These Companies Are Eliminating Their Gender Pay Gaps - Daily Business

SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, the highest paid woman at the company.

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Elon Musk, CEO of aerospace tech company SpaceX, committed last month to eliminate the gender pay gap at the company, which has 4,000 employees.

"I was asked today if we'll audit pay," Musk said at an event about pay and gender co-hosted by enterprise software company Salesforce's CEO Mark Benioff In February. "We will do that."

Musk didn't comment on whether he would audit his electric car company Tesla as well, which employs about 10,000 people. A spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that Musk “plans to talk with Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX, on this topic and will take it from there.”

Musk is following Salesforce's lead in pledging to comb through salary data. On International Women's Day this week, Salesforce announced the results of its own internal pay audit for 17,000 global employees. The company spent $3 million to make salary adjustments for approximately 6% of workers to eliminate discrepancies, according to Cindy Robbins, executive vice president of global employee success.

"Moving forward, Salesforce plans to monitor and review salaries on an ongoing basis — making equal pay a part of our company’s DNA," Robbins wrote.

Salesforce has also invested in additional training for female employees, which resulted in a 33% increase in promotions for women at the company, according to Robbins.

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Salesforce and SpaceX are not alone in internally auditing pay for gender equity. Apple and Google have put resources towards ensuring equal pay, and Gap completed an internal audit last year. Computer chip manufacturer Intel announced it had found no meaningful discrepancies in pay after a review.

At Apple's shareholder meeting last month, Tim Cook said that a year-long, third-party audit for the company's 70,000 U.S. employees revealed women made 99.6 cents for every dollar a man makes, and under-represented minorities make 99.7 cents per dollar. Cook said the company was working to eliminate the gap and would release results of the survey every year so employees know where they fall on the pay-scale.

At Google, a spokesperson said the company's "People Analytics team" constantly analyzes performance, compensation, and promotion to "ensure that there is no gender pay gap at Google."

"Further, since we set salaries based on the market rate of the job (rather than a person's pre-Google salary), we find that, on average, women get larger pay increases than men when they join Google," said the spokesperson.

This strategy — paying based on the going market rate of a job, rather than an employee's previous salary — has been shown to help help reduce the gender pay gap, and some companies are looking into banning salary negotiations for that reason.

Still, even at Google, which uses market rates at hiring to avoid having to course-correct, salary transparency remains a taboo subject. Before leaving the company in 2015, Google engineer Erica Baker created a spreadsheet for workers to voluntarily share information about pay. She then ran into friction with a manager for collecting this data. Baker said on social media some employees asked for and received more equitable pay based on the spreadsheet, which is still live at Google, run by a co-worker of Baker's.

A Google spokesperson said that the company doesn't comment on specific cases of current or former employees and that employees are free to share salary information. (This is also the case everywhere, under U.S. labor law.)

Twenty percent of human resources managers said men are paid more than women at their companies, according to a recent survey by Human Resources software company CareerBuilder. Nationally, the median woman who works full time makes 79 cents for every dollar the median man makes, according to the most recent U.S. Census data.

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Hot Pockets Wants To Be The Next Trendy Health Food - Daily Business

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Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company with $92 billion in global revenue in 2015, wants to reinforce its "passion for nutrition," CEO Paul Bulcke said in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

Many of the brands owned by the 150-year-old Swiss food company clearly fit this mission: there's Gerber baby food, a cereal called Fitness, the vitamin drink Boost, and all that bottled water it sells under labels including Nestlé Pure Life, Poland Spring, S. Pellegrino, and Perrier. Perhaps Nestlé's Lean Cuisine would even fall under the nutrition category.

And then, there are Hot Pockets. The microwavable pouches of frozen meat and cheese wrapped in a pastry casing can run over 300 calories as a snack. They come in flavors like pepperoni pizza, Philly steak and cheese, and cheddar cheeseburger. Crust choices include garlic buttery, crispy buttery, croissant crust, seasoned crust, and pretzel bread — and for those watching their butter intake, there's whole grain crust too.

