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#JobSearch : Déjà Vu All Over Again – Good News, Bad News for Employers and Job Seekers.

April 14, 2020/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

I remember… with trepidation … the market events in the fall of 2008 caused the real estate crash in 2009 and the resulting rise in unemployment with hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs. (I was one of them. As a HR director, I had to write my own layoff letter!) The recent pandemic is not quite the same, but the impact is eerily similar and much worse for workers who are now unemployed. With luck, this time, the economy will swing back quickly once folks get back to their office or location work sites as cures, vaccines, and plasma infusions are deemed safe and made available to inoculate the general population.

When economic crisis upheavals create market impacts and job losses, it’s best to be prepared for the ‘what ifs?’

In 2009, the bad news was employers laid off, terminated, or furloughed workers with no known return-to-work date. This was a crisis for the company and its workers. The events affected stability, growth, and/or revenue for the business, but also provided a unique opportunity to enrich the workforce and gain more valuable employees in the long run. Companies initially targeted ‘slackers,’ ‘redundant,’ or unskilled (untrained) employees in the mass layoffs. Workers able to do the work of others had to cross-train, or who were more productive were more likely to be retained.

Use the lessons learned from the 2009 economic crash to preparing for the current pandemic-related crisis, and/or future events with equitable impact on worker’s careers.

Those laid off or terminated were often the workers with the lowest return on investment (ROI) for the business model. Unfortunately, it was also a great opportunity to drop what the company determined were ‘troublemakers,’ ‘high maintenance employees,’ and those who had reached a salary ceiling for their job level.

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When the economy picked up again, the company had a choice of rehiring the furloughed workers. In some cases, companies found more productive replacements for the past terminated workers. Some businesses chose to continue to pay unemployment taxes on furloughed workers and hired fresh employees to train to higher standards and productivity. This may happen again in 2020. If fresh, new workers can provide a higher rate of productivity after training, the companies could turn a higher profit, faster, and decide not rehiring the furloughed workers is worth the business risk.

The good news is some workers ‘sent home’ during this pandemic event may not have been fired. Companies recognized some work (telework) could continue if workers had the right equipment and access to work-related applications from home. The scramble to set the employees up to work from home may result in long-term and increased ROI based on lower overhead costs. This event may help business leaders see the opportunity to keep workers, monitor productivity, and simultaneously reduce overhead costs by continuing to keep employees working at home.

It is bad news for the workers who are permanently laid off or furloughed. The economic crisis does provide opportunities for those who lost their jobs to go back to school, take more technical or trade training, and refresh their resume(s) for more practical or higher-level educational opportunities.

The good news is, even though the furloughed worker may have been highly productive, this is the perfect opportunity to use one’s advanced experience and skills to search for a new career position. Shop for that new job with companies who terminated the ‘redundant’ workers and are looking for that higher productivity employee. When an employee is laid off it’s the perfect timing to refresh their resume to identify their strongest skills and their greatest weaknesses.

It is vital to showcase on the resume the job seeker’s achievements and accomplishments to document the metrics and capabilities of the worker in past and potentially future work environments. Review the education section to decide when, where, and what to add to skill sets by taking online classes, going back to schools (colleges, universities – online courses where available), or targeting technical schools for updated trades training.

When economic crisis upheavals create market impacts and job losses, it’s best to be prepared for the ‘what ifs?’ in one’s career path. Use the lessons learned from the 2009 economic crash to preparing for the current pandemic-related crisis, and/or future events with equitable impact on worker’s careers. Keep updating one’s work skills, ensure your productivity at work is at its high level and makes a profit (or reduce overhead expenses) for your company. Continue to learn or take training in a variety of skills to make yourself non-expendable to your employer. If you are not constantly improving yourself, you will not survive or do well in the worst-case economic scenarios of the future.

FSC Career Blog Author: Ms. Dawn Boyer, Ph.D., owner of D. Boyer Consulting in Hampton Roads and Richmond, VA – provides resume writing, and editing / publishing / print-on-demand consulting. Reach her at: Dawn.Boyer@me.com or visit her website at www.dboyerconsulting.com.

FSC Career Blog| April 14, 2020

#Leadership : #WorkPlace -The Quest for #AffordableChildcare is Crippling U.S. Workers… A Great REad for ALL!

