removed. But let’s remember: there’s a wide spectrum between downright illegal and ambiguously negative. You could raise serious doubts about a person’s ethics and competency without proof and — let’s be honest here— without even believing your fabrications.

Other sites, as she points out, have tried a similar idea—jerk.com has “jerks” and “saints,” but has so much trouble attracting interest it’s resorted to paying money for user interaction. On the other hand, glassdoor.com seems to be doing okay with a higher-minded and more even-handed approach to feedback on the workplace. It’ll be interesting to see how users respond to this new opportunity to libel online.

In her “Molly Rants” column, CNET’s Molly Wood sums it up well:

To me, the biggest barrier remains the fact that the reviews, however closely monitored, are presented to the public as being anonymous–sure, there’s a real person back there who’s slightly more accountable than your average troll. But they can still speak without fear of being identified. And anonymous commenting is actually one of the things about the Web we like the least. That’s not a forum that should have the potential to affect people’s livelihoods.

Do wellness benefits inspire workers to get fit?

“Wellness benefits” certainly sound like a great thing—meant to inspire better health habits, they represent the “preventative health care” many have been clamoring for. But do they work? Not always, and it’s starting to give employers a headache.

First, it helps to understand what exactly wellness benefits are, and why employers have increasingly hopped on board with them:

It’s a growing trend for health insurance companies to have wellness benefits of some kind. These could include providing informational materials to subscribers on subjects like healthy diet, cardiovascular health, or quitting tobacco use. Some insurance companies will pay for employees to participate in programs designed to increase health like tobacco subsistence programs, and others merely offer information and advice, that if subscribers follow, is likely to assist in healthier living. Sometimes encouraging employees to get regular scans or physical exams at certain ages is thought of as part of wellness benefits, since this gives doctors the opportunity to help patients that have any markers or risks for diseases…For insurers, they may reduce total cost of claims paid, which maximizes profits. This assists employers too, because a healthier workforce translates to less expensive premiums. Additionally, employees may be served by these programs because by following the advice given by insurance companies on how to lead more healthful lives, they may truly improve health.

Good idea, but the problem is, too often these benefits haven’t been showing results. A recent study by the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson found that:

While employers remain committed to offering health and productivity programs, they are frustrated by the inability of many workers to change their health habits. In an effort to encourage healthy behaviors, a growing number of employers are tightening their requirements for workers to receive financial incentives.

More than half of large employers now offer these kinds of incentives to workers who are willing to enroll in programs designed to improve their health, the study found. But more than a third of them now reward only those who “pass” or complete the program, in the company’s eyes. Twenty percent only reward employees who participate in more than one such program.

“Employers are frustrated by their employees’ low use of expensive health improvement programs,” said Ted Nussbaum, senior consultant at Towers Watson. “As employers continue to empower workers to be more health focused, they are beginning to target and reward those workers who demonstrate a real commitment to making positive lifestyle changes.”

Some employers are stepping up their efforts. As Stephen Miller of the Society for Human Resource Management writes:

While U.S. companies continue to use financial incentives as a way to increase employee participation in health and wellness programs, a new survey by consultancy Hewitt Associates shows that employers’ appetite for penalizing workers for unhealthy behaviors is also on the rise.

This shift in strategy suggests that companies increasingly are challenging employees and their dependents to be accountable for the decisions they make regarding their health…Hewitt’s annual health care trends survey of nearly 600 large U.S. employers—representing more than 10 million employees—shows that nearly one-half (47 percent) use or plan to use financial penalties over the next three to five years for workers who do not participate in certain health improvement programs.

Eighty-one percent of companies who plan to penalize unhealthy behavior say they’ll consider higher health insurance premiums. Most of the rest plan to increase deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. These companies could be looking at a “smoker surcharge” (64 percent), mandatory disease or behavior management programs (50 percent), mandatory biometric screenings (45 percent), health coaches (25 percent) or mandatory biometric improvements such as lowered blood pressure (17 percent).

Almost all the employers who had wellness benefits, the NGBH study found, planned to keep them, and many were adding new ones. So despite the complications, no one seems to be giving up on wellness benefits just yet.

When the E-Verify system made headlines last year, many people went into a panic. 

The federal government had debuted the electronic system for verifying the legal U.S. citizenship of employees over a decade earlier, but by 2007, companies around the country were running three million inquiries through E-Verify. The next year, the number was double that.

Some states made E-Verify mandatory for employers, and by 2009 President Obama was calling for it to be federal law. At the time, supporters said E-Verify had proven its usefulness for combating illegal immigration and curbing document fraud, but opponents of the program went into overdrive:

Critics — including business and labor groups and civil libertarians — say that the system remains fraught with error and could lead to wrongful layoffs. They say it encourages discrimination against workers who appear foreign and promotes more under-the-table hiring.

