Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Becoming The Obvious Choice

This topic will need to be covered in several separate posts!!!

Part 1

"Time for a Reality Check"

Let's face it. Not every person is cut out for every job. For some, promotions into management can be a disastrous career step.

Many times the best salesperson is promoted into sales management. Within a month or even less, that same "best sales person" has created nothing but chaos for the once crack sales team, customers and everybody else. An excellent nurse may not be a good nursing supervisor. An outstanding insurance agent may not be a good corporate trainer. You get the picture.

The intentions of the hiring managers were to provide the best leadership for the available positions. But, the job just did not fit the talents of the individual contributor. In fact, that outstanding salesperson, nurse, or agent would much rather be doing anything other than giving performance reviews.

It is your manager's responsibility to prevent this disaster from happening to you?

No! It is your responsibility to know and understand your talents, values, and desires. Then, your additional responsibility is to evaluate how these elements fit the requirements of the new position. If you find that there is a conflict within any of those three areas, you are destined to be miserable and chances are, you will not be successful.

One other fact to consider, not all people want to move up, and that is ok.

Some immediately find their niche and are happy, working to be the best in that one job. Of course, with the speed of change in today's workplace, niche workers rarely survive for an entire career. Jobs and job responsibilities evolve into totally different areas of responsibility, which means the more flexible you are in your job often determines how marketable you will be in the future.

There are three tests you can give yourself to determine if you should pursue the next opportunity. Does the new position pass the talent test, values test, and desire test?

Here is how you can tell:

"The Talent Test"

Everyone has talents. These talents vary from person to person but everyone has areas of excellence. The key to job satisfaction and long term success is discovering what your talents are and becoming the best at putting these talents to work.

Your greatest area of expertise may be in your current job, nothing wrong with that. If this is the case and you are reaching your goals, great! But if you have talents that exist beyond your current position, you're cheating yourself and your employer by not pursuing advancement.

But, a word of caution: Don't confuse talent with desire.

TALENT is being naturally gifted in a certain area. It may be writing, selling, auditing, human relations, nursing... whatever. DESIRE is something you like to happen.

For instance, I would love to be an artist. I have that desire and I am willing to work twelve hours a day to make it happen. The problem is, I'm not a very good painter and, frankly, I do not think anyone would ever pay for my work. No matter how much I want it or how hard I work for it, I will never make a living as an artist. I would be thrilled to have some of my work chosen to hang in a museum, but that will never happen. I assure you, the museum would not be a place that you would pay to go see if my work was featured.

What I realize is this: My talents are in other areas and this is where I need to spend my energy.

So, where are your areas of excellence? What activities are seldom boring, even when you are doing the same thing over and over? What do others say that you are especially good at doing? What comes naturally to you? What skills feel good, comfortable when you use them?

Discover those areas and focus on finding the right place, the right job, that relies on your "talent," your gifts.

The Values Test

You probably know more than one extremely intelligent, successful person who is totally miserable because their job clashes with their personal values. Maybe the job requires constant travel and time away from family. Or, they have to work a schedule that keeps them away from the family. The money may be great, but that person my be under constant stress because of their desire for more time at home.

Somewhere along the way, you will probably face a tough decision: Are you willing to sacrifice your personal values for short-term gain?

Before pursuing your next position, that next step up, know yourself and your values. Then check out what the position requires and make sure that it won't create a "values clash." You may have to make trade-offs in some areas, but at least take the time to fully understand what's involved in this giving-and-taking process.

The Desire Test

"Do I really want this promotion?" Only you know that answer. If that next job is something that fits into your long range plan, go for it. If it does not help you achieve your personal goals, let others pursue it.

There is a price tag on every job. The price may involve taking time out to develop new skills. It may also contain a component called "fear of the unknown." It may put you in the position of becoming the manager of current associates or many other not-so-comfortable situations.

The message here? Take the time to evaluate the price you may be called upon to pay and match it up with your desires, values, and talents.

It's good to remember this: Life is too short not to be happy and too long not to do well!

If you have a talent that coincides with your values and you have a desire for that next job, go for it with all your have. However, if the results of any of the three test - talent,value, and desire - are not positive, ass on this opportunity and continue preparing for the job where you will be more successful.

I will end this here and pick the next part up in my next post!!!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Future Subjects

I am trying to figure out what I should blog about in future posts. Here are a few additional subjects, any suggestions would greatly appreciated. Here is just a few topics:

- Resume Builders and Tips

- OSHA

- Interview Questions

- Sexual Harassment

- Counseling/Documenting Discipline

- Internet Use

- Firing

- Employment Laws

- Performance Appraisals

- Hiring

- Team Building

- Wages & Benefits

- Workers' Comp

- Discrimination

Please email me at dubois_michael@hotmail.com on what you would like to see more information about or if you have a current issue that you would like to get an answer on please send it to me. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Hiring "Do Not Ask"

Surely, all managers know by now that there are some things they should never bring up when interviewing, right? WRONG!!!

