Audit & assurance

The number of public companies that went private in 2004— up from 143 in 2001, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—due largely to the cost of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

TOP TEN 1 | Hire carefully. Hire for attitude; train for skills. You are better off with an employee who has a good attitude and really wants the job than one with a bad attitude who may be more knowledgeable. 2 | Establish workplace standards. Communicate your expectations. Make it

SIGN OF THE TIMES ooking for a new job that will be a real challenge? How about president of the United States? Don’t let a lack of political expertise stop you—the American public appears to prefer to see a businessman get the nation’s top job. In a February FOX News/Opinion

ON THE RECORD What is the state of MD&A disclosure? The staff in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance reviewed over 6,000 public companies’ filings last year. They tell me that generally, MD&A has improved. In many instances companies are better explaining their financial statements, providing and clarifying context and

BUSINESS TRENDS L ike the corn in Oklahoma, gas prices are as high as an elephant’s eye this summer—and that’s a hardship for those who do a lot of driving for their employers. The IRS already has upped the deduction unreimbursed travelers can take to 44.5 cents a mile. Now

SURVEY SAVVY E mployers can help workers grow their retirement savings through a few simple strategies: introducing automatic enrollment in the company’s 401(k) plan, simplifying plan choices and better communicating the benefits. A May study by Hewitt Associates ( www.hewitt.com ) found that, in companies that had instituted automatic enrollment,

GOLDEN BUSINESS IDEA Business etiquette expert Barbara Pachter, author of When the Little Things Count…and They Always Count, says being polite helps build up “politeness credits.” Here are her suggestions for nine polite business practices: 1 | Use polite words. Simple words such as “please,” “thank you” and “you’re welcome”

BUSINESS TRENDS Recruiting quality people has become a much more difficult task due to a strong labor market. When asked what their biggest short-term staffing hurdle was, accounting and financial professionals said: Source: “2006 Ajilon Workplace Staffing and Workplace Trends Survey.”

ON THE TUBE W atch for “Andy Barker PI,” a new NBC prime-time comedy starring Andy Richter as a mild-mannered CPA. When he rents office space in a site formerly occupied by a detective agency, Barker immediately starts getting calls from people who mistake him for a private investigator. Instead

SURVEY SAVVY What’s causing American workers to stress out on the job? Why, it’s their colleagues! A nationwide study by CareerBuilder.com found 16% of employees surveyed blamed difficult coworkers for their office anxiety. Other causes of workplace stress included unrealistic workloads (15%), tight deadlines (11%), last-minute projects (10%) and overbearing

ON THE RECORD he take-away from Enron is that ethics and compliance professionals have a terribly important job to do, and there’s a lot more to be done. They still don’t really have the power to say no to a CEO or CFO. Compliance and ethics professionals need to be