Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Why Corporate Training Must Be Part of Your Mix

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Why Corporate Training Must Be Part of Your Mix As a workforce author, researcher, and consultant, I observed many organizations that were concerned about a labor shortage brought about by baby boomer retirement. This shortage, and the skills gaps that went along with it, was partially delayed in part by the financial crisis and subsequent recession, because many baby boomers lost savings and wereworking past traditional retirement age1. Many baby boomers, born 1946-64, are now in their 70s, and the time has come for them to exit the workforce. According to a recent report by theFederal Reserve2, industrialized nations like the U.S. are facing a shortage of working-aged professionals, and employers need enough qualified employees to survive. In my experience working with dozens of companies over the last decade, I’ve seen that corporate training and development can be an effective solution to this problem. As more senior roles are vacated, corporate training, particularly for succession planning, may be a good vehicle for mid-level professionals to master skills like team leadership, business acumen, strategic planning, conflict resolution, and decision-making. All Employees, All Levels One of the topics I write about most is increasingautomation and machine participation3, and given this trend, I believe that even employees who will not become senior leaders must continuously upskill or reskill to maintain their value within the organization. The days of having one degree and one corresponding skillset may be numbered, because if that skillset is automated, what then? Corporate training provides one way to diversify what each individual employee can contribute and the variety of roles he or she can hold. There are other benefits besides skill acquisition. I’ve written that despite technological advances,productivity in most organizations is lagging4. Corporate training is one method for adjusting your processes, targeting efficiency so employees can better perform tasks and focus their energies more specifically on company goals. I have personally seen that many organizations with solid corporate training initiatives keep their people longer because the employees appreciate the investment in their development. And, I’ve observed that organizations that do right by their people are perceived as having strong brands that customers want to support. For the rest of this piece, please visit the DeVryWORKS website.

Why People Fear Giving Their Manager Feedback

Why People Fear Giving Their Manager Feedback Mary has a Director who comes in EVERY DAY between 9 and 10 when her team is supposed to be there at 8. While the boss, the Executive Director, talked with the person, the tardiness continues. Because this Director is allowed to come in late every day it has affected morale within the department. According to Mary, no one says anything to the E.D. because “…we dont want a target on our back. Others have been pushed out by our E.D., so we don’t dare speak up.” Unfortunately, Mary is not alone in witnessing bad behavior from management. In a recent survey, we asked 1,335 employees to disclose their boss’ significant weaknessâ€"one that everyone knows and discusses covertly to each other, but not directly with their manager. Asking the question was like opening the flood gates on managers behaving badly. Eight out of 10 participants responded with a colorful “open secret” about their boss’ behavior. According to our respondents, the top five weaknesses bosses have but don’t know they have included: Overwhelmed and inadequate A poor listener Biased and unfair Distant and disconnected Disorganized and forgetful It’s clear people have intense and pervasive frustrations with their boss, and yet they don’t feel safe or able to give their manager feedback. So, instead of speaking up, they vent to each other. Essentially, everyone is aware of and annoyed by the boss’ shortcomingsâ€"everyone that is, except for the boss. But why is feedback so one-sided? According to our study, the primary reasons people report for their office-wide silence run the gamut. Some fear speaking up would offend their manager, others say it would cause their boss to retaliate or hurt their career. And many felt their workplace culture doesn’t actually support people airing concerns and frustrations. Finally, a large portion of people simply had a skill gapâ€"they didn’t know what to say or how to bring it up. But regardless of the reasons for holding their tongue, the silence is a symptom of an accountability crisis sweeping corporate America. This crisis does more that propagate bad behavior, it erodes results. That’s because the health of any organization, team, or relationship is a function of the average lag time between when people identify and discuss problems. In healthy teams, when people see something, they say something. In weak teams, performance problems, concerns, and errors remain unchecked which eventually erode results and relationships. To improve the health and success of any team, shorten the lag time between when people see something and say something. The good news is, there are a handful of skills people can use to confront a misbehaving manager and reduce the accountability gap. These skills help people step up to performance discussions while also preserving relationships and results: Work on you first, the boss second.  Get your emotions in check by looking for how you may be adding to the problem. It isn’t that the boss doesn’t have faults; it’s that most people tend to exaggerate their boss’s problems and ignore how they may be contributing. Hold the right conversation. Most people  think  they are giving their boss feedback but fail to get to the real issue that concerns them. For example, if your fundamental concern is that your boss doesn’t respect you or that you don’t trust your boss â€" you have to find a way to discuss that issue without skirting around it. Start with safety.  It can be tough to tell your boss you don’t trust him or her. But it is completely possible to do so without rupturing the relationship if you can help your boss feel safe. People feel psychologically safe when they know you care about their interests and respect  them. Start with: “I have a concern I’d like to discuss. It’s important to me, but it’s also something I think will help me work more effectively. May I discuss it with you?” Facts first.  Don’t start with your harsh judgments or vague conclusions. For example, “I don’t trust you” or “You’re a control freak.” Instead, start with the facts. Strip out any judgmental or provocative language and be specific. For example, “After you told me you brought me up for a promotion in the HR meeting, two people at that meeting e-mailed me and asked me why I wasn’t recommended by you.” About the author: Joseph Grenny is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and leading social scientist for business performance. He is the co-founder of VitalSmarts, a top 20 leadership training company. For thirty years, Joseph has delivered engaging keynotes at major conferences including the HSM World Business Forum at Radio City Music Hall. Joseph’s work has been translated into twenty-eight languages, is available in thirty-six countries, and has generated results for 300 of the Fortune 500.

