According to a recent Accountemps survey of chief financial officers, job security ranks a distant second in relation to heavy workloads as the number-one workplace concern for their financial teams. About one in three CFOs (35 percent) ranked heavy workloads as the greatest source of work-related concerns for their finance and accounting professionals; 19 percent said job security was the greatest concern.

“The combination of compliance mandates, traditional projects and shifting priorities has challenged accounting and finance professionals to keep up with their growing workloads,” said Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International.

According to a new survey from Vault.com, 58 percent of employees say they participate in an office betting pool, and 77 percent report that their co-workers participate. The survey conducted in February covered 638 employees representing various industries across the U.S.

The most popular office betting pools employees say they participate in: the Super Bowl (51 percent); followed by the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (48 percent). Other office pool events: NFL regular season games (32 percent), co-worker pregnancies (13 percent), and the Oscars (12 percent). Most employees (91 percent) either said their company did not have a policy against office betting pools or that they were unaware of one. According to the survey, 68 percent of the respondents said they spent five to ten minutes out of the work day to make their picks; 72 percent said the primary motivation for office pools is to have a little harmless fun at work.

According to a recently released Proofpoint survey (free copy available), 41 percent of large U.S. corporations employ staff to read employee e-mail, and 26 percent have terminated employees for e-mail policy violations in the past year. Proofpoint, a computer security firm, conducts an annual survey of outbound e-mail and data loss prevention issues in large companies.

The survey also found that 44 percent of the surveyed companies investigated an e-mail leak of confidential information in the past 12 months; 23 percent said their business was impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information; and 34 percent of the largest companies (20,000 or more employees) reported that employee e-mail was subpoenaed in the last 12 months.

Companies with the most effective communication programs have a 47 percent higher total return to shareholders from 2002 to 2006 compared to companies that communicate less effectively, according to a new Watson Wyatt study. Six communication practices of the high performing companies were identified in the study: focusing managers and employees on customer needs; engaging employee in running the business; helping managers communicate effectively; leveraging the talents of internal communicators to manage change; measuring the impact of employee communication; and branding the employee experience.

Internet career management company Monster.com finds that although many companies have recognized the threat of losing a substantial number of workers to retirement in the next 10-20 years, only a few have indicated any sense of priority or urgency to respond. In its nationwide survey of 550 HR managers, Monster finds that only 20 percent of firms have a formal strategy to actively manage and preserve their organizational knowledge. “Many HR managers cited that they do not see a need for such a formal strategic plan and that they manage organizational knowledge informally,” Monster reports, adding that its research shows that “such an informal level of planning does not appear to be effective.” A primary challenge to actively managing organizational knowledge is a firm’s ability to identify its critical components, and only 23 percent of companies cited a formal method for this purpose, according to the report.

Employers with more women and more minorities in top positions are more likely to offer flexible workplaces, according to the 2008 National Study of Employers released by the Families and Work Institute.

Nonprofit organizations are also more likely to offer flexible workplaces, defined as including flextime, reduced time, care-giving leaves, time off, and flex careers. The survey finds that 79 percent of employers allow some employees to periodically change their work arrival and departure time; 38 percent allow a compressed workweek; 50 percent allow occasional work at home; 23 percent allow working at home on a regular basis. The survey also finds that 41 percent of employers allow some workers to move from full-time to part-time, and back again while retaining the same position or level and 29 percent allow job-sharing.

A majority of employers in the survey (53 percent) allow some employees to phase into retirement by working reduced hours over a period of time prior to full retirement and 74 percent allow some employees to take extended career breaks for care-giving or other personal/family responsibilities.

Although foreign-born workers continue to increase their presence in the U.S. workforce, a majority of employers do very little to deal with language limitations, according to a recent study by The Conference Board.

Its survey finds that 66 percent of companies do not provide English language skill training; more than half of this group said they did not find a need to warrant such training, even though more than 80 percent reported employing English-deficient employees. According to the survey, the companies that did not provide English training said they would include it if it resulted in increased productivity.

Businesses may have more negative consequences from bored employees than from those who report being overworked, according to recent research from Sirota Survey Intelligence, a company specializing in attitude research. Although employees who report having too much work are more prevalent than those reporting too little, “being bored has far more serious consequences for an organization than being overworked,” says Sirota spokesman Douglas Klein.

Employees who report “too little work” are often in jobs that are poorly designed, or have duties for which they are ill-suited, and as a result, they have far lower job satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and pride in their company compared to all other workers, according to the Sirota survey of over one million employees. Klein says that complaints of both overworked and bored employees should be taken seriously by companies, noting that it can be difficult to retain employees who feel they are overworked. “But bored employees have an even greater negative impact on an organization, lowering morale and productivity, and draining resources.”

Among the likely trends next year are the increased adoption of advanced Web solutions such as wikis, blogs and social networking—and a focus on making human resources technology easier for employees to use, according to a recent release from Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Among the top trends Watson Wyatt has identified for 2008: adopting advanced Web 2.0 technology, focusing on improving employee service and satisfaction, implementing integrated technology solutions for talent management, and taking a flexible approach to outsourcing HR administration.

Although employers more actively tout healthy eating and exercise to their workers, they continue to stock company vending machines with junk food, according to a recent national survey for The Marlin Company. The annual survey of U.S. workers shows that 58 percent said their companies are “very active” or “somewhat active” in promoting exercise and health eating to prevent obesity, but that 75 percent of workers whose companies have vending machines reported that the machines mostly contain junk food such as potato chips, cookies, and candy bars. “Can companies be truly serious about promoting exercise and healthy eating, when junk-food laden vending machines are just around the corner?” asked Frank Kenna III, president of The Marlin Company. “A real commitment to healthy food and exercise should be part of a company’s culture. A company might offer a wider selection of healthy food in the cafeteria, offer discounted health club benefits or start a company softball team to encourage exercise.” He said these actions tell employees the company is serious about health.