February 18, 2019/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Before Sheila Lirio Marcelo launched Care.com in 2006, before she led it through a successful IPO (with a $554 million valuation) in 2014, and before the CEO and chairwoman steered the marketplace for finding and managing family care through 12 consecutive quarters of profitable growth amassing more than 30.8 million members in over 20 countries, she didn’t feel like she could tell her employer she was a mother.

“I hid the fact that I was a mom because I was judging myself,” Lirio Marcelo recalls, “because I was thinking that other people would perceive me as not a great performer because I had children at home.” Although this happened nearly 20 years ago, Lirio Marcelo’s fears continue to be commonplace among the workforce. According to findings from a survey by Harvard Business School, very few employees are willing to admit to their organizations that they are caregivers for fear that it will undermine their career prospects.

Instead of putting her head down and hoping no one would ever ask, Lirio Marcelo used this experience to develop herself as a leader. By questioning the lines she was drawing around professionalism and how family and motherhood played into that, she asked herself: “Is that how I think of other people? Is that the right way to think about it?” Lirio Marcelo realized that if she was doing that to herself, she was likely going to treat her employees the same way. She concluded it wasn’t a healthy way to have work-life balance and left that job shortly thereafter. “I quickly realized I couldn’t bring my whole self to work,” Lirio Marcelo says. “It wasn’t a good cultural fit.”

But that got her thinking about caregiving more broadly as she worked her way through other jobs before accepting a position as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Matrix Partners where she refined a business plan for Care.com.

Despite her earlier conflicted thoughts on motherhood and career, to hear Lirio Marcelo tell it, being a female founder who would eventually take the helm of a large public company wasn’t all that strange. As a Filipino-American, Lirio Marcelo was steeped in a matriarchal culture where there was no shortage of female role models in corporate and government realms.

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“My mother is incredibly assertive–sometimes borderline aggressive–but on a very positive note,” says Lirio Marcelo with a laugh. Yet she describes her father as a “teddy bear” who was nurturing to her and her siblings. “There weren’t stereotypes of gender for me around leadership,” she explains. “And there was never a question in my mind whether to pursue a career, be the breadwinner, or support my family, it’s part of our matriarchal culture.”

But the fact that she founded a marketplace for caregivers was also steeped in Filipino culture. The country is a world leader in exporting caregiving labor, she points out. And not long after the business was established, Lirio Marcelo remembers that her mother took her aside and said, “It is really interesting that you pursued this, because this is who we are.” As a self-professed global citizen, Lirio Marcelo maintains that her upbringing teaches that a more nurturing and caring culture can make a meaningful difference in all peoples’ lives. “This is something I can add to the mission and leadership of the company,” she says.

CHALLENGING THE PERCEPTIONS OF THE CARE ECONOMY

It’s something she’s held onto throughout the vicissitudes of growth, particularly just before the IPO. About six months before going public, Lirio Marcelo recalls that an analyst sat her down and said it was going to be tough. The challenge was not only that a majority of analysts didn’t know what Care.com was about, but also because it was seen as a female-focused business. The analyst’s advice was to just concentrate on producing eight quarters of profitable growth. “I guess it managed my expectations as we went on the journey,” Lirio Marcelo admits.

That single-minded focus would serve her well as the stock price dipped sharply between 2015 and 2016. Lirio Marcelo says that the IPO market shifted during that time, and the “flavor of the month” were companies that could produce profits faster. Lirio Marcelo recalls knowing that it might take years to get there.

“I kept reminding myself of how difficult it was being a young mom, 20 years old and an undergrad, juggling,” she muses. Although she understood that a $5 stock was a challenge, Lirio Marcelo contends she faced larger ones throughout her life. She had faith that if she continued to focus and run the business with clarity and transparency, she could turn things around. “It was a multiyear [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][process],” she says, “that required a sense of resilience and stress management.”

The bigger issue was that Care.com was still considered a niche business, even though, as Lirio Marcelo observes, caregiving affects everyone–people must take care of children, elders, and pets, not to mention their homes. The problem, as she notes, is that unconscious and conscious biases persist. “Care represents love and is often associated with the female world, and because of that it is considered a soft issue and must not be an economic driver–when the reality is, it is,” says Lirio Marcelo.

THE LIFE-CHANGING IMPACT OF CAREGIVING

She describes the arc of life in terms of caregiving, starting with the importance of brain development in children from infant to age 4. Research has proven that children are more competitive and have better life outcomes if they are taught a certain number of words earlier. Obviously caregivers can play a very important role in this development. The problem, as she sees it, is that we in the U.S. have a weak infrastructure for care. Not only do most employers fail to provide enough paid leave, but many don’t support their employees to hire caregivers. It’s not just about money–it’s about providing an environment where workers aren’t penalized if they have to care for a child or an elder themselves. The perception that they are somehow less than professional if they have to care for a loved one is why they–as Lirio Marcelo did once upon a time–hide the fact that they are responsible for others’ care.

