The title of this post is an oft-repeated expression in Silicon Valley. Its origins are from electrical engineering where it is defined as the ratio of a signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal.

In less technical terms, signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as music) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is.

Informally, “signal-to-noise ratio” refers to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data. In other words, it is a proxy for clear and concise communication. Higher “noise” results in a less clear “signal.” One common source of noise in our communications is the use of clichés.

A recent survey by Kelton Research (http://www.keltonresearch.com/home.html) asked over 500 office workers which business clichés were used most often, and which one workers found to be the most annoying.

The most commonly used clichés were:

• Team player
• On the same page
• Touch base
• Up to speed.

The most annoying office clichés were:

• Think outside the box (22%)
• Team player (20%)
• Shoot me an email (19%)
• Create synergy (18%)
• Face time (17%)
• Paradigm shift (17%)
• Hit the ground running (16%)
• Behind the eight-ball (15%)
• On my plate (14%)
• Take ownership (14%)
• Move the needle (12%)
• Spearhead (11%)
• On the same page (11%)
• Up to speed (11%)
• Touch base (10%)

This is a good communications reminder to be clear and concise in our communications, and avoid using tired jargon or trite clichés when more direct or common language will suffice. This is particularly true for those of us in the consulting industry, where it seems these terms are used with a high degree of regularity.

Executive job satisfaction levels are on the rise as companies begin to realize that one of the best ways to survive the war for talent is to keep the talent you already have. Despite this fact, a recent survey conducted by ExecuNet reveals that not all members of the C-Suite share the same level of professional fulfillment.

According to the survey of 1,597 employed executives with an average annual salary of more than $206,000, 61 percent report they are satisfied or very satisfied with their current job, up significantly from 52 percent one year ago. Among the 39 percent of corporate leaders not happy at work, boredom and a lack of advancement are the most frequently cited sources.

“The increase in job satisfaction among corporate leaders is particularly striking when you take into consideration the demands and challenges executives have faced during the past 12 months,” said Dave Opton, CEO and founder of ExecuNet. “Clearly, sustained job growth at the top of the employment market has many companies rethinking their approach to executive retention.”

While more executives are happier with their jobs, the survey revealed that satisfaction levels do vary across professions:

% of Executives Satisfied with Current Job (By profession)

• CFO/Controller (68%)
• HR (65%)
• Marketing (63%)
• General Management (61%)
• Sales (54%)
• MIS/IT (53%)

Across all functions, the top reasons executives are dissatisfied with their current jobs include:

1. Limited advancement opportunities
2. Lack of challenge/personal growth
3. Compensation
4. Stress level
4. (tied) Job security

“While stress and job security concerns are mounting, boredom and a shortage of opportunities for advancement remain key drivers of voluntary executive turnover,” stated Mark Anderson, president of ExecuNet. “Given the current outlook for the executive employment market, companies capable of keeping their leaders engaged will be well-positioned for sustained growth.”

It has been our experience at M Squared Consulting that many executives who are bored, or looking to make a career change, or desire greater flexibility in their work-life, choose to become management consultants or take on interim management roles.

It is ironic, but the war for talent will not be easy for employers or employees.

In what promises to be a reoccurring theme in the era of talent shortages, a recent survey  concluded that both employers and potential employees face challenges in the current market. There is no doubt that these dynamics are exacerbated by the tough economy.

The survey was released by Careerbuilder.com and Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE: RHI) and includes responses from more than 500 hiring managers and 500 workers.

“Job seekers in some fields are competing aggressively for open positions, giving employers the edge in those segments of the hiring market,” said Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half. “At the same time, however, companies continue to face a shortage of highly skilled professionals in fields such as technology and accounting.”

Employees ranked the level of challenge in finding a job at 3.56 on a one-to-five sliding scale. Employers rated the challenge in finding qualified candidates nearly identically at 3.47 on the same scale.

