You will never attract passionate people to work for you until you create ways of letting people be passionate about the work they already do for you–and then find ways of letting that passion out into the world so that it can seek out, find, and attract others to you.
Sony gets it. Do you?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Conventional wisdom suggests that having employees in the office means they will be more focused and more productive, but recent research from Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management suggests that Telecommuters – people who work from home one or several days per week – and those who have flextime available to them from their employers claim that they can work an average of 19 hours more per week before feeling that their job is interfering with their life.
Researchers from Brigham Young University analyzed data from 24,436 IBM employees in 75 countries, identifying the point at which 25 percent of employees reported that work interfered with personal and family life.
For office workers on a regular schedule, the breaking point was 38 hours per week. Given a flexible schedule and the option to telecommute, employees were able to clock 57 hours per week before experiencing such conflict.
Not all of those 57 hours are telecommuting hours, notes lead study author E. Jeffrey Hill, a professor in BYU’s School of Family Life. The typical high-flexibility work arrangement includes a mix of office time and firing up the laptop from home, the venue depending on the task at hand.
“Telecommuting is really only beneficial for reducing work-life conflict when it is accompanied by flextime,” Hill said. ~ Source: BYU News
This isn’t completely a new thought, however. Earlier this year, Discovery News reported findings from another study done in the UK that "working remotely appears to be connected with working harder and being happy with your job."
A recent study out of Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom suggests that workers given flexible hours by their employers tend to work more intensely than their counterparts with more rigid office hours.
The researchers posit that the reason for this phenomenon is a kind of payment to the employer from the worker in exchange for the freedom to choose where and when to work.
However, the reality of a down job-economy right now drives employees to put in longer office hours to appear indispensable which may actually drive down employee loyalty over time and increase turnover and recruiting costs:
That [employee's] jacket needs to be on the back of the office chair at 8 at night because everyone is trying to prove that they’re indispensable.
–Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, reported by CNN
What about you? Do you work longer when you know your company is willing to be flexible with your time and schedule?
Popularity: 3% [?]
I will never forget the day I came around this corner in Boston near the Bell Atlantic building (Now Verizon) on my way to work and found hundreds of 411-information workers picketing. This was late summer 1998. The economy was booming beyond its bounds. The financial giants of Boston (including Bell Atlantic) sat literally feet from this place in their glittering towers of monolithic, economic supremacy, but these workers felt an injustice had been served, and through their union, they walked out on their employer so they would hear and know their frustration.
The uproar and the noise echoed deafeningly off the walls of the other buildings. I could see business people in the large windows above looking down at the craziness below with distant interest. Police with riot gear stood nearby. Since it was nearly 8am, as people tried to go into the building for work, they would receive shouts, jeers and swearing in return from the emotional, angry scene. I was frozen in my tracks. I literally felt breathless as I watched the scene–the anger, the emotion, the intensity.
Checking my watch, I knew I would be late if I stayed there, but I
just.
couldn’t.
leave.
Hundreds of people walked through that square in the few minutes I was there watching. Hurrying to work with their newspapers and lattes, cellphones and blackberrys. Some of them stopped and looked. Most of them hurried on. I felt like I was caught in that moment.
That experience really effected me (obviously, since it’s 11 years later and I am blogging about it). I remember wondering what it meant. What was the point? It began to make me think long and hard about the hours I was putting in for my employer, making someone else’s retirement a sure thing. I began to lose the taste for the technologies I worked with every day. There had to be something MORE than just writing code!
Fast-forward a few years, a layoff, two more kids and a mortgage, and I jumped from technology programming into recruiting, mainly because of the opportunity to use what I know about technology with what I know about people and help people get connected with new and amazing opportunities. Hopefully ones they could be proud of when they went home at night.
But that isn’t enough. There is more to be done because the ground has shifted and moved, and the companies who don’t learn this will soon enough be spit out by the very economic forces that made them great when it was OK to treat your employees like tools.
Markets are Conversations”. – Cluetrain Manifesto
Cluetrain, Rise of the Creative Class, and Groundswell (how to be human) give you primers and clues into the language.
Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook show you a peek into the conversation.
Meetups, Codeaways, ignites and camps give you access to the people.
But without your CORPORATE PARTICIPATION, you will be forced, eventually (by either your talent leaving you, or the market selling you) to watch all of this revolution from the sidelines… unable to join in until it is far, far too late.
“Markets are conversations… Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.
But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about “listening to customers.” They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.”
- The Cluetrain Manifesto
Popularity: 23% [?]
A few months ago, I was approached by Peter Fretty, an author with Business Connect, to discuss employee retention tools employers can take advantage of.
I shared a few things with him which I am glad to say were published in this month’s magazine along with some other good, insightful thoughts from both local and national employers.