Women primarily step off their career tracks when faced with the cost of caregiving–something that doesn’t get counted in the GDP. Feminist economists argue that a male-centric study of the GDP is inaccurate, as it leaves out the paid and unpaid contributions of women. But those models persist.

Then there’s the end-of-life care, which is rapidly rising as baby boomers age. Many would prefer to age in place, but again, they need to be cared for in order to remain safe and not resort to emergency care, which Lirio Marcelo says is a key driver of the U.S. budget deficit.

A 2016 report from the National Survey of Children’s Health revealed that 2 million working parents had to quit their jobs that year because of childcare issues. And 1 in 5 U.S. workers reports they are currently providing assistance for older relatives and friends, according to a report by the AARP Public Policy Institute. A majority (70%) of those took time off or had to make other work arrangements to handle care.

THE ECONOMIC IMPERATIVE OF CAREGIVING

“There’s a whole litany of things missing in our care infrastructure,” says Lirio Marcelo. But the bottom line is a codependency conundrum. “You need to work to pay for great care, and you need great care to work,” she explains, and this affects everyone, regardless of gender. From the start of life with brain development, to end-of-life care, she underscores, “Our care infrastructure drives our economy, and my job is to raise awareness of this ‘soft issue’ that’s not soft at all. It’s an economic imperative.”

The challenge for Lirio Marcelo as she leads Care.com forward is to come up with innovative and cost-effective solutions for care. She points out how they created a way for families employing caregivers to set up funds with extra money so they can use them to buy groceries and gas. And she notes that Starbucks is now offering their more than 180,000 U.S. employees a benefit that could be a huge boon. In partnership with Care.com they are offering an online service called Care@Work, and will receive 10 subsidized backup care days a year for kids and adults.

We still have a long way to go. Harvard Business School’s Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman who authored the aforementioned study say that “American companies are facing a caregiving crisis–they just refuse to acknowledge it.” They insist that the impact of caregiving (or lack thereof) on companies and the economy should be measured. Lirio Marcelo believes there has to be public-private partnerships, because bean counting and government funding can’t do it all. It’s going to take a village, she says, “not just to raise a child but to support families.”

FastCompany.com | February 18, 2019

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#Leadership : #Productivity – This is How to Fix your 3 Biggest Problems with your CoWorkers .

October 8, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Your coworkers may look busy, but if you’re not sure what they do all day, you’re not alone. According to the State of Work Report 2018 by the project management platform Workfront, 86% of us don’t have a clear sense of what our colleagues are working on.

We also believe that we’re the most productive employees at work, ahead of those coworkers and company leadership. If we were asked to rate our coworkers like Uber drivers, we’d give them an average score of 3.7 stars out of five, according to the study. Not bad, but not stellar, either. Since it’s impossible for everyone to be the most productive employee, the confusion can lead to conflict.

“Coworkers can be a particularly strong influence on employee satisfaction, especially when employees have to rely heavily on each other to complete their work,” says Kevin Cruz, assistant professor of management at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. “Unfortunately, coworkers’ priorities and goals, which can be a result of the particular roles employees fill within their organizations, do not always align. This can cause a lot of frustration between coworkers.”

Instead of getting frustrated, assume positive intent, says Colleen Kerr, senior career management consultant at the consulting firm Right Management. “Your coworker is likely not deliberately trying to annoy you,” she says.

Here are the top three sources of frustration we have with our coworkers, and how you can resolve or reconsider your perspective to boost collaboration and productivity.

1. PRIORITIES

The top source of trouble is conflicting priorities, with 57% of employees saying there’s a lack of alignment on strategic objectives.

“Timelines and urgency aren’t commonly understood, and the information that managers and frontline team members need to meet their objectives isn’t readily available,” says Scott Lee, vice president of product marketing for Workfront. “All of this leads to conflict at the front line.”

The way to reduce coworker frustration with conflicting priorities is to increase transparency around what’s most important to the organization,” says Laura Handrick, career analyst for the resource site FitSmallBusiness.com. “It starts with communicating the organizations’ vision, mission, and values,” she says. “Those drive how the organization behaves.”