Why Happy Employees Leave

Why Happy Employees Leave In a post-industrial economy, more of us are able to choose what we want to do for work. What we want is something personal. Something unique. A recent study by the London School of Business and Finance found that 47% of professionals in the UK want to change jobs. That figure jumped to 66% among Millennials (people aged between 20 and 34). Another report found that nearly half of workers in the UK plan to quit their jobs this year. Cheating on your company is in, it seems. The question is,  why  do happy employees leave? Moreover, why do they leave jobs they genuinely enjoy? For the past 10 years I’ve worked in the people business. Either as a recruiter or startup founder, I’ve met with thousands of company leaders, all of which have had trouble keeping  top talent. This is my best attempt so far at explaining  why: Increased connectivity,  increased temptation It’s never been easier to cheat on your employer and it’s never been easier to get caught. Changes in technology, attitude and lifestyle have led to huge levels of job dissatisfaction. The emergence of increasingly convenient job platforms and communication apps have practically eliminated the time taken in moving jobs. From setting up alerts from job board aggregators like Indeed to searching hashtags,  the pain  in looking for suitable openings has been reduced. Less dependence on salary as income Even in an economic downturn many skilled workers are confident that they can easily find a new job if they get fired for getting caught interviewing elsewhere. An emergence of supplementary income streams from the sharing economy, such as selling our things on Ebay and renting our house on Airbnb, to becoming a part-time Uber driver have reduced the fear of losing our jobs.  With exponential advancements in technology the long predicted adoption of portfolio careers might soon become a reality. Cheating is less obvious What constitutes cheating on your company? Is it attending a job interview behind your employers back? Is it attending an event  hosted by a competitor? Is it following companies of interest on social media? As the lines become blurred, what it means to cheat  becomes harder to define, and consequently the associated taboos diminish. Attending job interviews whilst still employed is universally frowned upon  yet  universally practiced, and will continue to exist unless a radical approach is taken by companies to resolve it. Image crafting Constant social connectivity has had a huge effect on how happy we think we are at work. By relentlessly comparing our work lives to others on social media we have raised our expectations as to what we want from a career. Paul Harvey, professor at the university of New Hampshire has studied Gen Y workers, and comments: “A great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations. They often feel entitled to a level of respect and rewards that aren’t in line with their actual ability and effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and rewards they are expecting.” Worse still, we’re not even comparing ourselves in a fair way. For a post to be shared on Facebook it usually needs to be inherently remarkable, so we end up comparing our back catalogue  to our friends greatest hits! Loyalty is the new shame Career monogamy used to mean one company for life; today it’s more like one company at a time. We used to hope a company would pick us, thank our lucky stars if it did and then wait patiently to climb the career  ladder.  Today, we pick the company and stop courting other companies, if only for the time being. Where leaving a good job at  a good company used to cause shame, today choosing to stay with a company when you can leave is the new shame. No one is  specifically congratulated for staying with  their company. No likes, no comments, no emojis. Everyone gets to brag about their awesome new job. Loyalty is the new shame. Increased expectations We expect so much from our employers today. A place where I make some of my best friends. A place that constantly challenges and progresses me. A place that motivates me intrinsically. A place that stimulates me intellectually and supports my wants and my desires, and believes me to be   indispensable, irreplaceable and exceptional. Today we’ve never been more inclined to stray, not because we have new desires to pursue, but because we live in a world where we feel entitled to pursue those desires. It  is a  culture of I deserve to be happy.  We used to leave a company because we were  unhappy, today we leave because we could be happier. Summary When a career was an economic enterprise, then getting caught interviewing elsewhere threatened our economic security. Now that careers are increasingly becoming designed by personal preference and not necessity, we no longer need to find a sensible and safe job to hold onto. Instead we can find ways to do something we love and fund our lifestyle in various other ways. It’s not that we’re ungrateful; were just lured by the power of the forbidden. Ever since Adam ate the apple we’ve been naturally curious. It is not so much that we are looking for another job, as much as we are looking for another version of ourselves. A more adventurous one. Author: Chris Platts is Chief Rocketeer at  TalentRocket, a company culture recruiting platform for London based startups and scale-ups. [Featured image: Shutterstock]