Hot Pockets are, for the average consumer, not the obvious choice for a nutritious snack — and that's something Nestlé wants to change about the 33-year-old brand.

"There's something very important happening. We call it millennials, but at the end of the day it's new, refreshed expectations of consumers," Bulcke said. "Does [Hot Pockets] play into those new expectations of closeness, freshness, organic, natural, also clean label?

"They want to have simplicity. These are the things we have to rewire."

Nestle / Via youtube.com

Ingredients in a Ham 'n Cheese Hot Pocket

Nestle / Via nestleprofessional.us

Hot Pockets has been aware of this perception issue for some time. Some of the things the brand (and other brands at Nestlé) is reevaluating include calories, portion sizes, simplifying the ingredients list, and satiety of the pockets. "There's a lot of science going into it," Bulcke told BuzzFeed News.

In 2013, Nestlé gave Hot Pockets a "foodie" makeover, emphasizing the “premium cuts of meat” and "real cheese" on the menu. It launched ads featuring celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Kate Upton, and Larry King to attract the attention of millennials. From 2013 to 2015, it also removed artificial flavors and reduced sodium levels by 10%. Last year, it introduced bite-sized pockets.

Despite Nestlé's recent efforts, sales continued to lag. In 2013, dollar sales of Hot Pockets fell by 2.2%, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm. In 2014, the decline worsened to 10.2% to about $862 million. Last year, as dollar sales recovered somewhat, IRI data show that volume sales (measured as a UPC scan, regardless of package size) continued to fall.

So, more changes are in the works. "There is, I think, in Hot Pockets more to come," Bulcke told investors in February. Specifically, trendy new Hot Pocket varieties with "interesting and bold flavors, inspired by our deep study and tracking of food trends," according to a spokesperson.

Nestlé would not reveal what it believes might make a fitting modern Hot Pocket in 2016 — perhaps bulgogi? carnitas? kale? samosas? chicken tikka masala? We'll find out soon. A launch is planned for the spring.

Upton and Snoop sing about hot pockets.

Neslte / Via youtube.com

As it makes nutritional tweaks to its foods, Nestlé has a "60/40" rule, meaning "while enhancing nutritional value" of a product, at least 60% of people in a blind taste test have to pick Nestlé's product over a competitor's.

Hot Pockets, Bulcke said, can be part of a healthy diet if people understand what they are eating. "Now, don't eat four of them at the same time. That's the problem a little bit: there's no such thing as bad food, per se. There's bad habits and bad diets."

Hot Pockets were launched in 1983 by an Englewood, Colorado company called Chef America. Nestlé acquired the company in 2002 for $2.6 billion as it tried to boost its frozen food business. When the deal was made, Nestlé's then-chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said in a New York Times story, ''Chef America is an ideal and strategically important complement to our own frozen-food activities in the U.S.A."

Yet as microwavable food gradually fell out of fashion, so did Hot Pockets.

"We have been doing quite a bit already in this area, but I feel there's so much more upside to be done there to make it relevant. It doesn't mean you reposition a brand, you make it just answer what people expect from the brand," said Bulcke.

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Foreign Tech And Engineering Students Can Now Stay In The U.S. Longer - Daily Business

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Some foreign students will be allowed to work in the United States on their student visas for as long as three years after graduating thanks to a new federal rule, which will go into effect Friday.

The rule, which only applies to students studying science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), requires them to attend accredited universities in order get the visa extension. Those who attend unaccredited schools can only stay in the U.S. for one year.

The regulation is meant to attract high-demand tech and engineering talent to the U.S., but it's also an attempt to close a loophole that for years allowed so-called visa mills to flourish, bringing in thousands of students to unregulated — and in some cases essentially nonexistent — American colleges.

The passage of the Obama administration rule, which grants a 24-month work extension to international STEM students, is a boost both for foreign students and for the American universities that have been increasingly trying to recruit them.

Foreign students are increasingly important sources of revenue for many American colleges.

