Quitting your job is kind of a hot topic for me at the moment, and I don't think I'm the only one. My particular circumstances make things a bit easier in terms of quitting; given that I'd be leaving in order to accompany my husband to law school, I don't have the usual awkwardness of leaving one position for another. The downside of that, of course, is that I don't yet have another position lined up, but nothing's perfect. I wouldn't actually be planning to leave my present position just yet otherwise, too, because I love the company I work for and haven't quite given up on netting my dream job with them. (I'm nothing if not persistent.)
Anyway, quitting your job is always a bit of a tricky situation. Typically, there is a reason you are leaving besides an unavoidable move, and if this is the case, it means that there is a reason your current position is, for whatever reason, no longer working out for you. Maybe you've outgrown the role, gotten an offer with better pay, don't quite fit with the culture, or simply have a case of "grass-is-greener"-ism. Possibly you have a toxic working environment (I have a friend who refers to her co-worker as "the troll") or a toxic boss. I've experienced several of these scenarios myself. Whatever it is, navigating the resignation process can be tricky.
If your reason for leaving is either of the last two, you may be very tempted to waltz your way out the door, gesticulating wildly with middle fingers extended. My advice would be, don't do this. This article discusses taking the high road when quitting your job, and I think all her points are spot on. I truly cannot think of a situation where you are better served by telling your former bosses/coworkers where to go and how to get there, no matter how tempting it is. You never need to burn your bridges, and it's always a good idea to maintain as cordial a relationship as possible because you never know where you (or the company) will end up.
At the same time, I wouldn't advise dishonesty, either. Exit interviews are a good time to be honest, but be tactful. As long as you are polite about the reasons, you should typically be able to leave with bridges still intact. Just save it for the exit interview as opposed to in your letter of resignation. In my personal opinion, a letter of resignation should make sure to thank your supervisor for the opportunity to work there and maybe say one or two other nice things. The fact that you are resigning is (presumably) enough of a sting, no need to get into too much detail as to why. Keep it short and sweet.
It's also important to work out your notice. Failing to give adequate notice is simply unprofessional, and it reflects poorly on you, period. Suck it up and work out two more weeks.
It's never easy to resign. I have a friend who has been continually putting off actually giving her resignation, because she dreads the process, despite the fact that she's moving on to a fantastic opportunity. The fact is, it has to be done.
I'm still waiting for my fantastic opportunity, but it's coming. I can feel it. In the meantime, my letter of resignation will quite sincerely thank my supervisors for everything they've done and all the opportunities they've given me. I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this otherwise.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Developing Policies... A How-To?
So, I was recently presented with the opportunity to develop a social media policy for my employer. I was quite happy to take on the project, because it then becomes something else that I can say I have experience in doing, and because it's interesting.
As someone with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, FourSquare and Quora accounts, I definitely have some experience within the realm of social media. I have always considered carefully before posting anything that might be remotely connected to my employer, because to me, this is a common-sense approach. However, that clearly is not the case for everyone. There have been a number of incidents in the news recently surrounding the consequences for perhaps-unwise comments posted on Facebook or Twitter, so much so that there is a a Facebook group devoted to people who have been fired based on their Facebook posts.The most recent one that I can think of is Gilbert Gottfried being let go as Aflac spokesman after he tweeted some jokes about Japan right after the Tsunami. Given that Aflac apparently has a large customer base in Japan, perhaps he should have thought about that first. I recognize that the guy is a shock comic, but apparently Aflac felt he was way out of line.
Clearly, the boundaries between public and private online have grown quite blurred, if indeed they even exist at all. I think all corporations should have a social media policy, but the key is to make sure it is a well-thought-out one. Decide what the corporate social media strategy is first, and then go ahead and formulate a social media policy for all employees. Preferably before any incidents do happen.
Let it be said that I am a firm believer in the right of the employee to hold whatever opinions he or she would like. However, you may need to watch where you air those opinions, and the internet is not nearly as anonymous as you might think. If you're posting it on Facebook, and you're friends with your boss, you'd better watch what you say. I would think this should be common sense, and indeed, many of those online seem to feel the same. The Facebook group mentioned above seems to focus mostly on the stupidity of those who get fired based on what they've said online.
Anyway. It's an interesting issue, and I look forward to the discussion on it. In the meantime, I continue to keep my facebook private, and watch what I post on any website. Period.
As someone with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, FourSquare and Quora accounts, I definitely have some experience within the realm of social media. I have always considered carefully before posting anything that might be remotely connected to my employer, because to me, this is a common-sense approach. However, that clearly is not the case for everyone. There have been a number of incidents in the news recently surrounding the consequences for perhaps-unwise comments posted on Facebook or Twitter, so much so that there is a a Facebook group devoted to people who have been fired based on their Facebook posts.The most recent one that I can think of is Gilbert Gottfried being let go as Aflac spokesman after he tweeted some jokes about Japan right after the Tsunami. Given that Aflac apparently has a large customer base in Japan, perhaps he should have thought about that first. I recognize that the guy is a shock comic, but apparently Aflac felt he was way out of line.
Clearly, the boundaries between public and private online have grown quite blurred, if indeed they even exist at all. I think all corporations should have a social media policy, but the key is to make sure it is a well-thought-out one. Decide what the corporate social media strategy is first, and then go ahead and formulate a social media policy for all employees. Preferably before any incidents do happen.
Let it be said that I am a firm believer in the right of the employee to hold whatever opinions he or she would like. However, you may need to watch where you air those opinions, and the internet is not nearly as anonymous as you might think. If you're posting it on Facebook, and you're friends with your boss, you'd better watch what you say. I would think this should be common sense, and indeed, many of those online seem to feel the same. The Facebook group mentioned above seems to focus mostly on the stupidity of those who get fired based on what they've said online.
Anyway. It's an interesting issue, and I look forward to the discussion on it. In the meantime, I continue to keep my facebook private, and watch what I post on any website. Period.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Job Hunting
I hate looking for work, I really do. I hate it even more when I know it's coming, but can't do much to plan ahead for it.
I'm always a girl with a plan. Don't get me wrong, I can be very adaptable and flexible. But I hate having no plan at all. Sometimes that plan might have to change, and the end product might bear little or no resemblance to the plan I started out with, but there will have been a plan all along. Often, there are several plans, so I have a number of contingencies covered. Then, whenever something changes, I adapt all the contingencies as well, to try and fit the new information. (This does occasionally cut into my sleep time, but that's just how it goes.)
Right now, I haven't got much of a plan, or perhaps I have too many. Until my hubby and I start hearing back from the law schools he has applications in to, I don't even know which province we'll be in. It does make planning somewhat more difficult. I do have a tentative plan for job-hunting, and I'm hoping I'll run into some marvellous opportunities, but ultimately I am much happier when I am settled. I think everyone is, but as much as I tell myself to be excited about all the opportunities now open to me, I worry too much to really manage it.
