The Bank of England will raise its target for asset purchases next week as the debt crisis in Europe may have already pushed Britain
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During her four years at Missouri State University, Rachel Kuenzler gravitated steadily toward the transition from college student to the full-time job that would signal her official entry into adulthood.
Her diligence paid off when, a week following graduation, Kuenzler found work.
And in a corporate environment - where colleagues the age of her parents outnumber twenty-somethings - Kuenzler was confronted with a dilemma that was left unaddressed by her college professors.
“I thought they wouldn’t take me seriously,” said Kuenzler, 25, an associate software engineer at MasterCard International operations center in O’Fallon, Mo.
The gap between neophytes and experienced employees has been around as long as people have been reporting to places of work.
Last year, MasterCard addressed with a “reverse mentoring” program that asks younger employees to, in effect, take older workers under their wings.
Peer-to-peer coaching is not unusual in corporate or even small business settings. But in most cases the programs call on seasoned employees to impart the wisdom of experience to younger colleagues.
MasterCard, in a concerted effort to retain and promote its younger workers, provided them with an opportunity to share their thoughts and observations on the workplace environment.
The coaching program at MasterCard may be reversed, but the strategy remains the same, said Rik Nemanick, an adjunct instructor at Washington University and a principal with The Leadership Effect, a St. Louis business consultancy. He has developed and facilitated coaching programs at Anheuser-Busch, Monsanto and other area corporations.
Mentoring programs help firms identify and develop existing talent, accelerate professional growth, nurture company loyalty and retain valuable employees, Nemanick said in a recent presentation to the St. Louis chapter of the Human Resource Management Association.
“When talented individuals reach the juncture when they might leave, it’s good that they have someone they can go to - someone they trust to discuss the situation,” he said.
At Monsanto, experienced technology division employees have tutored younger workers since 2003. The program began with 30 matches. This year, there are 70 selected from a pool of 150 applications.
“It has become part of the developmental culture within the organization,” Monsanto executive Maggie Morris told the human resources organization.
The reverse mentoring at MasterCard matched Kuenzler with Keith Martin, a 46-year-old team leader who joined MasterCard 20 years ago. The program placed 18 younger mentors with 11 supervisors.
Kuenzler saw the two-way conversation as an avenue to help Martin, and by extension other MasterCard supervisors, understand the conditions young employees seek in order to advance themselves along with the interests of the company.
“Younger employees like more openness, they are tech savvy and they don’t necessarily want to always be in meetings,” said senior human resources business partner Wanda Davega.
For example, Kuenzler and Generation Y prefer open work spaces that encourage collaboration.
Whereas Martin is admittedly more inclined to hole up in a cubicle.
Martin wasn’t exactly venturing into foreign territory when his monthly lunch meetings with Kuenzler began about a year ago - he has a daughter slightly older than his mentor.
But their meetings highlighted to him the difference between being a parent and being a colleague or supervisor.
He learned that the young people now moving into the workforce have little interest in easing into the corporate whirlwind.
“They like to move at a quick pace and effect change,” Martin said. “They basically want to jump right into the fire. They don’t want to hold back or want to hear, ‘Why don’t you wait three months to find your way around.’”
Nemanick traces the roots of the mentoring movement to a commitment to furthering the careers of minority employees at large and small businesses alike.
As the success of the programs became evident, many companies made the initiatives available to all workers.
In light of a Millennial Branding survey that this month revealed that young, recent hires comprise only 7 percent of the workforce at Fortune 500 companies, the opportunity to learn from a mentor is especially attractive to young people.
“It shrinks the big organizations,” Nemanick pointed out. “It crosses boundaries that (employees) wouldn’t normally cross.”
Its success in O’Fallon prompted MasterCard to offer reverse mentoring to employees at its global headquarters in Purchase, N.Y.
Eighteen months into her first job, Kuenzler already has a sense that her monthly meetings with Martin are making a difference.
