Navigating the Four-Day Work Week

‘Can I work part-time?’

As a team lead and hiring manager I hear this question a lot, now that the four-day workweek is a ‘thing’ – and for the right candidate it’s a no-brainer.

via GIPHY

I consider myself as a four-day workweek pioneer, blazing a part-time trail before it was cool.  It started when I was returning from maternity leave. I wanted to work part-time but was confident I could handle the demands of the role in fewer hours. 

I felt a bit nervous asking the hiring manager, but his answer surprised me: ‘I love part-team people.  They cost less, waste less time, and work harder.’

I accepted the offer and ended up doing two full-time roles in twenty hours a week, which was possible because the team culture supported me and we had top notch collaboration tools.

Now I pay it forward, not because it’s trendy to offer a four-day work week, or even because multiple four-day work week experiments have shown higher productivity and engagement.  It's because being flexible gives me access to some amazingly talented people who can effectively manage their time and deliver key results faster.

There’s a flip side, of course: skipped team lunches, minimal time for networking, leaving earlier than everyone else, missing meetings, etc.  But all that can be managed though proper expectations setting and proactive communication. 

If being available and ‘being seen’ are prioritized at your company, you may not be ready to accommodate part-time people in leadership or high visibility roles.  That’s fine but you may be missing out on some great talent, or paying people to focus on non-mission critical tasks.

Is a four-day work week right for your team or company? 

First let’s look at the benefits:

• Access to talent – A growing number of senior professionals prefer part-time opportunities because their expertise makes them highly efficient.
• Employer band – Making flexible work schedules and part time opportunities part of your employer brand will help you attract the best people.
• Mental health – Having afternoons free or one day off provides space to manage one’s personal life with less stress.
• Lower salary costs – While subject to negotiation, part-time professionals may accept a lower salary in exchange for flexibility, plus salaries are typically prorated by hours worked. 
• Engagement – Taking a bit of time away from work and work-related emails has a beneficial head clearing effect that increases engagement.
• Productivity - Embracing a shorter work week creates an opportunity to rethink processes and workflows to make them more efficient.

Now let’s look at a couple of caveats because a four-day work week isn’t for everyone:

• Right role – A four-day work week shouldn’t necessitate hiring extra personnel, which is why creative, strategic, or even leadership roles may work better than customer service or 'bottleneck' roles that others depend on.  
• Right experience – Someone with little job experience may need the five days to learn the ropes – in my first management role I worked about 60 hours a week but quite a bit of that was figuring stuff out.
• Right level of maturity – The four-day model works best with people who know how to manage their time and key stakeholders - a certain amount of finesse and experience are required.
• Right manager – If your company's managers learned most of what they know about leadership in the 90s this model is probably not for you.  
• Not everyone wants it!  According to recent EU stats most people are still looking for full-time work, either out of habit or for the higher earning potential.

The corporate world isn't yet ready for a universal four-day work week, but you can pilot the idea and get most of the benefits by: 1) offering it where it makes sense; and 2) supporting the arrangement with tools, communication, expectations setting, etc. so it works.

Whether or not you like the idea of the four-day work week, more people are asking for personalized work arrangements and choosing to work for companies that offer it.

Ageism: Is it True or is it You? Part II

Guest post by Lexy Martin, Principal Research and Customer Value, Visier.  You can find Part I of this article, which includes statistics on ageism and debunks several myths, here.

The Value of Including Older Tech Workers

As the Tech Sage Age finding shows, companies are missing out if they don’t consider the age composition of specific teams, departments, and business units and how managers can build diversity and take advantage of the maturity and experience of older workers.

Legal issues aside, designing a recruitment strategy around younger generations can be shortsighted from a business perspective. Older workers tend to be more loyal, and an over-representation of millennials in the workforce can impact retention. A 2016 Gallup report reveals that “21% of millennials say they’ve changed jobs within the past year, which is more than three times the number of non-millennials who report the same.” ^[1]

A workforce of job-hoppers can have a big impact on the bottom line. As HR expert Josh Bersin writes in this post^[2], “The total cost of losing an employee can range from tens of thousands of dollars to 1.5 – 2 X annual salary.”

Studies have also found that diverse teams are more innovative, which is critical in an era when competitive threats loom large. Hiring people “who do not look, talk, or think like you, can allow you to dodge the costly pitfalls of conformity, which discourages innovative thinking,” write the experts in this HBR post^[3].

What Businesses Can Do?

There are some important activities you can do to root out the risk of ageism in your workforce and ensure you acquire, develop, and retain the best and brightest talent available, regardless of age:

●       Review your workforce data to understand the current state of age equity within your organization to find any signs of potential bias in hiring, promotions, salary levels, turnover, and performance ratings. If you work in People Analytics, you can play a role in warning of incipient ageism in your organization and support your own organization to outperform your competition. You can uncover and root out intentional and unintentional bias in your hiring practices that might be limiting the Gen X and older workers or potential hires.

