How do you balance work and life?
January 6, 2010
I wrote a guest blog this week for Business Women’s Finishing School & Social Club, a work oriented blog that addresses “Everything you didn’t learn in school that will help you survive the work of work”. My blog post describes my experiences in balancing motherhood and work.
A lot has changed since I began my career in the 1970’s. Working women and mothers are the norm, not a novelty. Equal rights are guaranteed under the law not only for women, but for other classes of employees who were formerly discriminated against based on race, age, physical abilities, affectional orientation, etc.
Although the laws have changed, the difficulty of giving work and priorities outside of work adequate attention remains challenging. What’s your story about balancing work and life?
Announcing Kronos Retail Labor Index
September 8, 2009
The following guest blog post from Robert Yerex, chief economist at Kronos, introduces the Kronos Retail Labor Index being announced today:
The most interesting part of my job as chief economist at Kronos is working with the huge data sets made available through our hiring system. Based on application and hiring records from 69 of our retail clients, we have created a metric called the Kronos Retail Labor Index. Over the last three years, this Index has been a leading indicator of not only the retail economy but the U.S. economy overall. The Index is a measure of the relationship between the demand for, and supply of labor front-line labor in the retail sector. The jobs being filled are the front-end of the consumer-retail supply chain. Retailers can make changes at this end of the chain more easily and more quickly than anywhere else. As such these employees are figuratively the “canary in the coalmine” for the rest of the retail industry. Economists are always on the lookout for new leading indicators and this one has great potential. The Index is being made publically available for the first time today and can be accessed at: www.kronos.com/retail-labor-index. Going forward the Index will be updated on a monthly basis. I have had the chance to preview the Index with analysts and press, and the reception has been excellent.
Click here to listen to a podcast of my interview with Dr. Yerex and Steve Earl, director of product marketing at Kronos.
Greetings from the Workforce Institute Executive Summit
October 21, 2008
Today I emceed the second annual Workforce Institute Executive Summit - a day long session we run for executives who are attending our KronosWorks conference. You can find today’s agenda and speaker bios at www.workforceinstitute.org/event.
Here are some of my favorite insights from today’s speakers:
From Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes -
Why do people feel worse about the economy than the facts of our current economic situation actually support?
- People are angry with Washington. Once the election is behind us, and the uncertainty about who’s running the country clears, that emotion should subside a bit.
- New York is the epicenter of the US financial community and also the epicenter of the US media. The sheer volume of individuals personally affected on Wall Street may skew the perception of the media who don’t understand that the panic is not running so high on Main Street.
- This is the first major stock market adjustment that impacts the majority demographic represented by the Baby Boomers that wasn’t proceeded by an artificial bubble (dotcom stocks) or national crisis (9/11).
- Innumeracy (lack of math skills) is a growing problem - and leaves people vulnerable to overreacting. Karlgaard cited the example of an email that’s been making the rounds that indicated the AIG bailout could have been used to give every US citizen over 18 a $425,000 personal stimulus package. Sounds good until you do the math and understand the real number is $425.
- The quantity and quality of business journalists is declining as people with the necessary business and literary acumen pursue more lucrative careers.
Karlgaard noted that the 1970s, an economic climate very similar to what were seeing now, was a veritable crucible of entrepreneurship and innovation. His hypothesis is that when traditional organization growth slows during times of economic turmoil, smart innovators are likely to turn to entrepreneurship. This decade spawned Southwest Airlines, FedEx, Genentech, Microsoft, Apple and Oracle, among others. What are some of the components of their sucess?
- Creative synthesis of ideas
- Supply chain innovation
- Analytics innovation - do you think or do you know?
- Self service innovation
- Speedy innovation - failing fast and moving on to continuous improvement
- Training innovation - investing in your people
- Open source innovation - tapping into the expertise of people outside of your company
- Customer feedback innovation
- Virtual innovation - bringing experts together virtually vs. the traditional organizational model
- Purpose innovation - uniting organizations behind a shared vision
Bill Bradley, former US Senator, New York Knick and Olympic gold medalist, spoke to us about what it takes to lead in a changing world - from a personal and an organizational perspective. Senator Bradley reflected on the qualities of great leaders: readiness to confront the unknown, passion, selflessness, resilience, imagination and integrity. He talked about the importance of the ethic of connectedness in our world today; i.e. the need to link collective caring with personal responsibility in order to address the significant issues that face not only our domestic challenges, but global challenges such as climate change and access to healthcare.
What’s your level of confidence that you’ll manage through the current turbulence? In Bill Bradley’s words, how do you “keep the current economic challenges and failures of today from becoming the enemy of victory tomorrow?”