Confessions of a Former Sub-Prime Lender

Confessions of a Former Sub-Prime Lender So most of us are to the point where we can’t handle hearing one more negative news story on the recession, failing banks or the bail out.   Personally, I think we had it coming to us.     I think back to my first job after college where I was selling sub-prime mortgages for one of the largest and most reputable financial institutions in the world.   My experience there is the perfect example of why I feel this way.     For those of you who aren’t familiar, sub-prime lending is when financial institutions give loans to customers with less than ideal credit scores.   These customers are considered high risk and get loans at a higher rate than someone with good credit.     At my job, we were trained to believe that we were doing something great for our customers!   That 12% interest rates plus 3 points (3 points = an upfront cost of 3% of the mortgage amount added to the loan balance) on mortgage refinances was totally normal.   I found this interesting considering the mortgage rate at that time was about 7% with no points.     I was told that giving a hardworking customer a loan for more than their house was worth was GREAT because we were paying off their $70,000 in credit card debt and reducing their monthly payments.   One time, I did a mortgage refinance which used the equity in the customer’s home to pay off their brand new Cadillac Escalade, because the $800 monthly car payments were “really killing them”…(Um hello, do you REALLY need an Escalade?!?)   Of course we mainly closed Adjustable Rate Mortgages (aka ARM’s) that I knew the customers wouldn’t be able to afford once the rate adjusted upwards.   We took  ALL the equity out of their homes which they had worked their whole lives to pay for which means they’d have no nest egg for the future.     I could go on, but I think you understand why my time at this company lasted only a short time.   Although not all the mortgages I closed were as extreme as the examples above, I couldn’t sleep at night knowing what I was doing to make a living.   Even as a ripe newbie, something just didn’t feel right.   Turning on the news almost 3 years later shows that my gut feelings were right.   Americans and their big corporations had this coming.   Credit was way too easy to get, it seems like almost anyone could walk off the street and get a loan- even if they couldn’t pay for it.   The people giving out these loans had no stake in whether or not they were paid back because, in many cases, mortgages were bundled together and sold off like commodities to other huge financial monsters.   How did I end up at a job like this?!   Well, I had no clue what I was getting into from the interviews.   NO clue.   But thats another story.   I will say  that I was also told that I would “definitely” make $70,000 my first year and that this was the hot new career path for sales-oriented  finance majors.     So maybe it’s not just the big companies who are responsible for the economic downturn:  people like me and my sub-prime customers are responsible for the economic downturn too.     I went into this job solely for the opportunity to make a lot of money at age 22:  greedy and unnecessary? Maybe.   Were my customers being responsible by allowing themselves to buy Escalades they couldn’t pay for and racking up sometimes over $100,000 in credit card debt and hoping someone could fix their mistakes?   Maybe.   No one forced me to take that job, nor my customers to make their excessive purchases.   For some reason we, as Americans, felt the need to prove something to keep up with the Jones’.   Yes, technically financial institutions let us take it too far but in the end, we were the ones making those decisions.   And now the bubble has burst and everyone wonders what happened.   The good news is that even the wealthy can feel the effects of being greedy this time.   The recession is affecting everyone and I think it has caused all social classes to take a step back and re-evaluate their basic needs and values.   I hope America learns a lesson from this rather than allowing the cycle to repeat in the future.  

