Should We Implant Microchips in Our Employees

Should We Implant Microchips in Our Employees The future is here, and our integration with technology has begun. For years now we have been integrating technology into our daily lives and engaging with different technologies on a constant basis. Imagine life without internet connectivity or your mobile phone? Theres no way we can live without either. We are seeing advances in technology that without  a doubt is improving  what we can do as human beings, and is vital to our future development. I would argue we now have 6 senses as human beings; vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and technology. Like vision or hearing, technology is just as important a factor in what makes us human nowadays. The latest advancement within this  argument is microchips, and it has become extremely popular within the space of transhuman technology; a movement that aims to transform the human condition by developing sophisticated technology that greatly enhances human intellect and physiology. On August 1st 2017, Three Square Market, a vending machine company in Wisconsin, began offering microchip implants to all their employees which they say allows them to make purchases, open doors, login to computers, use the copy machine and more. The chip is the size of a grain of rice and is placed between an employees thumb and forefinger. Real-life Cyborgs No more worrying about bringing your employee ID to work, or your wallet to work. Once you have the chip installed in your hand, you can open doors and purchase coffee with the wave of your hand. It all sounds so convenient, right? But I’m not sure people are quite ready to have some sort of microchip installed. More than 50 out of 80 employees at Three Square Market have volunteered, so the idea itself has a lot of admirers. Recently Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said that humans must become cyborgs to survive in the future. He speaks about the need to integrate neural laces into our brains in order to combat the inevitable rise of AI technologies. So the idea of integrating technology into our bodies has been circulating for quite a bit, and people are getting more and more used to the idea. In 10 or 15 years, I do think that this idea wont be as strange as it is now. It’s an idea that needs to best tested out and that’s exactly whats happening right now. Privacy and security Part of the narrative behind the fear of microchipping is the uncertainty of privacy and security of employees. You cant turn the chip off or put it away, it’s in you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Yet Three Square Market say that their chips are not trackable, nor do they have any kind of GPS capabilities. They say the microchips are designed to make your access to anything you need at work and the experience you have at work, easier than it ever was. While the microchips might not track an employees location by GPS, they do give employers a huge amount of data about what employees do and when they do it, such as how often an employee leaves his workspace to go to the bathroom or get food. Its important to note that while this type of information can be  useful  or even harmless to record, an employees privacy should always be in mind. Health concerns An obvious concern is the fact that you are putting something into your body. It’s a quite a big step to take as a person. It’s not a natural thing to do. Who’s to say the chip doesnt have an electrical fault? There are many hazards that people quickly think of, and that’s normal. Biohackers have predicted a positive future for microchips, as they say it will be instrumental in how we monitor our own health and fitness activities. We could eventually understand why were not feeling well, exactly what the problem is and how to fix it. Implanting microchips into our bodies has the potential of helping us do far more than just opening doors or paying for coffee. So while microchips may revolutionize how we live, do we really need it at work? Employees should consider all perspectives before committing to it.

Help With Resume Writing Assistance For Veterans

Help With Resume Writing Assistance For VeteransIf you are a veteran or someone who has served our country in the military, you need help writing your resume. However, there are many people who are only just now beginning to realize that they have a problem in their resume and many do not even realize it is possible to improve on it. If you want help with resume writing for veterans, then you need to take action. In this article, we will discuss several different ways that you can use to improve your resume.The first thing you should do when trying to improve your resume is to find some sort of professional help. This will allow you to have someone who has experience with resumes look at your resume and give you suggestions as to how you can make it better. Some of the things they will tell you will help you include in it include including an outline of your career goals, as well as eliminating redundancies. This way, when you begin to write the actual resume, you will know exactly w hat you need to include and how you should organize it. It will also help you find out what parts of your resume need to be cut out and what information should be included.The next step in improving your resume will be to see if you can get feedback from friends and family members about the resume you are going to send them. The truth is, almost everyone wants to see a list of your qualifications as opposed to a laundry list of them. You can get a lot of valuable feedback from this source as well as brainstorm with them to come up with more of a professional sounding resume.You should also keep in mind that your resume may need some editing as well. When someone gets a resume that does not look professional, the first impression you give them could ruin the rest of their work experience with you. This is why you need to get help with resume writing for veterans.You can try to write your own resume by using a free online resume writing service, but this is a bad idea because it reall y does not look professional. There are many other options that will allow you to have professional written resumes. These services will offer you an example resume that you can follow along with and edit to fit your particular needs.If you do not have the time to search for help with resume writing for veterans, then you can always hire a company to help you. There are many companies that offer this type of service as well. You can check online to see which companies are available in your area.Do not be discouraged when you get a resume that is not professional looking. Most employers are not going to care whether the resume looks good or not. This is because most employers are not going to know much about your military background and want to know about you in general. This is why you need to have an understanding of what you have done in the past to qualify you for the job and where you have been to get there.Take the time to look at your resume when you go through it and see if t here are any parts that you can cut out. This will allow you to make your resume look more professional, making it easier for you to improve upon. Getting help with resume writing for veterans will allow you to get the most out of your resume and make it the best possible resume you can have.