Different project leaders, such as those working in operations, HR, or IT, may have different priorities,” says Handrick. “Using collaborative and transparent online project management tools like Asana or Trello can help get everyone on the same page,” she suggests. “If all are required to use a similar tool for documenting priorities, then conflicting priorities are quickly discovered by management, and workers are no longer caught in the middle.”

Team members should also create priority lists at the beginning of a new work cycle, adds John Paul Stephens, professor of organizational behavior at Case Western Reserve University. “What needs to be done when and why?” he asks. “Some degree of strategic planning is important for the most productive people and organizations. It’s also important for interdependent work, since you need to be able to articulate these needs and priorities to others.”

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2. COMMUNICATION

Fifty-six percent of workers have communication issues with coworkers, according to the survey. Lee says workplace communication tools are in transition, with old tools, like spreadsheets, emails, and meetings being used at the same time as new tools, such as digital workflow platforms. This can lead to trouble.

“Gathering information, sharing insights, and updating team members is still a fairly analog, manual process,” he says. “How many times does conflict arise because one person or a team wasn’t aware another person or team was doing something?”

Coworkers should get on the same page when it comes to the preferred method of communication, says Stephens. “Some people think a text message or email is enough, while others realize that you need to set up a face-to-face meeting or just go find the person at their desk,” he says. “People perceive a lack of timely communication because they may have different ideas of what matters and when it needs to be executed.”

Frustration about a lack of communication can also be due to a gap in coworkers’ ability to express what they need, when they need it, and why it is so important, says Natalie Baumgartner, chief workforce scientist at the employee recognition firm Achievers. “It is critical to support individuals in being able to provide regular feedback to their manager and coworkers about how they are feeling about the communication on a team, and whether they’re being heard in the way they want to be,” she says.

3. URGENCY

Finally, 47% of employees are frustrated when it comes to a lack of urgency. Whether in small or large groups, someone has to be the orchestra conductor keeping time for everyone else, says Stephens.

“If we assume that individual humans typically tend to focus on their immediate, personal concerns, then it becomes easier to appreciate the need to have agreed-upon timelines, clear accountability criteria, and someone who tracks and updates the schedule,” he says. “Research has consistently shown that interdependent or collective rather than individual rewards are needed for effective teamwork. The sense of urgency ideally has to come from a sense of shared goals and accomplishments.”

Lack of urgency can also be connected to communication problems, adds Kerr. “It could be that your coworker does not fully understand your deadlines and commitments,” she says. “Take the time to explain your timelines and the reason for the tight deadlines. We often assume that everyone understands our roles and responsibilities, yet that is not always the case.”

FastCompany.com | Oct 8, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 4 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : The Big Changes Ahead For #BoomerWorkers …Boomers & #GenXers : Your Working World is in for Major Disruptions Between Now & 2030, According to a New Report from the Management Consulting Firm Bain & Company.

February 20, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Boomers and Gen Xers: Your working world is in for major disruptions between now and 2030, according to a new report from the management consulting firm Bain & Company. “The depth and breadth of changes in the 2020s will set apart this transformation from many previous ones,” said the report, Labor 2030: The Collision of Demographics, Automation and Inequality.

But here’s the bigger surprise: Some of those disruptions will make it easier for people in the 50s and 60s to keep working, find jobs and start businesses, the Bain forecasters say. Now that’s a noteworthy trend.

Hanging On to Older Workers

The main reason for the good news, according to the Bain experts, is that the abundance of labor seen since the 1970s — due to boomers and women entering the workforce — is winding down. Bain foresees labor force growth in the U.S. slowing to 0.4% a year in the 2020s. With workers in shorter supply, the Bain analysts say, employers will be eager to hang on to the ones they have and entice applicants, including older ones, to join them.

“Baby boomers will remain an important pool of talent through 2030, when the youngest cohort of that generation will only be 66,” the report said. This view echoed what I heard last May when I asked futurists Katherine LY Green, of Green Consulting Group, and John Mahaffie and Jennifer Jarratt, founders of Leading Futurists, what they expected for older workers in the coming decades.

Companies looking to innovate and scale within their businesses “will often find that skill among workers who’ve been around the place awhile,” said Andrew Schwedel, a partner in Bain & Company’s New York Office and head of the firm’s Macro Trends Group, which published the study.

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More Flexible Employment for Boomer Workers

“The war for talent” means companies will be innovating like crazy to make compelling offers to workers,” said Schwedel. He anticipates not only more demand for flexible work arrangements from employees and job applicants, but more need for a flexible workforce in general.