A few more interesting survey results:

• Fifty-nine percent of hiring managers cited a shortage of qualified candidates as their primary recruiting challenge, up from 52% in last year’s study. Thirty-one percent said more than half of the applicants they get are not qualified.
• Hiring managers reported it takes anywhere from four weeks to 14 weeks to fill open positions. And 56% said Generation Y employees (those born between 1979 and 1999) are the most difficult to recruit.
• Twenty-nine percent said high fuel prices and commuting expenses have hurt their ability to recruit some candidates.

It is only natural that in a labor market the size of the United States (not only in terms of total employment, but also industry diversity and geography) there will be spot markets of labor supply/demand imbalance resulting in a shortage or excess of job opportunities.

In addition to these market forces, high cost of living areas (like that found around most of the business centers of California) present another hurdle for companies that need to recruit and retain talent.

One thing is clear: for targeted skill-sets and experience there will be a steady supply of job opportunities. The most seasoned experts will remain in great demand. They will naturally seek the most rewarding and interesting work assignments. Many of these knowledge workers (secure in their abilities and marketability) will choose to become free agents, going from one interim management or consulting assignment to the next.

The war for talent continues.

Employers in both the United States and Canada deploy a similar mix of employee rewards programs to both attract and retain talent in an ever-changing marketplace with increasingly diverse employee needs.

According to the 2008-2009 WorldatWork Salary Budget Survey, telecommuting - among all surveyed total rewards programs - has shown the most significant 12-month increase in both countries. Telecommuting grew considerably in the U.S., from 30 percent of organizations saying they offered it to employees in 2007 to 42 percent this year. In Canada, the increase was even more significant, from 25 percent to 40 percent.

“It’s been a perfect storm,” said Anne C. Ruddy, CCP, president of WorldatWork. “Rising gas prices, leading-edge technology, and the push for work-life flexibility have all come together in the past 12 months to create a pretty dramatic increase in telework across the U.S. and Canada.”

A comparison of rewards practices in the U.S. and Canada illustrates a number of similarities, as well as a few differences:

• Part-time employment with benefits: Offered by38 percent of employers in Canada and 37 percent of employers in the U.S.
• Retention bonuses: Grewfrom 27 percent in 2004 to 38 percent in 2008 in the U.S. with similar growth in Canada
• Sign on/hiring bonuses: On the rise in both the U.S. (70 percent) and Canada (51 percent)
• Stock grant programs: Growing in both countries, though experiencing more rapid growth in the U.S. from seven percent in 2004 to 20 percent this year
• Stock option programs: Declining in both countries
• Spot bonuses: U.S. employers are more apt to pay spot bonuses: 45 percent compared to 34 percent of Canadian employers in 2008
• Pay rates: 31 percent of U.S. employers pay above market compared to 25 percent in Canada
• Merit increase budgets: 16 percent of Canadian organizations report larger merit increase budgets in 2008 compared to 9 percent in the U.S.
• It is also interesting to note that 63% of U.S. employers and 64% of Canadian employers surveyed offer flexible work schedules.

Overall, this survey illustrates the increasingly competitive marketplace for knowledge workers. Another likely outcome of these market dynamics will be an increase in the number of knowledge workers who elect to capitalize on the skills and experience (and desire for greater flexibility) by becoming consultants.

WorldatWork (www.worldatwork.org) is a global human resources association focused on compensation, benefits, work-life and integrated total rewards to attract, motivate and retain a talented workforce. Founded in 1955, WorldatWork provides a network of more than 30,000 members and professionals in 75 countries with training, certification, research, conferences and community. The survey respondents were WorldatWork members employed in the HR, compensation and benefits departments of mostly large North American companies. The WorldatWorkSalary Budget Survey claims to be the most comprehensive salary budget survey with more than 2,700 organizations representing 13.6 million North American employees.

Many corporate finance and accounting professionals still have fresh, and not too pleasant, memories of implementing the provisions of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation.

As we now face the upcoming movement to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) there are some important lessons we can glean from the SOX experience.