If you don’t receive Business Connect Magazine (which I strongly recommend), you can read Peter’s article online here: How to Retain Your Employees.
Just for fun, I’ve listed the more verbose responses to some of what Fretty asked me:
The most-common reason people leave their jobs is because they don’t like their boss. This takes on a lot of forms from not feeling challenged, to feeling micromanaged, passed over for opportunities, or not being trained well. It’s regular for new managers to completely change over much of their staff within a year after they take a new post, generally because of these personality factors.
It’s not about the money, it’s not benefits, it’s not getting a shiny car for being employee of the year like Doba did last year*. At the end of the day, the employee’s direct supervisior has more power and ability to help and employee feel liked and encouraged or disgruntled and dissatisfied than any other thing a company can do.
We all know that the cream rise to the top, and in business, the superstar talent will always keep their eyes and ears open through active and passive networking. Even the least-talkative or outgoing employee likes to work where they feel liked and appreciated, and even they will seek new opportunities when they feel their relationship with their direct supervisor is strained. Superstars are savvy enough to not complain about their boss around other people, but they will sing their praises, and your company’s, if they like what they’re doing, and they feel satisfied with their job.
That being said, the best boss in the world will lose employees hand-over-fist if the company is not:
* Don’t get me wrong, Doba did an AMAZING thing by doing this, but not everyone can/should. I’d be open to it, personally though…
Popularity: 46% [?]
A great post came across my twitter radar today, written by Sam Lawrence, forwarded by Chris Brogan, then Jason Alba.
Sam’s Blog, Go Big Always, pushes the envelope just by its nature. He hits right at home when he says, “Companies are so highly matrixed and political that they make sticking your neck out nearly impossible”.
He gives 5 ways to GO BIG ALWAYS:
I love the visuals, but what do YOU think of his message? Please comment!
Popularity: 39% [?]
Local tech company Bungee Labs is hosting a FREE showing of Batman the Dark Knight this afternoon at 4:00pm. (I interviewed @ReverendTed from Bungee last Friday on the Couchcast)
We believe Utah is home to many amazing companies…and we want to get to
know more of you.Bring your family or friends and join us this Tuesday, July 22nd, for the
4:00pm show of Batman the Dark Knight at the Jordan Commons Megaplex.Seating is limited. Reserve your tickets (up to 4) here:
http://www.bungeeconnect.com/movie/batman
Show information
Tuesday July 22nd, 4:00pmTheater Address
Jordan Commons | 9400 S State St, Sandy | map: http://snipurl.com/2sx47
Let me know if you need more tickets of if you have any questions.
This is an awesome gift to the community from Bungee Labs! Check out more about Bungee Labs by watching a short video (2:27) about the applications you can build with Bungee Connect.
Popularity: 25% [?]
There’s no question something interesting is happening with Utah’s professional/technical workforce right now, and I think there are no less than four competing factors at play any business-owner should be paying very close attention to:
The hardest part to pin-down is that the economic indicators show a market that is schizophrenic. Utah’s high tech job market is part recessionary and part booming. There’s both signs of weakness, but signs of boom-cycle madness.
If there were ever a time to unveil the invisible hand and see what’s really going to happen to this economy over the next six-12 months, now is the time… those who navigate this juncture well stand to gain a lot of opportunity, while these massive icebergs of clashing forces might very well crush entire sections of our economy and workforce if we’re not paying close attention.
Real and Wage Inflation
The Fed won’t admit there’s inflation yet, even though everyone else is worried about it… but one trip to the grocery store tells you a dollar doesn’t go as far these days. This plays into issues 3 and 4, and is the driver for issue 2.
Bottom-line: If the same amount of money you made last year isn’t cutting it, talented people will demand higher wages for the same jobs they were doing a year ago.
If the company they currently work for won’t pay up, no problem, they’ll just move.
Intense Competition for Talent
As a recruiter, I use every tool I can find. The job boards, these days, are as silent and un-exciting as a Hillary Clinton rally in Payson. The war for top-talent has moved from remote, tactical operations using unmanned email probes and remote-controlled resume submittal to (continuing the analogy) hand-to-hand, street fighting. Candidates are being approached at every angle, from every recruiter, in very creative ways…. and they’re getting hired, too!
At the Blogger Dinner last Thursday, Steve Spencer quipped something like: This is just like the late 90s. It doesn’t matter if you can actually do any of the stuff on your resume, but if you have the right acronyms, you’re hired!
(And, yes, Steve’s company is hiring… tell ‘em I sent ya)
Corporate Cost-Cutting
Client after client of mine has issued cost-cutting warnings. Several more companies are putting in-place hiring freezes, readjusting their priorities, laying people off or closing down all together.