To keep older workers, there may be “more opportunities to retool your skills, and maybe even a new generation of employee benefits,” said Schwedel.

Also, the Bain report said, “as competition talent increases, standard employment offers may disappear.” Companies offering an identical package to the three generations of the labor force in the 2020s could “be vulnerable to poaching from employers willing to make more focused offers” with a custom blend of compensation, benefits and hours.

Whither Age Discrimination?

Age discrimination by employers, Schwedel said, won’t disappear, but it will change. “You may not see employers offering older workers traditional employment. We’ll be seeing the rise of more part-timers and independent contractors.”

The ability to work longer will be a huge help to many Americans in their 60s without enough retirement savings to let them live out their longer lives in comfort. Bain’s dire view: as things stand now, only about the top 20% of older households are likely to have enough savings to support a traditional retirement. The Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis just came out with an even gloomier report, saying that 40% of older workers and their spuses will be “downwardly mobile” in retirement.

Inequality Among Older Americans

One big question, Bain says, is whether people in their 60s will physically be able to keep working.

“If you’re well-educated, and high-income, you will probably manage to keep working into your 70s if you want,” said Schwedel. “But if you’re blue-collar, with less than a high-school education and health problems, you’ll have a tougher time.”

The bottom 40% of older households “may see their income and workforce participation decline due to health reasons,” the Bain report said.

What About the Robots?

And those robots we’ve been told will be coming to take our jobs? Automation may be reason to worry for many, but it could possibly spell opportunities for your career, and for your investment portfolio.

Bain believes the rapid spread of automation may eliminate as many as 20 to 25% of current jobs — equal to 40 million displaced workers. Hardest hit: workers currently making between $30,000 and $60,000 per year.

“But some people will benefit” from automation, said Schwedel.

The Good News for Entrepreneurs

For example: entrepreneurs. “Automation will make it much easier for a small business to access scale in ways it was hard to do in the past,” said Schwedel. “You can rent from Amazon Web Services, use UPS to do your logistics and hire Salesforce.com to run your sales.”

The report also noted that now “entrepreneurs can use social media postings, targeted search engine ads and email newsletters to launch businesses at a fraction of the marketing budget previously required.

Other beneficiaries from automation, said Schwedel, are “people in managerial roles requiring professional expertise and who have the ability to work with new technology and use it to increase productivity — like data scientists.”

Similarly, “if you are a financial adviser, automation will dramatically increase your productivity, it won’t necessarily eliminate your job. The financial adviser industry has not found it economical to serve clients with smaller portfolios, but it will become more economical when technology extends their reach.”

Opportunities for Investors

That could also be good news for the many middle-income Americans who want financial advisers to help manage their money but are often snubbed.

“From a micro standpoint, anything related to automation will generate investment opportunities,” said Schwedel. Bain forecasters see four types in sectors such as energy, health care, aerospace, retail and infrastructure:

1. Core platform providers providing the essential enabling technologies for the next phase of automation. They include “the physical building blocks, such as high-dexterity robotic hands” and the “analytical or control building blocks, such as machine learning systems and the application program interfaces that go with them.”

2. Systems integrators combining the building blocks to create function systems by assembling sophisticated hardware and software components in one integrated package. Think drones that drop off packages.

3. Businesses that figure out how to adapt automated systems to discrete uses. Example: delivering a package to a customer’s house.

4. The collateral infrastructure that enables new automation systems. Bain believes this may be nearly half the total investment that the next phase of automation will require.

Why Higher Taxes May Be Coming

One more thing the Bain forecasters say may be on the horizon: much higher taxes. That’s because there’ll be more older Americans requiring government benefits such as Medicare and Medicaid and fewer younger Americans working and paying taxes.

Tax increases of 15 to 25% per U.S. worker by 2030 “could be required to offset changing demographics and inequality,” the Bain report said.

“We’re not prescribing policies,” said Schwedel. “We’re not saying whether taxes should go up or by how much or what type.”

The researchers just believe taxes may go up if trends play out the way they expect: lower economic growth, surging health care costs, rising income inequality, lagging wages, a cyclical downturn in the second half of the decade, a decline in interest rates and major job displacement. An alternative scenario if those trends come true: increased government benefits.

Forbes.com | February 20, 2018 | Next Avenue

#Leadership : The 9-to-5 Workweek Is Dead. Here’s What’s Next…Could Reimagining the 40-Hour Week Grind Make your Company More Productive?