●       Set objectives and develop a plan with manageable steps (and a way to monitor your progress) that helps your organization achieve an inclusive work environment.

●       Keep in mind that, as with ethnic and gender equity, age equity is a cultural issue — if pockets of ageism exist within your organization, you will need to devise plans to address them not only via better HR practice and policy rollouts, but through culture change.

●       Consider implementing a version of the Rooney Rule^[4] for age, specifically for teams or roles where the workforce is less diverse in age: for every position you have open to fill, consider one or more older candidates (or candidates that will help create a more diverse team, in general).

●       Develop hiring practices that reduce the potential for intentional or unintentional bias in the screening out of older applicants.

●       Develop hiring practices that specifically do not screen out candidates based on the length of their unemployment — while this report focused on systemic ageism, many individual stories suggest older unemployed workers struggle to get hired, and studies indicate recruiters screen out candidates that have been unemployed for longer periods of time.

The Bottom Line – Attitude, Passion, and People Analytics Successfully Combat Ageism

What can you do? For individuals, it’s about maintaining self-confidence in your competence and passion for your activities. If you don’t love your job, perhaps you should consider another. But if you do, show it, and, if I’m any indication, you can continue to work for as long as you want.

For organizations, if you have not already deployed people analytics, the capabilities will help you identify if ageism exists today or will in the future. And you can assess where in your hiring, developing, and retention of your talent you need to improve to maintain your competitive advantages into the future.

What one organization is doing about ageism

SAP is employing all five generations in its workforce – Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y (Millennials) and now Gen Z. While ageism, unconscious bias and pre-conceived expectations can often deter individuals and companies from seeing the value add of a single generation, companies also underestimate the benefit of generations working together to achieve common goals. 

To address bias, SAP advocates for inclusion for all and actively seeks to bring people together to support different life stages while improving cross-generational collaboration. We encourage learning between generations by raising awareness about unique working styles, strengths, and attributes of employees across generations through our Focus on Insight training, as well as virtual and face to face training sessions. We also offer a popular cross-generational mentoring program which allows employees to learn from one another and reduce bias.

In addition, SAP supports education from the top down by teaching senior leaders to celebrate multiple generations. We encourage our leaders to help new employees integrate with other members of the team – for example, by conducting open and appreciative communication within teams, aligning on goals and reserving time for knowledge transfer. By addressing challenges, surfacing unconscious bias, seeking communication and awareness and creating a community of trust and respect – leaders can play a large part in cultivating an inclusive culture. 

The beauty of cross generational intelligence is understanding what is most appealing to the other generation; the way we communicate and respect each other for our uniqueness and differences. Embracing commonalities and similarities to build camaraderie while respecting generational differences creates an inclusive environment that fosters innovation and creativity in the workplace to continue building a culture of inclusivity, teamwork and respect.

Lexy Martin is a respected thought leader and researcher on HR technology adoption and their value to organizations and workers alike. Known as the originator of the Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey, she now works at Visier continuing her research efforts, now on people analytics, and working closely with customers to support them in their HR transformation to become data-driven organizations. Lexy is Principal, Research and Customer Value at Visier. Connect with Lexy at lexy.martin@visier.com or personally at lexymartin1@gmail.com.

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^[1] How Millennials Want to Work and Live, Gallup, May, 2016.  http://news.gallup.com/reports/189830/e.aspx?utm_source=gbj&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=20160512-gbj

^[2] Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned, Josh Bersin, August, 2013, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130816200159-131079-employee-retention-now-a-big-issue-why-the-tide-has-turned/

^[3] Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter, David Rock and Heidi Grant, Harvard Business Review, November, 2016. https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter

^[4] Rooney Rule, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule

Ageism: Is it True or is it You? Part I

Source: ASA

Guest post by Lexy Martin, Principal Research and Customer Value, Visier 

If you want or need to work, no matter your age, you should be able to. It’s up to you. 

Organizations also have a responsibility to do something about ageism, which is blamed as the culprit for older workers not finding jobs -- I’ll cover what organizations need to do later.  It’s my point of view, though, that it’s up to you to go after the job you want and get it! 

It’s about having an attitude that you are damn good, a passion for your field or the field you want to break into, constantly learning, and applying new skills. Getting and keeping a job, whether you are 40, 70, or even 25, is about manifesting those four aspects.

I’m 73 and still working because I want to. I’ve not had trouble getting or keeping a job – oh maybe a few times when I was younger before I developed and manifested attitude, passion, and perseverance. If you are blaming your age, the company, the industry, or the younger recruiter that isn’t hiring you, you may be a bit of the problem.

OK. I admit it’s not always easy to be the oldest worker in an organization peopled by workers a third my age. I have to combat my own fears of mental and physical decline more than I like, especially after breaking my ankle a few months ago. I feel I have to spend extra time learning new skills – maybe a new area in my field or a new program. I have to force myself to set goals and meet them. 