Ultimately, I think it always sucks to be unemployed, no matter your industry. My background gives me some advantages; I'm a lot better schooled in how to put together an appealing resume than I used to be, and much better prepared to take advantage of networking opportunities. The fact that my colleagues are the ones who do the hiring for their organization should also (hopefully) work in my favour.
I think it's important to be strategic and organized about your job hunt. First off, identify what it is that you want to do. What are the likely job titles you might be looking for, what kind of tasks are involved? How is it different from what you've already done?
Secondly, determine how your skills and experience align with the needs of your desired position, and adapt your resume accordingly. Especially if your desired position falls a little outside your current experience, simply listing job titles on your resume really isn't enough, especially in the current labour market. Instead, focus on ways to highlight the applicable skills and experience you do have. Don't assume your job title says it all; it doesn't. Be explicit.
Third, understand how your industry works and what kind of industry contacts work best. For example, I use this blog, my LinkedIn and my Twitter as ways of raising my profile in the HR world, because HR, like most industries, is getting ever more tech savvy. I have personal business cards that state my name, contact information, and my about.me web address for networking purposes, and I always have a few in my purse.
All this brings me to fourth, network! and then network again! I belong to my provincial HR association. I attend events, tell people who I am and what I want, and shamelessly plug myself. Then I hand out more cards. Bug your friends and family; find out if anyone knows anyone who might be helpful. Mention your job search to anyone and everyone, and see where you get. Job-hunting is not the time to embrace your inner introvert!
Fifth would be online job boards. Networking still works better, in my opinion, as a foot in the door, because it's much more difficult when you send off a resume or application via a job board to stand out among a sea of other applicants. There exist tremendous online resources about resumes, cover letters, etc. and some of them are tremendously helpful and some of them are not, but the long and the short of it is that it is very difficult to stand out in the crowd (at least in a favourable way) via an online application. Personal connections are still the best bet.
I offer this advice because it is my own personal strategy, too. It isn't yet tried and tested; that needs to wait until I know where I'm going!
I'm always a girl with a plan. Don't get me wrong, I can be very adaptable and flexible. But I hate having no plan at all. Sometimes that plan might have to change, and the end product might bear little or no resemblance to the plan I started out with, but there will have been a plan all along. Often, there are several plans, so I have a number of contingencies covered. Then, whenever something changes, I adapt all the contingencies as well, to try and fit the new information. (This does occasionally cut into my sleep time, but that's just how it goes.)
Right now, I haven't got much of a plan, or perhaps I have too many. Until my hubby and I start hearing back from the law schools he has applications in to, I don't even know which province we'll be in. It does make planning somewhat more difficult. I do have a tentative plan for job-hunting, and I'm hoping I'll run into some marvellous opportunities, but ultimately I am much happier when I am settled. I think everyone is, but as much as I tell myself to be excited about all the opportunities now open to me, I worry too much to really manage it.
Ultimately, I think it always sucks to be unemployed, no matter your industry. My background gives me some advantages; I'm a lot better schooled in how to put together an appealing resume than I used to be, and much better prepared to take advantage of networking opportunities. The fact that my colleagues are the ones who do the hiring for their organization should also (hopefully) work in my favour.
I think it's important to be strategic and organized about your job hunt. First off, identify what it is that you want to do. What are the likely job titles you might be looking for, what kind of tasks are involved? How is it different from what you've already done?
Secondly, determine how your skills and experience align with the needs of your desired position, and adapt your resume accordingly. Especially if your desired position falls a little outside your current experience, simply listing job titles on your resume really isn't enough, especially in the current labour market. Instead, focus on ways to highlight the applicable skills and experience you do have. Don't assume your job title says it all; it doesn't. Be explicit.
Third, understand how your industry works and what kind of industry contacts work best. For example, I use this blog, my LinkedIn and my Twitter as ways of raising my profile in the HR world, because HR, like most industries, is getting ever more tech savvy. I have personal business cards that state my name, contact information, and my about.me web address for networking purposes, and I always have a few in my purse.
All this brings me to fourth, network! and then network again! I belong to my provincial HR association. I attend events, tell people who I am and what I want, and shamelessly plug myself. Then I hand out more cards. Bug your friends and family; find out if anyone knows anyone who might be helpful. Mention your job search to anyone and everyone, and see where you get. Job-hunting is not the time to embrace your inner introvert!
Fifth would be online job boards. Networking still works better, in my opinion, as a foot in the door, because it's much more difficult when you send off a resume or application via a job board to stand out among a sea of other applicants. There exist tremendous online resources about resumes, cover letters, etc. and some of them are tremendously helpful and some of them are not, but the long and the short of it is that it is very difficult to stand out in the crowd (at least in a favourable way) via an online application. Personal connections are still the best bet.
I offer this advice because it is my own personal strategy, too. It isn't yet tried and tested; that needs to wait until I know where I'm going!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Giving References
It's getting close to that time where I will once again be looking for work. That made me think about references, which I will, of course, be seeking out. I actually already know that the Director of Professional Development will give me an amazing reference- he told me so. That makes life a lot easier as a job seeker- it can sometimes be very difficult to line up references.
Even in very basic, entry-level jobs, (which are by and large the kinds of positions for which I have any experience checking references,) you often run into the HR equivalent of "rank, name and serial number," where the most information you can get about your candidate is a confirmation of employment, and that's it. Makes you wonder what the point of checking references is when you can't actually find anything out about your candidate. The funny thing is, some of these same companies that refuse to give references still ask for them.
I think, personally, that this policy of not giving out any information is really dumb, at least here in Canada. While I can't speak to the law in other jurisdictions, here in Canada, references fall under the category of "qualified privilege." This link discusses that concept, which essentially means that references, if provided in good faith (i.e. without malicious intent,) are privileged, and that therefore, the person providing the reference cannot be sued for slander. Basically, it means that the reasons for failing to provide any reference beyond confirmation of employment no longer exist. And really, without this legal protection, the whole concept of checking references should no longer exist, because if it gets to the point that nobody ever gives out any information at all, then why even bother wasting your time asking? The law encourages an honestly-given reference, and this is a good thing. Canadian law also encourages promptness in supplying references, particularly if a good reference is deserved; in a Supreme Court case, Wallace vs. United Grain Growers Ltd, the court awarded damages to the plaintiff, partly due to a failure on the part of his employer to provide him with a reference in a timely fashion. So failure to provide a reference can also leave you open to legal action. You may also be vulnerable to legal action if you are reluctant to give a poor reference (even if desierved) and another company suffers losses that might have been prevented by your reference.