December 7, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Your mind could have drifted thousands of miles away, but as long as your body showed up to work at Dallas-based tax firm Ryan, that was all that mattered. “We literally ranked people by hours,” says Delta Emerson, president of Ryan’s global shared services.

“Even if someone worked 24 hours the day before, they still had to book at least eight hours Monday through Friday.” The clock was seen as an easy proxy for work ethic, and employees who logged marathon sessions at their desks “wore their hours like a badge, practically tattooed on their foreheads,” Emerson says. “But it was at a cost.”

Emerson didn’t want to just tweak the workweek. She wanted to bust it open. But when she pitched the idea of flexible hours, she was almost thrown out of the CEO’s office. A resignation letter from a rising star finally got her the green light. Now the firm measures results–not time. Some staffers work as little as 20 hours a week; some start at 7 a.m., others at 10 a.m.; some commute to the office only twice a week. Since the 2008 shift, revenue has grown 15 percent year over year, customer satisfaction is higher than ever before, and turnover has plummeted.

The Case for the Enlightened Schedule : In the war for talent, flexibility is no longer just a perk.

29%

of college students think being able to work remotely with a flexible schedule is a right, not a privilege.

66 percent

of Millennials say having a boss who doesn’t support flexible schedules has factored into their decision to leave a job.

72%

of working parents say that people who work flex hours have fewer pay/promotional opportunities.

Is the headache of uprooting an orderly 40-hour, anchored-to-the-desk schedule worth it? All the indicators point to yes. “Millennials may have sent flexibility to the top of HR agendas, but now it’s increasingly the norm across all generations,” says Lisa Horn, a director at the Society for Human Resource Management. Technology has made working from anywhere possible, and the uptick in dual-earner families makes rigid hours less attractive to talent.

“The idea that employees are like machines–if they put eight hours in you’ll get x dollars out–is absurd,” says Ryan Carson, founder and CEO of Portland, Oregon-based startup Treehouse, an education technology company, which lets its employees set their own schedules. “Why not give people flexibility so they don’t have to choose?” You can reinvent your company’s workweek using this advice as a guide.

1. Debunk the 40-Hour Myth

The eight-hour workday was introduced by Henry Ford in the early 1900s as a way to attract autoworkers, many of whom were accustomed to 12-hour shifts. More recently, Basecamp’s Jason Fried thought it was time to modernize the workday to fit the needs of employees at his Chicago-based software company. “There’s nothing magical about 40 hours,” says Fried, whose staffers work just 32 hours a week from May through August. The co-founder (and Inc. columnist) says having fewer hours to complete a task sharpens employee focus.

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2. Adapt to Peak-Performance Styles

When Nate Reusser revamped the schedule at Roanoke, Indiana-based web developer Reusser Design to four 10-hour days, he realized he’d traded in one type of rigidity for another. “Some people loved it, but others were so wiped by Thursday that they couldn’t keep up,” he says. Now he lets employees pick whichever schedule best suits their working style. “The real goal is to remove interruptions so that people can be productive,” says Reusser.

3. Synchronize Schedules

When Ryan first began unshackling teams from the clock, “our biggest mistake was not training our managers,” says Emerson. Now managers have a blueprint to help with their team’s unorthodox schedule: Are there any days when the whole team comes into the office? Are there certain hours that are off limits for meetings? Emerson says, “You have to do the work to set those ground rules so people can really work together”–even when they’re in different places or putting in different hours.

FROM THE DECEMBER 2016/JANUARY 2017 ISSUE OF INC. MAGAZINE

By Kate Rockwood

Freelance writer

Your #Career : Work From Home In 2016: The Top 100 Companies For Remote Jobs…These Companies Clearly Understand that Integrating Telecommuters into their Workforce is a Smart Business Strategy. Remote Working is on the Rise, & this Acceleration is Great News for anyone Wishing to Trade the Office for a Telecommuting Job.

January 28, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

As technology gives us the freedom to work from anywhere, more and more people are prizing the ability to do so. Many companies are responding with flexible work schedules, and seeming to acknowledge the trend, the Department of Labor just announced that in 2017 it will resume its contingent workforce survey, which was last conducted in 2005.

FlexJobs, an online service devoted to listing telecommuting, flexible schedule, part-time and freelance work opportunities, is a prime resource for the segment of the workforce in search of such opportunities.