I can be my own worst enemy, especially when I let fear that I’m not good enough get in the way of being positive, learning, and performing. For that, I exercise, practice meditation, and have my own personal affirmations. And sometimes, even those don’t help and so I crab to my husband.   But I persevere and maybe that’s my one big piece of advice – keep on being the best you can be despite all that “stuff.''

Now let me cover the reality that ageism does exist, particularly in the Tech industry based on research. At Visier, a people analytics product company, delivered as a cloud solution, we have the opportunity to analyze people data from most of our 100+ customers who represent multiple industries^[1]. 

Over the past few years we’ve seen numerous articles about ageism in the Tech industry, and so mined this data and uncovered some truths and also some myths about ageism. Not only is there anecdotal evidence of ageism but also data-based evidence of systemic ageism. But still – don’t let that get you down. Go for the job you want, because you are great!

Many Tech professionals over age 50 (and even a number over age 40)^[2] believe ageism exists because of their own personal difficulties finding work later in their careers. Certainly, there have been numerous class-action lawsuits about ageism against Silicon Valley giants, even more than about racial or gender bias.

Situational ageism–prejudice or discrimination on the basis of a person’s age–is an important issue organizations across industries should be aware of and take steps to monitor and improve. Not just because of fairness or to reduce the risk of age discrimination litigation, but also because of upcoming retirements and the resulting skills shortages. In the past 50 years, the size of the US workforce has grown an average of 1.7% annually. In the next 50 years, the US workforce size will grow by only 0.3% annually^[3].

Does Ageism Exist in Tech?

In short, yes. A Visier Insights Report on ageism in the Tech industry ^[4] found that Tech does hire a higher proportion of younger workers and a smaller proportion of older workers than in other industries.

Is this disparity in hiring due to systemic ageism in Tech? To investigate this, we first strove to determine if the disparity is related to the availability of talent versus an intentional bias towards hiring younger workers. We found that hiring decisions in Tech do indeed favor younger candidates, hiring Millennials over Gen X candidates at a higher rate than in non-Tech industries.

This answer has traditionally been difficult to get: While leading Tech companies publicize their organizational ethnic and gender composition data, little data has been shared about the age makeup of the Tech workforce⁵.

We began our research into ageism by looking at the breakdown of the workforce by age, comparing the Tech industry to non-Tech industries. Using the Visier Insights database—an aggregation of anonymized and standardized workforce databases that for this report included 330,000 employees from 43 large US enterprises (those with at least two years of verified and validated high-quality data)—we were able to examine the role of age in the workforce like never before.

Debunking Myths about Ageism

Our research showed that the average Tech worker is 38 years old, compared to 43 years old for non-Tech workers. The average manager in the Tech industry is 42 years old, compared to 47 for non-Tech industries.

It comes as no surprise that Tech workers are younger on average, but our research clarified some key misconceptions related to the salary lifecycle, resignation rates, and perceived value of older workers. 

Here are four common ageism myths we debunked with the data:

Myth #1: Older Tech workers are less valued

While the average Tech worker is five years younger than the average worker, it is a misconception that older workers are less valued in Tech. From age 40 onwards, non-manager workers in Tech enter the “Tech Sage Age” and are increasingly likely to receive a top performer rating as they age, mature, and gain experience. Conversely, the proportion of top performers decreases with age in non-Tech industries. This finding suggests that maturity and experience are more important drivers of high performance in Tech than in Non-Tech industries.

Myth #2: Older Tech workers experience a drop in salary

Older Tech workers as a group do not experience a reduction in average salary that is any different from non-Tech industries. Rather, workers in Tech experience the same salary lifecycle as their counterparts in non-Tech.

Myth #3: Newly hired older Tech workers are not paid equitably

Older Tech workers that are newly hired do not — on average — experience a lower wage. Rather, newly hired workers are paid the same average salary as more tenured workers, across all age groups.

Myth #4: Older workers in Tech resign at higher rates

The average resignation rates by age for Tech and non-Tech workforces show that older Tech workers — from age 40 onwards — have the same first-year resignation rate as their non-Tech age counterparts: approximately 10%.

This concludes Part I of Ageism: Is it True or is it You?  Stay tuned for Part II, which will take a closer look at what organizations can do to combat ageism.

Lexy Martin is a respected thought leader and researcher on HR technology adoption and their value to organizations and workers alike. Known as the originator of the Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey, she now works at Visier continuing her research efforts, now on people analytics, and working closely with customers to support them in their HR transformation to become data-driven organizations. Lexy is Principal, Research and Customer Value at Visier. Connect with Lexy at lexy.martin@visier.com or personally at lexymartin1@gmail.com.

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^[1] The Tech companies included in our research represent the diverse fields within the Tech industry from Software Development, Hosting, Data Processing, Telecommunications, Computer Systems Design and Scientific Services.

