Steps to a Successful Diversity Program

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

This month, one of our Newsbrief stories quoted experts who say while a solid diversity program is more important than ever before, it's time to be more subtle about it. Advertising your company as an Equal Opportunity Employer just doesn't do it any more. It can even be a turnoff, making minority job-seekers think they're being courted just to fill a quota. Here are some steps that companies say have helped them to build a successful diversity effort, reported in the latest issue of Staffing Management.

View diversity as a business advantage

"It has to be a business goal," says one recruiter. The Urban League reports that most companies noted for good diversity practices have been involved in those efforts for more than 20 years. The most important traits are commitment and involvement of top leadership. That doesn't happen unless it's linked to business.

Define Diversity, set goals and measure progress

Looking across the board at your company, says Texas Instruments' Diane Johnson, is not always a good assessment of diversity progress. Many times minorities and women are well represented in the workforce but not in leadership positions. She studies U.S. census data to find out how many engineers are in the population, the graduation rates and the percentage of women, blacks, Hispanics and other groups in those pools. "Then we compare our current population to see if we're on target" and set hiring goals. Managers make the final decisions, and their buy-in to hire diverse candidates is critical.

Hold managers accountable

At Pitney Bowes, diversity metrics are built into the corporation's business objectives and management compensation is tied to diversity. Managers are also held accountable at Allstate, which has mandatory diversity training. The company has moved away from emphasis on affirmative action and looks at having a diverse workforce as business strategy, as opposed to a legal mandate.

Tap the college market. Building a strong campus relationship requires a presence that is constant, positive and consistent. Staples has established ties with the student chapters of minority professional organizations, and brings in students as interns with an eye toward eventually hiring them as employees.

Connect with diverse professionals

Pitney Bowes has been recognized for its strong support and sponsorship of minority professional organizations and CEO Michael Critelli is current chairman of the National Urban League. Supporting such groups is one way the company stays on the leading edge of the diversity movement. One of their newer initiatives is an MBA Leadership Summit for members of Hispanic and black MBA associations, which is focused on career and technical development. They attend career fairs and national meetings, sponsor sessions and provide speakers for professional organization conferences.

Make community connections

Both Texas Instruments and Allstate reach all the way down into grade schools, supporting programs that target diverse seventh and eighth graders. Allstate is involved with numerous community programs that deal with tolerance, inclusion and diversity, partnering with the NAACP, the National Crime Prevention Council, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement and the Hispanic Association of Police Commanders. They support the Women's Business Development Center and the Entrepreneurial Youth Institute, a partnership with the NAACP that teaches entrepreneurial skills to young people. All enhance their reputation as a company that is tolerant and inclusive of minorities.

Focus on a long-term strategy

Companies that have effective diversity efforts view diversity as a long-term strategy and use multiple vehicles to find viable candidates. That means committed time and resources. Said one executive, "Leadership commitment has to be real, not ceremonial. . . It means being an advocate. . .We as leaders must do this job ourselves. Diversity can't be delegated."

After 20 years, a whole new set of work-life issues

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

This year WFC Resources – and arguably the entire work-life field – celebrates its 20th anniversary. Back in 1984, “work and family” was a brand new term, totally focused on childcare. There’ve been some dramatic changes in the past 20 years, changes in the field of work-life, and in the focus of the work-life professional.

Some things have not changed. Quality care for children of all ages is certainly no less important. In our rush to please Wall Street, it often looks as if American society has forgotten that without healthy, nurtured children there will be no future.

Eldercare and other caregiving programs are more important than ever, and will continue to grow in importance as our workforce ages.

And it is still vitally important to help employees meet their other personal and home life obligations in order that they may be fully present when they're at work.

So we're not suggesting that we work-life professionals change our focus. We are suggesting it be broadened to include the basic needs of all workers. Here are some thoughts about what some of those needs are, and where we believe we work-life professionals must put our attention.

Wages

Wages may be the most critical work-life issue. This spring, a study by Northeastern University researchers reported that while output increased 7.3% between 2002 and 2003, hourly compensation grew only 1.2%. In every other economic recovery since World War II, labor compensation increased at a greater rate than corporate returns. This time, while corporate profits have achieved healthy growth, the real hourly and weekly earnings of the average wage and salary worker increased by only 1.6% over the past two years, from $15.10 to $15.63. As the attention of financial executives focuses on human capital, more work-life professionals are being called to the table where business decisions are made. Let's not let them forget while we're there that people must earn a living wage.

Health care

Health care is a key work-life issue for several reasons. First, of course, there are the uninsured, a group that’s growing by leaps and bounds. And now the link between high health care costs and jobs is painfully clear. Economists are saying that the unaffordable cost of health insurance is one of the main reasons job growth hasn’t kept up with the rest of the recovery. It’s also one of the reasons, along with wages, that U.S. jobs are going to India and China (although that’s a more complicated issue). The latest Mercer study says providing health care benefits could cost employers as much as 13% more in 2005 on top of the huge increases over the past few years. Many firms will shift as much as 4% of that increase to employees. Work-life professionals had better join the lobby for government help on this one; employees and employers must be confident about affordable health care that includes prevention as well as catastrophe protection.

Workload, stress and the focus on productivity

Every study ever conducted on the matter has linked stress with higher health care costs! Employers are trying hard to reduce employee angst with “stress management” programs, but there is no “program” that can counterbalance 70-hour weeks and the stress of unmet expectations and obligations both at home and at work. Researchers are finding that the benefits of stress management programs are, at best, short lasting, said a recent article in the Science Times section of the New York Times (9-7-04). With the assistance of Blackberries, Palms and WiFi, work obligations have pushed “like a climbing vine” into almost every corner of private life. An article by American University professors Joan Williams and Ariane Hegewisch published last month (9/6/04) in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (and originally in the LA Times) points out that the U.S. “productivity advantage” is just another way of saying that we work more hours than workers in any other industrialized country except South Korea. Our lead in the world vanishes when productivity is measured per hour worked. One mission for work-life professionals should be to encourage their employers and clients to know what a normal day's work is and enforce it.

Demographics and the quandary of the older worker

Each month our collection of news features more and more articles about the older worker, and it's a confusing state of affairs. Some companies are still offering early retirement packages to get rid of them and others are knocking themselves out to keep them as long as possible. Here are three factors involved in the decision:

1. As workers get older, their benefit costs rise (again, health care raises its ugly head) decreasing their value.
2. It behooves companies to hold on to those expensive older workers and keep their experience. Whether or not we agree that there is a severe labor shortage ahead, there seems to be no disagreement about the approaching shortage of leadership skills and experienced workers, as the Gen Xers, fewer in number, move into leadership positions.
3. You can’t fire a worker just for being old, and fewer are going to be enticed by a retirement package unless it replaces the savings they lost in the recent recession. More will feel forced to stay in order to replenish their savings.

Put them all together and they add up to an older workforce, and once employees begin to age, they need some accommodation. While there may be some costs involved, next month’s Trend Report will show that not only are companies doing that, they're also demonstrating a firm belief that the cost is nothing compared with the payoff. Work-life professionals should be ready to offer advice and counsel on how to go about it.