Where Are the Best Places to Work for Medical Sales

Where Are the Best Places to Work for Medical Sales On the hunt for a new job in medical sales? Well we may have just what you need to track down the best opportunity for you! MedReps have revealed their annual list of the best companies  to work for in medical sales  this year! They surveyed 1,400  medical sales professionals in order to find out who the most sought after employers are, of all types and sizes, as well as what qualities these professionals look for in a prospective employer. Heres what they found: Who are the most sought after employers? Johnson Johnson Medtronic Stryker What are the best places to work for medical device/equipment: Large device/equipment: Medtronic Medium  device/equipment: Intuitive Surgical Small  device/equipment: AccuVein What are the best places to work in pharmaceuticals? Johnson Johnson Allergan Lilly What are the best places to work in biotech? Gilead Amgen Biogen What are the most attractive qualities in an employer? Medical sales professionals are most satisfied in a job when they are selling products that they personally believe in, for a widely recognised organisation. They also like the business to have a commitment to innovation. What are the most important values in an employer? A competitive salary and good work-life balance are the most important values that medical sales professionals look for. They are also drawn to organisations that hire from within and offer further training on the job. How happy are those surveyed in their current jobs? 42% of those surveyed voted their current company as the best place to work for medical sales. 72% said they were very/somewhat satisfied. However, 47% said that they are likely to leave their job in the next year.

Marketing lessons from Esther Williams

Marketing lessons from Esther Williams In the early 1990s, when the job market was very bad, I had a college degree that was getting me nowhere. So my friend got me a job signing Esther Williams autograph for fans. Esther who? Thats what I said. Esther Williams was an Olympic swimmer in the 1940s when the Olympics were cancelled, and she took her bathing-suit-clad body to MGM where she was the star of water musicals. If youve never seen a water musical think Ginger Rodgers with nose plugs. Esther was hot in her day, and believe it or not, shes still hot among nostalgic old people, young girls who like swimming, and gay men who like kitsch. I worried that the job was illegal, but the person who hired me assured me this is a very common job in Los Angeles. After all, no one would squander life as a movie star by sitting around all day writing autographs for the millions of people who request signed photos. At the time, I was very upset that the only job I could get wasnt even significant enough to have a title. (Question: Uh, what do you call this kind of job? Answer: I dont know.) But now I realize that even though I hated the job, Id have to say that Esther Williams was my first marketing mentor, and I built my own marketing career around rules I learned from her: Quality control is important. During my first week, Esther gave me three copies of her signature (different pens, different sizes) and told me to practice. I submitted my best shot to Esther and she said, Make the Es loopier. I looped and resubmitted and then she gave me the go-ahead. Give the customer what they want. When I started working for Esther, she was well past 60, so when someone requested an autographed picture, you just knew they werent asking for one she took the week before. So we had a stack of copies of old MGM promotional photos: Esther as Olympic swimmer, Esther as showgirl, there was even one of Esther in a sort of kiddie porn motif. But for the die-hard fans who requested it, I also had a photo of Esther when she was about 50 years old: A head shot. Cut costs. We had 8x10s, but I only sent those if the person enclosed postage. Otherwise, Esther instructed me to send a 57. Sometimes people would request an 810, and even if they didnt send postage, Id send a big photo. I figured it would make a happy customer and it wouldnt break her bank after all, she still received residual checks from Million Dollar Mermaid. Stay out of court. One guy sent three, pristine Life magazines with Esther on the cover. He wanted each cover signed, and he wrote a note that said, The last time I asked for an autographed photo I am sure it was not you who signed it. You better not let anyone mess up these magazine covers or Ill sue you. Esther had warned me to send professional requests to her, so she signed the covers. As soon as I found another job, I quit working for Esther. But working for Esther Williams taught me that any job can help your career if you let it. Each person, no matter how weird, has something to teach you. And each business has a gem of genius because, hey, theyre making enough money to pay you, arent they? So dont be so upset about the crummy job market; you are about to start your own Esther Williams experience.

