With all the blockchain hype driving business curiosity as to how the secure ledger might be useful, companies are recruiting technologists with skills in the area. But what are those skills?

Just in time, consulting firm KPMG has come to the rescue with a report detailing some necessary skills and, fortunately, blockchain experience isn't the most important. We say fortunately only because so few IT professionals have experience in the ...

International consulting firm Bain & Company issued a report last week that should serve as a blueprint for leading a company through a recession, which is imminent, at least according to Beyond the Downturn: Recession Strategies to Take the Lead.

"Predicting the onset of a recession is difficult, but a downturn likely will arrive soon," the report maintains, citing the length of the current expansion, economic turmoil over ...

A survey of fund managers from around the world found nearly 7 in 10 expect a greater assignment of assets to AIFMD (Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive) in the next two years, despite concern over how the regulation is interpreted.

The AIFMD is a European Union (EU) regulation that applies to hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate and certain other funds. It governs their marketing, reporting and related activities ...

When a drug company embarks on a clinical trial, one of the risks it runs is the nonadherence of participants to the rules. In simplest terms, that means if a patient is to take a pill in the morning and another at night, deviating from the schedule is nonadherence. If too many participants deviate, the trial could fail.

An article in Applied Clinical Trials discusses the statistical implications of nonadherence ...

When it comes to paying workers, not much has changed since the days the boss came around handing out envelopes. Direct deposit, which is how most companies pay employees, is more than 40 years old. Pay cards are a more recent innovation, but they're not common and mostly used by companies with casual workers and those without a bank account.

Changes, though, are on the horizon.

A World at Work ...

We've written before about the importance of sending a thank you after an interview and even after being rejected for a job. Until recently, we hadn't thought about sending a thank you note when it's you who turns them down. Yet that's just what a candidate did, making such an impression that LinkedIn wrote about it.

The background is this: The candidate was actively being sought by several companies including ...

The employment numbers in the latest government reports paint a picture of a continuing tough labor market for employers.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the number of job openings stood at 7.49 million at the end of March, the most since the government began tracking openings in 2000. Meanwhile, from a report the week prior, the number of unemployed fell to 5.8 million, yielding an ...

As the worker shortage grows ever more dire, companies are beginning to discover the untapped, yet talented group of workers on the autism spectrum.

The Autism @ Work network is still small, but it has several large partners. Microsoft, EY, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase and SAP have all hired autistic workers. Dell started with three hires last summer and, according to a Reuters report, will double that number this summer.

SAP, one ...

Today we mourn the missing sock and comfort their lonely partners pining away in dresser drawers across the land.

May 9 is National Lost Sock Memorial Day.

It may not be a holiday any president has proclaimed, but perhaps one should for not a person amongst us has escaped the heartbreak of a lost sock. Indeed, it is an established scientific fact that Americans lose an average of 1.3 ...