This hyper-sensitive focus on costs can be unacceptable to a workforce already in high-demand.
One jobseeker for a Salt Lake-based IT Outsourcing firm told me last Thursday that his current employer has”implemented a new performance-based pay plan where you get a “very low base wage” and, if you hit certain quotas every day, you will get paid more.
The story goes that these employees, if they are industrious little busy bees, can earn even more than they have been making, but the employees don’t quite see it that way.
There’s bound to be losses when a company needs to refocus. A recent article by Tiffany Hsu in the Baltimore Sun explains this very well:
Businesses, he said, can cross-train employees in multiple roles to boost productivity and restructure to remove inefficiencies…. but employers can’t cut too many expenses and perks without risking driving workers away.
“You’ve got to be sensitive to your people and make sure morale isn’t one of the things you cut,” McNamara said. “If this comes as a surprise to them, they might be tempted to update their resumes at another company.”
High Energy/Commute Costs
Even thinking about high gas/energy prices makes me exhausted, but the simple fact is we are receiving regular calls and updates from our candidates seeking more commute-friendly work options, telecomuting, shorter commutes, or other benefits to offset the incredible rise in fuel costs this last year has seen. For once, the State has taken a lead here, generating (I predict) pressure on many new fronts to allow employees to have more control over when, where and how much they work.
On the flip-side, a lot of people who otherwise want to keep their current job are interested right now in part-time, flexible, contract-based work options too. That is an unforeseen consequence of these higher prices.
Summary
At the end of the day, companies are asking their employees to do more with less, while these same high-demand employees are not afraid of feeling out their options and making a more lucrative move if needed.
I fear, for companies too cost-conscious, this will become a race to mediocrity unless they very creatively examine their work demands, and be very open and honest with their employees. Find out what they need/want and even while cutting costs, you can make work fun and, heck, maybe even more productive.
Popularity: 45% [?]
It’s likely a result of the current economy, but we have noticed a very high percentage of people coming to us and looking for part-time or extra work on graveyards/evenings/weekends.
These are generally very talented individuals who like their current job/employer, but are looking for additional work to take on.
Likewise, these same people are usually willing to take a decrease in their “day-time wage” for a flexible work opportunity because of the, well, flexibility of it.
Some are cutting their pay-rate down as much as 75% of what they would deserve in a day-time/full-time gig because they are not looking for just income, but additional income.
If you are a software development manager and I was willing to experiment with adding flexible/additional staff (especially if you’re already considering outsourcing where there are time-differences anyway), this might be the time to seriously consider bringing on a swing/night shift (your programmers are already there all night anyway, right?) and acquire some excellent talent at a discount.
Of course, finding the people to do this is what we do all day (at SOS Engineering & Technology, where I work). Even if you had your own person in mind, contracting them through an agency like mine (so you would not have to hire them permanently, or deal with 1099 messes) can remove a lot of headaches and legal issues down the road.
If you’re curious about how an agency like mine could help you, please feel free to contact me.
If you know of companies that are accepting candidates for non-traditional work hours, and you want to share, please feel free to leave a comment!
Popularity: 30% [?]
I saw an email from Yahoo’s Hot Jobs career center just now and clicked hoping for some great advice on cutting my commute costs.
Well, lets just say what I read was, um, more of the same:
With oil predicted to hit $150/barrell in a month, and prices at the pump currently over $4/gal in most parts of the US, what real, significant improvements can be made to these ideas?
At the pump, the national average price of a gallon of regular gas rose 1.8 cents overnight to a record $4.023, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices first moved above $4 nationally on Sunday, though they’ve been higher than that in many parts of the country for weeks.
…
At $150 a barrel _ the Morgan Stanley price prediction that helped ignite Friday’s oil rally _ gas would cost about $4.40 a gallon, [Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.] said. [Source: marketplace.org]
What is a real, seriously CREATIVE way to cut your commute costs?
Please reply, below!
Popularity: 13% [?]
Photo by Yandle. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
The Green Autoblog reports that the US workforce may be switching to a four-work-day week in response to higher gas prices and pressure to be smarter about requiring commutes. They point to this reuters article explaining how the four-day week is becoming a benefit in otherwise cash-strapped areas of the economy:
In America’s struggling automaking heartland, the shorter workweek offers employers a way of rewarding employees when the budget does not allow a salary increase, said Oakland County, Michigan, executive L. Brooks Patterson.
“By allowing employees to work four 10-hour days it will save them 20 percent on their commute costs and ease the financial pinch of filling up their cars,” said Patterson, who last week proposed the compressed week for county workers.
Some ways to introduce four-day work-weeks:
Who would have thought that something as simple as allowing your employees to self-adjust their commute just might be the best benefit you don’t have to pay for.
Popularity: 14% [?]
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