Tips For Writing a Resume Tumblr

Tips For Writing a Resume TumblrAre you looking for tips for writing a resume Tumblr? If so, I'm sorry to say that you're in the wrong place. Not many people know about this form of internet marketing. If you're a person that's just starting to get into internet marketing, and you're looking for more information on how to do it, you need to know about Tumblr.As we all know, college students are often very good at faking their grades and using other fake tricks. In order to give these students a good first impression, it's best to show them their work. The last thing you want to do is let them have their own way in front of potential employers. That's why you need to create your own resume.In order to do this, you can find a good resume writer on Tumblr. This is the best way to gain some credibility. By doing this, you'll be able to earn a decent amount of money through the different companies that want to hire you. You'll also be helping yourself a lot by learning how to create a pro fessional resume and getting tips for writing a resume Tumblr.Why would they want to hire you if you've never been hired before? The simple answer is that you can be hired as a resume writer, as long as you're able to write effective resumes. And since you can find several companies who want to hire you, you should just take advantage of this.Resume writing requires a lot of patience. You must be able to practice a lot of different layouts and concepts before you can be successful. Once you're already a master at it, there are always new opportunities to learn and get tips for writing a resume Tumblr. While on Tumblr, you can always search for some free samples.You should also have a portfolio of your work with you when approaching any major companies. There are even companies that ask you to send them the work that you already did on your own. This way, they can decide whether or not you are indeed a good candidate.If you are already contacted by a company, you must make sure that you send them your work. If you fail to do this, they won't be able to see your work and evaluate whether or not you're actually worth working for. You must do this at the right time and have a good response rate before they let you go.There are many reasons that companies hire on their own but when you're going through the process, you must be consistent. Although this might sound difficult, but if you take the time to practice on it, it'll become easier. If you've got the patience, you're bound to become a great resume writer on your own.

5 Key Resume Tips for Aspiring CFOs - CareerAlley

5 Key Resume Tips for Aspiring CFOs - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Being a Chief Financial Officer of a major corporation is a challenging job. If you have years of experience in a senior finance position, you may be ready to take a step up the ladder. If your dream has always been becoming a CFO, its important to make sure that your resume is up to par. Resumes for executive positions are a key part of your Job Search Marketing Toolkit and will help to market you as a professional to Executive Recruiters as well as senior executives. With the right resume, you can make the right first impression and stand out among long line of other candidates while you brand yourself in the field. Here are 5 resume tips to ensure that you can show off your fiscal achievements and advance your career: 1. Choose a Summary Instead of the Generic Objective Statement Objective statements are, for the most part, a thing of the past. If you want to make more than just a visual impact with your resume, you should ditch the objective statement and go with a captivating summary of all of the things you have accomplished over the years. The summary will show the employer what youve contributed in the past, and what you can contribute in the past. A summary is a forward-looking statement that shows off your skill set, and not just a statement of what youre looking for. 2. Your Personality Must Shine Through You can have all of the experience thats required, but many candidates will have the same level of experience that you have. Executives receives stacks and stacks of resumes to review. If you want to become a contender for the CFO position, you must showoff your personality. Not everyone has the same personality type. If youre an introvert, make sure the resume is organized and factual. If youre an extrovert, make the resume colorful and bold. You want to be the same person on paper as you are when you go in for your interview. 3. Dont Rely on Financial Jargon Most professionals in finance are familiar with financial jargon so relying on the jargon to get you a CFO position wont work. If you seriously want to be considered for a CFO executive position, downplay the jargon and focus on talking about your achievements in a way that any professional can understand. Remember, the HR team might not be comprised of all finance professionals. Use simple terms anyone can understand so that they can truly understand the results that you can and have delivered. 4. Focus on Your Soft Skills Too Many finance professionals put all of their financial achievements in a resume, but fail to realize the benefit of listing their soft skills. CFOs need to possess a set of soft skills that many candidates dont focus on. You can point out all of the credentials and financial achievements, but dont forget to put a focus on the soft skills that will make you an asset. 5. Consider Your Experience and Make it Fit Into the Position If you want to apply for a CFO position in a smaller firm, you might want to highlight what youve done in the right context. If youve worked with larger accounts and budgets, the firm might wonder why youre wanting to downsize. Dont come off as overqualified and make your experience work with the position youre applying for. Also make your education count. Show off your degrees, and show why they are applicable. As a CFO, youll be the master of the numbers. Make sure your resume demonstrates this, but dont forget to highlight that youre a strategic thinker, driven and an effective communicator. Make your resume a powerful tool, and land a position on paper first. Book Corner [easyazon_link asin=1563706059 locale=US new_window=default nofollow=default tag=caree07-20 add_to_cart=default cloaking=default localization=default popups=default]Professional Resume for Accounting, Tax, Finance, and Law: A Special Gallery of Quality Resumes by Professional Resume Writers[/easyazon_link] Author Bio: Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer from Sacramento, California and a mother of two. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+ Job Search job title, keywords, company, location jobs by