Basically, at least here in Canada, there is never a good reason to fail to provide an honest reference for a former employee, whether it is positive or negative.
Just because a lot of companies do it, doesn't mean that's how it should be done.
Even in very basic, entry-level jobs, (which are by and large the kinds of positions for which I have any experience checking references,) you often run into the HR equivalent of "rank, name and serial number," where the most information you can get about your candidate is a confirmation of employment, and that's it. Makes you wonder what the point of checking references is when you can't actually find anything out about your candidate. The funny thing is, some of these same companies that refuse to give references still ask for them.
I think, personally, that this policy of not giving out any information is really dumb, at least here in Canada. While I can't speak to the law in other jurisdictions, here in Canada, references fall under the category of "qualified privilege." This link discusses that concept, which essentially means that references, if provided in good faith (i.e. without malicious intent,) are privileged, and that therefore, the person providing the reference cannot be sued for slander. Basically, it means that the reasons for failing to provide any reference beyond confirmation of employment no longer exist. And really, without this legal protection, the whole concept of checking references should no longer exist, because if it gets to the point that nobody ever gives out any information at all, then why even bother wasting your time asking? The law encourages an honestly-given reference, and this is a good thing. Canadian law also encourages promptness in supplying references, particularly if a good reference is deserved; in a Supreme Court case, Wallace vs. United Grain Growers Ltd, the court awarded damages to the plaintiff, partly due to a failure on the part of his employer to provide him with a reference in a timely fashion. So failure to provide a reference can also leave you open to legal action. You may also be vulnerable to legal action if you are reluctant to give a poor reference (even if desierved) and another company suffers losses that might have been prevented by your reference.
Basically, at least here in Canada, there is never a good reason to fail to provide an honest reference for a former employee, whether it is positive or negative.
Just because a lot of companies do it, doesn't mean that's how it should be done.
Friday, March 25, 2011
CHRP
So, I've decided I'm going to register and write the NKE in October.
For those of you not in the know, (generally outside Canada,) the NKE is the National Knowledge Exam. It is the first step in the process of obtaining a CHRP (Certified Human Resources Professional) designation. The exam consists of 150 multiple choice questions dealing with seven Hr-related areas, and the RPCs (Required Professional Capabilities) related to them.
After I (presumably) rock the NKE, I have five years to write the NPPA (National Professional Practice Assessment) and become a CHRP.
While I have been considering seeking out my CHRP for a while now, I wasn't sure when to start, because, while my education in HR has been considerable, my practical experience, until fairly recently, was a little more limited, and I felt it was important not to end up as a CHRP with no hands-on experience. Well, for one thing, I have more practical experience these days, and for another, I have five years to acquire more if I think it necessary before I write the NPPA. I also want to be a CHRP because I strongly support some kind of accreditation for HR professionals that requires continual learning.
Continuing education is important in any line of work. As a eyewear salesperson, I didn't have the education required to become a licensed optician, however, opticians and optometrists are both required by their professional associations to obtain a certain number of CE credits in order to maintain their licenses. While this requirement is sometimes met with a little resistance, I think the value of it is immense. Can you imagine going to see a doctor (of anything) who hasn't updated his knowledge or skills since he first obtained his license? While an out-of-date HR professional might not risk lives the same way a doctor would, best practices are constantly evolving and things are always changing. I don't think I'm the only one who would run the risk of becoming somewhat complacent in my knowledge- not on purpose, but a professional life is a busy one, and it's pretty easy to miss out on seminars if there's no requirement you attend. I think I would never stop learning completely, but sometimes you hit a busy stretch and then realize that it's been years since you saw your dentist. Same thing can happen with professional knowledge, and that's a damn shame, because if there's a better way to do what you do, wouldn't you want to know it?
In any case, I'm pretty excited to write the NKE. I haven't registered yet, mostly because registration is done through your provincial human resources association, and I don't yet know what province I will be in by October 1st. Still totally pumped, though.
Man, I love what I do. How can you not love a job where you get to learn new stuff all the time?
For those of you not in the know, (generally outside Canada,) the NKE is the National Knowledge Exam. It is the first step in the process of obtaining a CHRP (Certified Human Resources Professional) designation. The exam consists of 150 multiple choice questions dealing with seven Hr-related areas, and the RPCs (Required Professional Capabilities) related to them.
After I (presumably) rock the NKE, I have five years to write the NPPA (National Professional Practice Assessment) and become a CHRP.
While I have been considering seeking out my CHRP for a while now, I wasn't sure when to start, because, while my education in HR has been considerable, my practical experience, until fairly recently, was a little more limited, and I felt it was important not to end up as a CHRP with no hands-on experience. Well, for one thing, I have more practical experience these days, and for another, I have five years to acquire more if I think it necessary before I write the NPPA. I also want to be a CHRP because I strongly support some kind of accreditation for HR professionals that requires continual learning.
Continuing education is important in any line of work. As a eyewear salesperson, I didn't have the education required to become a licensed optician, however, opticians and optometrists are both required by their professional associations to obtain a certain number of CE credits in order to maintain their licenses. While this requirement is sometimes met with a little resistance, I think the value of it is immense. Can you imagine going to see a doctor (of anything) who hasn't updated his knowledge or skills since he first obtained his license? While an out-of-date HR professional might not risk lives the same way a doctor would, best practices are constantly evolving and things are always changing. I don't think I'm the only one who would run the risk of becoming somewhat complacent in my knowledge- not on purpose, but a professional life is a busy one, and it's pretty easy to miss out on seminars if there's no requirement you attend. I think I would never stop learning completely, but sometimes you hit a busy stretch and then realize that it's been years since you saw your dentist. Same thing can happen with professional knowledge, and that's a damn shame, because if there's a better way to do what you do, wouldn't you want to know it?
In any case, I'm pretty excited to write the NKE. I haven't registered yet, mostly because registration is done through your provincial human resources association, and I don't yet know what province I will be in by October 1st. Still totally pumped, though.
Man, I love what I do. How can you not love a job where you get to learn new stuff all the time?
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Generation Y
Nobody seems to quite be able to agree on what, exactly, Gen Y is. I've seen date ranges for birth years ranging from the 70's up to 2010, depending who you ask. Just about everyone includes those born in the mid 80's, so there's no doubt where I end up in that equation. Right now it seems to be pretty trendy to write about Gen Y in the workforce, and how different we are. The number of articles out there floating around the interwebs that talk about how to deal with Gen Y in the workforce, what we think and why we act how we do, is actually kind of astonishing, I think. Granted that my perspective is from the inside, I just don't understand why it seems to be such a big issue.