I want to give just a few things not to ask in an interview:

Date of birth. It is OK to ask if applicant is over the age of 18, you can obtain DOB after hire.

Race, color, religion, or national origin.

Physical traits. Height and weight requirements have been found to violate the law if they eliminate a disproportionate number of femal or other minority group applicants.

Arrests. Inappropriate unless the job is security-sensitive. It is okay in most states to aks about convictions.

Garnishments or bankruptcies. Seen as discriminatory because more members of minority groups have their wages garnished than do whites.

Current family or future family plans, including marital status, number of children, or child-care arrangements.

Any obvious disability. And never ask, "Do you have disabilities?"

Alcohol or past drug use. Applicant my be protected by the ADA.

Military Service

Medications they may be taking.

Workers' compensation claims or workers' compensation injuries.

Smoking

Past of present union affiliation.

Do not make any notes at all on the resume or job application. Keep this information on a seperate piece of paper.

Quotes

"It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be."

"Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have."

"Without having a goal it's difficult to score."

"Don't look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity."

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."

"Time flies. It is up to you to be the navigator."

"I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened."

"You can never get much of anything done unless you go ahead and do it before you are ready."

"The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well."

"A small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it close to your eye and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus. Hold it at a proper distance and it can be examined and properly classified. Throw it at your feet and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway of life."

"Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands."

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Communication #1 Issue for Employees

In almost every survey employees place communication problems at the top of their frustration list.

Most managers spend so much time and effort communicating, it's hard for them to believe it could be a major problem. The paradox is that while employees are frustrated by a perceived lack of communication with their managers, most managers feel they are outstanding communicators. Almost 80% of managers think they are better communicators than they actually are.

Communication may not be the problem and in most cases employee's don't need more information. Most of the information employees receive doesn't get read and what is read isn't usually understood. The problem is that most managers communication is filled with so much "static" that the message is not understood, supported, or accepted by employees.

What causes this "static"? One factor is the proliferation of communication methods including email, voice mail, meetings, conference calls, cell phones, pagers, memos, video, intranets, newsletter, etc. With so many options, we tend to pay more attention to how we're going to communicate that what we're going to communicate, it more about the method then the message.

We have forgotten that communication is a two-way process. In order to connect with employees and create the understanding, support and acceptance critical to success we need to start with "Building Trust".

"Building Trust" is the core of communication. Without trust, does it really matter how "charismatic" you are or how "wordsmith" or how well you speak in front of your team.

Along with building trust we must "Share Knowledge". One of the best investments of a manager's time is teaching the team "the business of the business". Sharing knowledge and teaching employees the business of the business is the key to building understanding. The more information managers share about the "why" behind the "what" they are trying to accomplish, the more employees will see the overall organizational vision, and the more they will accept and support the plans and strategies necessary to achieve that vision.

In order to finish this post and not go into to much detail and start to bore you I will end with that "providing feedback" and "walking the talk" are extremely important in improving your overall communication effectiveness.

Helpful Information

We all wonder were we should go to find information and like most people you pull up Google and try to type in what you are looking for, however it is not always the greatest. I have tried to compile a few sites that will help anyone find HR information (Please realize that some of these sites are Utah specific):

www.SHRM.org(Society Human Resource Management): All HR professionals should know about this site and it can provide a lot of helpful information.

www.HR.Com: To be honest I haven't used this site a ton but I have been a subscriber to the magazine for years and have always loved the information and articles it produces.

www.HRMGuide.com: has some excellent HR information.

www.DHRM.Utah.Gov: If you ever need to know anything Utah law specific you can use this site, the only problem with it is like most Government sites it is not really user friendly.

www.YouTube.com: I know this sounds really stupid but if you ever need a job description and you are the type of person that likes visual display instead of reading it you can get some great information. I will post some of the videos in later posts to give examples.

www.DOL.gov: This site can give you a link to every states specific website to find out what laws apply. Like I said before the Government sites and be hard to navigate through so be careful on what information you use.

www.OSHA.gov: I know for a lot of HR professionals and pretty much anybody else that has not worked in the Safety and Compliance department of a company does not know much about OSHA. Unfortunately I worked closely with OSHA regulations for over 5 years in a Healthcare setting so I became really familiar with the regulations.


I know these few websites only touch the surface on how many sites are available but it is a good starting point and I will continously post new sites in the my future posts.

Introduction

A quick bio on myself. I am 31 years old with a Bachelors Degree in Business Mangement and have over 12 years experience in Human Resources. I started working as a Human Resource Assistant right out of High School and worked my way up as I went to school. I have worked in the Healthcare, Insurance and Call Center industries within those 12 years.

I have been married to my wonderful wife for almost 10 years now and we have two beautiful kids, Kennedy (6) and Zacary (3). I was born in Utah and ironically lived in Utah for the first 27 years of my life but the last three have been a rollercoaster that has taken us to Texas and back to Utah then to Idaho and now back to Utah.

I wanted to start this blog to go along with my Twitter posts to network with other professionals. I hope to provide a gread deal of information and a chance for others to ask questions that might be in need of help.