^[2] It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley, Carol Hymowitz and Robert Burnson, September 8, 2016, Bloomberg Businessweek. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/silicon-valley-s-job-hungry-say-we-re-not-to-old-for-this

^[3] Global Growth: Can Productivity Save the Day in an Aging World? McKinsey Global Institute, January 2015. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Global%20Themes/Employment%20and%20Growth/Can%20long%20term%20global%20growth%20be%20saved/MGI%20Global%20growth_Executive%20summary_January%202015.ashx

^[4] Visier Insights Report: The Truth About Ageism in the Tech Industry, September, 2017. https://www.visier.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Visier-Insights-AgeismInTech-Sept2017.pdf

⁵ Hacking the Diversity Problem with Big Data Analytics, John Schwartz, Data Informed, February, 2015.

Diversity's the Secret Sauce of a Great Culture

My first boss Herman was a 2^nd generation Mexican American.  He ran a tight Jewish bakery counter and his brother Alex managed the kosher deli across the way.

My best boss ever – and I’ve only had a few over a long career I consider truly great – was French and female.  

(My worst boss was also female so please don’t take this as a general endorsement for female leadership, let’s just get better leaders, OK?)

I’ve had bosses from the US, France, India, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, and Germany.  They all had very different management styles.

One boss called me a ‘penetrante Kuh’ - which means annoying cow - but he was German, so I didn’t take it personally.  In fact, I considered printing it on my business card.

I’ve hired and managed people from Canada, South Africa, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Russia, Finland, Spain, Mexico, Ireland, France, and the US.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with Russians, Finns, Japanese, Italians, Canadians, Dutch, French, Irish, British, Spanish, Australians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Belgians, Indians, Romanians, Swiss, Scandinavians, and 2^nd generation Americans from pretty much every part of the world.

Some were younger, some were older, some were male, some were female, some were fantastic to work with while others were difficult, but they all offered something unique to the mix.

It was the best part about working, to be honest. 

I didn’t like everybody, nor did everyone like me.  That’s not the point.  The point is that they all added colour and flavour to my work experience, as I hope working with me did for them.

Interacting with so many cultures and personalities upped my game and having such a rich mix of colleagues and experiences kept me longer in each role than I might have stayed otherwise.

Diversity matters in ways we can’t measure.  It makes us more resilient, curious, compassionate, and open to new cultures, ideas and experiences.  It tests us and forces us to adapt, compromise and question our assumptions.

If your customer base is diverse, it stands to reason your workforce – in particular, the people who design your solutions or interact with your customers - should be, too.  Also, just to be clear, hiring locals in your non-HQ subsideriaries isn't true diversity.

I don’t think too many people reading this are likely to disagree, since diversity is now accepted as part of a successful business strategy, but I leave you with this food for thought:

A few years back I blogged about a Cornell University study that found once diversity reaches a critical mass of 20-25% at the leadership level the company realizes higher performance.  However, below that level diversity has a negative impact, possibly because everyone regards it as a necessary evil rather than a driver of innovation and business performance.

With that in mind, maybe diversity should be part of your company DNA, rather than an isolated and/or HR-led initiative.  

Just sayin.

You might also enjoy:

Project Social: Young Manager
How to Find, Hire and Lead Great Talent
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective 5-Year-Olds
HR and the Gig Economy

*Picture courtesy of Managing Your Elders.

Women 2.0 - Infographic

Check out this infographic on Women @ Work, courtesy of the MBA program at UNC.  Read more about it here.


Via MBA@UNC MBA Online & Women 2.0

Think Moneyball

It's the post with the picture of Brad Pitt.

I recently wrote a post at Compensation Café called The Young and the Restless, about how Generation Y is more likely to leave an organization they are satisfied with than other generations. 

Why?  Because they aren’t tied down by things like kids, mortgages and 15 years of experience in a particular field.  They are unfettered - at least the ones who didn’t borrow $80K to major in History at an Ivy League school -  and can afford to take chances, try something new and even fail.

As topics tend to percolate, when my friend and HR influencer Dave Ryan and I were talking recently about ‘big HR trends’ he also brought up the fact that a mass exodus is predicted as the job market loosens up.  Since this topic seems to get a lot of air time we decided to write about it as a Project Social topic.  Dave’s post on this can be found over at HR Official, which has a modern new look.

It seems to me that the mass exodus everyone fears is not the only or even the biggest problem in all this.  I mean, let’s assume everyone’s as miserable as the latest data suggests and ask ourselves who’s really going to leave? 

1. People with highly sought after skills
2. Highly connected people
3. People in their 20s with no skin in the game

For the most part, everyone else is probably going to stick around:

• People who can’t find a better job elsewhere
• People who don’t have the flexibility to make a change
• People without an influential network

Now, call me crazy but I find the second list scarier than the first list.  The real problem is less who you lose, it’s who you don’t lose and what you do about it.