The first result when you google "Gen Y Workforce" is this article. It's titled "Perception vs. Reality", and the first of the ten truths deals with the perception that Gen Y has serious issues with entitlement. We are also apparently perceived as lazy, with a poor work ethic, little respect for authority, too self-centred and individualistic, not committed to work, no loyalty to our employers, lacking in social skills, and being needy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing about all this in order to whine. I think that this characterization is pretty negative, but not necessarily any less accurate than any other generational generalization. I see examples of this kind of behaviour all the time, and it drives me nuts. That said, I also see examples of people who work very hard to get where they want to be and don't expected everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. (I'd like to consider myself one of the latter, but I'm likely to be a little biased on that front.)
That said, I also think people are people. I don't think Gen Y are so difficult to see and work with; like any other generation, we are a collection of individuals with different skills and opinions. Clearly, we've grown up with very different technology than our parents, and are quite comfortable with it, as a rule, but otherwise, I think a lot of this 'OMG, what to do with the millenials?' is a bit silly. What to do with us? Why, put us to work and treat us like people. The linked article states that Gen Y need careful, constructive criticism that reflects confidence in them. Okay, well, I get that. But frankly, who doesn't need this kind of criticism? Isn't that just good management?
Anyway. I could go on for hours about this, but the long and the short of it is that I just don't buy it. I don't think Gen Y needs special treatment; if you treat people well, regardless of generation, you will get better results. Maybe Gen Y is more likely to hop from employer to employer, but happy employees are more productive and less likely to leave. This is not unique to those under thirty, by any means. Some of these perceptions are things that were said about the boomers when they first joined the workforce. Yes, we are more comfortable with technology (as a rule) because we grew up with it. So what? Most of my twitter follows and followers are older than me. Some are Gen Y and some are not. I just don't quite understand what all the fuss is about.
Is that just because of my age?
The first result when you google "Gen Y Workforce" is this article. It's titled "Perception vs. Reality", and the first of the ten truths deals with the perception that Gen Y has serious issues with entitlement. We are also apparently perceived as lazy, with a poor work ethic, little respect for authority, too self-centred and individualistic, not committed to work, no loyalty to our employers, lacking in social skills, and being needy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing about all this in order to whine. I think that this characterization is pretty negative, but not necessarily any less accurate than any other generational generalization. I see examples of this kind of behaviour all the time, and it drives me nuts. That said, I also see examples of people who work very hard to get where they want to be and don't expected everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. (I'd like to consider myself one of the latter, but I'm likely to be a little biased on that front.)
That said, I also think people are people. I don't think Gen Y are so difficult to see and work with; like any other generation, we are a collection of individuals with different skills and opinions. Clearly, we've grown up with very different technology than our parents, and are quite comfortable with it, as a rule, but otherwise, I think a lot of this 'OMG, what to do with the millenials?' is a bit silly. What to do with us? Why, put us to work and treat us like people. The linked article states that Gen Y need careful, constructive criticism that reflects confidence in them. Okay, well, I get that. But frankly, who doesn't need this kind of criticism? Isn't that just good management?
Anyway. I could go on for hours about this, but the long and the short of it is that I just don't buy it. I don't think Gen Y needs special treatment; if you treat people well, regardless of generation, you will get better results. Maybe Gen Y is more likely to hop from employer to employer, but happy employees are more productive and less likely to leave. This is not unique to those under thirty, by any means. Some of these perceptions are things that were said about the boomers when they first joined the workforce. Yes, we are more comfortable with technology (as a rule) because we grew up with it. So what? Most of my twitter follows and followers are older than me. Some are Gen Y and some are not. I just don't quite understand what all the fuss is about.
Is that just because of my age?
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
How to Increase Turnover and Lose Staff Faster
I've spent much of my working career to date in frontline roles. All of those roles to date have been primarily customer service focused, in a variety of positions, and most of them have been positions with high turnover rates. This is not too surprising; the kinds of jobs a full-time undergraduate student tends to get to pay the bills are typically low-paying, low skill positions. My first job was in a grocery store deli, the second a price-focused shoe retailer, and the third a lingerie chain. I also worked in an independent pharmacy for a couple of summers. None of these positions paid much more than minimum wage, (I recall getting a ten cent an hour raise at one point, and wondering why they even bothered) and turnover tended to be quite high. In all of those roles, the person typically in charge of doing the hiring had little or no training about the process. Generally, at least in the chain companies, there would be a script of questions that the manager was supposed to ask, but some didn't even go that far and had completely unstructured interviews. In all cases, the decision about hiring was largely left to the manager's 'gut instincts'.
Needless to say, this method of hiring doesn't typically lead to great results. In my experience at least, I would say that the odds of a new hire working out weren't much better than a coin toss either way. In some cases, they were definitely worse; one manager I had was a devout Mormon who preferred to hire people who requested Sundays off in order to attend church, regardless of their other qualifications or lack thereof, in one case hiring an eighth-grade dropout (against company policy, no less) who had worked 8 jobs in the past year, never more than three months at a time, and whose only reference, when called, told us that she had been terminated for swearing at a customer. Shockingly, it didn't work out. As you might imagine, this particular manager's hiring record was significantly less than stellar.
There exists no shortage of research demonstrating that people who rely on their guts in hiring tend to make poor choices. There are a number of biases that people can fall prey too, like the halo effect or the similar-to-me bias. Others have their own particular biases which may run afoul of the law; a manager once told me she'd hired a Muslim girl once, and 'it just didn't work out', so I was not to hire any obviously Islamic candidates, in a reasonably diverse area where a lot of Muslim girls wear headscarfs. Rather than follow her discriminatory hiring practices, I left the job. In retrospect, I should have gone above her head with it, because this practice is not only immoral, but highly illegal. At the time, however, the only higher-up I knew how to contact at the company was the regional manager, who was great friends with my manager, and as a nineteen year old university student, I was considerably more uncertain of my position that I am now. At the time, I knew I objected to this practice morally; I also knew it was illegal, but at the time I wasn't aware that, in the case of a discrimination lawsuit, it would be up to the company to prove that they hadn't discriminated against potential applicants, and not vice-versa. Now I know the company HR department would certainly want to know one of their managers was discriminating, but hindsight, of course, is 20/20. I also happen to know that manager is no longer employed with the company, which is probably a good thing, considering.
In short, I'm pretty sure most of my management experience in frontline roles really taught me more about what not to do than what to do in hiring. To me, it wasn't any great revelation to learn that trusting your gut in hiring doesn't get you very far; I'd seen it in action, many times. I understand that some people can be quite hostile to the idea of structured interviews and personality assessments in hiring. While there are definitely issues involved in making sure that the tests you use are actually valid predictors of job success and do not inherently discriminate against any protected groups, I found the idea to be fairly common-sense. As long as you do due diligence in determining what tests you want to use (again, don't use your gut to pick! Use your brain) then I say, go for it.
