IRS Announces 2012 Contribution Limits
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) have issuedthe cost of living increases for qualified retirement plans for 2012. The 401(k) elective deferral limit (i.e. 402(g)) has increased for 2012, but the catch-up contribution limit has remained unchanged.
Highlights of the limits for 2012 include the following:
- 401(k) elective deferral limit - $16, 500 in 2011 to $17, 000 in 2012
- Catch-up contribution limit - $5,500 in 2011 to $5,500 in 2012
- Section 415 limit (DC) - $49,000 in 2011 to $50,000 in 2012
- Section 415 limit (DB) - $195, 000 in 2011 to $200,000 in 2012
- Section 401(a)(17) includible compensation - $245, 000 in 2011 to $250,000 in 2012
- HCE definition - $110,000 in 2011 to $115, 000 in 2012
- Key employee definition - $160,000 in 2011 to $165,000 in 2012
- FICA taxable wage base - $106, 800 in 2011 to $110,100 in 2012
The full press release from the IRS announcing this year’s contribution limits can be found here.
Happy (Belated) Boss’s Day!
National Boss Day fell on a Sunday this year, so we’re celebrating today instead. Some may think it’s a holiday invented by Hallmark or a bunch of brownnosers, but regardless of how it came about, we can’t emphasize the importance of expressing gratitude enough. According to Harvard’s Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, 75% of job success is based on optimism, social support and managing stress in a positive way. Boss’s Day, Secretary Day, and the like are all great holidays in building a thanking culture. Here are a few ways to say thank you:
- Verbal Communication: Stopping to say thank you is an effective and cost-free way to say
- Ring the Bell: We’ve found that incorporating a physical bell in the office and using it to salute those who have hit a milestone, personal victory, project completion or new client win provides a quick “Hooray” for the people involved.
- Personal Notes: A personal, handwritten note goes a long way in expressing gratitude.
- Significant Events: Once a month during our meetings, we acknowledge significant events that have occurred within our lives.
- Tokens of Appreciation: Whether it’s freshly baked cookies, flowers, or a small gift, these tokens symbolize your appreciation.
How will you show appreciation to your boss?
Celebrating 10 Years!
Our team took to the road to toast to our 10th Anniversary this past Friday and we thought we would share. Thankfully, the rain stopped and we enjoyed a wine tasting at Notaviva Vineyards in Purceville, VA. Cheers to the ten wonderful years with a phenomenal client base focused on evolution and forward motion in human capital management, consulting, outsourcing and recruiting solutions.
Have a great week and look for our top 10 lists to follow!
Helios Recruiting Blog
Welcome! This blog will provide you with the best practices and needed advice on resume writing, interviewing, tips for researching potential employers, techniques on finding the right people and finding the right opportunity for your growth. Our mission is to share best practices with those involved in talent management and provide current tips and trends to our readers.
In the coming days and weeks, we will cover many topics, but I wanted to start with trends that will shape tomorrow’s talent searches for firms. The same practices can be used by job seekers to see where they should be posting resumes and the best places to connect and network with Talent Managers. The first action that any recruiting team needs to tackle is to create a competitive advantage in their space.
How can this be done? Our recruitment practice subscribes to the philosophy that the quality of an organization’s talent will have a direct correlation to its success. We will share some of the ways we have become the “go-to team” for our clients. Having a team of consultants, each with their own niche or specialty, is an added resource to your internal HR team, and will help you build and establish a workforce environment that creates a competitive advantage.
Use your resources wisely
Using Social Networks is new, needed, and effective. However, when used incorrectly it is a tricky policy. In order to be effective, firms not only need to have a presence, but a policy that is well suited to their needs and that works for them. If you encourage employees as individuals to connect with others and share their own information, they will expand their following, but not drive people to your firm.