Flexibility and control

We all know by now, 20 years after the birth of our field, that these are two of the most important words in a work-life professional's vocabulary. We must help employers see that if they want employees to take responsibility, they must treat them like responsible adults, not school children. That means collaborating and agreeing on goals, making results measurable, and giving employees flexibility and control over how the work is done. And it means redesigning jobs so that those tasks that demand to be done in the office can be separated out wherever possible, leaving a "job" that's appropriate for flexibility. Work-life professionals can help.
Once we thought that if we did a good job, companies would catch on to the importance of hiring whole people and allowing them to have a life, and we work-life professionals would put ourselves out of business. Twenty years later it looks as though that's not going to happen any time soon. While work-life may be integrated into other areas of the company, and may even be called by names like "talent manager" or "retention strategist," the tasks of the advocate are expanding rather than contracting, and the stakes are only getting higher.

Colleges and universities meet to discuss work-life

by Leslie DiPietro

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

Reflections on Culture Change in the Academy

“We’ve come a long way, Baby!” That was the sense I got at the CUWFA (College and University Work/Family Association) conference in Santa Barbara in March. There was more talk about strategic planning and a focus on what Linda Siebert Rapoport (University of Illinois, Chicago) termed “total institutional transformation” – broad scale shifts in culture, rather than piece by piece change efforts. Work/life practitioners at universities are getting much more skilled in finding ways to integrate and “brand” what they are doing to further the overall mission of the school.

I also had the sense that the upper echelons of administration at many schools are—(finally!) beginning to “get it.” Several work/life directors came with their bosses (or their boss’ boss!) in tow, and they seemed actively engaged in the conference.

Competition for human capital is the driver here, expressed most frequently in terms of faculty recruitment. Academia is only just beginning to understand the impact of the large numbers of faculty who are fast approaching retirement. The AAUP (American Association of University Professors) calculated that in 2003, 35% of all full-time faculty were 55 and over. Work/life directors and practitioners are finding ways to calculate the percentage of potential retirees – both staff and faculty – and broadcasting ways the work/life program can help.

However, I did not hear a lot about the need to target programs or policies to staff, particularly hourly workers. (There are notable exceptions, i.e. UC Berkeley and Ohio State). Although there is general support and some movement toward flexibility policies, I didn’t hear of many institutions that were actively making progress towards adopting new policies, let alone policies that had an appeal process. Likewise, I didn’t find much movement toward management training for flexibility – something that we all agree is necessary to bring about a real culture change. This may be a function of many “old school” HR administrations, where a majority of work/life programs are housed, but work/life programs need to figure out how to make change in this arena.

Childcare services have (finally!) come into the limelight, particularly in terms of infant and toddler care. Several of the “top tier” schools, such as MIT, Harvard, Michigan and UC Berkeley, have built, or are building, new centers, and it's just a matter of time until pressure from peer institutions brings more schools into the fold. Many are choosing to outsource the management of these centers, although some have formed creative partnerships between the work-life programs within the University and outside vendors. Most of the change in this area seems to be coming from the need to recruit top-level faculty by showing the “bricks and mortar” commitment, whereas students’ childcare needs are by and large being met through additional scholarship money. In this way, more student-parent families can be served than would be the case if they were allotted a small proportion of spaces in campus childcare centers.

If you had asked me a year ago whether domestic partner benefits were prevalent at universities and colleges, I would have said a resounding “yes” (with the exception of some Bible Belt schools.) Today, however, I am less optimistic, given the voters’ repudiation of Affirmative Action policies in states like Michigan, where the courts recently overturned domestic partnership benefits in public universities and colleges.

Also, there are clear indications that students are leaving school – both graduate and undergraduate – with staggering amounts of debt. This may be an area with which work-life programs (the ones that serve students, at any rate) may be able to help by sponsoring financial planning workshops for students, for example..

I asked some attendees if they thought there were areas where business could learn from colleges and universities, and Sam Hester, CUWFA President and work-life manager at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, had this to say: One of the strengths of the academy is its emphasis in providing and nurturing an environment that promotes creativity and freedom of though and expression. Some of the “great” companies have created a corporate culture that fosters creativity and open expression of ideas. I think that our long history of academic freedom might provide a model to business in creating this type of open environment.”

Linda Rapoport believes businesses could apply the tenure clock flexibility model (the practice of pausing the “time to tenure” clock for faculty who need time off due to birth, adoption or care for a family member with a serious illness) to careers in accounting firms, for example. And Jennie McAlpine, director of the Office of Work/Life at the University of Michigan, pointed out that some colleges have had childcare programs as part of their teacher training curriculum since the 1940’s, and that currently they set a high bar for quality in the communities where they are located.

CUWFA members saw a potential for partnership, agreeing that universities have a lot to offer in terms of research capabilities. Businesses would do well, they said, to tap their expertise.

David Thompson, a friend and former work-life director at both Purdue and Microsoft, once told me that it takes universities about seven times as long to make meaningful cultural changes as it does for private industry. (I don’t know what his source was, but I’m confident he has one!) This fact obviously reflects huge differences in academic culture versus business culture. Although it can be maddeningly hard to wait to see these changes adopted, if I learned one thing when I was in academia, it was that change will happen, and it will be “well-tested” in the process. So hopefully, the change will stick!

The Happy Workaholic: A role model for employers

by Stewart Friedman and Sharon Lobel

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

Business books are filled with common-sense admonitions insisting that leaders be role models. We have reason to question whether this common wisdom is truly wise.

Can a workaholic executive be an advocate for something that does not mirror her own personal lifestyle choices without appearing hypocritical? The executive we call the "Happy Workaholic" values work over other activities and invests her time and energy accordingly. Contrary to popular belief, "Happy Workaholics" can advocate for employees to realize both their company’s goals and what matters to them in their personal lives. They serve as role models, not for "balance" in the usual sense but, rather, for authenticity.

Authenticity means knowing what you truly care about and devoting your attention and activities to these ends. Research indicates that people find a sense of fulfillment from being true to themselves. Happy Workaholic executives know that when employees feel fulfilled in all aspects of their lives then they are better able to add value to their companies.

We conducted about 100 interviews in 25 organizations over a period of 4 years (1999-2002) to find out how Happy Workaholics, who willingly subjugate personal priorities for the sake of their careers, create and sustain cultures in their businesses that support employees’ fulfillment of work and personal life goals. How do they do it? Here’s a summary of what we found.

In one-to-one interactions with their people, Happy Workaholics respect diverse choices about work and personal life, talk to employees about what matters most, help employees take responsibility for their choices, and foster trust. They:

• Assume responsibility for helping employees act on their values and priorities
• Make it easy for employees to discuss personal life challenges when necessary
• Get to know people on a personal level
• Stay abreast of employees’ personal priorities and ask about them

Happy Workaholic executives also engender support for their employees through system-wide actions. They broadcast their advocacy for authenticity (making work and personal life choices that are aligned with one’s values and priorities); tell their own stories publicly; question basic assumptions about how, where, and when work gets done; actively encourage innovation in the design of work; focus on results, not process; and change performance management systems to support authenticity. Happy Workaholics:

• Sponsor discussions that address the impact of the organization’s culture on the expression of diverse core values with respect to work and personal life
• Incorporate support for both work and personal life in the organization’s mission statement, vision, operating principles and management practices
• Provide resources, financial and political, needed for successful change efforts
• Make sure everyone feels free to speak up about new ways of getting things done
• Recognize and reward employees for identifying inefficient work practices
• Ensure that workloads are manageable
• Hold employees accountable for results, not face time at the office

A new generation of senior executive men and women is on the rise. They represent greater diversity in the choices executives make about how they lead their lives at work, at home, in the community, and for themselves. Our bet is that the market for talent increasingly will favor organizations with the highest proportions of authentic executives. Which type dominates yours?