The six practices of happy, succesful workplaces - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

The six practices of happy, succesful workplaces - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog This chapter is not yet finished but I really need your help, so Im posting it now. Am I on the right track? It kinda feels like the advice here is either too simple or too complex to be useful. I want people to read this chapter and be inspired by what other great companies are doing. To get ideas they can implement themselves. Is it working? What do you think? How to make your business happy in practice What can a workplace do to make its people want to be happy there? Given that raises, bonuses and perks dont work what are the things that do? We could start from scratch and invent some methods and tools, but it makes much more sense to learn from the best practices already out there. What is it that the best, happiest and most successful companies do to reach high levels of happiness, excellence and profits? What makes their people consistently choose to be happy at work and lets employees and leaders work together to create great workplaces? And lets not just look at what they do, lets look at what they do that can readily be stolen implented in your workplace. Lets focus on practices that are: Generic so they apply to almost any workplace, big or small, private or government Effective so they make a real difference Fun so they make people happy Good for business so theyll get you more results There are six practices that can be found in all happy organizations. It never fails happy organizations do these, unhappy organizations omit or neglect one or more of them. The best, happiest and most successful businesses: Are positive Learn Are open Share decisions Care Think and act long-term This chapter presents each of these six practices in detail and how some of the greatest organizations around the world implement them. As you read this chapter, try to evaluate your own organization against each of these six practices. Which practices are you already great at? Which could you do more or better? Thats where you must focus to make your organization a little happier and this chapter has plenty of practical, real-life ideas for you to consider. 1: Be positive a senior [Southwest Airlines] executive spent a day working at the ticket counter and with the ground crew to have a better understanding of their roles. While she was helping direct a plane to the gate using those long orange directional devices, one of the seasoned ground crew members told her to rotate her wrists in a circular manner. When she did this, the plane did a 360 degree turn! She began to scream thinking she had sent a confusing signal to the pilot. In reality, the ground crew had contacted the pilot and told them they had a greeny directing the plane and that they wanted to have some fun with her. The pilot enthusiastically agreed to play along. Source: Ronald Culbersons newsletter, June 2004 (http://www.funsulting.com/h_june_2004_newsletter.html) You can approach business as a deadly serious, dog-eat-dog, the-winner-takes-all world of war. This view of the business world is why one Jack Welch book is called Winning and why we have business advice like Nice guys finish last and Never be satisified. But the interesting thing is that this approach is self-fulfilling if thats how you view business, that is how it will be for you, because you will make it so. Also your employees, customers, competitors will pick up on this attitude and will treat you accordingly. A positive outlook is equally self-fulfilling. When you see the business world as a place of intense cooperation, of untapped business potential just waiting for a good idea, of nice people wanting to good work, it is likely to become so for you. Im not saying that either outlook is more true than the other whatever you believe will be true for you. What Im saying is this: A positive business outlook is much more likely to make people happy at work, which as we saw in chapter X will bring a busines huge benefits. Conversely, a negative outlook makes people unhappy at work to its cost. Most people like being positive. They like to help, to contribute, to make a difference to co-workers and customers. They like to be in an environment of trust, mutual assistance and teamwork. Few people are happy in an atmosphere of distrust, suspicion and internal competition. And this is not a question of positive thinking or of shutting your eyes to problems. No, quite the contrary a positive outlook make people more able to spot problems and deal constructively with them. You may think that not all workplacess can support this attitude, How can you be positive working in a hospital, an abortion clinic, a police station. Or a funeral parlor. This is deadly serious stuff and people want you to be serious. Not all business situations can be approached with hilarity but they can all be approached with an appropriate levity. The St. Lukas foundation in outside of Copenhagen is a hospital for dying people. Nobody comes here to get better they come here to die. And yet, the place is not somber. It is in fact a place of happiness, mutual respect and even occasional celebration. The staff all recognize the seriousness of the patients situations, but argue that it is hardly improved by too much seriousness. Thats why they make sure to create at atmosphere of happiness, of true contact between people, of fun. All of which is a great boon to both the patients and to their families. If the St. Lukas foundation can find fun and happiness in their circumstances, Im sure your company can too. Here are some ways to do it. Happy hiring If you want a happy organization, it makes sense to hire happy people and not to hire people who make others unhappy. Southwest Airlines get this, and are rightly famous for their approach to recruiting which is ?hire for attitude, train for skill??. Though I certainly hope that skill also counts for at least a