You don’t lose the people who can’t leave.  The bad news is that many of them don’t want to be there, which will impact their every decision, deliverable and customer interaction.

The good news is that the people who stay may be extremely talented, even though no one else apparently wants them.  They may not be obviously marketable but decision makers have been known to undervalue talented people who don’t quite fit the mold.

Think Moneyball.

To weather the storm of those leaving while everyone else sticks around hating life, companies should invest in developing the people they have left.  That's right, invest in the people no one else wants and who don't want to be there.

This approach will address two problems: 1) It will immediately have a positive impact on engagement by giving people a taste of opportunity; and 2) it will help mitigate any critical skills gaps resulting from the exodus of the more mainstream talented people.

It doesn’t have to cost a lot.  Be creative.  Think mentoring, think tapping into underutilized talent pools, think lateral career paths…

The war for talent is won from within. 

German Companies Doing Good Things

Just a quick hat tip to three German companies that are blazing environmental and modern workforce trails for the rest of us:

1. Siemens for opting out of the nuclear business, a brave decision that shows big companies can do the right thing.
2. Deutsche Telekom for providing flexible working hours and supporting a family-friendly work environment.
3. Volkswagon for turning off Blackberry email after hours to promote a better work life balance for employees.

Well done, you! And Merry Christmas (or happy holidays) to everyone.

Good Management: How Do You Measure Up?

The importance of good management for engagement, retention and overall company performance has been a central theme of the blog from the very beginning.

In fact, one of my early posts on talent management boldly asserted that 'the quality of managers is the single most important thing you can get right.' 

Periodically I get sidetracked by other HR-related topics but I always have a hard spot in my heart for inept managers.

Which isn't entirely fair because most managers don't set out to be bad managers.  It's not the master plan, so to speak.  It usually just sort of happens through a combination of stress, neglect and poor communication skills.

This is either a wake up call or a golden opportunity for HR.  If talent matters, and surveys tell us that talent is both scarce and pretty disgruntled at the moment, corporate focus will inevitably start shifting to the people who manage that talent. 

Mediocre managers will need to evolve into leaders who can inspire people to give their best... and it'll take more than a memo or a KBO to make that happen.

Someone will have to offer managers the same support and leadership that is expected of them.  Someone will have to mentor managers and actively measure how effective they are, not just in terms of output and deadlines but also in terms of team performance, engagement and retention. 

Remember this: Poor managers tend to be poorly managed themselves.

As more is expected of them, managers will also demand better tools to support their improved management style.  Think about it: If you ask a manager to lead a modern global team (multi-generational, multi-cultural, remote, contingent, etc.) then saddle him or her with a cumbersome annual performance management tool or make it really hard to access workforce information from anywhere except an office computer you are failing that manager.

So here are some fun HR projects to consider that will help managers manage better and have the potential to create real business value in 2012:

• Define metrics to measure manager quality today and measure it.
• Put a manager mentoring and development program in place and execute on it.
• Provide managers with better management tools and access to relevant business data.

Did I forget anything?  Please, poke holes!

Modern Manager: What's Your '-ity' Strategy?

Diversity.  Mobility.  Productivity.  What are they good for, besides ending with '-ity'?

Not so very long ago, most people came to the office at the same time every day, dressed the same, acted the same, left at the same time and kind of meandered through the day at a steady pace.

You knew where you stood.  You knew where everyone else stood, too.

Not that there wasn’t any diversity, no sir.  You had women in a low-paid clerical roles,  the proverbial ‘new kid’, a couple of older folks who'd been around forever and maybe even one or two people of a different race or ethnicity.

There was mobility back then, too.  I mean, you could totally work from home, just not during office hours.  And productivity basically meant meeting your deadlines with a couple of minutes to spare. 

Back then, becoming a manager was either a matter of past achievement or favoritism and being a good manager mostly meant looking the part and telling people what to do.

Oh, wait, that part about managers is still mostly true, even though pretty much everything else has completely changed.  And it worked OK back then because things were slower and the workforce was more homogenous so you didn’t need as much… finesse to lead people.  But today?

Today it’s a different world.  And when the world changes, the things you need to do to be successful also change.  Let’s take a closer look at these same ‘ity’s’ that - if we really think about them - make it clear that the old ways of selecting and evaluating managers won't cut it any more:

DIVERSITY

People eating spicy food and going to church on different days is the least of it.  You’ve got up to 4 generations on your team, 20% contingent workers (on average), different races, ethnicities and attitudes, team members all around the world and all of a sudden everyone’s an ‘individual’ and wants special attention, fabulous development opportunities and flexible working hours.  Not to mention half of them aren’t even THERE on any given day. 

But there it is.  We can either see all this diversity as a management headache or as an opportunity to foster new ideas and ways of working.  Here are some ideas about good diversity management as well as a short post about what makes diversity pay. And don't miss Tim Sackett's foundational guide to white people.