Combating Sleep Deprivation in Shiftworkers

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

This tip comes to us from an article in a periodical called Occupational Hazards. Writer Josh Cable interviewed Bill Sirois, senior VP of Circadian Technologies, about how to make sure your shiftworkers aren't sleep-deprived.

We weren't built for shiftwork, says the article, so it's up to employers to manage the risk factors that come with the territory. Educating your shiftworkers in the following areas can help you make a positive impact on their safety, health and productivity.

Caffeine management: Caffeine is a powerful stimulant, but drinking too much coffee or drinking it late in a shift can interfere with sleep. Encourage shiftworkers to use coffee in moderation and to drink coffee at the front end of the shift; they should switch to decaf or juice for the rest of the shift.

Diet: Encourage shiftworkers to "graze" through their shifts on low-fat, low-sugar snacks such as low-fat crackers, popcorn, pretzels, tossed salads and celery and carrot sticks with low-calorie dip.

Exercise: A 20-minute aerobic workout can delay by 3 to 4 hours the energy/alertness drop that workers experience during their circadian lowpoint and can help workers sleep when their shift is over, according to Sirois. That's why Entergy Corp.'s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass., has installed aerobic equipment in its facility. "Guys are encouraged to use it if they're feeling a bit down," says Paul Coffey, a project manager at the facility. The facility also has incorporated surveillance walks into the schedules of many of its 125 shiftworkers.

Naps: A 20-minute power nap has been scientifically proven to provide a 4-hour boost in alertness and productivity, according to Sirois. Develop a policy that allows overly tired workers to take short naps – with supervisor permission – as needed or during breaks.

Scheduling: A growing number of employers are moving away from 8-hour schedules to 12-hour schedules; advocates include author Glenn McBride, who contends that 12-hour schedules, if managed properly, provide more energy, recovery time and quality time with family. Sirois recommends starting morning shifts around 7:30 or 8 a.m. to accommodate the circadian rhythms of the most workers. For rotating schedules, clockwise rotations from days to evenings to nights are user-friendly; counterclock-wise rotations "are extremely stressful," Sirois says. Any restructuring of schedules only will succeed with employee involvement and input.

Training: Incorporate education on the basics of sleep, circadian rhythms and other shiftwork issues and strategies into training. Bayer Material Sciences of Baytown, Texas, hired Circadian Technologies to provide train-the- trainer classes for six of its employees, and now the facility provides mandatory training for its newly hired shiftworkers and newly promoted shift supervisors as well as voluntary training for all employees, explains site HR Director Shirlyn Cummings. Training covers sleep management, nutrition, family relationships and other tips and guidelines for managing a shiftwork lifestyle. Family members, spouses and friends are encouraged to attend.

Work environment: Changes to the work environment can reduce physical and mental fatigue. Bayer Material Sciences, for example, recently lifted a 35-year ban on music in its 15 or so control rooms. Cummings says the previous anti-music policy "was based on the belief that additional noise or music would be a distraction," but recent research shows that "within certain parameters, music actually is a stimulant." Other musts in a work area include bright, full-spectrum lighting; bright colors on the walls; good airflow; and temperature control, as the human brain works best in a 68- to 70-degree environment.

Talent management is now everybody's business

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

In 1999, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of The Gallup Organization wrote a book called First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. It was a good book, essentially about talent management, and it was directed towards managers. After analyzing more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years, the authors outlined four keys to becoming an excellent talent manager: Finding the right fit for employees, focusing on their strengths, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent rather than just knowledge and skills. "The point," said the book, "is to focus people toward performance. The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this."

Times have changed. While the description of an excellent talent manager may still apply, it looks like that manager now has some help. A report released last month by the Conference Board, nearly four years later, says talent management is coming into its own. They call it "a major force in corporate strategy" and a "relatively new and increasingly popular human resource area." The report is called Integrated and Integrative Talent Management: A Strategic HR Framework.

What’s really new is the word "integrated." The report talks about "a fully integrated approach" to managing talent. What it means is that no longer is the manager totally and solely responsible for doing that job. Now he/she has the help of not only the human resources department, but the whole leadership team and the board of directors as well.

Managing talent (or human capital) now lies prominently in strategy, says the report, at the core of business success. It means integrating all of a company’s human capital initiatives, anything and everything that is focused on recruitment, retention, professional development, leadership and high potential development, performance management, feedback and measurement, workforce planning, and culture. Such integration says – loudly and clearly – that its people are a company's most important asset.

The report is based on a study of 75 HR executives who direct areas like organizational development, leadership development, succession planning and – in some cases – talent management. Among them were Time Warner, Hewlett-Packard, Delta Air Lines, Medtronic, PepsiCo, Synovus Financial Corp., Goldman Sachs, and Johnson & Johnson. The study found that talent was seen as critical to success in these companies, and that "its management is integral to all aspects of the business." Less than one-third of the surveyed firms cancelled talent management initiatives due to the economy; less than half significantly cut them back.

More than half of the 75 companies reported that their entire leadership team is held accountable for talent management results.
Nearly two-thirds see their use of talent management initiatives as "integrated," defined as the fitting together of different talent management programs to create a single, coherent system. "This study," says author Lynne Morton, principal in Performance Improvement Solutions, "shows that talent is seen as critical to success and that its management is integral to all aspects of the business.”

Integration is still relatively new, says the report. On average, companies that view their talent management programs as integrated say they have only been that way for about 10 years. Some said some of the components had been integrated for only one to three years and a few described themselves as relatively new to integration.

What does it all mean in relation to work-life? The obvious purpose of work-life initiatives is to recruit and retain talent, to create a culture that allows employees to be fully productive and to focus on work when they’re working, a culture that encourages them to feel enough loyalty so the company’s investment in them is maximized, and enough satisfaction so they're willing to go the extra mile. Integrating talent management is a way for human resources and work-life staff to strategically align themselves with the whole organization. If talent management is integrated, work-life will have a very secure seat at that table where business decisions are made.

At least for a while. Eventually, depending on the extent of the integration, work-life may be integrated right out of existence.

Duxbury gives us a recipe for a supportive workplace

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Canadian researcher Linda Duxbury has been responsible for some remarkable and powerful work-life research. In 2001, she and Chris Higgins surveyed 32,000 thousand employees and concluded that job stress and work overload are seriously harming the health, family life and future of Canada’s workforce. Employees were so stressed and overloaded that they were abandoning or putting off plans to raise a family. They reported that both management and organizational culture were unsupportive. In many companies there were no supportive policies that employees were aware of, and in others they were there, but either unclear or unequally applied, and there was no accountability with respect to their use. Too much change and too much travel exacerbated the stress, and temporary or part-time employees reported no benefits, insecure jobs and little control over their work. Many had eldercare, financial or other personal problems that spilled over into the workplace.