This article from inc.com discusses the use of personality tests in hiring, specifically in the context of a small business. It's worth the read, I think, if you are considering implementing these kinds of tests, because it covers the do's-and-don'ts pretty well.
Needless to say, this method of hiring doesn't typically lead to great results. In my experience at least, I would say that the odds of a new hire working out weren't much better than a coin toss either way. In some cases, they were definitely worse; one manager I had was a devout Mormon who preferred to hire people who requested Sundays off in order to attend church, regardless of their other qualifications or lack thereof, in one case hiring an eighth-grade dropout (against company policy, no less) who had worked 8 jobs in the past year, never more than three months at a time, and whose only reference, when called, told us that she had been terminated for swearing at a customer. Shockingly, it didn't work out. As you might imagine, this particular manager's hiring record was significantly less than stellar.
There exists no shortage of research demonstrating that people who rely on their guts in hiring tend to make poor choices. There are a number of biases that people can fall prey too, like the halo effect or the similar-to-me bias. Others have their own particular biases which may run afoul of the law; a manager once told me she'd hired a Muslim girl once, and 'it just didn't work out', so I was not to hire any obviously Islamic candidates, in a reasonably diverse area where a lot of Muslim girls wear headscarfs. Rather than follow her discriminatory hiring practices, I left the job. In retrospect, I should have gone above her head with it, because this practice is not only immoral, but highly illegal. At the time, however, the only higher-up I knew how to contact at the company was the regional manager, who was great friends with my manager, and as a nineteen year old university student, I was considerably more uncertain of my position that I am now. At the time, I knew I objected to this practice morally; I also knew it was illegal, but at the time I wasn't aware that, in the case of a discrimination lawsuit, it would be up to the company to prove that they hadn't discriminated against potential applicants, and not vice-versa. Now I know the company HR department would certainly want to know one of their managers was discriminating, but hindsight, of course, is 20/20. I also happen to know that manager is no longer employed with the company, which is probably a good thing, considering.
In short, I'm pretty sure most of my management experience in frontline roles really taught me more about what not to do than what to do in hiring. To me, it wasn't any great revelation to learn that trusting your gut in hiring doesn't get you very far; I'd seen it in action, many times. I understand that some people can be quite hostile to the idea of structured interviews and personality assessments in hiring. While there are definitely issues involved in making sure that the tests you use are actually valid predictors of job success and do not inherently discriminate against any protected groups, I found the idea to be fairly common-sense. As long as you do due diligence in determining what tests you want to use (again, don't use your gut to pick! Use your brain) then I say, go for it.
This article from inc.com discusses the use of personality tests in hiring, specifically in the context of a small business. It's worth the read, I think, if you are considering implementing these kinds of tests, because it covers the do's-and-don'ts pretty well.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
And Life Goes On...
Well, today I got semi-official confirmation that what I already suspected was true; there is no position for me at my current employer.
I had one of those roller-coaster ride conversations with my mentor, who is the Director of Professional Development for the company. On the upside, he told me a tremendous number of nice things about my work and about my employment prospects. That part of the conversation was very uplifting. On the downside, he also told me that he doesn't feel there is a chance of a permanent position for me with Head Office at this time outside of my current role. Essentially, due to external economic factors, Head Office is watching their costs very closely, and cannot afford to offer me a salaried position with them. They acknowledge that the work I do is tremendously valuable and that there is a need for it; my mentor mentioned (random alliteration alert) that many people at Head Office, including himself, the Executive VP, the Director of Corporate Relations,etc. often get dragged into HR issues simply because they are there, and there is a need for it. Nevertheless, they cannot up their costs at all, even if it would mean significant savings down the road. And it will probably be two or three years before they can consider it. So that was the down of the conversation.
The Director of Professional Development told me he would be more than happy to offer references on my behalf, something he almost never does. He told me that I would be wasted in my current role, and that choosing to wait another two or three years for a potential position would not make sense for me. He also said my capabilities had surpassed what the company has to offer. So it looks like I will be job searching in a couple of months.
It may sound odd that I've mentioned that I was hoping for a position with Head Office while at the same time I may be moving out of province to accompany my husband to law school. Basically, the position I was hoping would be created would be a telecommuting one, and I would have theoretically been able to work from anywhere. As with any such corporate position, some travel would have been required, but that's the case for many of our corporate employees, as the company locations are spread out across much of the country, and I don't personally mind traveling at all.
I'm really going to miss this company, though. The culture is amazing, and their values align really closely with my own. I could wish the CEO placed a higher value on HR, and was really hoping for the opportunity to show him just how much of an impact I could have on his bottom line, but I also can't wait for three years in my current role. I am already bored where I am; that's what initally prompted me to go ahead and create some of the projects I have done in the past year. Another three years like this, with projects dribbling in here and there is just not enough to keep me going. I think I can go without much of a sense of loss, though; I know I did my best.
Hopefully I find a wonderful position with an awesome company. I don't yet know where that will be or what it will look like, but time will tell.
I had one of those roller-coaster ride conversations with my mentor, who is the Director of Professional Development for the company. On the upside, he told me a tremendous number of nice things about my work and about my employment prospects. That part of the conversation was very uplifting. On the downside, he also told me that he doesn't feel there is a chance of a permanent position for me with Head Office at this time outside of my current role. Essentially, due to external economic factors, Head Office is watching their costs very closely, and cannot afford to offer me a salaried position with them. They acknowledge that the work I do is tremendously valuable and that there is a need for it; my mentor mentioned (random alliteration alert) that many people at Head Office, including himself, the Executive VP, the Director of Corporate Relations,etc. often get dragged into HR issues simply because they are there, and there is a need for it. Nevertheless, they cannot up their costs at all, even if it would mean significant savings down the road. And it will probably be two or three years before they can consider it. So that was the down of the conversation.
The Director of Professional Development told me he would be more than happy to offer references on my behalf, something he almost never does. He told me that I would be wasted in my current role, and that choosing to wait another two or three years for a potential position would not make sense for me. He also said my capabilities had surpassed what the company has to offer. So it looks like I will be job searching in a couple of months.
It may sound odd that I've mentioned that I was hoping for a position with Head Office while at the same time I may be moving out of province to accompany my husband to law school. Basically, the position I was hoping would be created would be a telecommuting one, and I would have theoretically been able to work from anywhere. As with any such corporate position, some travel would have been required, but that's the case for many of our corporate employees, as the company locations are spread out across much of the country, and I don't personally mind traveling at all.