The good news is that good diversity management looks a lot like good management so we can think of good diversity management as a twofer.* 

*Please note this is the ONLY time we will ever use the word ‘twofer’ in conjunction with diversity.  Seriously.

MOBILITY

WFH. OOO. AOAC.  If you don’t know what at least one of these acronyms stand for you might want check your pager in case 1990’s trying to reach you.  Given new innovations in mobile technology as well as recent studies correlating autonomy and engagement, isn’t it time to  let people work when they want, how they want and where they want?  Just a thought. 

If you're just getting started with the whole 'mobile' thing, here are some tips for managing remote workers.  I also recommend Patty Azzarello’s various blog posts about how to be effective working remotely.

PRODUCTIVITY

In an uncertain economy where doing more with less has become the new corporate black, productivity is clearly a business imperative. So why is American productivity at an all-time low?  There are several culprits, although this list is not exhaustive:

• Meetings - A poorly run or unnecessary meeting costs more than you may realize in terms of productivity and opportunity.  Check out this post about the hidden costs of meetings and next time you call a meeting think 'brevity,' another 'ity' word.

• Tools - As soon as you reach a critical mass of people and/or locations, the cost of not having proper collaboration tools - such as a corporate wiki where information can be shared, web and video conferencing, Internet and device access - will start to add up.

• Committees - Nothing is quite as big a time sink as not having a clear topic owner.  Assign one and let them do their job.  Enough said.

• Admin - A certain amount of paperwork is everyone’s lot in corporate life.  However, once dealing with admin exceeds 10% of the standard work week, there’s a problem, Houston.  

And guess what?  If you're the manager, it's your job to help very different people - including 'locationally challenged' people - work well together and do their jobs quickly and effectively.

Diversity.  Mobility.  Productivity.  Like I said, you need an '-ity' strategy.

It isn't always easy.  But hey, that’s why managers get the big bucks and absolute power, right?

For more on the perils of modern management, click over to Dave Ryan's post at HR Official, which is always worth checking out.

While I Was Gone

I just spent a glorious week disconnected on a dairy farm in the Italian Alps.  As you can imagine, the milk was quite good.  And the disconnection... priceless.

So, I haven't been blogging or tweeting for a whole week but strangely, I don't feel behind on things.  There's no need to 'catch up' as you do with work emails, you just plug back in. 

And as it happens, there was some activity during my absence:

One of my Compensation Cafe posts went live: 'How To Take Credit for Paying Less.'  This post started out with the title, 'Does This Compensation Make Me Look Fat?' but I couldn't make the analogy work without some fairly obvious contriving and reluctantly let it go.  Blog posts do tend to write themselves and this particular post wanted to be a post about how to communicate low salary in a positive light rather than how poorly tailored compensation makes your company look fat.  Go figure.

At Women of HR you can check out my most recent post 'Are Part-Time Employees the Deal of the Century?' about the general fabulousness of part-time employees, in particular working moms.  Spoiler: Companies who want to increase their overall workforce productivity might consider giving leadership roles to people who have to get home by 4 rather than to people who have all the time in the world because their spouse is holding down the fort.  I'm just saying.

Next, my close personal friend Jason Seiden hosted a all around good Leadership Carnival this month featuring one of my posts 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective 5-Year-Olds.'  Gotta love that guy.  He's funny.

My other virtual friend and project social collaborator William Gould hosted a timely and relevant Online Social Currency Carnival of HR that includes one of my social media related posts 'Project Social: What is Influence?" (Hint: It's getting someone to press a button.)

Finally, if you haven't checked out my recent YouTube video 'The Cost of Disengagement' I encourage you to do so since it may well be the only one I will ever do.  No promises, though, I may inflict more of them on the world if the mood strikes me or I have another good hair day.

Diversity: It's All About Critical Mass

Some of you may have seen this spirited debate on diversity at Focus.com.  There seem to be several schools of thought:

1. ‘I just want to hire the best candidate’ – People in this camp accuse diversity proponents of foisting less skilled employees on them in order to meet some meaningless quota.
2. ‘Diversity isn’t just about race, religion or gender’ – People in this camp like to broaden the definition of diversity to include people who work and think differently, claiming that these differences inspire greater creativity and performance. 
3. ‘People who assume diversity means hiring less qualified people are the reason we need diversity legislation in the first place’ – People in this camp are stridently pro-diversity and insist that minorities aren’t asking for a handout, just a fair shot. 

All of these have merit but are incomplete.  There’s actually a 4th camp that I didn’t see represented in the debate, although I may have overlooked it: Companies that embrace diversity have higher performance.

It's pretty easy to make a 'common sense' business case for diversity:

• Your customers are diverse and the leadership strategy of the 50s may not help you relate to them or inspire them to buy your products. 
• Competition is more fierce and new ideas are needed, wherever they come from.
• Teams have become more important in a business context, which means that managing diversity has become a critical business skill.