“We have not taken the effort to go through and fix the errors in people’s files before we use this as an enforcement tool,” said Timothy Sparapani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Until we do, this system will be nothing more than a fanciful wish.”

Now, it’s much more than that. An estimated 170,000 employers currently use the system, with more than 1,200 more signing up every week. The widespread abuses that critics warned against have not materialized. And yet, most of the companies signing up are doing it because they have to—though the system remains voluntary for most companies, it is mandatory in some areas and for any company contracting with the federal government.

The Department of Homeland Security recently debuted “I E-Verify,” a program aimed at promoting its use. Though the growth of E-Verify is impressive, the government clearly is disappointed that more employers haven’t voluntarily signed on, and at the heart of the “I E-Verify” is an attempt to calm HR nerves about using it:

Director Alejandro Mayorkas to announce a trio of initiatives to strengthen the efficiency and accuracy of the E-Verify system.These initiatives include a new agreement with the Department of Justice that will streamline the adjudication process in cases of E-Verify misuse and discrimination; an informational telephone hotline for employees to provide a more timely, effective and seamless customer experience for workers seeking E-Verify information; and new training videos focusing on E-Verify procedures and policies, employee rights and employer responsibilities in English and Spanish.

It’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t seem to have arisen in the first place. So why are so many companies giving E-Verify the cold shoulder? Eric Ledbetter has a thorough analysis of employer fears.

Ledbetter warns that since the system doesn’t actually replace the traditional method of verifying citizenship, the Form I-9, E-Verify puts an extra burden on employers, both in terms of cost and effort. Though the federal databases can be accessed free of charge, training, set-up and supervision are taxing HR resources.

And there are legal issues:

[Another] problem with E-Verify is its potential for creating unintended privacy and discrimination violations. Employers that use E-Verify are under various federal and state obligations to safeguard the data contained on the Form I-9 and in the E-Verify databases.

Once an employer enrolls in E-Verify, it must make certain that employees with access to the company’s E-Verify account are properly trained and supervised so as not to use it at the wrong time, for the wrong purpose or on the wrong person. A poorly trained or poorly supervised HR worker can create significant liability for a company through misuse of the E-Verify system.

Employers are also obligated by anti-discrimination laws to treat all similarly situated employees alike and not to ask employees for more documentation than is legally required. The use of E-Verify may create certain situations that are likely to lead well-meaning employers into trouble because of the problem of false negatives.

None of this means there aren’t plenty of reasons to use E-Verify, but it may take more than a promotional campaign to convince skeptical companies.

Is HR a culture of secrecy?

A new article up at SmartMoney.com is called “10 Things Human Resources Won’t Say.” It’s interesting because it seems that more and more when people are talking about HR, they cast it in a sinister light. According to these articles, the human resources department is like some kind of secret society that is not about to let any mere employee know what’s going on. There’s a paranoid tinge to these stories—two of the items in this particular article are “You’re Not Paranoid, We Are Watching You” and “We Know More About You Than You Think”:

Many companies employ software that sifts through e-mail looking for curse words or sexually explicit language. IT monitors Web usage and can see every site an employee visits. In fact, anything you do via the company’s server—most activity on an office computer, including personal e-mail — is subject to review by your boss. Firings over these issues are on the rise, says Flynn. In 2009, 26 percent of companies reported terminating employees for violations of e-mail policy, up from 14 percent in 2001. “Employees should act as if the boss was looking over their shoulder,” says California employment mediator Michelle Reinglass.

That idea that HR is somehow involved in a sordid conspiracy with the powers that be comes up a few times, as under the heading “We’re Not Always Your Advocate,” which cites the example of Ronica Tabor, who alleges she was discriminated against by manufacturer Hilti North America because of her gender, and that HR did nothing to correct it.

Employees should realize that HR answers to the company, says Lewis Maltby, director of the National Workrights Institute, an employee-rights organization. “HR is a spear carrier for the boss,” he says.

Wait, doesn’t everyone in a company work for the boss? And yet in many discussions of human resources, there seems to be an undercurrent of anger, as if by being answerable to their employer’s policies, HR staff have in some way betrayed other employees.

Another recent “Human Resources secrets” article has dire predictions for anyone who fumbles their experience with a company’s HR staff:

Job hunters who have committed either of these errors can expect human resources to keep their resumes or applications—for all the wrong reasons. Job seekers who later apply for another job within that organization will often find that this previous misstep will color the outcome of the new job application. If this is the case, don’t expect an organization’s hiring manager to make the same mistake twice.

