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HRintelligence eNewsletter |
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Industry Intelligence for HR Service Providers
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Greetings!
Welcome to the latest edition of the HRintelligence eNewsletter, the monthly marketing intelligence newsletter from HRmarketer.com. HRmarketer is the No. 1 marketing and media visibility service for companies targeting human resource professionals, employee benefit brokers and consultants.
Top Advertisers |
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Top advertisers, listed alphabetically below, are determined by measuring advertising placements across the major monthly HR trade publications, not including buyer guide or product directory listings.
July 2005
Aetna, Aon Consulting, Fidelity Investments, MetLife, Visa
Commentary and Analysis: Each month, HRintelligence identifies another new ad campaign launched by a company that is beginning to target HR decision makers. A newcomer that launched a major ad campaign in many of the top HR trades promoting their new healthcare card is Visa. According to Visa, the card makes it easier for employers and employees to manage flexible spending accounts (FSA's) and Healthcare Spending Accounts (HSA's) by eliminating the need to pay for services with cash or checks and then filing for reimbursement. We applaud Visa for recognizing that the human resource department represents a huge marketing opportunity for their new healthcare card. In fact, increasing numbers of suppliers are beginning to recognize that the human resource department can be a powerful gatekeeper to virtually all other departments in an organization, from department heads to the executive management team to the boardroom.
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Top Editorial Placements |
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To determine the organizations receiving the most media coverage, we look at the number of non-paid editorial placements across the major monthly HR trade publications.
July 2005
Accenture, Hewitt Associates, IBM, Microsoft, Mercer, Watson Wyatt
Commentary and Analysis: The Microsoft coverage dealt almost entirely with staffing challenges (from VISA issues to stock options to recruiting and retaining high tech workers) and Accenture and IBM coverage dealt mainly with outsourcing. You cannot pick up an HR trade without seeing editorial coverage of the strategic importance of recruiting and retaining key talent or outsourcing. Outsourcing stories seem to take one of two tracks. The first, and most widely reported in popular media, is the politics of outsourcing, whether it's good or bad and how it takes jobs from US workers. The second type of outsourcing coverage moves beyond the political bantering to discuss the strategic importance of outsourcing and how employers utilize outsourcing as a competitive tool. If you are interested in the outsourcing debate, check out our Blog posting HR Products and Services: Sold in USA. Built, Serviced and Supported Elsewhere?
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Top Stories in the HR Marketplace |
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Although pension issues, health care costs and outsourcing continue to dominate the news in the HR space, here are the other top stories in the major HR trade publications from last month. Visit HRmarketer News for a comprehensive listing of HR marketplace news releases and articles over the last 90 days.
Colleges and Universities Enter the Training Outsourcing Services Market
As more corporations consider outsourcing elements of their workforce training, a viable option to commercial training companies is starting to emerge. A small contingent of colleges and universities is also in the outsourcing field, targeting the market with innovative business models that are attracting global customers.
Creating Commitment with Focused Retention Strategies
New research on employee retention suggests that commitment is shifting from employers to projects, and employees’ willingness to go the extra mile may be disconnected from their willingness to stay. Employees’ propensity to leave their organizations is influenced by their perception of the market, becoming stronger in a strong job market and weaker in a weak one. A few focused interventions can both leverage performance and affect turnover.
Pricing Worksite Benefits to Sell
Pricing voluntary and worksite benefits is a sensitive endeavor, especially since their success depends mainly on the needs of employees with a limited amount of disposable cash. Almost 40 percent of the people who buy voluntary benefits consider a low price the most attractive feature. LIMRA International researchers recommend that brokers and worksite marketers develop and implement competitive price structures.
Hiring People with Intellectual Disabilities
Employers are discovering that with a little help, workers with intellectual disabilities can take on a wide array of jobs. Last year the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued guidelines on hiring these individuals. Although some specific challenges come with employing people who have intellectual disabilities, many companies are discovering that there can be many rewards.
Vendors Are Bundling Voluntary Benefits for Payroll Ease
Some HR-benefit professionals have found that bundling voluntary benefits under one payroll deduction simplifies administration and reduces their workload. Liberty Mutual Group, a Boston-based provider of car and home insurance, estimates that 20 percent of their requests from large employers during the past three years have called for bundling of voluntary benefits, something that wasn’t very common before 2002.
HR BPO guru Mark Hodges to Address Mid-Market Companies Considering HR Outsourcing
Mark Hodges, chairman of EquaTerra (a business- process outsourcing advisory firm) will address the topic of mid-market companies that are considering HR outsourcing at the 2005 HR Technology Conference and Exposition in Chicago®, Oct. 19 - 21. He advocates the benefits of HR BPO are as viable in the mid-market as they are for larger organizations.
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This Month's Human Capital Health Indicator Is... |
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Great!
