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In an ideal world, increases in productivity (or, the measure of employee output per hour) will lead to higher corporate profits.  Some of that extra money can then be used to hire more workers.  When more people are employed, there are more people that can spend money.  And everyone lives happily ever after.

But these days, productivity has surged, jumping up at a 9.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, according to Labor Department statistics released yesterday.  That’s the best clip in six years.  However, that positive data has been immediately followed by bad news from the Department.  Today, it was announced that October’s unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest rate in 26 years.

BusinessWeek’s Peter Coy suggests recent productivity gains could be somewhat artificial since lay-off survivors have had to work harder than ever. In other words, productivity has risen because unemployment has also gone up and there are fewer employees left to handle all the work.

From your own experience working through this recession, do you agree with Coy’s assessment?  And do you think your company’s productivity gains could be undermined by employee burnout?  Please share your thoughts below.

Do you religiously check BNET each day for the latest posts?  And do you return throughout the day to check up on the comment flow?  If so, you may have an “internet addiction.”  But it’s only a problem if you are visiting the sites of the competition too.

In all seriousness though, multiple news stories throughout the last few years have been suggesting that “internet addiction” is on the rise.  Today a story out of the UK claims that Britons are now internet addicts that clock five hours a day online, spending two on work and three on social networks, surfing and shopping. Stateside, the first treatment center for the problem, called reSTART just opened this month, even though internet addiction is not yet recognized as a separate disorder by the American Psychiatric Association and insurance won’t cover its treatment.

To find out whether you are internet addict, you can take the reSTART quiz, online of course. And rather ironically, you can follow the reSTART program on Twitter and Facebook and become addicted to tips about beating your web addiction.  If you can’t pony up $14,000 for reSTART, you can also check out CC Holland’s post on 6 common-sense strategies to beat the addiction.

So let’s say that internet addiction is real and it is hazardous to your health.  Certainly America’s work culture encourages everyone to stay on the grid and utilize all the new web tools at our disposal.  We respect the worker bees who answer their BlackBerrys immediately and exhalt those that return emails after midnight.  But there is plenty of evidence that our work-life balance is out of whack.  Since we can all agree that the unhealthy American lifestyle contributes to our high healthcare costs, should employers take the lead and discourage internet abuse?  Share your thoughts below.

Business author Marshall Goldsmith is working on a new book called Mojo about the one attribute that he believes all successful people share: a “positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts on the inside and radiates to the outside.” This is familiar territory for the eternally chipper executive coach, a Buddhist who teaches execs how to stop being jerks and signs his emails “Life is good.” But the research he’s gathering for the book may reveal an unexpected truth about the way successful people – those with “mojo” — spend their time. In a survey about short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit, Goldsmith asks respondents how much time they spend doing activities that are either:

• Stimulating: high in short-term satisfaction, low in long-term benefit (gossiping, watching TV);
• Sacrificing: low in short-term satisfaction, high in long-term benefit (working out when you don’t feel like it or writing a tedious report that will help your career);
• Surviving: low on both short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit (he offers Charles Dickens characters as an example);
• Sustaining: moderate in both short-term satisfaction and long-term benefits (answering email, shopping, cooking); or
• Succeeding: high on both short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit

It’s easy to assume that writing a tedious report will get your further in life than watching funny videos on YouTube. But is prioritizing long-term benefit always the best choice? Goldsmith might not say so. In an article for Business Week, he writes about the mojo of good flight attendants. In my experience, the best ones spend time chatting with passengers, joking around, and sometimes even in-flight rapping — activities I associate more with short-term fun than long-term benefit. Perhaps one key ingredient of good mojo is using those lightweight “stimulating” activities to get through the day with your sanity intact.

We’ll have to wait until the book comes out to find out if this is indeed Goldsmith’s point. In the meantime, take the survey and tell us: Which category of activity do you think brings you the most mojo?

Image courtesy the Marshall Goldsmith Library

A single-payer national healthcare system has never been on the table in Washington.  Even the so-called public option, which under Obama’s plan still accepts the premise of private insurers in the government-subsidized health marketplace, has been denounced as “socialism.” Republican spinster Frank Luntz has advised his clients to use the phrase  “Washington takeover” of healthcare to ensure that private companies can continue to profit off of America’s broken system.  Playing into America’s fear of “government-control” seems like a sure-fire way to win an argument.