I'm really going to miss this company, though. The culture is amazing, and their values align really closely with my own. I could wish the CEO placed a higher value on HR, and was really hoping for the opportunity to show him just how much of an impact I could have on his bottom line, but I also can't wait for three years in my current role. I am already bored where I am; that's what initally prompted me to go ahead and create some of the projects I have done in the past year. Another three years like this, with projects dribbling in here and there is just not enough to keep me going. I think I can go without much of a sense of loss, though; I know I did my best.
Hopefully I find a wonderful position with an awesome company. I don't yet know where that will be or what it will look like, but time will tell.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Bad HR
In my previous post, I commented on the lack of training that most frontline retail managers seem to recieve. This is based on both personal experience, having worked for a couple of different retail chains, and on the experiences of a number of my contemporaries. Being one of those Gen Y types just entering the workforce, a number of my friends also have experience working these types of jobs. Some of them still do; graduating university when we did set us all up just in time for the current job market, and finding work as a new grad has not been easy for any of us.
As a result, I get to collect stories of some of the truly bad decisions that are made by frontline managers/department supervisors/other untrained management staff on step up from the bottom. I think that mostly it comes down to a lack of knowledge on the part of management. Some of them do not seem to be familiar with labour law, let alone best practices! Some of them seem to have had even the little bit of power they do have go to their heads. And some of them are simply utterly lacking in self-knowledge, and have no idea what a pain they are to deal with.
One of my friends came to me the other day. He works for a multinational big box retailer who shall remain unnamed, and has a supervisor who does not like him. When she was first promoted and transferred in to the department, evidently he made the mistake of being more knowledgeable about their product than she in front of a customer. Ever since then, according to him, she has been out to get him. The other day, he made a mistake at work. Fairly minor, apparently; he was out of his allocated department in order to assist a customer during their peak customer service hours. Based on this infraction of the rules, a few days later, his supervisor presented him with a written notice. This level of discipline is normally preceded by documented coaching sessions as well as documented verbal warnings, according to the company manual that my friend was given upon hire. The written notice is just one step shy of terminatio, and effectively meant that any additional infractions would lead to his immediate dismissal for cause. My friend wanted to know if she could, in fact, terminate him for cause over this.
First of all, this happened in Canada. Unlike some of the states, there is no such thing as at-will employment. To terminate someone with cause requires documentation, because the burden of proof is on the employer in the case of a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination. In my friend's case, all his employer had was this one written warning. There were no incidents of any kind of discipline for anything prior to this, and indeed no performance reviews either, despite my friend having worked there long enough he should have had two already.
I advised my friend to speak to the store human resources manager about all this. I told him that, based on what he had told me, his employer would have a really difficult time in court proving cause since they skipped their own corporately-mandated progressive discipline system, and had no evidence of prior problems with his performance. His store human resources manager would know that, even if his supervisor didn't, and I thought the likely outcome would be a change in the disciplinary notice he was given, if it wasn't simply removed altogether (there were a few issues with the incident, minor inaccuracies and the like). I also warned him that this wouldn't exactly endear him to his supervisor, but it was already beyond that point.
In the end, he requested a meeting with the HR manager, and came in prepared with a written statement requesting to see his personnel file, and a signed and dated statement listing his issues with the written notice he had recieved. He got it reduced to a verbal warning, and went away happy.
Ultimately, a situation like this, that tied up the HR department for a while and prompted meetings with the store manager, assistant store manager, department supervisor and my friend, could likely have been avoided by coaching the department supervisor on their progressive disciplinary system and why it is set up the way it is. A basic primer on applicable labour law goes a long way, and it just goes to show that HR is equally important in basic retail as it is at Head Office.
As a result, I get to collect stories of some of the truly bad decisions that are made by frontline managers/department supervisors/other untrained management staff on step up from the bottom. I think that mostly it comes down to a lack of knowledge on the part of management. Some of them do not seem to be familiar with labour law, let alone best practices! Some of them seem to have had even the little bit of power they do have go to their heads. And some of them are simply utterly lacking in self-knowledge, and have no idea what a pain they are to deal with.
One of my friends came to me the other day. He works for a multinational big box retailer who shall remain unnamed, and has a supervisor who does not like him. When she was first promoted and transferred in to the department, evidently he made the mistake of being more knowledgeable about their product than she in front of a customer. Ever since then, according to him, she has been out to get him. The other day, he made a mistake at work. Fairly minor, apparently; he was out of his allocated department in order to assist a customer during their peak customer service hours. Based on this infraction of the rules, a few days later, his supervisor presented him with a written notice. This level of discipline is normally preceded by documented coaching sessions as well as documented verbal warnings, according to the company manual that my friend was given upon hire. The written notice is just one step shy of terminatio, and effectively meant that any additional infractions would lead to his immediate dismissal for cause. My friend wanted to know if she could, in fact, terminate him for cause over this.
First of all, this happened in Canada. Unlike some of the states, there is no such thing as at-will employment. To terminate someone with cause requires documentation, because the burden of proof is on the employer in the case of a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination. In my friend's case, all his employer had was this one written warning. There were no incidents of any kind of discipline for anything prior to this, and indeed no performance reviews either, despite my friend having worked there long enough he should have had two already.
I advised my friend to speak to the store human resources manager about all this. I told him that, based on what he had told me, his employer would have a really difficult time in court proving cause since they skipped their own corporately-mandated progressive discipline system, and had no evidence of prior problems with his performance. His store human resources manager would know that, even if his supervisor didn't, and I thought the likely outcome would be a change in the disciplinary notice he was given, if it wasn't simply removed altogether (there were a few issues with the incident, minor inaccuracies and the like). I also warned him that this wouldn't exactly endear him to his supervisor, but it was already beyond that point.
In the end, he requested a meeting with the HR manager, and came in prepared with a written statement requesting to see his personnel file, and a signed and dated statement listing his issues with the written notice he had recieved. He got it reduced to a verbal warning, and went away happy.
Ultimately, a situation like this, that tied up the HR department for a while and prompted meetings with the store manager, assistant store manager, department supervisor and my friend, could likely have been avoided by coaching the department supervisor on their progressive disciplinary system and why it is set up the way it is. A basic primer on applicable labour law goes a long way, and it just goes to show that HR is equally important in basic retail as it is at Head Office.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Like Herding Sheep
I'm the first one to admit that I don't have a lot of day-to-day experience in HR. Not directly, anyway. Never had an HR title at any job. But I still consider myself to have the equivalent of several years' experience in an HR role. At the very least, I gots me some mad HR skillz, yo. (Looking back on that sentence, I promise to not ever do that again. Moving on.)