The vast majority of foreign students pay full tuition, without relying on institutional scholarships or even federal student loans. They came to the United States in droves in 2015, growing at the fastest rate in 35 years. Most, especially those studying science and technology, came from China and India.

"This extension is absolutely going to help colleges in the competition for the limited pool of international students [that want] a top-flight education in an advanced industrial economy," said Bill Stock, the incoming president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"As a kid, you have this craze of going to the U.S. to study," said Sapan Patel, an Indian student who graduated in 2012 with a master's degree from NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. "But the worry and stress of getting a job in the U.S., to have that hanging over your head, that scares you." The difficulty of the process is enough, Patel said, that "some of my friends might decide to go to Canada, where getting a work permit and becoming a citizen is much easier, or to Australia."

Typically with student visas, foreign students are given a year to work in the U.S. after graduation.

The work period is called "optional practical training," or OPT, and it also gives students time to apply for a competitive H1-B visa. But a strict cap on the number of skilled worker visas meant that many foreign students lost out on the lottery and were forced to return home immediately.

A 2008 Bush administration rule allowed students with degrees in science and engineering to stay in the country an additional 17 months. The new regulation by the Department of Homeland Security extends that time period to two years. That extra time can be crucial because it allows students to enter the lottery for an H-1B visa for a third or even fourth time, increasing their chances of being allowed to work in the U.S. long-term.

It's "important have that extra year to file for a work visa," said Patel. "And you have more time to prepare, to not have the stress that you'll be kicked out of the country after 29 months."

The Obama's new two-year extension requires student to study at accredited schools.

Previously, even students at schools that had not received a stamp of approval from the Education Department's accrediting agencies could take advantage of the rule — a loophole that to the proliferation of unaccredited, mostly for-profit schools offering science degrees, said Neil Ruiz, a professor at George Washington University who has studied the makeup of foreign students in the U.S.

A handful of those unaccredited schools, which swelled to more than 1,000 students on the boon of the OPT extension, were eventually shut down by the government, which said they functioned essentially as visa mills, allowing students to work out of state without attending classes. School leaders, like the president of Tri-Valley and Herguan University in California, were eventually indicted and jailed for visa fraud.

"It was an unintended consequence," Ruiz said. "It basically created a gray market for students who wanted to work in the U.S., which created Tri-Valleys."

With the new regulation, the Ruiz said, "The Obama administration is trying to make up for that. They're trying to fix mistakes made back in 2008" by requiring accreditation — and thus, increased oversight.

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A earlier BuzzFeed News examination found indications that some accredited schools are enrolling vast numbers of foreign students with almost no oversight by their accreditor.

At one Education Department-approved agency, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, oversight of foreign students is significantly more lax than for U.S. students. ACICS does not require schools to submit employment information, which it calls a "top barometer of institutional quality" for foreign students. As a result, one school, Northwestern Polytechnic University, received accreditation from ACICS without submitting employment data for 99% of its graduates.

"There is a question of how stringent" accreditation is, Ruiz said. By requiring students to attend an accredited school, "This regulation improves things. But they have to make sure that the schools are not all just going to the same weak accreditor."

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Moms Are Turning To Crowdfunding To Help Pay For Maternity Leave - Daily Business

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In a sense, new parents Shawn and Laura Lechette got $1,500 for nothing. In another, it was just for asking.

The couple — whose employers, like most, don't provide paid family leave — raised the sum from friends and family, who donated via GoFundMe, the country's largest crowdfunding site for personal expenses.

Just 12% of Americans, excluding those who work for the government, have access to paid time to spend with their newborns. Some of that 88% are now turning to crowd-funding — a way for social networks to give directly — to pay for the benefit.

"We definitely looked into other sources of funds for maternity leave, but none were available to us," said Mr. Lechette, 31, who works in retail.

While many associate modern crowdfunding with creative and entrepreneurial projects on sites like Kickstarter, personal finance campaigns (where donors don't receive rewards or payback) are also becoming more common, according to Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor at the Wharton Business School who studies the subject.

