Michelle Lee's Blog

Facebook is no longer just a tool for networking, it’s also a convenient way for employers to check on data of potential employee candidates – data of which isn’t found on the standard resume. It’s fascinating how with a simple click of a few buttons, an employer can check photos to see how often you’re caught haphazardly drunk on camera, or look at wallposts to see whether you’re behind on mortgage payments.

The recruitment process now, with the use of online background checks, is all the more difficult to be accepted through. The more times your name comes up in a Google search, the less privacy you have. The less privacy, the higher the chances that something nasty may show up on an image search – like one airport security guard who was fired for Twittering plans about (jokingly) blowing the airport up.

Background checks are becoming increasingly popular, and whilst it still requires the applicant’s consent, turning down a background check won’t help with your employment chances.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/jobs/10search.html?ref=technology

British Airways has always established itself as a ‘Premium Airline’, with quality staff, somewhat more cushioned seating, LCD screened entertainment sets as well as other perks. But recently, upon Willie Walsh’s new management there’s been multiple strikes, walk-outs and picketing on the streets from BA staff. Basically, staff are fed up of being treated with a bland Theory X expectation: offer wages slightly above the industry average, and the staff will do their job more effectivley.

But this was not the case in BA, as accounts from staff tell of verbal abuse and harassment from senior managers, poor rest hours in between flight shifts, many redundancies and forced pay cuts. Walsh is a controversial manager in the sense that despite being able to generate some profits for BA to kep the shareholders content, there is still the underlying fact that if he continues to allow the company to mistreat staff, this will hinder business relations, lead to increased labour turnover and maybe at one point, he will no longer have the quality staff he needs to keep the premium BA brand image up to standards, which may lead to a lack of customers and sales revenue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/10/unite-talks-british-airways-cabin-crew

The world eyes the Chinese Yuan and it’s acclaimed ‘dirty float’ in the currency markets. The US has repeatedly attempted to persuade the Chinese government to appreciate the Yuan’s value, but time and time again, China has turned around and said statements along the lines of ‘there is no such manipulation of the Yuan’, and as this article states, China blames “rich nations” specifically for ‘low interest rate’ policies which have triggered currency market problems (most likely due to the Hot-Money effect), in turn affecting developing countries.

The ‘Price-Bubble’ issue has thus emerged as a potential problem in the future – where investors chasing higher interest rates in emerging economies begin to buy the currencies of these countries, hence making the currency appreciate in value and causing exports of emerging economies to be less price competitive over time, as well as an appreciation in their property markets.

However, unlike developed countries, the population growth of emerging economies like the BRIC’s (Brazil, Russia, India and China) is growing at an increasingly exponential rate, and business is still booming within the regions of Asia and even Middle East, whom have arguably not suffered as severely during the recession. Thus it is questionable to ask whether it is really a ‘Global recession’ or merely a ‘Western recession’.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11508918

…or at least that’s what most of the pessimistic news from the Guardian is indicating.

But of course, an economic recession brings about much needed reflection as well; for instance, after British Airway’s unionised labour strike, and the shutdown of businesses such as Woolworths as well as many smaller firms, has caused many of the surviving firms and companies to evaluate reasons as to why some other competitors didn’t fare so well.

Failure to employ Contingency Planning is a commonly brought up reason for business’ failure, failure to plan ahead is planning to fail in many cases. Budgets could have been adjusted for the recession, stock scaled back.

A slowing housing market due to consumer gloom admist all the uncertainty. With low interest rates of 0.5% and a radical reform in government to a joint-coalition, it is no wonder that the atmosphere in the UK is somewhat more dreary than usual in present times. Consumer confidence is going to be impacted for an elongated period, and the longer this lack of confidence, the harder it will be for the country to increase consumption and overall business momentum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/04/housebuilding-slumps-after-year-recovery

‘Business Ethics‘ has always been a topic of considerate discussion across the business world; but being able retain that ideology has always posed challenges – even for big multinationals such as Body Shop.

Last year, one of their Palm Oil suppliers, ‘Daabon Organic‘ was attempting to evict local farming communities out of a ranch 320km north of Bogota, the country’s capital. But upon discovering this Body Shop terminated its contract with Daabon, in spite of the fact that Daabon produced an extensive 90% of the company’s Palm Oil stocks.

Is this Body Shop living up to its ethical codes and conducts? Or is it merely a gesture in order to retain the company’s moralistic image to keep customers coming? It’s hard to maintain competitive without keeping up with the ‘Green’ scheme of things, afterall.

But regardless of intentions, if Body Shop is going to retain its customers in terms of brand loyalty, it must continue taking measures like these can at least help to keep community stakeholders out of any negative externalities, in order to make sure it meet’s customer’s expectations of Body Shop being an ethical company in terms of production processes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/03/body-shop-palm-oil-supplier