Our unscientific measure of the human capital industry's health looks at the aggregate number of advertising placements across the major HR trade publications and our subjective analysis of other "activity" within the sector including new investment money flowing into the space, IPOs, M&As, closures, etc. We then benchmark against the previous month to come up with a 5 point rating system of Excellent / Great / Good / Average / Poor. Again, we caution readers that our rating is a subjective analysis and may not be a true reflection of the industry's health.
Commentary and Analysis: We are sticking with our "Great" rating this month (August) because (a) there was not enough compelling news to move the indicator up or down, and (b) we just do not feel comfortable moving the indicator in the historically slow-growth month of August. But in talking to many HR suppliers, the consensus message seems to be "yeah, the economy seems to be improving and we're doing okay, but we're still cautiously optimistic..." The fact is most human resource suppliers are treading water. Revenue is growing slightly, profits are holding steady, but suppliers still await a substantial increase in corporate HR spending. It wouldn’t take much to upgrade or downgrade our "Great" rating, but we expect the current market growth to continue at its current anemic pace for at least another quarter or two. However, the following firms announced strong earnings and growth:
- Hewitt said Q2 profits rose about 10% but the human resources outsourcing and consulting company softened their outlook and announced cost-cutting measures.
- Gevity HR announced solid Q2 earnings and announced their 19th consecutive quarterly dividend which was increased in April to $0.07 per share.
- Kronos, a maker of personnel software and systems that collect worker attendance and other data, said its quarterly profits rose 13 percent, helped by strong sales of its latest labor management software product.
- Administaff, a provider of outsourced recruitment and staffing services, had a 180% rise in diluted earnings per share. Check out a good article in the Motley Fool about Administaff and related firms.
- VirtualEdge Corporation, a provider of enterprise staffing software solutions, said it had revenue growth of 232% over the first half of 2004.
- Kenexa announced Q2 revenue of $16 million, an increase of 40% over the $11.4 million recorded for the corresponding quarter of 2004 but the company still recorded a net loss of about $31 million.
- Authoria announced record-breaking second quarter results (ended June 30, 2005) with a 42 percent increase in revenue over the same period last year.
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Marketing and Media Visibility Tip of the Month |
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Working with the Media
Think like a reporter. Before you pitch a story idea or an announcement to a journalist, do your homework. Look up the publication and make sure that the story benefits its audience. Have a specific kind of story and a particular section of the publication in mind, and suggest it. Help a journalist see where your story will fit into their format. Be sure to establish relationships, not "drive-by" pitches. Give now to get something later, whether it’s a source or a story idea that won’t directly benefit your company. It will pay off in coverage later.
Based on tips from the PRSA newspaper "Public Relations Tactics"
To read other helpful tips like these, login to your HRmarketer account... |
New HRmarketer Features and Enhancements |
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HRmarketer constantly strives to improve its marketing tools and resources. Look for these exciting new features and enhancements coming soon:
- A comprehensive online help guide that will assist you in better understanding HRmarketer's capabilities and how your company can use HRmarketer to develop, implement and manage its marketing and public relations campaigns. The help topics will be linked to related subtopics and marketing tips, and you‘ll be able to search for specific help topics with the easy-to-use Search Help tool.
- The ability to link directly to our HRmarketer blog from inside your account. Our blog is rich in interesting commentary and perspective on the HR marketplace along with sharing useful marketing-to- HR tips.
- The quickest way to locate information in HRmarketer is by using the Search Site feature located on the right-hand side of the top bar of every page. Besides being able to search all of HRmarketer’s databases and other features like your personal contacts, notes, and your marketing planner, soon you’ll be able to search our weekly HR Industry News, the marketing and PR tips, and our HRmarketer blog.
Click here to login to your HRmarketer.com account... |
Coming Soon: HRmarketer Webinars |
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This fall HRmarketer will start offering monthly marketing Webinars to its members that will review specific features, tools and resources, and how your company can maximize HRmarketer to develop, implement and manage effective marketing and PR strategies.
For example, one Webinar might focus on SEO (search engine optimization) for your website, and then review how the Direct2Net wire service keyword rich links can help enhance your SEO. Another Webinar might highlight the importance of developing multiple media distributions lists for your press releases and pitches, and then review how to create these distribution lists in your account.
Look for our Webinar announcements very soon!
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Do you have the HRmarketer Edge? |
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HRmarketer.com is the must-have marketing and media visibility service for companies selling to human resource professionals, employee benefit brokers and consultants. It combines the industry's largest database of marketing and media information with campaign management and press release distribution tools, a business intelligence service (HRintelligence), and back-to-basics customer service.
It's like having a dedicated marketing and media relations assistant - at a fraction of the cost. In fact, more HR services providers use HRmarketer.com than any other marketing service to increase their visibility and generate sales leads.
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HRintelligence is a premium HRmarketer service that tracks editorial and advertising placements in the top HR industry trade publications for all human resource service providers, employers and consultants.
For more information about HRmarketer.com services, please visit HRmarketer.com. Or for a detailed listing of all companies profiled in our current HRintelligence report, click on the HRintelligence logo at the top of this section.
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