Businesses that start planning now will have a competitive advantage. There is no question that being proactive will save money and reduce headaches in the long-run. A few tips:

• IFRS is driven by principles. Rather than the rules and clear checklists of GAAP, it outlines standards and offers guidance, but ultimately companies will have the flexibility and obligation to deal with new situations as they arise. This will put more pressure on auditors. Executives should therefore take time now to consider the judgment calls they might have to make once IFRS takes effect - this will help their future decision making and ease the burden of implementation.
• Assess your current skills. In order to effectively make the transition to IFRS, the starting point is a solid working knowledge of GAAP. Many accounting firms and specialized training companies are now beginning to offer IFRS training. This training typically focuses on the differences between the two systems.
• Examine your information systems. Given that most U.S. organizations have financial systems that are designed to facilitate GAAP there will need to be a thorough examination of your operational and accounting systems. At a minimum, those systems will likely have to be modified to deliver the right data for IFRS. In some cases the systems will need to be upgraded, and in more extreme cases, completely replaced. Time is definitely your friend when it comes to updating systems.
• Examine the whole financial reporting value chain. In today’s integrated business environment there are many different constituencies who rely on a company’s financial statements. Follow the data trail to examine IFRS impacts on your compensation systems, credit reporting, banking, dashboards, etc. which today may rely on GAAP-based data-feeds.

Innovation and economic growth require talent. That simple truth is the underlying basis for the historic growth and success of the United States. Despite the current economic downturn, the foundations of a global talent shortage are already in place, and the effects will become more apparent as the economy rebounds.

While U.S. legislators seem to be asleep at the wheel, other countries are taking talent issues much more seriously. Many countries have liberalized their immigration policies for high-skilled talent. That presents a major challenge to America’s historic domination in innovation and attracting high-skill immigrants. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are the most aggressive. They, correctly, believe that immigrants are a source of economic growth. As such, they have strong pro-immigration policies that value highly skilled immigrants.

For example, the Australian Parliament recently eased immigration laws with the stated goal of attracting more high-skilled labor. This was in recognition of the fact that past and future decreasing birth rates and increasing demand for skills will make skilled labor the quintessential scarce resource for the next fifty years.

Complacency about attracting high-skilled talent can have severely negative consequences. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a growth of 40%, or over 500,000 new IT-related jobs through 2016. Domestic supply is simply not enough to cover this need at current levels. The number of degrees granted across all IT-related categories is about 54,000 annually, and is trending downward. Adding to the supply shortage is the fact that the number of workers in the 55-and-older group (the Baby Boomers) will grow by 47% in the next eight years - approximately 5.5 times the 8.5% growth of the labor force overall, with many of them actively planning to retire.

While a disproportionate number of skilled immigrants still come to the U.S., the numbers that are staying in their home countries or are going elsewhere is increasing. Over the last five years, the U.S. attracted an average of 73,000 skilled immigrants annually, down from about 107,000 prior. While a large number, it is not enough to fuel the U.S. workforce demands. To put it into perspective, Canada attracted 56,000, Australia 20,000, and even tiny New Zealand managed to get 10,000.

The U.S. has had a confused approach to immigration and has done little to shift the balance towards attracting high-skilled talent. As a consequence, barely 22% of immigrants are high-skilled workers. Other countries typically seek to have the highly skilled workers comprise 50 percent or more of total permanent immigration. As a reference point, the most recent figure for Australia was 65 percent.

The Myths Surrounding Immigrant Labor

A big reason for lack of progress on changing immigration policies has to do with misinformation and myths surrounding immigrant labor. Special interest groups are motivated to prevent immigration for a number of selfish reasons. This protectionism prevents needed talent from entering the country.

What doesn’t get mentioned is the fact that immigrant workers make up less than 5% of the U.S. high-skilled workforce; in fields like IT, unemployment averages about 3% and wage growth has been consistent at about 3.9%. In fields like architecture and certain types of engineering, unemployment has averaged less than 2%.

These numbers undermine any claims that immigrant workers have negatively impacted employment or wages. The reasons a particular individual, despite being seemingly qualified, is struggling in finding employment is usually not because of a conspiracy among employers - it could be a case of misplaced expectations, a mismatch between the person’s skills and available jobs, an industry downturn, or just an ability to interview well.

