MassMutual Financial Group lays off 160 more workers – MassLive.com

When you mention the word “outsourcing” most people get very emotional. The emotion is fear. Usually, it is a fear of losing one’s job. Well, during this nasty recession a lot of jobs have been lost. I have been asking the question,
“Who’s left to do the work?”
I’ve noticed I am not the only person asking this question. Nearly two thirds of respondents in a recent survey asked the very same question (see survey results reproduced below or click through to read the entire article).
If you’re in NB/UW management your cost cutting phase is over. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. Now you have to figure out how to get the work done with a decimated, demoralized staff. Screaming won’t help (unless that makes you feel better). Mandatory 60 hour work weeks? I don’t think so. Yup, looks like a man-made management problem that requires creative management solutions. Unabashed self-promotion follows:
The underwriting talent is out here and we have the technology to connect companies with with experienced, professional underwriters to get the work done.
Call us. I have a mortgage, two kids in college, and a small fleet of cars to support.
One more thing…we got the MOJO.
Workforce Blogs – The Business of Management
A new survey just released by the Workforce Institute at Kronos Inc. and conducted by Harris Interactive suggests that a lot of employees may not be feeling particularly optimistic and workplace productivity has been a casualty of the Big, Bad Recession.
Here are some of the survey highlights:
• Some 38 percent of respondents employed full or part time said there had been layoffs in the past year at their primary place of employment.
• Of those respondents who said that productivity had been negatively affected by layoffs:
—66 percent said that morale has suffered and that workers are less motivated;
—64 percent said that there is just too much work and not enough people left to do it;
—37 percent said the wrong people or departments were laid off, leaving inefficient systems and workflows; and
—36 percent said they are concerned that as the economy picks up, they won’t have the right resources to meet demand.

Limra Records Steepest Drop in Life Sales – Distribution – Life and Health Insurance News
After a 26% dive in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, individual life insurance annualized premiums dropped 20% in the second quarter, according to a new survey.

At the end of 2007 a large Midwestern US insurance company instituted mandatory 55 hour workweeks for their underwriters.
A year later, that same company a laid off a bunch of people. Some of these employees were the same people from whom management mandated OT from just one year prior.
The hamsters are dying. I don’t think they can do more with less. Time for a new business model.
My answer to the question is NO.
Businesses Learn To Make Do With Fewer Workers : NPR
Since December 2007, the labor market has seen a net decline of 6.5 million jobs.
Workforce Blogs – The Business of Management
But when an overwhelming 85 percent of the unemployed say that they’d take a job for 20 percent less than they made before, then maybe it’s time to stop blaming the out-of-work people for their predicament and focus on the real issue: a shattered economy that looks like it’s going to stay shattered (at least in terms of job growth) for a long time.
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