Yikes! Human resources employees sure do sound scary! This has been going on for quite some time, as the book from a few years ago, “Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You To Know,” proves. In those pages, HR is a tangle of blacklists, double-crosses and endless spin.

Holy cow. There are plenty of horror stories out there, yes, but can we have a reality check for a minute? This article highlighting seven reasons HR is misunderstood is a must-read. All of the reasons are worth highlighting, but I think the conclusion is important both as a bottom line—HR was never some kind of employee wish factory—and its suggestion for how to improve HR relations:

An unresponsive, unhelpful HR office that avoids helping employees with their problems is not always the case. (Though I know from my readers that such organizations do exist, let’s hope they’re rare.) There are legitimate reasons why HR cannot fulfill every employee’s wishes. If the HR staff listens, communicates actively, and informs the employee why a decision is made or an action not taken, employees are much less likely to write asking how to solve their HR horror stories.

Beware of job offers that aren't what they appear to be.

No matter how miserable things get in the unemployment picture, you can always be sure someone out there will try to make it worse.

Lately, it’s a lot of someones—namely, criminals who are circulating a record number of scam employment offers, in the hopes that frustrated job seekers will be desperate enough to bite.

And the worst part is, they do. So often, in fact, that the Federal Trade Commission recently announced a crackdown:

[The action targets] con artists who are preying on unemployed Americans with job-placement and work-at-home scams, promoting empty promises that they can help people get jobs in the federal government, as movie extras, or as mystery shoppers; or make money working from their homes stuffing envelopes or assembling ornaments…The FTC announced seven new cases against promoters of the job and money-making scams, including one that victimized more than 100,000 people. This brings to 11 the number of cases the agency has brought since last spring challenging these types of operations. In each case, the FTC got a court order temporarily barring these operators from continuing their deceptive, illegal tactics and freezing their assets.

The companies indicted by “Operation Bottom Dollar” run the gamut of scams. Government Careers Inc. ran ads on job-seeker web sites that claimed they could connect respondents to postal service, border patrol and wildlife jobs for a fee of $119 for “study materials,” The government charges that there were in fact no tests for which to study, or that the vacancies did not exist at all. The same company charged $965 for resume editing and employment exam prep, promising not to collect fees until a job was secured, then demanding the money before the promised jobs materialized.

One company promised, “Collect up to $9,250 with my simple 3 minute form.” Another sold lists of “pre-screened jobs.” Still another promised up to $500 a week assembling angel pins at home. The catch on the last job was that participants, after paying sometimes hundreds of dollars in start-up fees, needed to have their pins approved by the company — which, of course, rejected almost all of them.

However the scams change, the most important rule for avoiding them remains the same: if it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Rick Ellis from AIS Media explains how the most common frauds work and offers some tips for staying ahead of 21st century con artists:

One typical guise is an international company that needs to hire U.S. citizens as agents to perform certain services. The scam is simple: the lure of a home-based job that requires very little work and pays big dividends draws victims, who end up losing money and, in many cases, becoming victims of identity theft (and sometimes even unwilling accomplices to crime). The too-good-to-be-true positions include payroll clerks, customer-service representatives, shipping managers, mystery shoppers, and craft assemblers–all promising hefty salaries, benefits, and huge commissions. The company obtains personal and banking information from the new hire, and checks are sent with instructions to wire a portion of the funds to a third party to cover expenses. In some cases, packages immediately arrive with instructions on re-shipping merchandise to international destinations. Once the checks are deposited and the packages are shipped, the dream job quickly becomes a nightmare. The checks the victims deposited are fake. The duped “employees” lose the money they wired and are often susceptible to theft and identity theft. And in many cases, they have also unknowingly re-packaged and shipped stolen merchandise, often purchased with stolen credit card information.

Red flags should include emails from unknown senders; companies that have no legitimate, searchable web presence; requests for personal information; and applications that require a cash payment.

One particularly twisted take on the job-scam game has arisen in the wake of massive layoffs: a cell-phone scam preying on recipients of unemployment checks. In this one, victims are told their benefits have been deactivated, and that they need to call a number to have them reactivated. When they call the number, they are asked for access information to their accounts, which are then cleaned out.

Some people may not understand why anyone falls for scams like these, but this is a key point:

‘Even when they know it’s a scam, I’ve had people say, “Well yeah, but what if I can make a thousand dollars out of it?”‘ said Tabatha Marshall, founder of PhishBucket.org and a crusader against these schemes. ‘People are hurting, and so many are willing to take the risk.’