For example, there are many extremely talented and highly qualified automotive engineers in Detroit who are out of work. This is not because their jobs were filled by lower-paid immigrants, but rather because their industry is in a tailspin, and they don’t have any other local employment options. The corollary to this example is at the low-end of the workforce where we are currently reinforcing an enormous (and expensive) fence along our border with Mexico to keep out migrant workers who enter the U.S. at great personal risk to do backbreaking and menial work that no Americans are willing to do.

Impact on Students

It isn’t just in attracting high-skilled immigrants that we’re losing out to other countries. The ability of the United States to attract foreign students is also deteriorating. The flow of students declined by about 70,000 per year after 2001, or some 25 percent, and rose elsewhere - in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and Canada. And this is likely to worsen as more countries wake up to the issue and decide to enter the fight.

One thing is certain, the U.S. is not the only country that needs talent to grow and innovate. The first order of business is for the U.S. to develop a coherent national policy in regards to talent. We need to develop more of our own via improved professional and skill-trades education, and we need to attract more highly-skilled immigrants.

Next, industry demands for more H-1B visas and green cards should be correlated with actual needs. That way we can be sure these talent gaps will be actively managed and matched by the U.S. government.

Ultimately, U.S. industry needs to face up to the challenge. There are many opportunities to redeploy talent (for example, re-training unemployed automotive engineers to work on green technology). There are also a large number of highly educated and skilled knowledge workers who desire greater flexibility in their work life, and still others who want to work part-time in retirement. There are also rapidly evolving talent-deployment models (like M Squared Consulting) that allow organizations to instantly access targeted expertise on a project basis rather than recruiting for full-time positions.

The chaos in the financial services sector like Lehman Brothers bankruptcy , Merrill Lynch’s dramatic sale to Bank of America and the U.S. government’s rescue of AIG continue to batter executive confidence. And yesterday, we were left to digest the collapse of Washington Mutual (WAMU).

Yet smart executives know that within this market turbulence lays business opportunity.

Economic downturns create more opportunities for companies to move from the middle of the pack into leadership positions than any other time in business.

Unlike up markets where leaders can thrive on raw power alone, and mediocre players can succeed by simply showing up, a down market rewards the skillful and the strategic company. This dynamic often results in dramatic performance differences as leaders power out of the recovery.

One great example from the most recent downturn: Southwest Airlines, which surged ahead of its airline competition during and after the 2001 recession. With a clean balance sheet, a big cost advantage and brilliantly hedged fuel costs, the discount carrier grew at the expense of its rivals. As other airlines eliminated capacity and slashed jobs, Southwest lowered fares to gain market share. It boosted advertising to highlight its price advantage and improved labor relations by avoiding layoffs.

Many industry leaders fall hard during recessions because they assume that a strong market position insures them against trouble. That approach breeds overconfidence. Executives postpone taking the precautions they should. When the downturn hits they usually over-react. They slash costs and staff, cut capital expenditures, squeeze suppliers, stop research, and avoid strategic acquisitions. When market conditions improve, they must then spend heavily to get back on track.

Winners in recessions tend to react quickly heading into a downturn by managing costs carefully and consistently. They focus on what the company does best, reinforcing the core business and spending to gain share. They aggressively monitor the competition to ensure they are well positioned for a recovering market.

Another characteristic of successful companies in a downturn: they make bargain acquisitions to build up their core business and to pick up vital talent. As markets improve, they are well-positioned. The latest example: Bank of America’s planned acquisition of Merrill Lynch, with its 14,000+ financial advisors, which may turn out to be “the strategic opportunity of a lifetime,” in the words of Ken Lewis, Bank of America’s CEO.

In these uncertain economic times many of our clients have realized that they must not only protect their “core” but they must also push the boundaries of their business to capitalize on the eventual recovery. They choose to take a progressive approach to growth and innovation by bringing in outside expertise that allows them to cost-effectively extend the reach of their existing management team. By deploying our independent consultants, companies can get vital work done in tough times without adding to the fixed cost headcount base. These seasoned knowledge workers are savvy business professionals who have extensive experience delivering results for their clients.

