Doris Day   Doris Day, an American actress, is also widely known for her 1956 song, Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be Will Be). The lyrics continue with, “The future’s not ours to see, Que Sera Sera.”   Perhaps at no time in the recent past has the phrase “the future’s not ours to see” been more germane. With an escalating worldwide trade war intensifying almost daily, businesses are on increasingly unsteady ground. Government policy can appear to be haphazard and opaque.   Planning is Critical   Planning for the future is critical for any business. The odds for success of any plan are largely based on being...

Is it live, or is it Memorex?   That was the question asked by the narrator in the 1972 Memorex ad campaign for their blank cassette tapes.   The campaign, created by the Leo Burnett ad agency in Chicago, set out to prove that the recording tape manufactured by their client had exacting sound precision so accurate that it could mimic the glass-shattering performance of a live singer.   ELLA FITZGERALD   Enter Ella Fitzgerald, jazz legend and gold standard for vocal excellence and exemplar of high-fidelity sound. The campaign was a huge success, enabling Memorex to break out of its narrow niche and enter...

The state of small businesses in 2025   By definition, a small business has less than 500 employees and annual revenue less than $7.5 million. Businesses that fall under this category account for 61.7 million employees, or 46.4% of the private sector workforce.   A DEEPER DIVE   According to the Pew Research Center, among the approximately 6 million small businesses with employees, 49% have just one to four workers. Broken down further, about a quarter (27%) have between five and 19 employees; 8% have 20 to 99; and just 1% have 100 to 499 workers. The remaining 14% had paid employees at some point...

THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT   Although we are less than a month from the end of winter, economic and social indicators suggest that we may be entering the Winter of Our Discontent. It wasn’t that long ago that unemployment was so low that employees were considered to be in the driver’s seat. Now, however, it appears that the screw has turned, and employees see their situations as worsening in the immediate future.   Ben Wigert and Corey Tatel, writing in Workplace, discuss the findings of a recent Gallup Poll. American employees are feeling increasingly detached from their jobs. As a result, the rate...

DOGE AND YOUR BUSINESS As of November 2024, the federal workforce in the United States was just over 3 million people. With all the talk about an out-of-control federal workforce, it is interesting to note that the federal government (excluding the Postal Service) accounts for 1.5% of total civilian employment, a share that – except for a temporary bump in mid-2020 for the decennial census – has been largely constant for more than a decade. The federal government is the single largest employer in the U.S. As such, it employs 12% of all government employees. State-level government employees make up 24%, while...