"Raising money from friends and family is the least financially expensive in a lot of ways, because they don't have the same incentives to make money from you that an investor would," Wollick said of the strategy. "Whether it's 'friends and family' versus venture capital funding or versus a payday loan, going to your own community is a better bet."

Personal crowd-funders sometimes ask for help covering the cost of child care during an emergency, transportation to see a medical specialist, or to replace property lost during a disaster insurance won't cover. Sites like GoFundMe, GiveForward, YouCaring, and “Generosity” (formerly IndieGogo Life) supply platforms for these campaigns, charging modest percentages for facilitating.

Total giving through crowd-funding (for all types) is expected to grow at 25% annually, according to Blackbaud Inc., a technology provider for the sites. Donations on GoFundMe alone — which exclusively funds personal campaigns (such as medical, emergency, and educational causes) rather than business ventures — totaled more than $1 billion in 2015, rivaling America’s top charities.

Seeing a fast-growing model, Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures purchased a majority stake in GoFundMe last summer, valuing the platform at about $600 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Via GoFundMe

As predatory lenders rise — whether targeting students looking to pay for college or the 68 million "un-banked" Americans who rely on pre-paid debit cards like RushCard — consumers like the Lechettes have found crowd-funding sites safer and cheaper ways to weather a crisis.

Most platforms charge a one-time facilitation fee (they average 5% to 8%, according to their sites), which are cheap and painless compared with the compounding nature of credit card debt and the high interest rates on payday loans (above 500% in states with no caps).

"Think of it as a loan you never have to pay back," said Dan Saper, CEO of YouCaring, another crowd-funding site dedicated to personal finance campaigns.

How they got here

Laura Lechette, 30, is a full-time veterinary technician. She and Shaun live in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, with their other two children. When Laura became pregnant in June 2015, they were doing well financially. But an unforeseen need for car and home repairs (totaling about $2,000) caused the pair to fall behind on their bills. With their credit rating pummeled, they couldn't get another type of loan and maxed out their credit cards.

Laura's job also abruptly changed her time-off policy: Instead of a week or two of time off available at the beginning of the year (which she planned to use for maternity leave), employees would start to accrue vacation and sick days on January 1st. Under the new system, Laura accrued only eight hours by her due date. The Lechettes's daughter, Arwen, was born Wednesday.

The Lechettes's story is typical for parents in the United States, which still does not have federally mandated paid leave (it's one of the only industrialized nations that lacks it) and a threadbare safety net when it comes to other welfare programs, like food stamps and subsidized housing.

But with money raised via crowd-funding, Laura and Shawn can cover some expenses (mainly rent) while putting earnings towards new needs like baby wipes and formula. Laura will still have return to work shortly after giving birth, however, to keep bringing in wages, like most American mothers.

No savings

A recent financial survey found that most Americans don't have as much as $1,000 of emergency savings, and would turn to a credit card or other sources to pay for in-a-bind expenses. Nearly one-third of members on YouCaring.com make less than $50,000 a year.

Josh Chapman, CEO of GiveForward, said that as more people have participated in campaigns over the years (whether giving or raising funds), the stigma and taboo around asking has lessened, while awareness has increased. Both factors have led to a rise in site use, he said.

"At the highest level, people aren’t taking out a loan when they’re coming to GiveForward," he added. "They’re taking donations that are not going to be returned."

Via GoFundMe

Chapman likened the system to the earliest forms of insurance, where a pool of people share resources to reduce risk — the expectation being that if a community member donates to a campaign, the campaign founder will likely donate to that friend in the future when he or she is in need.

Major insurance provider Nationwide, seeing a trend of increased crowd-funding, even partnered with platform GiveForward recently, investing an undisclosed amount in the site.

While there are some instances of fraud in the space, Wharton's Mollick says those occasions are rare. Since most givers to campaigns are friends and family, there's social oversight built into the system. "When people feel accountable to other folks, the risk decreases," he said. "It’s easier to pull a fraud on strangers than it is on people you know and have a long-term relationship with."