She recently learned of plans to open her workspace by removing the wall of the over-sized cubicle she shares with several other young employees.
More important, to Kuenzler, are the chats with Martin that have brought about the removal of a more symbolic wall.
“Being able to share our thoughts with supervisors, getting their take and seeing that they are taking notes and listening, I’m already seeing a difference,” she said.
Payday loans no faxing fall on the less risky side simply because the money loaned to you is a percentage of your next paycheck.
Wendy’s Co. says its adjusted earnings fell 29.5 percent in the fourth quarter, while its revenue rose 5.6 percent,
The hamburger chain said Monday its income from continuing operations was $4.3 million in the period ended Jan. 1. That was down from $6.1 million a year ago.
The adjusted number stripped out one-time charges like costs related to selling Arby’s and writing down the value of some assets. The company didn’t report what net income would be if those charges were factored in.
Earnings were 4 cents per share, in line with the predictions of analysts polled by FactSet. After adjusting for the one-time charges, earnings were 1 cent per share.
Wendy’s says revenue rose to $615 million, beating the $613 million predicted by analysts polled by FactSet. More visitors and higher prices helped.
Shares fell 2 percent in early trading to $5.10.
PC sales didn’t have a happy holiday sales season, but you wouldn’t know it from the strong earnings posted by Microsoft and Intel.
The PC is struggling — last quarter, shipments fell 6% from the year-ago period, according to research firm Gartner — as tablets and smartphones grab market share.
But both computing giants reported earnings that beat Wall Street estimates. They chalked up softness in PC sales not to obsolescence, but to a worldwide hard drive shortage caused by massive floods in Thailand in November.
The good news on earnings boosted shares of both companies early Friday. Microsoft’s stock rose 2.6% in premarket trading, while shares of Intel edged up 0.7%.
Microsoft earned a record 78 cents per share on record sales of $20.89 billion for the second quarter of its fiscal year.
Despite the strong overall showing, Microsoft (, Fortune 500) felt the pain of the lackluster PC market in its Windows division. Its sales fell 6% over the year to $4.74 billion.
"It’s difficult to say with any sort of certainty" whether PC sales will pick back up when the hard drive supply recovers, said Lisa Nelson, Microsoft’s investor relations director. "But the market should benefit from it."
On a conference call after the earnings release, Microsoft executives said the hard drive shortage will affect sales at least through the current quarter.
The call also revealed that netbooks — essentially small, low-powered laptops — now represent just 2% of the PC market. A year ago, they comprised 8%.
Executives dodged most questions about the upcoming, tablet-optimized Windows 8. The company revealed at a trade show earlier this month that a beta version will be released in late February.
Strength in Microsoft’s other sectors made up for PC weakness.
The Microsoft unit with the strongest sales remains the business software division, which includes Microsoft Office and other software. The sector accounted for $6.28 billion of the company’s revenue, though it gained only 3% over the year.
Office 2010 has sold more than 200 million licenses in the 18 months since its launch easy payday loans.
Gaming systems were also a bright spot, as Microsoft’s "entertainment and devices" sales jumped 15% over the year to $4.24 billion. To date, Microsoft has sold about 66 million Xbox 360 consoles and 18 million sensors for its motion-controlled Kinect system.
Nelson said Xbox now commands 46% of market share for gaming consoles.
But Microsoft said on the conference call that the overall console market "is softer than previously expected."
The "server and tools" area also did well, posting a sales increase of 11% to $4.77 billion. That’s the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, Nelson said.
Intel beats the street: Intel beat Wall Street estimates with fourth-quarter earnings of 68 cents on sales of $13.9 billion — in line with its own downgraded forecast.
Intel (, Fortune 500) sharply cut its sales forecast last month because of the hard drive shortage. Left without that supply, PC makers scaled back their inventories — which meant they were buying fewer semiconductors from Intel.
