by FCNews staff
TRAINING: Three flooring companies were once again recognized for their corporate-sponsored educational initiatives as part of Training magazine’s Training Top 125 (see story on page one). Mohawk, at No. 4 ranked highest, but the other two, Shaw and Tandus, deserve their due as well, considering the majority of the list is made up of technology giants, financial services organizations and hospitality chains. These three flooring mills have consistently been ranked by the magazine as having some of the best training and educational programs in the country and may be a key reason as to why they are leaders in the various markets they serve.
FIGURES: Now in its 12th year, Training’s Top 125 reveals some interesting statistics regarding the best-of-best. The mean revenue for applicants was $5.9 billion and $11.3 billion worldwide. The mean training budget was $145.5 million, representing 4.52% of payroll. The mean number of total employees trained per organization—including independent contractors and franchisees—was 41,890, with 18,462 trained in the classroom and 38,438 trained online. A mean of 557 courses were offered as instructor-led sessions; 1,494 were offered as online self-paced modules, and 113 were offered as virtual instructor-led classrooms. And, the average number of full-time and part-time trainers was 232 and 395, respectively.
SOCIAL STATS: How fast is social media growing? Con-sider this about Twitter: As most of you read this, the so-cial networking site will hit 500 million users. Twopcharts, a free online tool for analyzing Twitter data, said based on its research, the half-billion figure will happen around 3:45 p.m. EST on Feb. 22. Twitter is growing so fast, the date was actually revised from the original estimate of Feb. 26. Twitter was launched in March 2006. What’s more remarkable about this growth is a year ago, the site had 300 million users, meaning it grew by 67% during the past 12 months.
SOCIAL BRANDS: The Twitter number comes at the same time other studies are pointing to the power of social media for brands. A study released by Chadwick Martin Bailey, for example, found Twitter brand followers—by a count of 6 in 10—are either more likely to recommend many (18%) or a few (42%) brands as a result of following them. In addition, 50% of Twitter users go online more than once an hour, compared to 34% of Facebook users and 29% of overall online users. But, Facebook users are slightly more likely to go online once every couple of hours (46%) than Twitter users (40%) or overall online users (45%). Regardless of who goes on when, the point is, people are using social sites to talk about brands, which can be anything from a product to an actual store location.
BRICK-AND-MORTAR: Despite the popularity in social media, don’t think it means the end of traditional shopping as we know it. A research project by a group of LIM College students in conjunction with the National Retail Federation Student Association shows the use of technology for shopping by 18 to 25-year-olds is significantly overrated. How much? While 66% use the web to browse and compare prices, more than 68% of those surveyed would much rather shop in stores than online for apparel and shoes, suggesting they like to touch, feel and try on a product before buying. Considering this is the next group of consumers in line to start purchasing homes and buy flooring, this bodes well for our industry’s retailers as there are few products more touchy, feely than floor coverings—from carpet to hard surface, consumers like to run their hands over the surface and feel the texture.