I have experience as a frontline retail manager, acquired while I was still an undergrad. Running a retail outlet (two, actually, in my time) might not seem like much in the way of HR-related experience, but I have interviewed and hired staff, trained and fired staff, recruited, tried my best to create a schedule that would satisfy the needs and desires of a staff of 12, mostly female, ranging in age from 15-50, while ensuring proper coverage of a store open 80 hours a week and not going over budget on wage cost(16%of gross sales). All this for $12.00 an hour! The skills learned there are not significantly different on the larger scale, save that you probably have to spend a little less time convincing a sixteen year old that a fight with her BFF/boyfriend of the week/unfair parents is not the end of the world/a good enough reason to get the weekend off work. I have dealt with upper management who wouldn't let me give raises to the staff who had been with the company for more than two years and still earning $9.00 an hour, and had me hire new staff at $10.50, and would then wonder why turnover was so high, and remind me that wage information was confidential. I had to explain to a longtime employee who was a single mother that I had been approved to offer her a raise of $.25 an hour (gee whiz, two bucks a day, how generous!) when she came to me in tears because she didn't have enough for groceries and had seen a paystub showing that the 16 year old part-time cashier was making $1.50 an hour more. I had to discipline staff for texting on the sales floor, fighting with other employees, and showing up to work wearing LuLu Lemon yoga pants as "business casual" attire. I had to fire employees for theft, for poor performance, and, memorably, for masturbating loudly in the bathroom during a scheduled shift. Multiple times. The paperwork on that last one got interesting.
All of this is experience from before I knew anything about HR. It wasn't until after my undergrad, when I realized that I had no interest in pursuing a career in Anthropology and my BA on its own didn't really do much for me job-wise, that I started looking around at other programs. To be perfectly honest, I can't even remember exactly why I chose the HR Management program at my university- I know I wanted something business-related, and I think maybe I chose HR on the basis of a conversation with my mother-in-law. In any case, once I got into my courses, I discovered that I really enjoyed them. I also realized that I already had experience doing a lot of these things, and that the average retail manager (or assistant manager) was not being given anywhere near the amount of training required to do any of this properly.
I have since moved on from these jobs. My current role involves a lot more in the way of actual HR work, although my job title doesn't reflect that. I'm hoping that the next step will be to actually jump right into a position that has HR in the title, something that I can really sink my teeth into. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care what you call my position; I know I'm in HR.
I have experience as a frontline retail manager, acquired while I was still an undergrad. Running a retail outlet (two, actually, in my time) might not seem like much in the way of HR-related experience, but I have interviewed and hired staff, trained and fired staff, recruited, tried my best to create a schedule that would satisfy the needs and desires of a staff of 12, mostly female, ranging in age from 15-50, while ensuring proper coverage of a store open 80 hours a week and not going over budget on wage cost(16%of gross sales). All this for $12.00 an hour! The skills learned there are not significantly different on the larger scale, save that you probably have to spend a little less time convincing a sixteen year old that a fight with her BFF/boyfriend of the week/unfair parents is not the end of the world/a good enough reason to get the weekend off work. I have dealt with upper management who wouldn't let me give raises to the staff who had been with the company for more than two years and still earning $9.00 an hour, and had me hire new staff at $10.50, and would then wonder why turnover was so high, and remind me that wage information was confidential. I had to explain to a longtime employee who was a single mother that I had been approved to offer her a raise of $.25 an hour (gee whiz, two bucks a day, how generous!) when she came to me in tears because she didn't have enough for groceries and had seen a paystub showing that the 16 year old part-time cashier was making $1.50 an hour more. I had to discipline staff for texting on the sales floor, fighting with other employees, and showing up to work wearing LuLu Lemon yoga pants as "business casual" attire. I had to fire employees for theft, for poor performance, and, memorably, for masturbating loudly in the bathroom during a scheduled shift. Multiple times. The paperwork on that last one got interesting.
All of this is experience from before I knew anything about HR. It wasn't until after my undergrad, when I realized that I had no interest in pursuing a career in Anthropology and my BA on its own didn't really do much for me job-wise, that I started looking around at other programs. To be perfectly honest, I can't even remember exactly why I chose the HR Management program at my university- I know I wanted something business-related, and I think maybe I chose HR on the basis of a conversation with my mother-in-law. In any case, once I got into my courses, I discovered that I really enjoyed them. I also realized that I already had experience doing a lot of these things, and that the average retail manager (or assistant manager) was not being given anywhere near the amount of training required to do any of this properly.
I have since moved on from these jobs. My current role involves a lot more in the way of actual HR work, although my job title doesn't reflect that. I'm hoping that the next step will be to actually jump right into a position that has HR in the title, something that I can really sink my teeth into. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care what you call my position; I know I'm in HR.
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Joys of Job-Hunting
I haven't yet decided exactly when I will start my next job hunt. For one thing, I won't know for a couple of months yet if my husband and I will be moving. He is waiting to hear back from a couple of law schools around the country, and that might dictate where we go. Until I have that information, needless to say, my job hunt is more theoretical than actual, though I have been trying to build up some connections in the prospective cities.
For now, I've been planning and strategizing how I will approach my job hunt. For starters, I will make sure I join my local HR Association right away, and attend every damn event they have, just to start building some contacts. I will have business cards made up with a link to my about.me, along with my contact information, to make me easily findable on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. (These things take a little doing when you have a common last name, like I do.) Then I will hand out those little suckers until you could practically paper a room with them all, try to make some friends, and start doing some informational interviews, etc. Obviously, finding a job is important, and I hate to be out of work, but it's also just as important to find somewhere I will be a good cultural fit. For me, that means a variety of things. Right now, I'm young, and just starting out on my career- that means I want room to grow and develop my skills. I'm a doer; I thrive on being busy. I get bored very easily. This means I am not much interested in taking an entry-level HR job where I will spend 40 hours a week making up schedules.
You might wonder how that makes me different than any other Gen Y C-Suite wannabe, and I hope that the difference is that, while I don't have any position that had "HR" anywhere in the title, I do have experience developing policies and procedure. My current organization does not have an HR department, and it employs a lot of people. Like, 1500 or more. (I don't actually know, exactly, and would have to ask the accountants to run a report for me in order to know.) I have created and proposed a five year plan for managing retention, increasing quality of hire, and increasing sales. So, despite not having anything with a human resources title, I actually do have experience. To go from being able to do all those things to scheduling, well, you can see why I'm not that interested. This makes networking even more of a must for me; while I have a good resume, it's also the one that gets tossed on the pile of rejects for a job calling for 5 years of direct HR experience- at least when a computer is doing the parsing.
The question is whether to even bother with online applications. It's easier to just sit and browse indeed.com and send off applications- but the results suck. I've never been afraid to work for what I wanted, and it's already gotten me far. Now I just need to network hard, and land my dream job!