Writing a Resume As a High School Student

Writing a Resume As a High School StudentWriting a resume as a high school student is something that you may never have thought of before. It is a great way to showcase your talents and abilities, but many people do not know how to write a resume as a high school student. There are a few things that you can include on a resume that will help you to get the job you want, so read on for more information.The best resumes for high school students are going to be very unique. You will want to focus on your strongest skills and talents, and be as specific as possible. You do not want to leave any time or space for things to be left out. If you are a writer who is just getting started, you will want to start with a short list of the top ten skills that you have and write about them from there.These will be things like your spelling and grammar, including your ability to make use of alliteration, your ability to write, your knowledge of your favorite television shows, and other things of tha t nature. Once you have this list ready, make sure that you include this in the top three skills listed on your resume. You can also include what you like to do for fun and your interests, if you have any. This will help to show that you are interested in what is being asked of you and have a good idea of what you want to do when you grow up.Some companies have their employees to submit applications for jobs that are based on certain skills. Some of these skills include having leadership skills, being organized, and knowing how to take constructive criticism. In order to get noticed by these companies, you will want to highlight these things. You may also want to include what your parents are saying about you in terms of how well you are doing.It is also important to remember that you are a teenager, and you will want to be neat, but you should also avoid something that seems too polished. When you are writing a resume as a high school student, you do not want to be too formal. Show some personality, but be prepared to look professional.You will need to try to create the perfect resume for the job that you are applying for. By doing this, you will find that you can focus on the things that you have to offer. You will be able to focus on your strengths, and highlight your strengths and talents. This will be very helpful as you go through the rest of your life.Remember, your resume is going to be your first impression. When you create a resume as a high school student, it will become your last impression, so be sure that you are covering all of the bases. Include everything that you can think of that is related to the work that you are applying for, but you may need to write your own.Having a resume as a high school student is something that many students look forward to, but many do not think that they can write a resume as a high school student. It is not a big deal, but it is something that everyone has to go through at one point in their lives. Always be pre pared, and you will be able to get the job that you are hoping for.

Happiness at work at Next Jump - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Happiness at work at Next Jump - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog On my speaking tour of New York and Boston last week I had a chance to visit Next Jump and talk to their CEO and founder Charlie Kim and what I saw and heard there just blew me away. What theyre doing to create a happy workplace is world-leading. Some of what theyre doing is great, some of it is insanely great and one thing they do is almost unheard of and completely revolutionary. Read on to find out what that is. Next Jumps business is employee rewards programs. Companies who sign up with them can offer their employees discounts at over 30,000 merchants on everything from groceries, diapers and pet food to cell phones, computers, car rentals and travel bookings. 70% of the Fortune 1000 companies use Next Jump and they cover over 100mm+ users globally. Their HQ is on 5th avenue in New York and they also have offices in Boston, San Franscisco and London. They have around 200 employees, 75% of whom are highly skilled engineers. They have a great culture and great results have followed: 90% of Next Jumps employees say they love their jobs. Not like love! Employee turnover is essentially 0, which is almost unheard of, since so many of the employees are highly sought after engineers from MIT and other top US east coast universities. They are also profitable AND growing like crazy. Dance battle. Thats the CEO on the right boogying down. But why are they so successful and happy? There are many things the company does right. Heres a small sample: Theres a gym where employees can work out. Many companies do and in most cases those gyms lie empty. To actually get people to use the gym, each Next Jump employee belongs to a team, each workout counts towards your team?s weekly score and the winning team earns points. At first only 5% of the employees worked out regularly, in the past 3 years over 80% of the employees have worked out a minimum of twice a week. Subsidised vacations means the company will cover half your familys vacation expenses (up to $5,000). They want you to take your vacations! Free food and they really want you to eat well. the first free meal was breakfast. A healthy lunch was then added as an incentive to those who attend a lunchtime fitness class. Healthy dinners are all around building community through eating together. Next Jump is massively into mentorships and coaching and every employee is constantly being encouraged and pushed to grow and develop both professionally and personally. Once a year they fly all employees in for a company party. Main feature: The dance-off. And everyone must dance. Theres more here. They encourage charitable giving. For instance, after hurricane Sandy, many low-salaried new yorkers couldnt work and therefore lost out on important salaries. Next Jumpers gave 10% of their paychecks to these ?Forgotten Ones? and started handing out envelopes of cash with a note explaining where this money came from. People then reported back with pictures and stories which you can see here. Now, all of these practices are great and definitely contribute to happiness at work. But wait, theres more Dont forget the massive slipnslide at the summer party. Here are my 4 favorite things that they do at Next Jump to keep their employees happy. 4: Code for a cause While giving money to charity is great, Next Jump encourages employees to also give something even more valuable: Their skills. Employees can team up to develop much-needed IT solutions for charities who cant otherwise afford to pay to have these systems done. Employees get a true feeling of satisfaction from helping a worthy cause and from directly seeing how their work helps others. Read more about code for a cause here. 3: MV-21 While Next Jump of course has a CEO and a board of directors, it also has something very different. Every year the entire company votes to select a team of 21 leaders called MV-21. For the next year, this group has two responsibilities: They are responsible for growing Next Jumps core business results. The group is responsible for leading and developing the companys culture. The key thing here is that this group is voted on by the whole company and not hand-picked by the management team. This means that the company is led by people others want to follow. The MV-21 leadership team. If youre wondering, the MV stands for Marthas Vineyard (a vacation island off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts), where one of Next Jumps investors owns a compound that the company has been using annually for a leadership offsite. The house sleeps 21 and, hence, the tradition of choosing 21 key employees each year was born. 2: Recognise those who help others Many companies recognise and reward those who do well and top performers are showered with accolades and bonuses. While Next Jump does reward performance, they also reward those who help others do a great job. Check out this sign which I saw in their reception area: So Project Awesome is not to reward those who are awesome, but those who help others be awesome. Many companies completely ignore those people at Next Jump they are the heroes. 1: The No Fire Policy This is the insane one and the reason I heard about Next Jump in the first place. Charlie Kim, the CEO, had long been a proponent of the hire slowly, fire quickly approach but had a change of mind and made the radical decision. You can read a great interview with Kim about this policy over at David Marquets blog but the gist of it is this: Once Next Jump hires you, they will not fire you. Their commitment to you is total and they will go to any length to make sure that you are happy and productive. This is not soft in any way there is a lot of tough love at Next Jump and people are constantly pushed to go beyond their limits and learn new things. Theres only one exception to this rule: If you cheat, lie or behave unethically they will fire you. You may think thats a weird idea, but consider these two things. First of all, this works! Next Jumps staff surveys have shown a direct impact on both employee turnover and happiness. And secondly, this is only possible because of the other processes they have in place, including some very intentional hiring and a massive focus on developing people. Again, read David Marquets excellent blog post for more details on this revolutionary policy. The upshot I left the meeting with Charlie Kim completely fired up about meeting a company with such an unwavering commitment to creating a great culture AND with the balls of steel it takes to try so many innovative or even radical ideas. Your take What do you think does Next Jump sound like a good workplace? Is there anything theyre doing, that youd like to see your workplace adopt? Is there something your workplace does that makes you happy? Write a comment, Id love to know what you think. Related articles Top 5 ways NOT to praise people at work. Memo from one boss: Dont work too much. Much of what you know about business is wrong. You will continue to believe it even now that you know it?s wrong. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. 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Job Search After Age 50 Discovering Your Fit Part 2 - Hire Imaging

