One of the striking developments of recent months has been the gloominess of consumers, on both sides of the Atlantic. Last month I wrote about the absence of animal spirits in boardrooms, which is preventing the upturn in business investment economies need for recovery.

Boardrooms, however, are positively upbeat in comparison with consumers. In America, the Conference Board’s closely-watched index of consumer confidence plunged to 44.2 in August, from 59.2 in July. This was the lowest level of confidence since April 2009, when nobody knew whether America’s economy was going to pull out of its crisis-induced recessionary tailspin. To put it into perspective, this confidence index has in the past needed to be around 90 to be consistent with recovery.

Whilst just over half of the panel claim to be content in their present position, this means 47% are not.

63% of the panel say their workplace happiness has reduced or remained static over the past year. 37% say it has improved.

Unsurprisingly the current economic situation has left its mark on the panel. Only 31% say it hasn’t affected their workplace happiness whilst 37% say it remains difficult but they’ve had to learn to adapt.

Figures are similar for organisations as a whole with all but 19% being affected; 14% admitting it remains a difficult time for their organisation.

The top two areas that give the panel most workplace satisfaction (excluding promotion & a pay rise) are helping their organisation improve its competitive position & helping the team reach peak performance. The panel say they receive little satisfaction from proving a superior wrong or getting rid of a troublesome team member. Of course they don’t…

The top two reasons the panel are likely to experience periods of discontent at work are slow / poor decision-making and actions of colleagues.

If the panel are asked to take on extra work (without additional resource or remuneration) the highest proportion are likely to view it favourably, believing it confirms the confidence their superiors have in them. Only ¼ feel they are being taken advantage of.

The two departments to give the panel most grief on a regular basis are Operations and Finance.

Asked about their families’ happiness the top three areas for concern are; the high levels of debt their children will take on to fund university, the ever-increasing cost of living and how their children will get on the property ladder.

For the full report please contact  David Clark

Having surveyed happiness with our Richmond Panel we thought that the Global Leadership Forecast 2011, produced by one of our customers, DDI,  may be of interest to you.

Headline Findings:

•    Only 35% of HR professionals believe leadership development quality is high
•    Only 1 in 3 Leaders feel they are getting value from the development they receive
•    Just over 1 in 3 organizations rate leadership quality as very good or excellent
•    Only 1 in 4 HR people rate their leadership as good or excellent
•    Only 18% of HR experts say they have the right leadership for the next 3 - 5 years

The top 5 critical skills for effective leadership are:

•    Driving & managing change
•    Identifying & developing future Talent
•    Fostering creativity & innovation
•    Coaching & developing others
•    Executing organizational strategy

Only half of leaders rate themselves as effective at the 5 most critical skills.

Gary Hamel’s new book “The Future of Management” claims:

“Right now, your company has 21st century internet-enabled business processes, mid-20th century management processes, all built atop 19th century management principles.”

Doubtless Gary is promoting his book but he and the DDI report do offer food for thought.

Report details at:

Full Report

Executive Summary

Details of The Human Resources Forum where DDI will be attending.

For further information please contact Brielle Pope on 212 651 8713

Stéphane Garelli will open this inaugural event talking to 60 senior Finance Directors from Swiss corporations, who will attend the one and a half day event organised to Richmond’s normal format.

The most requested suppliers are:

• Detecon Consulting
• BSgroup Advanced ERP
• Ispin
• SAP

This may reflect the large market share enjoyed by SAP in large corporates in Switzerland and high levels of interest in Risk Management, Security, Corporate Governance and Control.

The most popular conference sessions are:

Implementing Strategy at Speed
The Present and Future Role of a Modern FD/CFO
Nestle’s presentation on Shared Services and Outsourcing

This event is a new launch for Richmond in Switzerland and joins our portfolio of FD & CFO events including:

www.fdstrategyforum.com/
www.fdforum.com/
www.thecfo-forum.com/
www.richmonditalia.it/finance/

Three out of five of Richmond’s UK events in October, The Communications Directors Forum, The Finance Directors Forum and The Logistics Forum, have already achieved slight growth year on year over 2010.

The Marketing Forum and The IT Directors forum – Autumn are still slightly under last year’s figures but with a few weeks until the cut off date for participants, will probably also show slight growth year on year.

We do not read into this growth that the economy has improved.

Our judgment is that people are adjusting to the new economic situation, getting on with their businesses and still have the need to learn and to find new customers.

Richmond Events is a proven and high quality method of doing so.

Anyone wishing to join these five events needs to confirm by 16 September.

www.fdforum.com/
www.logisticsforum.co.uk/
www.marketingforum.co.uk/
www.itdf.com/
www.cdforum.com/

We have talked about workplace happiness and the findings of the Richmond Research Panel.

It is perhaps interesting to look at how different departments perceive workplace happiness over the last 12 months, particularly since many of them are talking about the same organisations.

Less happy are Logistics, then IT and particularly Human Resources. 58% of HR people feel happiness has reduced over the last 12 months.

Communications Directors feel it's about the same.

Finance Directors and Marketing Directors are happier, which is interesting because these two groups usually have opposing opinions.

Surprisingly perhaps, Retail executives are happier still, despite the reported difficulties on the high street.

Happiest of all are our PIMS customers from financial services.

Those potentially closest to the problems of the financial crisis appear to have improved most in terms of happiness over the last 12 months.

We leave you to speculate on the reasons, as ever details of our research are available from David Clark