It is an age-old tug-of-war that goes on as professional women have children and decide whether they will stay in the workforce or stay home. A recent study suggests that women with MBAs are far more likely to be homemakers than women doctors or lawyers.

Professors Catherine Wolfram and Jane Leber Herr at the University of California at Berkeley followed the career paths of nearly 1,000 women who got advanced Harvard degrees from 1988 to 1991.

Their finding is revealing: Some 28% of the MBA graduates were full-time mothers 15 years later, vs. 21% of the lawyers and 6% of the doctors. One likely reason for the disparity: Many of the doctors and lawyers said they could arrange flexible hours, while “the infrastructure is not there in the business world,” says Elissa Ellis-Sangster, executive director of the Forté Foundation, which encourages female MBA candidacies. (Female enrollment at 25 of the top full-time U.S. MBA programs hovers around 31%, according to the foundation.)

Women MBAs juggling children and career may also have weaker ties to their profession, partly because they have invested less time and money in their schooling than lawyers and doctors do. Finally, says Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings law school in San Francisco, many women in business school “end up being stay-at-home wives” because they meet and marry ambitious men who want them to manage the family’s life full-time.”

At M Squared Consulting our business model is predicated on utilizing independent project professionals on all our engagements. It is quite simply the best way to insure experience, cultural fit, cost-effectiveness, and results for our clients. From this perspective we believe that our style of management consulting offers a perfect career path for educated and experienced women professionals across all functional areas and industries.

It is vitally important for executives to occasionally take a big step back and survey the business landscape.

If you were to do this today…and you were able to see beyond the current economic turmoil and the financial services industry meltdown…one looming issue you would see in the U.S. workplace is the talent shortage.

As busy executives we must recognize that there will always be urgent and tactical issues to deal with today. The risk is that this distracts from the larger and ultimately strategic issues which can impact business sustainability. Talent is one of those issues.

According to Anna Minto, Partner and leader of the People Advantage Initiative in the Americas at The Boston Consulting Group two things need to happen if the talent challenge is to be successfully met. “First, this needs to be on the CEO agenda, and it often is not or is lower priority. Second, the HR departments are going to need the resources and the support to be able to deliver on all this change that senior executives think they are going to need.”

This sort of strategic thinking is starting to happen in some companies, but the reality is that it is still very early days. A recent BCG survey revealed that only about 20% of companies manage their talent globally today. Half of companies say they plan to do so in the future.

Forward thinking companies are beginning to ask questions like:

• Is the talent shortage on the executive agenda?
• Does the CEO buy into it and will they champion the cause?
• What is our strategy?
• Do we have a plan that we’re executing against?
• What internal resources will do this work?
• Who “owns” it?

For many organizations, a key part of the solution will be to have a solid working relationship with external talent agents (companies like M Squared Consulting) who make it their business to develop and nurture networks of talent. These professional services firms can help frame up a strategy and also provide the required expert talent, exactly when and where it is needed.

Many finance executives still have painful memories of Sarbanes-Oxley, and how they needed to lean on their IT counterparts to decipher and support its requirements on the enterprise. Today’s CFO’s are facing this same challenge again, this time to figure out the financial reporting impacts of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

As the Securities and Exchange Commission continues down the path of mandating IFRS for all U.S. publicly traded companies, most accounting experts highly recommend that those conversations begin now. IFRS adoption will require changes and updates to corporate IT systems, too.

Some vital questions for the CIO and CFO to ask include: How will running IFRS and GAAP in parallel affect the updating their general ledger and chart of accounts? What metrics need to be added or revised? Should any budgeting and forecasting applications be changed?

Experts agree that it is a good idea for organizations to conduct a high-level review of how their financial statements would change under IFRS.  This would allow them to discover major issues, including IT systems, to be resolved before migrating.

The good news is that there is plenty of time to figure this out. The latest SEC roadmap provides most companies with 8 years before they have to generate IFRS financials.