Job Search After Age 50 Discovering Your Fit Part 2 - Hire Imaging Job search after age 50: Paid or volunteer work? My last post explored reasons people want to stay working after age 50.   If you’ve decided that you do, but are not sure whether it will be for pay or simply to do something that you love on a volunteer basis, here’s some food for thought. Job search after age 50: Researching paid work If you think you would like to work for pay and it’s been some time since you looked for a job, it would be useful to gather information concerning your career search. This may help you: Figure out if the field you are interested in is on the rise or has seen better days. Find out what new opportunities are available in the thriving industries. Leverage your experience and skills differently. Perhaps you could train or mentor others in your area of expertise. Maybe you can contribute transferrable expertise to a new industry. Job search after age 50: A paid-work reinvention story My client, Gary had been a health administrator for 30 years. At age 50, he returned to law school. Today, at age 56, he’s combined his prior background with his law degree, specializing in litigation between health care providers and third-party payors. He plans to live many years, and is ecstatic about starting a new career with his old one as the foundation. This may not be what you have in mind for a retirement career. I simply show it to illustrate that the possibilities are many! AARP provides current information on the “Best Employers for Workers Over 50” as well as other helpful job-search tips for workers over age 50. Frequently reviewing online employment resources will help you stay educated about the changing job market. Look at both company and other websites. The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) http://www.doleta.gov/seniors/ and Wetfeet http://www.wetfeet.com/ are two good sites. Of course, there are many others. Job search over age 50: A tip for those under age 65 If you are under 65, check out earning restrictions before you accept employment. To make an informed decision, you can contact the Social Security Administration at www.socialsecurity.gov or call 1-800-772-1213. They can help you calculate the numbers based on your personal factors. You will want to decide whether to delay receiving Social Security benefits until you are eligible to collect your full benefits at age 70. Waiting until you are 70 to collect can be a gamble because depending upon your age, it may take quite a few years to break even and make up for the amount of social security money you will have lost by waiting until 70. Job search over age 50: Is your work goal volunteering? If you decide that your retirement career will be volunteer work, two excellent sites for volunteer information and opportunities are Volunteer Match http://www.volunteermatch.org/ and Idealist http://www.idealist.org/info/Volunteer. Another great site on retirement jobs (both paid and volunteer) is Enjoy Retirement Jobs http://www.enjoy-retirement-jobs.com/. What do you want your work life to be like when you’re over 50? Whatever you choose, give yourself time to plan and work the plan. We’ll explore that in my next post.