Snow Crazed
February 28, 2008
photo credit: Our blog and press release last week regarding how companies deal with extreme weather generated a lot of interest. I’ve had interviews with the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal radio, and HR Executive - all looking to follow up on what employers should do to prepare for and manage through extreme weather conditions. The AP article ran in many print and online newspapers across the US. The survey results and/or the AP article were referenced in dozens of television and radio broadcasts. The Boston Business Journal opened up their own survey on employer behavior on snowy days that indicates employees wish their employers would act more quickly to send them home when the weather is bad.
The level of attention this survey received points to the universal human desires it surfaces around our need to be treated with consideration and respect. People want to believe that their employers care about them, but when employers put business ahead of human welfare, that trust is undermined. On the other hand, severe weather conditions create an opportunity for workplace colleagues to connect with each other around a shared experience external to their work.
What are your war stories about weather and work?
My Top Ten Career Management Tips for 2008
December 28, 2007
As this is the time of year that many people start making their New Year’s resolutions - personal and professional - I thought I’d share some of the best career management tips I know. Some of these I learned from others and some I learned the hard way. In any case, here goes:
- Do whatever Irene tells you to do and don’t embarrass me.
This one comes courtesy of my father. My first job was doing the payroll, manually, at his codfish processing plant in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. (Photo is my family in the harbor in front of that plant last summer). Irene was the long time office manager who knew how to make things happen. Getting to know the Irenes everywhere I’ve worked since has saved me time and embarrassment. - Speak up. This one applies when you have a good idea and/or when you know that something just isn’t right. Organizations rise and fall on the quality and openness of communications between people.
Retaining Hourly Workers - Part 1
November 27, 2007
At an upcoming meeting of the Workforce Institute Board of Advisors in Boston, we plan to spend a good deal of time investigating best practices in retaining hourly workers. Although much is written about the retention of white collar knowledge workers, it’s harder to find actionable advice for how to achieve the right retention equilibrium point for hourly workforces. While a certain amount of attrition is healthy in an hourly workforce, just as it is in the salaried world, many organizations relying on hourly labor struggle mightily to keep their shifts covered.
Dr. Charles Handler recently wrote about this topic in ERE in an article entitled “Turnover: Insights from the Real World”. One of the key points he makes is that for many hourly workers, the job is not where they turn for personal fulfillment, but rather to pay the bills while they seek personal satisfaction through other channels.
We’ll be writing much more on this topic after our upcoming meeting. We’d love to hear from any of you who have real life examples of organizations who do a good job in managing voluntary turnover in their hourly worker populations.
The Red Sox & the Meaning of (Work)Life
October 24, 2007
(October 30, 2004 Red Sox World Series Victory Parade)
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I am not a sports afficionado in general or a baseball fan in particular. This is despite the fact that my great grandfather, Tom Smith, was a professional baseball player. It’s hard to be indifferent, though, when the Red Sox are in the World Series and the world as we know it in Boston is aflame with Red Sox fever. There is no public discourse possible without contemplation of another World Series victory and another triumphant parade through the streets of Boston. There will be no rest for the Red Sox fan in the coming week - especially with games to be played in a different time zone. Workplace productivity will give way to recovery from the prior evening’s contest and speculation about what will happen next.
Even though I don’t fully appreciate the depth of the passion, I think I understand the source. Baseball is the perfect metaphor for what most of us wish the world of work could be. The rules are clear - you hit the ball, you run the bases. If you make it home, you score. The adversary is clear, and teamwork is critical to victory. In fact, only the team can win. For most of us, life at work is nowhere near this definitive. The goals change, the rules change, and victory isn’t always forthcoming - even with extra innings. Competition isn’t always focused outward. And even when you make the perfect play, there aren’t generally fans in the bleachers to shower you with appreciation.
So, I’ll watch the game tonight and every night during the series. Just like everybody else in Red Sox nation, I want to share the feeling of a job not only well done, but well appreciated.
Perspective and Randy Pausch
October 23, 2007
I read about Randy Pausch in Jason Corsello’s Human Capitalist blog yesterday. Randy is a professor at Carnegie Mellon who learned recently that his pancreatic cancer can’t be treated, and that he’s only got a few more months to live. His last lecture at Carnegie Mellon was recorded and has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
You can see it on YouTube.
Randy’s comments about living your childhood dreams, and his wishes for his children, are very moving and thought provoking. He has clearly been leading a purposeful and balanced life before he learned that his life was likely to be cut short. His work has been deeply meaningful in his life as it has connected him to his dreams - specifically becoming an “Imagineer”.
I encourage you to take a few minutes to hear Randy’s message. Most of us rush through our workdays trying to stem the tide of to do’s. If this message doesn’t get you thinking about what you are working for, I’d be very surprised.
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