It is important when using social media to make sure the branding of your firm is consistent and that you do not have multiple employees using the same media, in the firm’s name. An effective way to transform or shape this is to encourage senior management and recruiting staff to have a work account. Using a professional account on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and The Ladders allows your team to have their own following. Candidates of various job skills and locations can follow your firm or your firm’s representative. You also encourage better communication between your own internal recruiting team and senior management.
At Helios, we typically incorporate social media in our searches and particularly LinkedIn. Job boards may have revolutionized recruiting, but many of the larger services, although useful, have become weighted down with resumes of unqualified candidates. Sometimes it is more time consuming to run a complex search on a larger board or really find candidates in the top talent pool our clients are interested in. While job boards are still an avenue of candidate sourcing, they now take a back seat to more strategic and innovative ways to build a superior candidate pipeline.
Generate buzz!
It is important to create targeted social and traditional media buzz designed to attract top talent. We no longer rely on just being known or doing only traditional passive/active recruiting strategies. To be successful requires the ability to use several strategies and build a consistent presence. By using the tools in social media, like event notification and scheduling, immediate updates, and location check-ins, you not only invite but include your followers in your company’s news, events, and successes, and really form an identity that people will relate to.
As we still rely on the old faithful niche websites, industry associations and event networking, we also look to search “aggregators” {which are search engines} such as Indeed, Simply Hired and JobSniper.
Other sites that can offer recruiters, firms, and prospective employees potential employment profiles are jobfox, Itzbig and My Perfect Gig, which are popular because candidates and employers remain anonymous until there is a firm, mutual interest between the two parties. This creates a venue for the passive candidate to entertain opportunities without having to commit or risk being identified by their current employer as a candidate. For firms, it gives you the means to interact without having to know a specific opening. You can locate and interact with people with specific skill sets, locations, levels of experience, and really see what they are looking for and how it is a match to your firm.
A Look Ahead
At Helios, we are expanding our Candidate stream to LinkedIn, our recruiting team, corporate blog and Twitter. The ability to connect and network through these avenues seems endless. This is the main factor to LinkedIn’s job listing service having tripled in revenue in one year. With industry blogging, we are now able to set up email alerts through RSS feeds which can lead to new and more defined qualified candidate pools.
Social media is ever-changing and it is critical to understand leading trends to stay ahead of the curve. We are hoping that each member of our team could add “Social Media Development Manager” to their title very soon! We will continue to use these methods and others (hence the consultant rears their head for the fee 
to create a searchable and customized database of qualified candidates for our clients. The bottom line is each team knows their industry and corporate needs. Marrying this information to the tools in social media and fostering a team whose main goal is to improve will allow you to form best practices. Being committed to the highest quality in human capital will allow you to unleash the potential of your workforce and gain that competitive edge.
Welcome to the new era of candidate sourcing!
So, what is it that you would like to know? Please let me know what questions you have (general or specific is fine) with regards to getting hired in today’s economy…. and stay tuned for regular updates!
Harnessing the Power of Enterprising Women
Wow. As I travel back from the Enterprising Women conference and awards gala I realize how ill prepared I was. Not prepared for the level of camaraderie, support, creativity and excitement that I found in collective abundance. 49 female CEOs from around our nation and Canada were honored as award winners across multiple categories and represented incredible diversity. Diversity in products, in services, in cultures and in background. Yet these women were far more similar than different.
A differentiator of these women is that they don’t want to be just the ‘best’ in their industry. They want to ‘change’ their industry. Their vision is to have their company be seen as an employer of choice, all while ensuring philanthropy is a part of their corporate culture.
Giving back is integral to their leadership as they are personally involved in expanding and enhancing philanthropy in their community.
These women are gracious, authentic and supportive. They believe in ‘loving your mistakes’ as they’re the best learning tool you have. I encourage you to check out Enterprising Women magazine and consider nominating a deserving CEO for the 2012 award. Then come to the conference and awards gala. You’ll be very pleased you did. www.enterprisingwomen.com ~ Kathy Albarado