While one might find many spam emails or subway flyers promising work from home opportunities, FlexJobs offers up legitimate and professional listings for jobs in 50 career categories with positions ranging from entry-level to C-suite.

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The third annual list is based on an analysis of more than 40,000 companies and the jobs they posted on FlexJobs in 2015. (Check out the 2015 and 2014lists.)

Overall, the site saw a 36% increase in the number of remote listings, with computer and IT jobs topping the list of fields offering such opportunities, followed by medical and health, sales, administrative, customer service, education and training, and finally, marketing.

Some of the most popular telecommuting jobs included writer, engineer, marketing manager, healthcare consultant, case manager, development director and recruiter.

“These companies clearly understand that integrating telecommuters into their workforce is a smart business strategy,” said Sara Sutton Fell, founder and CEO of FlexJobs, in a statement. “Remote working is on the rise, and this acceleration is great news for anyone wishing to trade the office for a telecommuting job.”

Here’s the top 100 list, plus tips at the bottom on ways to make more money:

Forbes.com | January 27, 2016 | Laura Shin

#Leadership : The Pernicious Myth of the 80-20 Rule…While it’s Easy to See Why Managers Still Believe That 20% of a Company’s Workforce does 80% of the Work, the 80-20 Rule is a Corrosive Myth that Often Does More Harm Than Good.

September 8, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Management Consultants Insist that a 20% Vital Few really Matter in Companies, a Large Middle Just do their Jobs, & Another 10% or 20% Should be Encouraged to Leave or Be Fired.

Back in the late 19th century, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80 percent of the land was owned by 20 percent of the people. In the 1940s management consultant Joseph Juran argued that the 80-20 rule applied to management in general, concluding that there were the “vital few and the trivial many.” That seemed a bit harsh, so he later revised it to the “vital few and the useful many.”

The principle seems to be having a revival these days. Management consultants insist that a 20 percent vital few really matter in companies, a large middle just do their jobs, and another 10 percent or 20 percent should be encouraged to leave or be fired. Recent data from Mercer Consulting shows that employers are now focusing most of their bonuses on just a small number of people, while about 30 percent of companies that had broad-based equity plans have dropped them to focus on “the people who really matter.” So the new corporate mantra, I suppose, is that “20 percent of our people are our most important asset.”

This rule never made much sense to me. After all, if we focus rewards on the 20 percent, the other 80 percent would be most unhappy. Of course, that might demotivate them enough to make the 80-20 rule actually work. That is especially true because surveys consistently show that about 70 percent of employees believe they are in the top 10 percent of performers (admit it, you think you are, right?).

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It is easy to see why people are attracted to the 80-20 rule for management. First, everyone who writes and reads about it, I’d wager, believes they are in the 20 percent. Second, it justifies maximizing the rewards that go to the top. Third, if you treat people as if they don’t matter that much, you may well end up with an organization where they don’t. So your brilliance in following the 80-20 rules is self-fulfilling. In fact, why not take the 80-20 rule a little farther? If 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the people, then shouldn’t 80 percent of the results from the top 20 percent of the company come from 4 percent? And 80 percent of what the 4 percent produce from 0.8 percent? After all, this is a rule.

Curious about this, I spent an hour Googling for research on it in anything related to human resource management that prove the 80-20 rule. There may be something out there, but I couldn’t find it. Of the hundreds of links I did find, all but a handful just accepted the rule as some kind of unrepealable law of nature.

The 80-20 rule is corrosive. It deters management from finding ways to get as many people as possible in an organization to contribute ideas, information, and effort that help the company move forward. It creates too much competition between people for scarce rewards, thus discouraging teamwork. And while it is certainly true that people make unequal contributions to organizational success, to assume this follows an arbitrary division of any kind is lazy and ineffective. So I am herewith creating the Rosen rule. If in your organization 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the people, your organization is very badly mismanaged.

That’s how Doug Smith of Lumber Traders, an ESOP-owned company in Port Angeles, Washington sees it. He told us that “the establishment of the 80/20 rule is a benchmark of bad management. Our society always looks to the dark side, self-interest and fear. No wonder so many people are only looking out for themselves. We take a different approach. Yes we do have some percentage of ‘vital few’, and we do have pockets of perfection, but our overriding goal is to identify these resources and to propagate them.” Smith’s concept is that these star performers should be focusing their efforts not on distinguishing themselves from everyone else, but working to bring the other 80 percent up to their level.”

