Moneylines: News briefs for businesses

How do your workers feel about retirement?

When it comes to their golden years, many employees have a glass-half-empty perspective. So says the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2011 Retirement Confidence Survey. It found that 27% of workers were “not at all confident” about saving enough money for retirement. That’s up five percentage points from the 2010 results. Anxiety about retirement can hurt productivity and morale, so be sure you’re adequately promoting any retirement savings vehicles your company sponsors and educating employees about how they work.

CFOs take on more work as companies streamline to compete

Generally speaking, a chief financial officer (CFO) oversees a company’s financial plans, policies, systems and relationships. But that’s not all — an Accenture study undertaken earlier this year found that 80% of senior finance executives surveyed reported that their scope of responsibilities has increased since being hired to include areas such as IT, HR and business development. If you employ a CFO, be sure you’re not overextending his or her reach. And if you intend to hire one, you may want to focus on prospects with diverse work experiences.

The $1 billion website tweak

Does your business value search engine results? Most do and for good reason — many people use the Internet to research buying decisions, even when they don’t actually buy online. This past March, search engine giant Google changed the algorithm that its software uses to generate results, causing an estimated $1 billion revenue redistribution, according to the Online Publishers Association. Although the move was generally regarded as most affecting “content farms” whose primary business is drawing Internet traffic for advertising purposes, the revised algorithm may have altered where your company shows up on a results page.

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