Scouting Technology Helps Retailers Build Out Services

The team at Donovan Farmers Co-op has found success in using multiple tools to bring together a technology package to better serve its farmers with pest management tools.

“The more we adopt technology shows farmers that we are trying to provide better service,” says Craig Mackey agronomy manager at Donovan Farmers Co-op. “At the same time, technology is putting a lot of tools at our fingertips. We know we’ve found a useful tool when we can say, ‘I wish we had this last year.’” READ MORE

How to Implement Continuous Performance Management

If you're a manager or an HR professional, you've probably found yourself inundated with articles discussing annual performance reviews – specifically, articles about why you should abandon them immediately. There is a new way of doing things, and it's called continuous performance management. It incorporates real-time feedback, the allocation of short-term objectives and frequent developmental conversations for all employees. READ MORE

4 Steps to Modernizing Performance Management, the People-first Way

The past year witnessed a paradigm shift in performance assessment and upskilling. From yearly appraisals to bimonthly reviews, and then gradually progressing into a more bespoke model – in performance management, ‘disruption’ was the buzzword in 2017.

Let’s rewind a few years when performance management was still an emerging idea at best. Evaluations were still largely protocol based, linked more to compensation and rewards that towards productivity and engagement. Enter the millennials: this is a workforce segment that demands several incentives to prevent attrition. Besides adequate wages (the baseline), what’s needed is a sense of purpose and ample opportunities to upskill and push forward. READ MORE

Chicago Tech Funding Surpassed $124M in March

Chicago tech and startup companies saw a hefty increase in venture capital funding in March, compared to February, culminating in a strong finish to the year’s first quarter.

Over the course of the month, they collectively raised at least $124 million, according to data compiled by Chicago Inno. That’s 67 percent higher than in February, when Chicago tech raised about $74 million. READ MORE

Wells Fargo Divests Payroll Assets

Wells Fargo reached an agreement to sell assets of its Business Payroll Services unit to Asure Software, the companies said in a press release on Monday (April 2).

Asure, which offers human capital management (HCM) and workplace management software solutions, will acquire Wells Fargo Business Payroll Services’ Evolution HCM customer portfolio, the firm said, and business customers using Evolution HCM will be transferred to Asure Software for payroll services. READ MORE

Time Inc. editor gets wings clipped after Meredith takeover

Meredith Corp. has clipped the wings of Time Inc.’s top editorial executive after acquiring the parent of Time, People, Sports Illustrated and InStyle, The Post has learned.

The Iowa-based publisher of Better Homes & Gardens, which scooped up Time Inc. for $2.8 billion on Jan. 31, has slashed the responsibilities of chief content officer Alan Murray, who previously oversaw the editorial side of all of Time Inc.’s magazines, insiders said. READ MORE

Meredith Corp. exploring sale of Time, Sports Illustrated, eliminates 200 jobs

Meredith Corp., which acquired Time Inc. four months ago for $1.84 billion, is exploring the sale of several magazine brands including Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money.

The publisher, which also owns Better Homes & Gardens, on Wednesday additionally said it had eliminated 200 jobs. Another 1,000 jobs are expected to be eliminated in the next 10 months, all part of an anticipated $400 million to $500 million in cost synergies in the Time Inc. acquisition, the company said. READ MORE

Principal Financial Group (PFG) Getting Somewhat Favorable News Coverage

News coverage about Principal Financial Group has trended somewhat positive recently, Accern Sentiment Analysis reports. The research firm ranks the sentiment of media coverage by monitoring more than 20 million blog and news sources. Accern ranks coverage of publicly-traded companies on a scale of negative one to one, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. Principal Financial Group earned a news sentiment score of 0.15 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned media headlines about the financial services provider an impact score of 45.0651812360776 out of 100, meaning that recent media coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an effect on the company’s share price in the next few days.  READ MORE

Wells Fargo faces sales scrutiny in its wealth advice division

Just when it seems like Wells Fargo's troubles are behind it, another mole pops up from the whack-a-mole machine.

The bank's wealth management business is now in focus. According to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, whistleblowers in the division, called Wells Fargo Advisors, flagged problems related to product and service sales made "with an eye toward earning more compensation than finding the best fit for the customer." READ MORE