Great business leaders are humble. That humility is what makes I possible for people around them to be confident they can express ideas and disagree. Rather than trying to rely on the ideas and energy of just a small percentage of their workforce, they seek to engage everyone and put them all in the top 20 percent.

PUBLISHED ON: SEP 7, 2015

BY COREY ROSEN

Founder, National Center for Employee Ownership

#Leadership : 5 Ways You Can Position Yourself As A #Leader (Before You Have Any Followers)…People will Follow a Talented Leader, They Want to Be Inspired & Motivated

June 25, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

There’s Never Been a Better Time to Develop your Leadership Skills. According to Deloitte’s 2014 Millennial Survey, #Millennials will comprise 75% of the Global #Workforce by 2025. Think about that statistic for a moment, because the implications are huge: Within 10 years, Baby Boomers will have all but completed the handoff of leadership responsibilities to members of Generations X and Y. If you’re interested in moving into management, now is the ideal time to raise your hand and take the lead.

Why now?

In anticipation of this global demographic shift, many companies are developing high-potential programs to accelerate the development of their up-and-coming leaders. Deloitte, for example, has a program called NextGen, which aims to cultivate future leaders.

I turned to Monica O’Reilly, a principal at Deloitte & Touche LLP and Chief Talent Officer for the firm’s advisory practice, to learn more about NextGen and who makes a great candidate for the program.

O’Reilly, who is a NextGen graduate herself, explains five ways to stand out and be recognized as high-potential. Even if your company doesn’t have a program like NextGen, incorporating these tips into your work life will demonstrate your abilities to the people who can take your career to the next level.
1. Deliver Superior Performance

Don’t just meet expectations; exceed them. Every time. Being recognized as someone who possesses high potential starts with superior performance.

“The people selected for the program demonstrate a desire to move into top leadership roles, an interest in broadening their perspective across the business, and a strong commitment to developing themselves and others,” O’Reilly says. “But in addition to that, they usually have a strong track record of performance over several years. We choose those who demonstrate higher performance in serving clients and taking care of people.”

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2. Cultivate A Followership

Do you have the ability to inspire others to collaborate and take action? If so, you have—or are building—a followership. According to O’Reilly, if you want to be recognized for your future leadership potential, you should be able to cultivate a followership before you get there.

“People will follow a talented leader,” she asserts. “They want to be inspired and motivated.” So learn what makes people tick as well as what qualities they respect (here are a few ideas), then begin to cultivate those traits.

3. Be Boldly Self-Aware

Do you know your workplace brand? In other words, are you aware of the unique impact you make in your office and how others perceive you? If you want a management position in your future, you should.

That’s because emerging leaders must possess strong self-awareness. “Understand your strengths and where you can make an impact,” says O’Reilly. “And then, be brave enough to make that impact.”

If you haven’t yet uncovered your brand or your strengths, try taking a 360-degree feedback survey or asking a trusted manager, mentor, or colleague to describe how he or she thinks you’re perceived by others. Listen for positive traits that are referenced more than once, and then aggressively seek out opportunities to apply those strengths.

Related: The Absolute Best Way To Figure Out Your Personal Brand

4. Think Strategically

To thrive in an accelerated leadership program like NextGen, says O’Reilly, you must strive to think broadly and more strategically. “Question how things could be done better and how to add value to the organization, no matter what role you are in,” she recommends.

For example, let’s say you notice a number of customers with similar complaints about your team’s product. Instead of reacting to each problem as it arises, try to determine the root cause or look for ways that your team might be better able to anticipate customers’ needs.

5. Attract Mentors

One valuable element of a high-potential program is the opportunity to learn and network with others in your cohort. You’ll develop an amazing network of impressive peers who will one day become your network of powerful business leaders.

But don’t wait for the program to start to develop that group of contacts—start establishing relationships with leaders who can mentor and guide you now. When you meet a person you admire, ask if he or she would be open to having a 20-minute informational meeting with you to answer some career-related questions. If it goes well, ask if he or she would be willing to meet on a regular basis. If you get a yes—you’ve got a new mentor.

When you do get the opportunity to take on a leadership role or enter a leadership development program, make the most of it. “If you’re selected for any leadership program, embrace the experience.” O’Reilly recommends. “Don’t be passive about it. Immerse yourself completely, so you can develop as a future leader.”

This article was originally published on The Daily Muse.

Jo Miller is founding editor of Be Leaderly and CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching, Inc.

Forbes.com | June 25, 2015 | The Muse