More than 10,000 respondents wrote comments at the end of the survey, and those comments have formed the basis for a new report called Voices of Canadians: Seeking Work-life Balance.

Here's a summary of their conclusions – and suggestions for solutions. We think they're a comprehensive recipe for a new kind of workplace – one that works for everyone.

Employers, they say, need to focus their efforts on increasing the number of supportive managers within the organization; providing flexibility around work; increasing employees' sense of control; and focusing on creating a more supportive work environment.
They must improve the "people management" practices in their organization. Managers at all levels must be given not only the skills and the tools that will enable them to be more supportive, they must have the time they need to manage this part of their job. People management has to be seen as a fundamental part of a manager's role, not just as an "add on" that can be done in one's spare time.

Managers also need incentives to focus on the "people" part of their job. Rewards should focus on recognition of good people skills and it should be part of promotion decisions, hiring decisions, etc.

Employees must have more flexibility around when and where they work. The criteria under which these flexible arrangements can be used should be mutually agreed upon and transparent. There should also be mutual accountability around their use – employees need to meet job demands, but organizations should be flexible with respect to how work is arranged. The process for changing hours or location of work should, wherever possible, be flexible.

Organizations that want to increase employees' work-life balance need to move away from a focus on hours to a focus on output; performance measures should focus on objectives, results and output, and rewards should be based on output, not hours. People who have successfully combined work and non-work domains should be rewarded and promoted. Those who work long hours and expect others to do the same should not.

The policies in place must be communicated regularly, along with how they can be accessed and any restrictions on their use. Encourage their use by having senior management model appropriate behavior, conducting information sessions, discussing how others are using them successfully, etc. Employees must be made to feel that their careers will not be jeopardized if they take advantage of supportive policies. Measure their use and reward those sections of the organization that demonstrate best practices in these areas. Investigate those areas where use is low.

Give employees the right to refuse overtime work. Some organizations may want to give management limited discretion to override the employee's right to refuse overtime (i.e. emergency situation, operational requirements), but this should be the exception rather than the rule. Implement time-off arrangements in lieu of overtime pay.

Provide a limited number of days of paid leave per year for childcare, eldercare or personal problems.

Make it easier for employees to transfer from full-time to part-time work and vice versa. Introduce pro-rated benefits for part-time work, guarantee a return to full-time status for those who elect to work part-time and allow an employee's seniority ranking and service to be maintained.

Examine workloads. If certain employees are consistently spending long hours at work (i.e. 50 or more hours per week), determine why this is occurring (e.g. career ambitions, unbalanced and unrealistic work expectations, poor planning, too many priorities, lack of tools and/or training to do the job efficiently, poor management, culture focused on hours instead of output) and how workloads can be made more reasonable.

Says Duxbury, "Employers need to realize that this is a very complex issue and that many employees blame them when their lives aren't working; that policies will not work if the managers do not walk the talk and if the culture within the organization does not change; that work-life conflict is not just an issue for women or employees with young children, but a problem for us all. It just looks differently at different times in our lives. Work-life professionals need to help employers integrate work-life into the mainstream of their business, and realize this is not a feel-good issue. This is a business issue."

Network Weaving: Using Organizational Strategies for Work-Life Integration

by Mindy Fried and Mindy Gewirtz)

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Organizational development strategies can be powerful drivers of the deeper organizational change that work-life practitioners and policymakers are trying to achieve in the workplace. And OD practitioners who partner with senior leaders and become trusted advisors are well-positioned to weave work-life into the culture of the team or organization.

We strongly believe that organizational change within the work-life field requires the kind of deep collaboration and culture change that emerges from OD interventions. We propose that work-life practitioners, OD practitioners and researchers collaborate to identify ways to strengthen practice and outcomes.

Here's a case study of a work-life intervention conducted by Mindy G., followed by our analysis of lessons learned. Ultimately the intervention benefited hourly, supervisory, and management human capital and resulted in a positive, measurable business impact.

From Child Care planning to a successful 24/7 operation

This story begins like many do in the business of work-life consulting. A $500M global manufacturing company with 3,000 employees, which we will call TexTech, hired Mindy G. to help them develop an on-site early childhood education center. The CEO believed workers were the company’s most valuable intangible asset, and he had a deep belief in corporate social responsibility to the community.

Mindy G. began her work with the company by weaving an informal collaborative network across levels of management, HR and union leadership, charged with designing and implementing the initiative. Members of this work-life initiative developed trust and collaborated closely throughout the action research process, laying the groundwork for future network weaving. The process consisted of evaluating employee need, assessing the availability of community resources, deciding together on a course of action, and choosing providers.

Through the collaborative engagement process, union leadership grew to appreciate management’s interest in responding to employees’ work-life issues, and management better understood the depth of the work-life struggles of employees. Community providers appreciated being approached to capitalize on a need they hadn’t recognized.

The CEO was interested in moving forward, and was seriously considering how to implement these work-life initiatives, including subsidies for families. Then an unpredictable natural disaster occurred that wiped out $500K in profits, money that could have been used to address the child care needs of workers. The plans literally went up in smoke.

Several months later, management proposed to turn the company into a 24/7 rather than 5 days-plus overtime shop in order to remain competitive in the marketplace, and avoid the outsourcing of jobs. The immediate response from union members was negative. They feared losing their seniority, their overtime pay, and most critically, they worried about the potential negative impact this restructuring would have on their work-and personal lives. As a result, talk of a union strike made for a tense situation.

By now considered a trusted advisor to the CEO, Mindy G. drew upon the trust and social capital gradually earned with union leaders, management and HR professionals. Though everyone had been disappointed that the child care initiative didn’t materialize after a great deal of effort, the strong bonds had remained. Working under the radar screen, empowering others in the organization, Mindy G. facilitated a process that ultimately resulted in a positive business impact for the company and improving the work-life of employees.

OD practitioners work with leaders to understand the implications of change for all key stakeholders, and get them engaged in honest dialogue and joint action. Representing the perspective of the workers, Mindy G. expressed concern to the CEO that a shift to a 24/7 operation would negatively affect workers’ already fragile child care arrangements of employees. Having conducted focus groups with workers on different shifts, and spoken to many union workers and leaders during the child care initiative process, she knew there were many financially-challenged families, including recent immigrants, who relied on both parents working at the company to survive rather than depend on public assistance.

As researchers, we know that when both parents in a two-parent family work at the same workplace, they often arrange their schedules to meet their child care needs. Clearly, a 24/7 schedule can potentially aggravate an already stretched situation. In a study she did on child care for shift workers, Mindy F. found that very few companies invested in solutions to the challenges of shift work in the manufacturing industry.

At TexTech, management argued that it was better to change the work structure than downsize the company to stay competitive. The CEO expressed concern about the potential impact on workers, but said he did not know what else to do. Mindy G. helped him understand that people feared the unknown, especially when they weren’t part of creating the solution.

