SigEx Ventures : Who are we?!by Ana Maria Ciobanu

The Family and Medical Leave Act was one of the first major bills signed by President Bill Clinton in his first term, conditioned by fulfilling a campaign promise. The law intended to encourage employees to tale leave to take care of their families, their or their relatives health problems. That's why it promised several protections such as twelve workweeks of leave per twelve months for various reasons like caring for adoption or foster care placement issues, caring for a sick child, spouse or parent, being physically unable to perform one's job. Critics of the act appeared immediately and they said that this law will only encourage female discrimination by employers because female workers will be more expensive to hire than men workers. Even now in 2007 companies are having a hard time administering the Family and Medical Leave Act. A recent survey showed how difficult HR managers are handling this law and how negative they see it. Sixty-three percent of the survey respondents said FMLA leaves had a negative effect on employee absences. Fifty-five percent of the executives said the FMLA had a negative effect on employee productivity and fifty-four percent said it had a negative effect on business productivity. Do these results really mean(as people enjoy to think) that the law needs to be changed? Isn't it strange people need to work this much and care so less about family. American workers care more about business productivity and employee productivity than about caring for a sick child or simply taking some time off to ease the stress. It's unbelievable where we've come to be. People see work as their supreme goal when actually it should be just a way to earn some money that help you have fun, live a good life and take care of yourself and your family. Aren't doctors, lawyers, judges, construction workers normal people? Even a rock star needs to stay with his wife or kids sometimes and he doesn't care about productivity or money loss. Why do HR managers need to act like robots? Have we really forgotten who we are and enjoy calling ourselves the name of a work title? I am not John Smith. I am a successful HR manager at the over successful XY company and I don't care or don't have time for my son who has the chicken pocks or my old mother who broke her hip.I care about business productivity and employee productivity...

by Ana Maria Ciobanu for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

SigEx Ventures : Talent Management Systemby Ana Maria Ciobanu

Starting Monday, August 6, thanks to the Human Resources Department, the Talent Management System will be implemented as a new employment- opportunities Web site for student supervisors. This new web site is supposed to make the employment process more efficient and accessible to students and student supervisors, online. All supervisors will be trained on the system from Tuesday, August 7 till Thursday August 23. If you want to join this program but you are unable to attend the training sessions(which are divided into parts and usually last from morning till noon), you can contact Human Resources at (651) 962-6510. This doesn't sound like something very different from the traditional online student jobs portals we're used to. Even the advantages stated by the Talent Management System are very close to the advantages of any online job portal. The website is user friendly, students can apply quickly and easily online, you can just log into the system to manage your applicant pool and jobs are accessible from anywhere you get Internet access. What exactly is new? Perhaps the training sessions to learn you how to use it. Seriously the Internet is filled with online job sites, all you need to do is just look and publish a resume on the sites and your phoen will start ringing and your mailbox will get filled. It is not an exageration and I think we all know it. If you want to get a job and you're a student all you need to do is want to, you don't need an easier to use interface or a friendly Web site. Perhaps TMS is planning on becoming the best thing out there...

by Ana Maria Ciobanu for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

Sailor wantedby Claudia Sonea

The shipping industry is on its peak now and strangely as it may sound that leads to serious issues regarding the human resources especially. The North of England P&I Club last week expressed their worries towards the increasing number of inexperienced workers that might become a threat to the wellbeing of the industry itself. Its 2007 Management Report shows that because of the lack of experience and too many unnecessary workers are the main reasons for which small problems turn out into big ones. Rodney Eccleston, North of England Managing Director, states that education is the one to blame, because it is based on solving the issues that might appear according to standards and when the sailors face the problems in real life and the standards cannot be applied, they just lack the common sense and experience to handle on their own. Another concern is that the exacerbated develop of the industry will create a flood of acceptable qualifications on the human resources market and the only thing, they can do to prevent it, is to not lower the standards. Until now the 'norm' for ships is to operate at minimum safe manning levels and that is still a threat because it is a risk due to the fact that it could be falsely low rather than realistically high. Some of the solutions are training programs and new ways of educating the future staff of the shipping industry. If you are interested and want to get a job you might consider Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd (MOL) recently launched training vessel, first of many to come- I hope. The purpose will be to open classrooms all over the world to train and educate properly the new manpower. That is why at the Odessa National Maritime Academy in Ukraine it will be introduced a seafarer cadet program. There you have it, places to work are everywhere, you just have to look carefully and see if you have the right qualifications. Surf so more and from pleasure who knows you might find the job of your dreams. Full gigaspeed ahead.

related story: http://www.gulfnews.com/business/Shipping/10142818.html

by Claudia Sonea for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

Looking for a jobby Claudia Sonea

There is the permanent issue of getting a job and then keeping it. Lately it is more and more difficult do fulfill these needs not to mention that expectations are high in proportion with the law wage. Is something about to change? Who knows, but it is essential to pay attention to changes that happen around you and to what you are good in order to fully exploit today's opportunities. Why it is so hard to keep a job? Well mostly because there are companies like Monster that would rather make 800 workers to hit the sack because profits went 28% down than try to find other solutions for the come back. The fact is that Monster's earnings are still around $42.4 millions, so there is no logical reason to leave so many people without a job. A new issue is that of internet hiring. Most companies would prefer paper CVs than online ones, but there are still some that would post their announcements on Web sites that have purpose of joining employees with employers. In Romania the most famous site is "ejobs' and there are hundreds of online companies that post ads looking for people willing to work and hundreds of users with online CVs. It will soon everything be reduced to this sort of recruitment. Of course everything depends on the size of the company. Perhaps those 800 workers might have to apply online in order to find a place to work; because the new budget cut they won't have a steady job anymore. Stay connected to see how the world is spinning.

related story: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22164719-7582,00.html

by Claudia Sonea for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models