Just after Amazon called upon its competitors to raise their minimum wage to $15, Bank of America has done one better, announcing yesterday it’s raising its minimum wage to $20 per hour in the next two years and freezing healthcare cost increases for its lower paid workers. That means hourly workers will make $41,000 per year. “With the success our company has, we have to share that success with our teammates,” said CEO Brian Moynihan. BoA CHRO Sheri Bronstein said the decision was made because the company needs the best teams to best serve customers and clients. NPR
IBM receives more than 8,000 resumes a day, making it No. 1 on job-search site Glassdoor for Gen Z applicants, said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty at CNBC’s @Work Talent + HR Summit on Tuesday in New York City. But that’s not the only way the technology giant knows who in the workforce is currently searching for a new position. IBM’s AI is now 95% accurate in predicting workers who are planning to leave their jobs, said Rometty. During Rometty’s seven-year tenure as CEO, IBM has been improving its AI work devoted to the retention of its employees. “The best time to get to an employee is before they go,” she said. IBM HR has a patent for its “predictive attrition program,” which was developed with Watson to predict employee flight risk and prescribe actions for managers to engage employees. CNBC
The millennial job-hopping mindset (64% believe it’s acceptable and beneficial) combined with the inefficient standard of giving two weeks’ notice, can be a contentious and expensive problem for companies. How an employee leaves a company can also develop into an ongoing obstacle in that employee’s career, thanks to the increased use of backchannel reference checks. A better approach: Make discussions about career transitions and job opportunities less taboo in the first place. CEO Josh Sample of Drive Social Media encourages his employees to discuss issues with him openly and to let him know if they want to do something else. For employees who are upfront and honest, he’s willing to help them find a new job and provides a recommendation letter while they wrap up their work at Drive. Harvard Business Review
Labor force participation is rising for older workers in the U.S.; therefore, while it is tempting to focus on prime-age workers to gauge the economy’s health to avoid demographic effects, doing so misses important shifts among those over 54 years old. If the trend of rising labor force participation among older workers will be central to continued future growth, it will be critical for policymakers to address labor force exits and to support workforce reentry for 55- to 64-year-olds. Brookings
In a far-reaching email chain within Microsoft, women have shared stories of sexual harassment and discrimination, gaining notice from the company’s senior leadership team. The chain started March 20 when one employee asked other women at the company for advice on how to move up in the organization, after six years in the same position without seeing the possibility of advancement. Dozens of women then shared their own frustrations about discrimination and sexual harassment, detailing allegations ranging from sexist comments during work trips to being told to sit on a coworker’s lap in front of a human resources leader. “This thread has pulled the scab off a festering wound. The collective anger and frustration is palpable. A wide audience is now listening. And you know what? I’m good with that,” one Microsoft employee in the email chain wrote.Quartz