But sales at Intel’s "PC client group" were strong, rising 17% over the year to $9 billion. Growth in emerging markets was the main driver.
CEO Paul Otellini cited ultrabooks as one of the company’s biggest opportunities for growth in a press release. Ultrabooks are extremely light-weight notebook PCs that have long battery life and almost as much power as a full-sized laptop.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, Intel showcased several upcoming ultrabooks that will run on its "Ivy Bridge" 22-nanometer chips.
In other tech earnings news on Thursday, Google (, Fortune 500) announced profit and sales that rose from year-ago results but badly missed Wall Street’s forecasts. IBM (, Fortune 500) posted earnings that topped estimates.
Sales (RSTAMOM) at U.S. retailers rose less than projected in December, confirming forecasts for a slowdown in consumer spending at the start of 2012.
The 0.1 percent gain in purchases last month followed a 0.4 percent increase in November, according to figures from the Commerce Department released today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for a 0.3 percent rise. Another report showed more Americans than projected filed claims for jobless benefits last week.
Wall Street is heading higher on the last day of trading at the end of a raucous year on positive signals this week about jobs and, depending how you look at it, housing.
Oil prices edged higher in the absence of any major economic data Friday.
The government said Thursday that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits each week has dropped by 10 percent since January and pending home sales jumped to their highest point in a year and a half.
Still, investors will wait to see if those home sales actually close and also for a raft of data next week on manufacturing.
Dow futures rose 0.07 percent, to 12,225 and S&P 500 futures added 0.17 percent to 1,259.50. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.13 percent to 2,280.25.
The Sappington Farmers Market, which filed for bankruptcy Friday, will remain open despite its troubles.
“The reorganization of Sappington Farmers Market will allow the store to remain open and viable,” said Nancy Smith, the market’s manager, in a written statement. “We feel this will position us to be successful in the future.”
Smith didn’t provide an interview.
The store, on Watson Road in Marlborough, has roots going back to the early 1980s, and has been at its present location since 1995 where it has gained a loyal following of bargain hunters and proponents of local farming.
The store’s mission has long been to support area farmers by featuring their products.
In her statement released Saturday, Smith said the store would continue to feature local farmers, and would continue distributing their products not only through the store, but through schools, restaurants and a “mobile market instant payday loans.”
The store’s founder, Tessa Greenspan, sold it in 2008 to a cooperative of small-scale farmers known as the Missouri Farmers Union, which formed a company called Farm to Family Naturally LLC to buy the business.
Farm to Family Naturally, which does business as Sappington Farmers Market, was the organization that filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.
Members of the original cooperative who purchased the store have since left, according to employees.
The General Motors plant in Wentzville has completed the hiring of 437 employees who will work a second shift that’s set to begin in early January, which will mark the first time in two years that the plant has run more than a single shift.
GM, which builds the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans in Wentzville, will add a second shift of van production on Jan.3, bringing the total employment at the plant to 1,940 hourly workers and 155 salaried employees.
Of the 437 hourly employees added for the second shift, 235 are new hires, said Tom Brune, UAW communications coordinator for Local 2250, which represents hourly workers at the plant. GM also recalled 38 employees to the plant and transferred 164 GM employees from across the country.
“It’s a long time coming,” Brune said about the second shift, which was announced in September as part of a new labor contract.
Plant manager John Dansby said many of the transferred employees planned to move their families to the St. Louis region over the holidays.
“We’ve gotten them familiar with the plant and have them working side by side with current employees to understand how we work and how the plant works,” he said of the new employees.
Recalling laid-off workers and preparing for a second shift has “been a great boost to morale,” Dansby added.
The second shift isn’t the only new development at the Wentzville plant. GM also plans to build the next generation of its Colorado midsize pickup there, which will bring an additional 1,260 hourly and salaried jobs in 2013.
To prepare for the line, the automaker plans to invest $380 million in the plant, including the construction of a 500,000-square-foot addition to the current 3.7 million square feet.