If you prefer hard numbers to common sense, a Cornell University study found that once diversity reaches a critical mass (20-25%) at the leadership level the company realizes higher performance.

Interestingly, below this critical mass diversity has a negative impact, possibly because until critical mass is reached everyone treats it like a quota and the company fails to value and leverage the unique contributions of the minority leaders.

So, to people who want to hire the “best” candidate I say, ‘Perhaps you haven't reached critical mass yet.’  To people with a broader definition of diversity I say, ‘Yes, even wearing plaid or a nose ring can be considered diverse.’  And to people who think everyone should be given a fair chance based on their skills, I say, ‘Aw.  I think so, too.’

And to companies who have truly embraced diversity and inclusion and are realizing the benefits that a diverse workforce and leadership team can bring I say, ‘Yeah, baby!’

For more on diversity, HR luminaries Dave Ryan and Lyn Hoyt also have some choice observations, which you can read over at HR Official and The Bacon Hut.

And if you want to look at a compelling example of diversity in action, check out PepsiCo’s Diversity and Inclusion site.  

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective 5-Year-Olds

It recently occurred to me that there’s a lot leaders can learn from 5-year-olds.  For example:

1. Use what you have – Don’t have a dollhouse?  Use a shoe box!
2. Don’t be afraid to use stuff in a new way – Ignore that nice stable mommy bought you for your toy horses, make your own using a bead necklace.
3. Be insatiably curious – Enough said.
4. Make time to play – As Mary Poppins taught us, the potential for fun lurks where you least expect it.
5. Always be closing – Children are born negotiators.  It never hurts to ask.  And ask again.  And again.  
6. Shake it off – So you got egg all over the kitchen counter, that shouldn’t stop you from knowing you can break the eggs perfectly next time.
7. Don’t stereotype or judge – Everyone is a potential friend, playmate or someone to help you paint your wall with fingernail polish.

And one bonus habit:

Be in the moment - The place is here.  The time is now.

I Just Don't Know What to Do With My iPad...

My husband I now have an iPad, which is fair because I'm his creative muse (which I'm sure he would agree with, at least if he wants dinner). was recently awarded two iPads at work in recognition for separate projects, making us a two iPad household. That means

My oldest daughter wanted the iPad but I was like, 'You're 7 years old. Go play with a ball or a stick like I did when I was 7.'

The problem is, I'm not sure what to do with the iPad. Yes, I'm a seasoned software professional. Yes, I spend most of my day on a computer. And yes, my company has amazingly cool iPad applications.

But I write. All the time. I'm writing right now. Even when I'm just browsing I need a proper keyboard in case I want to write something. Plus, I switch mediums constantly, so if I use the iPad for tweeting or Googling I have to switch back to my computer to pull up a document or type a longer email...

And I don't really want to play the bird game.

The problem here is clearly me because 11 million consumers can't be wrong, right? My husband thinks I'm weird. Well, more accurately, he still thinks I'm weird after all these years.

Maybe he's right. I mean, even the Pope uses an iPad, which means we can now receive the Papal epiphany of the day from any location. The Pope is more current than I am.

(I may be a late adopter but when they finally offer space travel with holodecks and replicators I'll be first in line.)

If I don't start using the iPad my husband will take it back and give it to someone more deserving. Like the Pope. So here are a couple of ideas I've come up with to incorporate the iPad into my daily family life:

GATHERING AROUND THE FIREPLACE SCREEN SAVER

BABY LINKEDIN

Rock Stars Need Not Apply

Some people love rock stars - Mark Zuckerberg, for example, thinks they’re 100 times better than everyone else.  I myself think they're about 3 times better and there are probably some people who think they're 5 or 20 times better.

Others think they’re more trouble than they’re worth and that a team of solid performers is the way to go.

And then there are people like my project social partner Dave who're happy if people just show up and do the work: ‘I’m not in a creative industry.  I don’t need to recruit the top students from MIT and couldn’t get them anyway.’  More wisdom from Dave here.


So, all kinds of opinions.  What is seems to come down to is what you’re trying to accomplish and whether it's being measured.  For example, in revenue generating jobs like consulting or sales, everyone loves rock stars.  If they’re a little full of themselves or hard to work with it's OK as long as they’re making money.

Rock stars are also tolerated in really hard jobs that no one else knows how to do (as are scraggly beards, madras shirts and Birkenstocks).

In other areas of the business - even in creative industries - it’s less clear.  No direct revenue is lost, for example, if a report or a presentation is not rock star quality.  Over time valuable hours may be wasted and the company may be less successful but the consequences of mediocrity are hard to spot where nothing measurable is at stake.