For now, I've been planning and strategizing how I will approach my job hunt. For starters, I will make sure I join my local HR Association right away, and attend every damn event they have, just to start building some contacts. I will have business cards made up with a link to my about.me, along with my contact information, to make me easily findable on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. (These things take a little doing when you have a common last name, like I do.) Then I will hand out those little suckers until you could practically paper a room with them all, try to make some friends, and start doing some informational interviews, etc. Obviously, finding a job is important, and I hate to be out of work, but it's also just as important to find somewhere I will be a good cultural fit. For me, that means a variety of things. Right now, I'm young, and just starting out on my career- that means I want room to grow and develop my skills. I'm a doer; I thrive on being busy. I get bored very easily. This means I am not much interested in taking an entry-level HR job where I will spend 40 hours a week making up schedules.
You might wonder how that makes me different than any other Gen Y C-Suite wannabe, and I hope that the difference is that, while I don't have any position that had "HR" anywhere in the title, I do have experience developing policies and procedure. My current organization does not have an HR department, and it employs a lot of people. Like, 1500 or more. (I don't actually know, exactly, and would have to ask the accountants to run a report for me in order to know.) I have created and proposed a five year plan for managing retention, increasing quality of hire, and increasing sales. So, despite not having anything with a human resources title, I actually do have experience. To go from being able to do all those things to scheduling, well, you can see why I'm not that interested. This makes networking even more of a must for me; while I have a good resume, it's also the one that gets tossed on the pile of rejects for a job calling for 5 years of direct HR experience- at least when a computer is doing the parsing.
The question is whether to even bother with online applications. It's easier to just sit and browse indeed.com and send off applications- but the results suck. I've never been afraid to work for what I wanted, and it's already gotten me far. Now I just need to network hard, and land my dream job!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
What It's All About
So here I am, writing a blog. As I mentioned in my initial post below, I started blogging some time ago, but quickly found that what I was doing didn't work at all. Don't get me wrong, I have always enjoyed writing, but there needs to be a reason for what I do or it quickly becomes the low man on my ever-expanding totem pole of priorities. I had kept the blog anonymous because I was concerned about the reaction of my organization to my postings about my career and the things I was hoping to accomplish with them. None of what I had posted was confidential, and it wasn't critical either- though occasionally frustrated.
Presently, I find myself in a somewhat different situation. I still think the company I work for is fabulous. I still think my combination of qualifications and experience with them put me in an ideal position to be able to increase engagement and retention, lower costs, and improve sales. Senior people at the company even agree with me on all fronts when I present my plans. But it isn't going to happen right now.
I just wrote out several long paragraphs discussing the why, then looked them over and realized that some of the information contained within could be considered confidential, and I have no wish to cause any issues that way. At present, I am writing this blog and looking at my statements as if our primary competitors would be reading it, and promptly decided to delete anything that we might not want them reading. So I deleted those thoughtfully-written paragraphs and moved on.
The non-confidential gist of it is that the position I had hoped to create for myself will not be materializing for at least a couple of years. Needless to say, I find this disappointing, as I am happily engaged in my work and love the organization and culture of the company. I think my ideas represent a great deal of value-added for the organization. So does senior management, and nobody I have talked to about any of this has anything but nice things to say about me and my work. It was kind of like the corporate version of that classic break-up speech: "it's not you, it's me." In this particular case, I believe it. There are external factors at play that cannot be controlled, and this is how it goes.
Presently, I find myself in a somewhat different situation. I still think the company I work for is fabulous. I still think my combination of qualifications and experience with them put me in an ideal position to be able to increase engagement and retention, lower costs, and improve sales. Senior people at the company even agree with me on all fronts when I present my plans. But it isn't going to happen right now.
I just wrote out several long paragraphs discussing the why, then looked them over and realized that some of the information contained within could be considered confidential, and I have no wish to cause any issues that way. At present, I am writing this blog and looking at my statements as if our primary competitors would be reading it, and promptly decided to delete anything that we might not want them reading. So I deleted those thoughtfully-written paragraphs and moved on.
The non-confidential gist of it is that the position I had hoped to create for myself will not be materializing for at least a couple of years. Needless to say, I find this disappointing, as I am happily engaged in my work and love the organization and culture of the company. I think my ideas represent a great deal of value-added for the organization. So does senior management, and nobody I have talked to about any of this has anything but nice things to say about me and my work. It was kind of like the corporate version of that classic break-up speech: "it's not you, it's me." In this particular case, I believe it. There are external factors at play that cannot be controlled, and this is how it goes.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Inaugural Post
The funny thing is, this really isn't my inaugural post. I have been blogging for some time at this same address, but today marked a turning point when I deleted the old blog and started fresh.
The reason I ditched the old blog and moved on with the new is because that really mirrors my life right now. My old blog was largely anonymous, because I was blogging about my workplace and my career aspirations, and the things I was trying to accomplish with my current employer. Because they didn't have a social media policy, I was doing my best to keep things on the down-low in case it posed a problem to my future career. The problem with a blog like that is that I started it largely to get some feedback and ideas on my work, and also to build my social media profile.
I quickly discovered that anonymity does not work well under these circumstances. It is difficult to get any readers for your blog when it is not advertised on your twitter feed, and anonymity does not do anything at all for your social media profile.
Needless to say, my blog quickly took a backburner to Twitter and LinkedIn, places where I was actually able to build a professional presence. Eventually, I decided to rethink my strategy and move on. This blog will definitely be public. I will be tweeting about it, and I will be commenting on other people's blogs in the interest of getting some attention. I still have to manage to be interesting, but hey. That's up to me, too.
So let's call it the inaugural post: the remake. That's a little more accurate.
The reason I ditched the old blog and moved on with the new is because that really mirrors my life right now. My old blog was largely anonymous, because I was blogging about my workplace and my career aspirations, and the things I was trying to accomplish with my current employer. Because they didn't have a social media policy, I was doing my best to keep things on the down-low in case it posed a problem to my future career. The problem with a blog like that is that I started it largely to get some feedback and ideas on my work, and also to build my social media profile.
I quickly discovered that anonymity does not work well under these circumstances. It is difficult to get any readers for your blog when it is not advertised on your twitter feed, and anonymity does not do anything at all for your social media profile.
Needless to say, my blog quickly took a backburner to Twitter and LinkedIn, places where I was actually able to build a professional presence. Eventually, I decided to rethink my strategy and move on. This blog will definitely be public. I will be tweeting about it, and I will be commenting on other people's blogs in the interest of getting some attention. I still have to manage to be interesting, but hey. That's up to me, too.
So let's call it the inaugural post: the remake. That's a little more accurate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)