The roadmap for successfully restructuring the company and honoring people’s work lives had to involve employees in selecting and implementing the best shift work structure that would affect their work lives for many years. This meant working with every individual employee that needed help through the transition.

Despite the senior management team’s initial resistance, the CEO agreed to hire an internationally acclaimed shift work consulting company to work together with management, HR and union leadership to choose the optimal 24/7 shift work structure. The CEO asked Mindy G. to develop a group to help employees through the transition. Ultimately, the 24/7 schedule was implemented with support from all the stakeholders in the company.

Analysis: What were major success factors in the restructuring?

In reviewing the strategic advantage of OD interventions, we suggest that an external thought-partner trusted by stakeholders could influence and manage resistance from the CEO and union members. The following stages were critical to achieving the goals of both the workers and management.

Phase One: Employees choose the best organizational design for work-life integration, with management's support of this inclusive process.

Working with union leadership and HR, with the support of the shift work consultation firm and Mindy G., management chose three shift work structures with union approval. Management worked with the union to present these choices to workers for a vote. The CEO participated in many shift work meetings, providing a compelling business case for the change in structure, while emphasizing that workers would be involved in the process of choosing the best structure. The shift work option that garnered the most union votes was chosen for implementation. Employees valued being part of the process for choosing the shift work structure.

They were further reassured when the CEO announced the first ever joint union-management Social Hardship Committee, comprised of managers, supervisors and union members/leaders and facilitated by Mindy G. Many Committee members had participated in the child care initiative and were eager to make a difference. The CEO chartered the group to proactively resolve any unintended negative consequences to work-life integration that arose during the implementation of the structural shift changes.

Phase Two: Joint Union/Management collaboration during implementation

The cross-border members of the informal collaborative network developed during the childcare initiative formed the core group of the Joint Union/Management collaboration. Members worked hard to resolve the social hardship difficulties that arose during implementation of the new shift work schedule. Mindy G. worked with the Committee to create an engagement process in which she and supervisors “walked the floors” to elicit feedback from workers to identify any social hardship consequences of the proposed shift change.

The union members of the Committee participated as equal partners in the process. The union agreed to flexible implementation of job placement, so that people with special work-life hardships could be accommodated. For example, the Committee considered the special needs of single parent households who could not work the night shift schedules over the weekends because of childcare issues. The union leaders/members were creative when it came to solving difficult problems regarding seniority and crossing machine classification lines and providing training. Together, Committee members implemented the changes required to help every individual worker through the transition.

Capitalizing on Tangible and Intangible Business and Work-Life Outcomes

We have described how this OD intervention contributed to significant structural changes, while attending to work-life needs of all of the key stakeholders, including union members, supervisors and management. Following are some of the positive business and work-life outcomes.

Business outcomes

First and foremost, the union chose at the last moment not to strike, so there was no work stoppage and productivity did not suffer. Significantly, both from a morale and financial perspective, especially in a manufacturing environment, not even one union grievance was filed throughout the process. This was considered an important tangible metric of success. Employees experienced management as working together with them to improve the quality of their work and personal lives, contributing to loyalty and commitment among workers, a more intangible, nevertheless positive impact on the bottom line (that proved critical in getting the company through the next business crisis, but that’s a different story).

Work-life outcomes

Though the comprehensive child care solutions proposed were never implemented, the company did take action that led to tangible results. Information and Referral resources were provided through the HR department regarding community-based programs for childcare and after school care. The company offered employees dependent care vouchers, and a special hotline was set up for employees to discuss individual issues related to the 24/7 schedule. Many employees chose to individually meet with Mindy G., and/or attend (sometimes with their spouse and on company time) half-day workshops she conducted on positive strategies for managing a shift work lifestyle.

The structural changes created compressed work schedules, which became quite popular with workers. This relieved the pressure for child care services (on days off), and allowed for more time with families and leisure pursuits. Some employees chose to take on outside contracting or other work they couldn’t do before, and augmented their income.

Lessons we learned

In part, the success of the initiative hinged on the active engagement of middle management and supervisors with the union. This is where real work-life integration occurs. Senior management championing of policies and initiatives is a good first step. Effective implementation, however, is tied to the engagement of management on the front lines responsible for the consequences to design the initiative to integrate into (and influence) the unique culture of the organization.

As network weavers we reinforce a tapestry of change that sustains the organization’s capability to integrate work-life policies into the fabric of the organization.

Creating a collaborative network of learning and action among internal and external resources strengthened the internal change capabilities of HR folks and the system. Strategic coaching helped build the capacity of HR, union and management to sustain the changes.

What evolved, as we have described, was deeper, systemic and sustainable organizational change which benefited both the company and the people. These changes produced a positive, measurable impact on the business and promoted work-life integration within the organizational strategy.

Visioning the Future: Defining the Standards of Excellence for Work/Life Integration

by Kathy Lynch

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Over the past decade, there has been tremendous progress as leading organizations have recognized that their most valuable asset is their employees. They have taken aggressive innovative steps to implement flexibility strategies, address the lack of quality childcare, and respond to the needs of an aging workforce. However, “excellence” in work/life continues to be largely been defined by the media and the importance and challenge of measuring and evaluating the impact of work/life efforts has not been thoroughly addressed. The Boston College Center for Work & Family believes that the starting point for this type of evaluation is a set of standards that define a vision for excellence and provide the tools to set a course to achieve it.

The Center, in collaboration with an advisory board of leading corporate practitioners and academics, will release the Standards of Excellence for Work/Life Integration in Boston on November 6, 2002.

The Standards of Excellence will provide employers with a framework for developing strategy and implementation planning; assessing progress; and benchmarking their organization with other leading employers. The Essential Elements necessary to develop work/life integration as a core strategy in the business community are defined. Through evaluation, discussion, and best-practice examples, the Standards of Excellence will show that there is no one "right" solution and that achieving excellence in work/life must be consistent with an organization's culture and business climate.

The Boston College Center for Work & Family will offer a number of companion services aimed at helping organizations understand, implement, and fully utilize the Standards of Excellence.

The Work/Life Excellence Index is an assessment and planning instrument that provides a detailed analysis of an organization’s strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to develop a strategic plan and to pinpoint specific areas of focus for improvement efforts.

The Standards Forums will offer work/life practitioners and other managers an opportunity to learn about the Standards framework, use the Work/Life Excellence Index, benchmark against their peers attending the forum, and learn about best practices in the field.

The E-HANDBOOK on Excellence will serve as a comprehensive electronic tool to assist users of the Index. It will be organized according to the seven key elements, providing in-depth research and company practice materials.

The Benchmarking Database will be a compilation of results from all completed indexes and will provide powerful comparison information about an organization's strategy, management, infrastructure, and approach to work/life integration.

Virtual Seminars will elaborate on the Essential Elements and present relevant information in a concentrated, easy to follow format. Seminars will be led by the Center for Work & Family staff and feature work/life thoughts leaders with related expertise, practitioners with best practices to share, and research highlights.