"We went to crowd-funding because it wouldn't hurt our credit further or put us in an even worse spot if it wound up not working out," said Shaun. He called the experience "humbling," and said he and Laura were floored by the generosity of their community. It also left them disappointed in the absence of paid leave that contributed to their circumstances. "It makes you upset the USA hasn't caught on," he said.

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Volkswagen America Chief Michael Horn Resigns - Daily Business

Michael Horn

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The head of Volkswagen's U.S. business Michael Horn will leave the company "to pursue other opportunities," the company said today.

The statement did not mention Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal, but Horn is just the latest senior executive to leave in the wake of the discovery. The company's chief executive officer Martin Winterkorn resigned in September after it emerged that Volkswagen engineers had installed software on millions of cars that allowed them to pass emissions tests despite far exceeding regulatory guidelines while actually on the road.

Volkswagen USA said that, effective immediately, the chairman of Volkswagen USA, Hinrich Woebcken would take over as interim CEO. While Horn has not been directly linked to any wrongdoing, he testified in front of Congress in October to explain Volkswagen's behavior.

Alexander Koerner / Getty Images

Horn told lawmakers that almost 500,000 cars on the road in the U.S. would require some kind of fix. He described the installation of the "defeat device" as "not a corporate decision" and that internal and external investigations would "find out what drove those people into these decisions and those actions." At a product launch soon after regulators revealed the emissions cheat, Horn said "we have totally screwed up." Volkswagen has said that up to 11 million vehicles have the cheating software.

Horn had worked at Volkswagen for over 25 years, the company said, and took over as head of Volkswagen's US division in 2014.

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Square Is Growing Quickly, But Still Losing Money - Daily Business

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Tech mogul Jack Dorsey's other public company is having some trouble making money. After a rough few quarters at Twitter, Dorsey's Square, which processes payments for merchants and sells software to small- and medium-sized business, reported its earnings for the first time as a public company on Wednesday.

Despite Square's quarterly loss, investors liked what they saw in the earnings report, sending the stock up almost 3% in after-hours trading.

Square had total revenue of $374 million in the fourth quarter, above analysts' expectations of $345 million and a 49% increase from a year ago, while it recorded a net loss of just over $80 million. All told the company processed some $10.2 billion in payments in the last three months of 2015, a 47% jump.

Square IPOed for $9 a share in November, with the stock surging to $13 on its first day of trading. By early February, however, Square shares dropped below the initial price and became a representative of the post-IPO doldrums of technology companies. Since then, however, the stock has surged, closing at just over $12, rising over 4% just on Wednesday.

Mark Palmer, an analyst at BTIG Research, said in an note last week that today's earnings report was "its first opportunity to change the narrative."

Square is best known for its payments service, a fiercely competitive business that requires Square to give up a big chunk of its fees to credit card networks (a little more than half of Square's annual revenue is coughed up in transactions costs). Its other businesses, including scheduling software, analytics software, and even cash advances, are growing faster than payments but still represent a small fraction of overall revenue.

Square's Non-Payment Business Is Growing Quickly

The red line represents software and data product revenue as a share of revenue excluding Square's Starbucks business.

Square/BuzzFeed News / Via square-production.s3.amazonaws.com

"From payment processing to point of sale, hardware to software, business financing to payroll (and more), we have built a cohesive commerce ecosystem that helps sellers start, run, and grow their businesses," the company said in an investor letter.

Analysts at Royal Bank of Canada called Square Capital, the merchant cash advance business, "arguably one of the more important drivers to total revenue growth." As a whole, however, all the software and analytics revenue, some $22 million, made up only 6.7% of all the company's revenue, excluding revenue from Starbucks, in the last three months of year. (Payment processing at Starbucks locations makes up about 13% of Square’s revenue, but the companies’ payments deal expires later this year.) The $22 million in revenue, however, was a 272% jump from a year ago.

The company said that it had "extended over $400 million through more than 70,000 advances in 2015," with $150 million of that coming in the fourth quarter.

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