But as Nicholas Kristof notes in a New York Times op-ed today, there are plenty of examples in America where the government has run things better than the private sector. Here is his brief list:

• Firefighting: Private insurers used to fight fires, resulting in chaos and looting
• Police work: If the security guard business were as powerful as the health insurance industry, then it would be denouncing “government takeovers” and “socialized police work”
• Education: The single-payer system delivers free education to every kid in the country
• Postal service: Well, you can debate that over here
• Libraries: Again, education and information access to all at a small cost to society
• Health care: 60 percent of those in Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale; only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high

Do you agree with Kristof’s assessment?  Are there other sectors where the government could run things better than private firms?  Share your thoughts below.

Are you worried about the swine flu, the first global pandemic in 41 years? Many public health experts predict more outbreaks this fall, as the disease mutates and kids go back to school.  The World Health Organization estimates two billion people will eventually get the virus. And regrettably, swine flu vaccines under development may not reach the public until late November.

Across the pond, two thirds of British companies have already dealt with work absenses due to the swine flu. Law firms and other businesses in the United Kingdom are trying to vaccinate their staffs because they can’t afford to give people time off.

Stateside, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke argued today that employers need to develop plans for managing both seasonal and swine flu.

• Let sick employees stay home after any symptoms
• Take steps to protect at-risk employees (workers over 65, pregnant women, those with respiratory problems) by encouraging vaccinations
• Revise leave policies so that employees don’t need to get sick notes from doctors
• Allow flexible sick policies so that employees can care for their kids
• Reduce unnecessary travel and limit face-to-face meetings
• Educate staff about personal hygiene
• Start cross-training to make sure work can continue even if employees get sick
• Add a swine flu informational widget to your company’s website

The US government’s full gameplan for businesses is available online.

A new survey by the Florida State University College of Business sought to figure out the levels of narcissism amongst American bosses. Around a quarter of the 1200 respondents claimed their immediate supervisors are “self-centered” jerks that “brag to others in order to get praise.” And 20 percent said their bosses will “do a favor only if guaranteed one in return.”

Ryan Sager, a blogger who deserves credit for finding this report, is surprised that the majority of workers don’t think their bosses are narcissistic. Nevertheless, for those employees that do toil under an egomaniac, the impact is significant.

According to the researchers, employees working under self-centered bosses reportedly:

• Had lower levels of job satisfaction
• Saw their stress levels increase over the previous year
• Were less appreciative of their work and organization
• Had lower levels of effort and performance
• Were more prone to sadness and frustration at work

Since American work culture seems to celebrate and reward the go-getters, where is the line between managers that are self-confident and those that are simply self-centered?  Join the discussion below.

President Obama has had to defend his plans to take a vacation next month while the economy continues to sputter. However, Obama is not an economic god that that can dictate supply and demand from the Oval Office. You can question who he is really working for but you can’t say he isn’t working hard, meeting with European leaders one day, throwing out the first pitch to the All-Star game the next, traversing America to pitch his health care agenda.  If he wants to take some time off with his family in Martha’s Vineyard, good for him.

Sadly, one-third of American workers don’t plan to take a vacation this year. Sure, tough times mean less money to spend on leisure.  But the hospitality industry has been devastated by the recession too and there are plenty of deals to be had his summer. If logging more miles on the road or in the air seems stressful, you can always enjoy a “staycation” near your home.

I suspect the reason most Americans aren’t taking time off is because they are worried their vacation will become permanent if they don’t prove their dedication by slogging through the summer.  But you can’t be fired for taking vacation days you’ve earned.    Furthermore, many employers often have to pay out cash for unused vacation days anyways at the end of the year.  So it’s in every manager’s best interests to make sure their employees take a break this summer.  Most importantly, vacations give employees a chance to recharge. That means less sick time along with a boost in productivity and morale.

Of course, getting that vacation scheduled is easier said than done.  Please share your tips for negotiating vacation time in the comments section below.