Annual Trends in Excellence Reports will be published that will present the information compiled in the database, supplemented by lessons learned from cutting-edge research.

Choosing the Right Metaphor to Ensure Work-Life Quality for All

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Innovation and creativity advancing the work-life agenda

A great leader seems to be able to find just the right metaphor that clarifies the idea and minimizes distortion. - Warren Bennis

Work-Life Balance/Integration/Harmony/Effectiveness – around the world we’ve gathered the evidence, made the business case, presented the ROI (Return on Investment) arguments, and demonstrated the tangible and intangible impacts on performance and productivity and human resource management priorities like recruitment and engagement. So why it is still so hard to get the attention of corporate leaders or to get managers to create supportive work environments? And, why are individuals around the world still struggling to find solutions for predictable work-life pressures; forced to make sacrifices instead of informed choices; opting out instead of following alternative career paths; compromising personal values related to family and community involvement instead of aligning them with progressive employers?

If metaphor describes the relationship between two unlike objects, ideas or situations, then clearly, metaphor is essential for describing the complex relationship between our jobs, work experience and careers and the rest of our lives--our multiple responsibilities, personal commitments, interests, preferences and priorities, and our dreams and aspirations. If metaphors are the connections or mutual influences among words, mind-sets, and behaviors, then organizations need carefully selected, culturally appropriate, simple and clear metaphor.

Mental models influence the design of our institutions, the nature of our relationships, and the way we communicate with each other. The fields of change management, leadership development and chaos theory all rely on metaphor to explain complex theories. In The Tangled Bank, author Stanley Edgar Hyman (1974) examined the work of Darwin, Marx, Frazer and Freud, and concluded that the ‘language of ideas is metaphor.’ If we want to change behaviors, we need to first change mind-sets; to change mind-sets we need to change the mental images; to change mental images we need to change the metaphors we use in the work-life field.

To get leadership team attention, manager buy in, and employee engagement, we need the right metaphor. In the eighties we tried to balance work and life; whether balance makes you think ‘balance sheet’ that you are trying to reconcile (taking from the life side to add to the career side, or vice versa, in hopes of finding the ever-illusive magic formula), or a balance beam or tight rope, (precarious at best and near impossible when you are running full speed ahead, while being pulled in all directions), the ability to achieve it is frustrating, if not impossible. To be successful you need to work really hard, master new skills and rely on your individual effort. Not surprisingly, we were able to introduce innovative programs and policies but were unable to change attitudes, behaviors or cultures.

In North America in the nineties we tried to integrate and harmonize work-life responsibilities. These metaphors produced images of blending, merging, combining different aspects of our lives—resulting in one giant pot of stew. We worked 24/7, had no boundaries and found it difficult to succeed at anything because we were always doing everything. It was hard to distinguish roles and responsibilities between employers, managers and employees, and impossible to assign accountability. So we followed the integration metaphor with work-life effectiveness which defined the multiple aspects of our lives as unique but inextricably linked.

Today, innovative organizations are increasingly looking for business related metaphors; harder, more familiar, less risky. So now we’re talking about work-life quality; quality of life and quality of work and work experience. Achieving work-life quality requires the involvement of employers, employees, labor organizations, governments and communities. The idea of work-life and well-being is certainly not new but some of the language is being updated. Work-life quality integrates health and fitness, mental health and well-being and non-work commitments, as well career aspirations and job satisfaction.

For example, instead of starting with the premise of “I need balance in my life so I need a flexible work arrangement” employees are now starting with “In order for me to serve the client to the best of my ability (meet our obligations…fulfill our commitments…ensure consistently high quality service…be the best possible litigator…reach my full potential…), my optimal workload is 80% or 37-42 hours per week including billable and non-billable hours.” Then they start negotiating terms of engagement with their employer.

From an organizational perspective, the quality of work environments and work experience is linked to increased productivity and profits and reduced benefits costs. From an individual perspective, the quality of life, health and relationships are key contributors to peak performance and job and life satisfaction. From a community perspective, work-life quality leads to increased economic performance and enhanced social outcomes.

International work-life quality drivers

The international work-life quality agenda is being driven by shared work-life experiences: more people are working longer hours, stress leaves are on the rise, and more people are saying it’s hard to achieve work-life balance. We are all getting older, work demands continue to increase and expectations continue to rise. Employees are saying “enough is enough” and disengaging, demanding support, or leaving. Employers are paying a heavy price for presenteeism, absenteeism, regrettable turnover and loss in productivity.

Organizations are responding by shifting their efforts from a programmatic to a strategic approach — addressing work-life and well-being issues holistically and linking initiatives to organizational priorities, HR objectives and existing workplace supports. Comprehensive strategies are being designed to engage employees, reduce turnover and maximize individual and organizational performance.

The focus is shifting from accommodating employee needs to leveraging employee potential. This means creating supportive work environments that respect individual interests and commitments outside of work, setting reasonable timelines and manageable workloads, providing adequate and appropriate resources to meet challenges, clearly communicating expectations, ensuring employees have control over how, where and when work gets done, recognizing and rewarding contributions, promoting health and well-being and facilitating work-life harmony.

New perspective-new positioning based on recent research

In a report released earlier this year, Who Is at Risk? Predictors of Work-Life Conflict Work, Canadian professors Linda Duxbury and Chris Higgins explain that non-work demands, such as child care, elder care and home chores, are not substantive predictors of work-life conflict. In fact, the key predictor is corporate culture and work environments. When employees perceive that it is not acceptable for them to say “no” to more work, and that family responsibilities limit career advancement, staff will experience higher rates of work-life conflict.

Innovative practices

Organizations now see work-life quality less as a “program” and more as “a way of doing business” day in and day out, and they’re realizing that wellness cannot be just a head-office solution.

Focusing on workload management Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Canada launched Freedom 6-to-6 (no e-mails after 6:00 p.m. or before 6:00 a.m.; no meetings after 4:30 p.m. in the afternoon). They are helping employees draw boundaries between work and life and finding ways to create a quality work environment that nourishes and rejuvenates.

Focusing on reaching all employees, not just professional staff the City of Burlington in Ontario now provides a variety of wellness opportunities for all employees, including transit workers, firefighters, road crews and parks and recreation staff. And, although IBM traditionally does not have fitness centers at its work sites, it does have a very strong commitment to organizational health and wellness, so it has introduced TriFit’s web-based fitness program for at-home use for 20,000 Canadian IBM employees.

Focusing on manager awareness in 2005, Xerox Canada introduced a 2.5-hour mandatory training session on mental health, helping them identify the signs of mental illness and instructing them on how to take appropriate steps to have a positive influence on the situation.

As the historian Thomas Kuhn once observed, "You can't see something until you have the right metaphor to let you perceive it." As work-life transitions once again to another metaphor, we are at, or near, a “tipping point” with respect to work-life quality. Organizations are aware of the issues, taking action, being innovative, and measuring results. Employers are approaching work-life quality comprehensively, equitably and strategically. Expect more innovation, creativity and progress in the months ahead.