Rock stars have a reputation for being difficult to work with, doing things their own way, having better ideas (or thinking they do), putting uncomfortable truths into words and a host of other grievances.  They may be as important to company success as they think they are but that doesn't mean people want to work with them.

The average manager, for example, neither wants to deal with someone who challenges them nor with someone who potentially threatens their own job.  Ditto with colleagues, who don’t want anyone raising the bar on work quality or competing for opportunities. 

They aren’t bad people, they’re just… people.

Of course, no one says to themselves, ‘I’m intimidated by this person so I’m not going to hire them.’  What they actually say is more like, ‘I don’t think this person will be a good cultural fit.’  Or, ‘They’re overqualified for the job and will probably leave in 6 months.’  Or, ‘They don’t have the industry experience we’re looking for.’

Sound familiar?  Of course, sometimes these statements are perfectly true.  It's a subtle problem.

Bottom line: If your managers and employees feel threatened rather than exhilarated by talented people you can talk about the importance of talent all you want...to the hand.

Worth a Second Cup?

The other day I highlighted 3 blog posts that I thought were particularly good… and then realized I forgot one!  How could I have forgotten Dan McCarthy’s hilarious post on Boomer Bosses and Millennials?

Why do I like this post so much?  Well, aside from it being such a gracious and funny post the note from the millennial to the Boomer is so insightfully snarky:

“Whether you like it or not, Boomers, you are being replaced. This is called change, evolution. Don't worry though. Keep being crotchety. It will prepare you well for your upcoming retirement. Drink your cheap coffee. Plan ways to spend your social security. I'll do my best to stay off your lawn.”

No offense to the Boomers but I had to laugh out loud about the coffee.  I still remember visiting my mom’s office as a kid where the coffee even smelled stale.  And to this day, while she doesn’t object to a good cup of coffee, she also doesn’t insist on it.

The coffee snobbery of my generation may be a subtle form of rebellion.

The Boomers as a generation have had an enormous impact on our world.  They were the first generation to embrace the modern culture of self-gratification, consumerism and waste that endangers our planet today.  They were also the first generation to 'do it my way,' laying the foundation for future generations to express themselves freely and pursue non-traditional career paths. 

More so than any other generation, if it weren’t for the Boomers this world of ours would look a whole lot different, in both good ways and bad.  Boomers, I salute you.

Now, how 'bout some real coffee?

Employees, Aging Parents and You

Guest post by Susan Avello

If you are responsible for taking care of an elderly relative or friend, it will likely impact your health and your employer’s bottom line.  Employees in the U.S. who are caring for an older relative are more likely to report health problems like depression, diabetes, hypertension or heart disease, costing employers an estimated average additional health care cost of 8% per year, or $13.4 billion annually, according to the MetLife Study of Working Caregivers and Employer Health Care Cost.

These family caregivers are juggling their responsibilities to their own families and to their parents and have now been labeled “The Sandwich Generation.” They are trying to juggle children, parents and work and are experiencing considerable health issues as a result of their focus on caring for others. The need for flexibility in the workplace and in policies that would benefit working caregivers is likely to increase in importance as more working caregivers continue to remain in the workplace and put off retirement.

As the percentage of employees who are caregivers continues to grow, there will be greater demand on employers for help and support. Caring for family while trying to fit it into an already stressful work situation can be challenging and negatively impact physical health and workplace productivity. Although most employers offer family medical leave of absence they are also starting to see the need to incorporate strategies for flex-time and are looking for a creative approach in helping their employees with the myriad of life changes they are currently facing.

Who Can Help?

Aging Info USA has been working closely with corporations and employees in the workplace since inception and closely monitoring these issues to provide the best in education and training both for employee caregivers and for executive management. Our goal is to partner with employers, evaluate the cost of employee care giving to their specific situations and create solutions to increase productivity, employee engagement, reduction of health care costs and increased revenue.

More Help On the Way

In Fall 2011 we will launch CaregiverLife.com, an interactive online 'one-stop shop' to help employee caregivers navigate the continuum of aging care through educational videos, blogs, webinars, interactive discussion boards, Skype conferencing and podcasts centering on care giving and work/life challenges. CaregiverLife.com will also be an interactive training portal for HR and management to stay ahead of the game in the area of work/life issues associated with eldercare and all aspects of care giving.  In addition to providing training and education in the form of webinars, videos, podcasts and virtual events, CaregiverLife.com will offer continuing education certification through our partnership with Human Resource Certification Institute.

We are excited about the launch of CaregiverLife coming in the Fall of 2011 and helping employees and employers alike navigate these critical life changes.

Susan Avello is Vice President and Partner of Aging Info USA and is based in Chicago, IL. Aging Info USA directly supports employee caregivers, HR and Executive Management by implementing creative approaches in education, resources and training in regard to eldercare and family caregiving and work/life challenges. She is the author of two books as well as The Working Caregiver and HR Virtual Cafe blogs. You can connect with her on Twitter @susanavello.