We’ve been doing a lot of work at TheLadders on making the most of social-networking sites on your job search, from Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter. We’ve also offered tips on tidying up your Web trail before recruiters and employers come looking.

Now it turns out that when it comes to online job hunting, even your browser can stand a tuneup. Consider this very handy list from JobProfiles.com: “50 Useful Firefox Add-Ons for Job Seekers.”

Users of Firefox 3 and above can take advantage of a plethora of handy software extensions to customize their surfing; the software gadgets on this list simplify tasks ranging from checking job updates to online networking to job research.

Here are just a few of JobProfiles’ hot 50:

3. TwitterJobSearch: Search job postings made to Twitter in real time.
5. CharityJOB: For those needing moral satisfaction in their work, here’s a database of jobs in the non-profit sector.
10. Linkedin Companion for Firefox: Builds a network of 25 million professional into your Firefox browser. Network to find your next job opportunity or catch up with colleagues in your field.
26. Get Company Info: Highlight a company name on any page and this extension offers a wide range of financial and background data. It also recognizes the stock symbols.
30. Easy Job Application: Easily sends out job application to prospective employers using sites such as Craigslist.

Now that consumers can easily compare companies online, prices have dropped for everything from car insurance plans to plane tickets. It’s not that personal relationships with vendors don’t matter anymore. But how many of us have sought the expertise of the local book or video store clerk, only to end up paying less for the product on Amazon or Netflix?

Independent businesses are also struggling to stay afloat under the brutal efficiencies and low margin’s of the digital age. And America’s cattle producers and auctioneers are no exception.

There are about 757,000 independent cattle producers in America who mostly sell their stock to auctioneers. These auction yards then turn around and sell most of the cattle to just four major meatpackers.

Cattle pricing has long been set at auction by expertise, reputation and personal salesmanship, according to an editorial in Midwest AG Net, a trade publication:

Over time, these markets and feedlots earn reputations for sourcing, marketing and feeding the specific quality and type of cattle highly coveted by the concentrated meatpackers. Thus, information about the source of the cattle acquired by said markets and feedlots is the proprietary information they use to maintain their competitive edge - and they often pay premiums to, or secure a higher price for, the cattle producers in order to acquire these cattle year-after-year.

However, the old auction system could break down if a new proposal by the US Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is passed. The government requires that every cattle producer brand its stock with a unique 15 digit identifier. This code connects the cattle to the exact place where they were raised and can be used to investigate disease outbreaks. The auctioneers have access to this data, which they keep from the meatpackers as “proprietary information.” But the new proposal would give the four major meatpackers access to the codes, thus allowing them to easily purchase cattle directly from the ranchers that produce the beef they like.

The transition to a more database-driven cattle market will be painful but it’s also inevitable. Regardless of the government’s new rules, it could be only a matter of time before an entrepreneurial cowboy launches a new social network that directly connects the independent cattle producers with the meatpackers, cutting out the middlemen in the local auction markets along the way. How about CowBook or MyBeefSpace?

Photo by Flickr user “ckhartman,” CC 2.0.

Every president hopes their administration will leave a lasting impact on the country. But what about a personal impact on individuals? If John F. Kennedy inspired public service, could President Obama inspire a generation of brilliant public speakers and persuasive influencers?

Whether you agree with his policies or not, there’s a lot you can learn from the suave stylings of the 44th president. I mean, the man won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album twice – in 2005 and again in 2008 — for reading his books on tape.

With the milestone of his First 100 Days in office coming up next week, there are two key areas where Obama has already proven worthy of emulation:

1. Public speaking. Executive speech coach Sims Wyeth shares “Five Ways to Speak Like Obama,” including tips on how to anticipate and incorporate opposition and how to pull off the president’s signature profound pause. For more see Michael Fitzgerald’s review of Shel Leanne’s book “Say It Like Obama.”

2. Selling an idea or proposal up the chain. BNET Blogger Stacy Blackman looks at a paper by two Stanford and Columbia professors on how Obama “marketed” the stimulus package to get it passed.

If, on the other hand, you want to learn how to get a senator to give you a cute dog, sorry — you’re on your own.

(Obama image by springhill2008 via Flickr, CC 2.0)