7 Essentials for Training

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Job

1. Make key points at the beginning and end of the session, and reinforce in the middle. Reason: Learners remember the first thing best, and the last thing second best. "The middle," said Pike, "isn't memorable."
2. Revisit, but don't review. When you say, "Let's review," it's a signal that you're going to repeat something already heard. Participants will start to zone out. Instead, refresh the lesson with new examples of the same concept. Pike noted that material must be revisited six times before it becomes part of long-term memory.
3. Use openers and closers. Use a key concept related to the subject, or an "icebreaker," to put participants at ease as the lesson begins. And end it with a key fact or summary idea. Give your students a sense that they've learned something.
4. Present your concepts in related groups, or "chunks." For example, all the issues raised by a new procedure are one chunk. The solutions would be another. Use some questions or take a break to define where one chunk ends and the next begins.
5. Do something comical or out of the ordinary. It breaks up monotony and refreshes the mind.
6. Test the learning. Pike noted the surprising fact that less than 15 percent of trainers test whether the lesson has sunk in. Testing doesn't need to be a formal written quiz, says Pike. Informal questioning or presenting the class with a scenario that calls for problem-solving can also show learning.
7. Record and recall. Participants remember better what they say aloud or write down than what they passively hear. Have your students speak during training, and provide some exercises that require writing, checklists, or even drawing.
   

Finally, says Pike, if you're not yet an expert trainer, don't expect to be one overnight. Just keep at it. "We're after progress," he says, "not perfection."

How To Increase Productivity In The Office

By Alan Cassidy

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

Companies lose millions of dollars because of poor employee productivity. Man power is very important in the success of a company. If employees are unproductive, work outputs are lessened.

Here are some tips on how to increase productivity in the office:

Tip 1: Allot at least 10 minutes of your time in the morning to answer important e-mail. Personal messages should be answered right after work. Lessen the amount of time you spend on networking sites. Most companies block networking sites to increase productivity.

Tip 2: The company should provide ergonomic office chairs to employees. Since employees are expected to render about 8 hours of work daily, they spend most of their time seated in the office chair. This leads to the development of back pain and stiff muscles. According to studies, ergonomic chairs improve circulation of blood and lessen the appearance of body pains. Employees feel more invigorated while working. Moreover, they also feel more energized in completing the tasks for the day.

Look for an ergonomic chair with casters. The casters make mobility easier. It will allow the employee to transfer from one computer terminal to another without standing and walking to the area all the time.

Tip 3: Tasks have to be divided. While most employees are willing to work extra hours to complete tasks, frequently rendering overtime causes feelings of depression and chronic fatigue. Divide the tasks and make sure work tasks can be done competently by one person. Encourage team work in the office.

Tip 4: Employees should get enough sleep. The body also needs to recuperate after the previous ordeals it has gone through. A person who frequently lacks sleep has trouble concentrating on specific tasks. Memory loss and short attention span are just some of the effects of lack of sleep.

Tip 5: Some companies give free vitamin C supplements to employees especially during cold season. Vitamin C helps improve energy levels. This vitamin also improves immune functions so employees are less likely to call in sick.

Tip 6: Offer incentives especially when employees have exceeded performance expectations. Employees get motivated when there are rewards for their hard work or extra work. They also become more loyal. They grumble less and they tend to harness their skills willingly if there are incentives offered.

Tip 7: Facilitate seminars or skill calibration talks to harness the skills of employees. This will also freshen up their minds and allow them to set new goals for themselves.

Easy Tips to Increase Your Productivity Levels

By Kent Swigg

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

We all know that time is available in limited quantity for everybody. There is so much work in our lives, that it is difficult to find time for everything. One way to overcome this problem is to increase productivity so that we are able to get more work completed in less time. This is one of the best ways of solving the problem of limited time.

This article deals with techniques to increase your productivity. When you focus on becoming more productive, you can get a lot of work done and surge ahead of your competitors. When you become more productive, you can enjoy a more fulfilling life. You will be able to add more value to your life. You can be of great benefit to your company as well as to the whole society. So let us discuss a few practical tips in this regard.

How to Increase Productivity:

1. Clear the clutter - Clutter is one of the biggest obstacles to being productive. So you need to remove unwanted distractions and clutter from your life, specially when you are working on an important project. One of the areas of your life where you can begin clearing clutter is your inbox. Delete unwanted emails as soon as they arrive in your inbox.

2. Take the first step - Whenever you find yourself procrastinating on anything, just take the first step. Begin the work and do it for a few minutes. Most of the times, you will not want to stop in the middle and will usually continue till the end. The first step is probably the most difficult one to take, so force yourself to take that step without much delay if you want to be super productive at work.

3. Begin with the most important tasks - If there are so many things on your to-do list, you should try to begin your day with the most important one. At the beginning of the day, you will feel active and full of energy and enthusiasm. So make use of this to get the most important tasks finished as soon as possible. It will help in easing the pressure off your shoulders for the rest of the day.

4. Simplify tasks - If any task seems difficult for you, then you need to break it down. Breaking it into smaller steps or chunks will make it seem less burdensome for you. Then you can easily and quickly finish off each smaller chunk. Within no time, the whole task can be finished even though it was looking too difficult when you first started it. This again is one of the most important secrets of being highly productive.

Get Organised, Easily

By Taff Nelson

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

When it comes to organisation, according to recent studies, women have men beat easily, at least when it comes in relation to work. Men are more likely to get behind with their work, run late for their appointments, or miss their appointments all together. And according to the same study, this last of organisational skills has cost at least 1 man in every 20, at least one promotion in their life.

When it comes to your desk working area, this reveals massive amounts about your personality, and whether you're an organised or disorganised individual. If your desk looks similar to a bomb site, with bits of paper and pens scattered all over it, you can't possible be working efficiently, you need some organisation. Start by creating two piles of this clutter, to keep or to bin. File away whatever falls under the 'to keep' category, and shred or throw away whatever falls into the 'to bin' category. Also, if you have an item of paper work which can easily be accessed another way (an email for example), bin it.

At the start of every day, create a to do list. If possible, write up your to do list each morning on a white board which is next to your desk, and simply cross through them or tick them off as you complete each task. This gives you a great sense of accomplishment as you mark your progress through the day, and is a clear indication to those around you how hard you've been working.

Allocate a specific period of time for yourself each day. A time where you cannot be disturbed, by anyone, no matter the reason. This time is to be used for major projects, where any distraction could completely through you off course from what it is you want to achieve. If you work in a busy office environment, this isn't always so easy, so place a 'do not disturb' sign on your door, and turn off you mobile phone, and close down your email application. Do this at the same time each day, and eventually those around you will get the message that this is you're 'me' time. If you still get disturbed during this time, politely let them know that you don't want to be bothered at this time in the future.

Lastly, we all get overloaded with work at one point or another, and in these times it's important to delegate your workload. If you need to complete work by a certain time and you feel as if you're in over your head, with no chance of successfully completing it by the specified period, delegate it and notify your boss. It's of vital importance that you do this straight away, rather than later on when it could possible be too late.

