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EXECUTIVE SUITE By Nathan Hurst, Globe Correspondent, 11/20/05 As aspiring chief executives compete for their ''dream jobs'' on television shows such as ''The Apprentice,'' in real life few workers actually want to rise to the top of their company's ranks, according to a recent study. The research, conducted by Burson-Masteller, a New York public relations firm, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, a business research and analysis firm, found that 54 percent of current corporate executives don't want to lead their companies.
Lesley Gaines-Ross, chief knowledge and research officer at Burson-Masteller, said the results of the survey come as more workers, including recent college graduates looking for jobs, say that balancing work and home is important to them. ''One of the main barriers for people looking to reach the top is the work/life balance,'' Gaines-Ross said in a telephone interview last week. ''It's a big issue that might give a lot of people a reason to pause before taking advantage of an opportunity.'' She cited other recent research that showed that for the first time college graduates are taking their lives outside of work into consideration as a main factor for selecting what career to go into and how far up the corporate ladder they want to climb. With many having grown up with baby boomer parents who ''worked themselves practically into the grave,'' she said, ''they're saying, 'I just want to have a nice life.''' In the most recent survey, 64 percent of workers currently not in a top position said that having a poor work/life balance was their top reason for not wanting to become a chief executive or other corporate bigwig .Some workers also cited worries over quarterly earnings, stress, and intense public scrutiny. Gaines-Ross said many times those pressures only serve to exacerbate stresses between work and home life. ''Especially with younger workers, many are thinking there are a lot of reasons to stop being at the head of their divisions,'' she said. ''A lot of this stems from poor leadership development, but there's no chance to be in charge without being in the public spotlight.'' As boomers slowly retire from top corporate positions, making the jobs they leave behind more appealing to younger workers could pose a problem for companies looking for high-quality leadership. ''This is a huge problem. The talent pool for the next round of CEOs is much lower than it is now,'' Gaines-Ross said. ''To have 54 percent saying they're going to pass is a real crisis.'' However, for the 46 percent of workers who would consider taking charge of their companies, there is hope. Many of those workers — 56 percent — are looking for opportunities to tackle complex problem solving and another 43 percent of that group see the opportunity to rise through the ranks as a chance to have an impact on their business. Gaines-Ross said for companies to start wooing younger workers to top positions, there must be a fundamental shift in what America's corporate world expects from its leaders. ''There are definitely needed shifts within the corporate structure,'' she said. ''For example, the corporate board is getting more involved. Collaborative management is one thing that will become a survival tip in the future. It's really going to be a greater understanding that a senior management team can definitely help.''
EMPLOYMENT FRONT Workers throughout the nation are concerned about keeping their jobs through the next year. Research results showed that American workers are feeling much less confident than they did in the last such survey, conducted six months ago. Nearly 24 percent said they felt losing their jobs would not be out of the question within the next year. This figure represented a fairly significant jump from the 19 percent who responded similarly just six months ago. A total of 79 percent of respondents said they expected the nation's unemployment rate to rise in the next year. ''After recording the highest confidence levels in the three years we have been tracking this, Americans have reversed their optimistic outlook,'' said Chuck Mollor, regional vice president of Right Management, in a release. ''Their confidence appears to have been shaken by Hurricane Katrina. They no longer feel secure about their own jobs, and a larger percentage expects unemployment to increase this year.'' Workers also aren't feeling confident about their ability to find new work should their current job vanish. About 80 percent of those surveyed said finding work would be somewhat or very difficult. Right Management also gathered information on workers in 17 other countries. Workers in 13 countries expressed growing concerns about their personal career security and the job market overall, while those in five, including the United States and the United Kingdom, showed significant drops in worker confidence.
When looking for work, networking might not be the best way to go anymore, according to last month's survey of workplace professionals, managers, and executives, conducted by the Five O'Clock Club, a career coaching network based in New York. Out-of-work professionals are finding that ''direct contact'' is more effective. Think of the direct contact method as networking without the actual network. Instead of connecting to recruiters and hiring managers through colleagues one already knows, direct contact mandates going right to the source. ''Kids know this better than their parents,'' said Kate Wendleton, president of the Five O'Clock Club. ''They'll go from grocery store to grocery store looking for a job. That's direct contact.'' Those job hunters surveyed said that they spent 61 percent of their days networking but that they accounted for only 28 percent of their meetings with people who could offer them potential work. Meanwhile, the same group spent 11 percent of their time contacting recruiters directly, even if they didn't know the person or have a connection to them. That method resulted in 35 percent of their meetings. Wendleton said using the Internet to search for jobs can be helpful, but like traditional networking, its results can be somewhat ineffective. ''The Internet search process should be for finding the names of the person you want to directly contact,'' she said. ''It takes an average of eight phone calls to get a meeting using direct contact. Just submitting information online, however, won't even necessarily get you on their radar screen.'' Nathan Hurst can be reached at nhurst@globe.com
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