How To Stay Focused - Your Calendar Is A Great Resource

By Helen Raptoplous

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

I am a big advocate for a detailed calendar. I prefer a desk calendar to one that is online, but either one will work. Your calendar will tell the truth about what is important to you and what you most want to accomplish. How you block out your time and what you do with that amount of time is very critical to your success. If you are not making the progress you expect or you are not accomplishing what you know you are capable of, then take a peek at your calendar. In solid print you will see how you are using, or abusing your greatest resource of time.

Time is our greatest resource as well as the great equalizer among all of us. It is one thing to have time and another to use it well and productively. Distractions will test us day in and day out. Those distractions are the great challenge that separates those who are stuck from those who are moving forward. We will all find distractions to be a challenge, some more then others, but it is a skill we must master because how we use out time is of great strategic importance.

You will want to align your goals and priorities with how you consistently spend your time. You will block out space in your calendar to focus on the things that will move you forward each day. Time allocation is something to asses each week to see where and how you can make improvements. Your time is of great value. This is your time to accomplish whatever you set out to achieve for yourself. Use your calender to make constant commitments to your success and then follow through.

Seven Tips For Handling Stress At Work

By Paul Fischer

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

We have all had those moments at work that overwhelm us. You know that feeling. The one that sends a surge of nervous tension up your spine and the only thing preventing you from "Going Postal" on your coworker is the Happy Hour on the horizon.
The stress of these demanding and harsh economic times has been slowly eating at us and leaving us frazzled more than ever. It is how you handle and deal with stress that makes the difference to you maintaining your composure, professionalism, and respect with others.
Below are some easy to implement stress management approaches:

1. Shut Your Door. If you don't have a door, close your eyes and take three super deep breaths through your nose and exhaling in a long powerful blow out of your mouth. While you are doing the latter, concentrate on a happy memory or a pleasant vision of the future.
2. Clean Desktop Daily. Make sure at the end of the day that your desk is clean and orderly. It will give you a positive feeling as you walk through the door the next morning.
3. Exercise. Stand-up and take a brisk one minute walk around the office. If you can get away with it, make it outside as well.
4. Excuse Me. If you feel yourself about ready to go into a profanity laced tirade, simply excuse yourself to get a class of water or take a restroom break.
5. Break Time. Be sure to take your scheduled work breaks. There has been a lot of research on this topic and they all agree, even a brief rest will ease stress.
6. Be Punctual. Unless you have a very good reason to put in constant overtime, starting and leaving on time prevents the overworked syndrome.
7. Eat Healthy. Make sure you get the prescribed dosage of vitamins and minerals that includes plenty of seafood and green vegetables.

Over an extended amount of time, pressure results in tense muscles and rapid heart rate with long term effects such as high blood pressure, weakened immune system, and depression. In fact the famed Framingham Heart Study showed that not taking regular vacations leads to heart disease and heart attacks risk that is 36% in men and 50% in women.

Yoga on the beach sounds pretty relaxing to me.

How to Become an Effective Leader in 9 Steps

By Takuya Hikichi

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

Building an efficient and effective team leader requires desire, tenacity, dedication and skills. If you are new to the job of leadership or are facing difficulties, then you should follow a few techniques that will make you an effective team leader.

Here are nice bullets for creating an effective leader out of you.

1. Remove discordance: Individual differences and competition can be the end of a team. To foster teamwork, do not focus on individual efforts. Instill the importance of collective effort and harmony.

2. Define objectives and responsibilities clearly: Instructions for work have to be clear and well defined. Similarly, extent of accountability of each member should be clarified. All the members should have a distinct idea of the objectives and missions of the team. Goals for each and every member should be defined in detail.

3. Accept ideas of the group: A team comprises of people from various educational, social and cultural backgrounds. This results in variance of ideas and opinions. Be open to all ideas. Encourage people to come forth with their suggestions and teach all the members to accept the opinions of others. Give due importance to all ideas.

4. Encourage discussions: Frank and honest discussions should be organized in the team. Consult the team on all matters. Discuss problems and solutions with them. Encourage them to come out with constructive suggestions and criticisms.

5. Delegate decision making powers: From time to time, in crunch situations allow the members to take and implement decisions. Guide the team but don't impose your decisions on them. Give them some space. This will develop leadership qualities.

6. Give incentives: Recognize the skills and work of the team members and offer them incentives for excellence. Discuss what incentives that the team members most feel rewarded to receive.

7. Inspire and motivate: Inspiration and motivation are the keys to a great team. Lead from the front and push the team to greater achievements. But be careful, do not try to do things yourself, each the team to do it. Remember, a team looks up to the leader for guidance; it doesn't want him to do its work.

8. Facilities for improvement: Training and developmental programs should be organized frequently. Seminars and workshops on team building will also be helpful.

9. Finally, your conduct, behavior and work ethics should demand respect and be an example to the team. This will create the necessary ambiance for an efficient and cohesive team.

Team Building Vs Team Bonding

By Alan Hunt

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

Look up the word "Building" in a reputable dictionary and you'll get something like "the creation or development of something over a period of time". Try the same with the "bonding" and you'll instead be rewarded with something akin to "establish a relationship or link with someone based on shared feelings, interests, or experiences". When it comes to helping teams be more effective, they both have a part to play.

Anyone responsible for a team's performance will want to ensure that as many obstacles to it doing as well as it can in any given circumstance are removed. Indeed, they'll want to go further than that and engage the team in proactive discovery of ways in which it can become every more efficient and effective. Team bonding can help with the former; team building the latter.

The closer that team members feel to one another, the more likely they are to stick together in difficult times and the smoother than more regular days will go as well. Team bonding activities can help with this. Taking our definition at the top, a bonding session is anything that the group can do together that offers them a shared experience. Old favourites like clay pigeon shooting, karting, chocolate making and so on all fall into this category. As, for that matter, do social evenings. Yes, organising a pub crawl really can help your team members get closer together! So any and all of these types of non-work time can bond a team closer.

What they won;t do is that harder, second step. To go beyond having a shared experience and move into the realms of creating or developing great team effectiveness you need to engage in team building, not bonding. As per the definition above, building equals development. That is, the team actually improves something significantly in the way it goes about its day to day business rather than simply gets its team members closer.

To be a team building session rather than a team bonding one, the activity undertaken needs to have two defining characteristics. Firstly, the action - whatever it is - needs to be something that requires team members to work together on in some way. As a simple example, getting into a kart and hammering it around a circuit is an individual affair. On the other hand, constructing a kart that is then driven around a circuit is an entirely different matter. Designing and building a vehicle capable of being driven safely by a team member will require the whole team to work together.

Secondly and most importantly, the activity agenda needs to have time set aside to reflect on what the team or teams did and how it or they went about tackling the challenge. Indeed, if the session is all about learning how to be better as a team, you should probably set aside at least as long for the debrief session as the activity itself. People often balk at this idea. Many think that a debrief session is the price you have to pay in order to be able to enjoy the activity. My experience is that a well run, structured debrief session is not only worth its weight in gold but is enjoyed every bit as much, and often more, than the activity in the first place.

In conclusion, make sure that what you select to do on your team away day matches what you want to get out of it. If it is all about having a shared experience and bringing people together, a team bonding session is the way to go. if you want more than that and have a sustained and positive impact back at work, then go for your choice of the many team building activities on offer.