little when they?re hiring, say, pilots, they generally tend to value personality over previous job experience. For example, when they?re hiring flight attendants applicants are flown in from all over the US, naturally on Southwest flights. On the boarding pass they get it says ?Job applicant?? and if the flight attendants on that flight notice an applicant behaving rudely they tell the recruting staff and the interview is over before it even begins. At the job interview itself you get points for showing pluck, energy, humour and a nice personality. Jerks need not apply. Companies that value skill over personality tend to go the other way, saying things like well, he may not be easy to work with, but hes very good. But in a networked business of knowledge sharing and teamwork, its just not enough to be good, clever and skilled. You must also be a good person to function optimally in these conditions. And thats why hiring nice people (and not hiring difficult people) is a great idea. Semco have gone a step further: Their hiring process normally takes months, maybe even a year or two. They want to be very sure that youre going to like working there and that you and Semco are right for each other. They take huge pains to build a relationship before applicants are ever hired. Rosenbluth International would agree: CEO Hal Rosenbluth was once about to hire an executive with all the right skills, the right personality and the perfect CV. His interviews went swimmingly and he?d said all the right things, but something about him still made Rosenbluth nervous, though he couldn?t put his finger on just what it was. Hals solution was simple: He invited the applicant to a company softball game, and here he showed his true colors. He was competitive to the point of being manic. He abused and yelled at both the opponents and his own team. He cursed the referees and kicked up dirt like a major league player. And he did not get the job. (From Hal Rosenbluth?s excellent book The Customer Comes Second). Its simple really: Let a nice, outgoing, happy personality count when hiring new people. Remember: Happy people are great learners which makes it much easier to teach them the skills they need to do a great job. Therefore its a better bet to hire people with great personalities and lesser skills than vice versa. Fun office events Fun also matters at work though its crucial never to force fun on people whore not in the mood for it. This will only give fun a bad name. Still, there are about a million things you can do to make work more fun. Here are some examples. Call center disco Working in a call center may not be the most exciting job in the world, but one company did something to make the graveyard shift (the middle of the night) less boring: They put up a stereo, a mirror ball and some disco lights and at irregular intervals troughout the night the lights would dim, the disco lights came up and music played for a few minutes. That was a chance to get up from behind your desk and boogie. Celebration Southwest Airlines make their parties less official or fance and much more fun. In a busy year theyre not above having their christmas party (with trees and a Santa) in July. It can be themed or not the important thing is that it is a fun celebration of the people in the organization, not a stiff formal event. Praise The value of praise can not be exaggerated. Praise is such a simple thing to do and yet amazingly effective. There are many ways to praise people and the efficiency of catch people doing something right and then praise them has been proven again and again. It certainly makes people a lot happier at work than catch wrongdoers and punish them and it also allows people to learn faster. The simplest way to praise people will always be in person. Make your praise: Timely Praise as soon as theres a reason Specific Praise for something specific Targeted Target your praise to that person. Praise them for something that matters to them. The elephant order of Kjaer Group and the elephant used in the H4 childrens ward are great examples of this. Positive first Heres a simple rule to introduce at meetings and during the work-day: Take the positive first. Whenever somebody says something, suggests an idea or contributes their thoughts you have to respond with something positive first. This helps people remember that while they may disagree on 10% of an issue, they still agree on 90%. 2: Learn It doesnt matter how much you enjoy what you do today. If you do the same tasks in the same way for a long time, sooner or later you will stop enjoying it. Learning is also important, so employees have the right skills not just to do their job adequately, but to actively shine! Learning gives people a chance to grow and stretch their wings. Learning on company time shows that the company invests in its people Ive sometimes heard the objection that If we train our people, a competitor will just snatch them away. This amounts to saying that youd prefer to only employ people so unskilled, that no competitor would want to hire them away. It makes more sense to train your people well, and to simultaneously make them so happy at work, that it becomes very difficult for other companies to lure them away. Heres how some worldclass companies are doing it. Train with the best employees Rosenbluth International trained new employees by pairing each new hire with one of their best and most experienced employees for several days. Of course this gave their top employees less time to work and thus lowered productivity in the short run. But the upside more than made up for it, since new employees quickly learned not from manuals but from real experiences and felt included and supported from day one. Learn english Kjaer Group is a Danish company operating almost solely outside of Denmark and have consequently made english their corporate language. All emails and internal communication is in english. This is not a problem for most employees, as all Danes start learning english in school at a fairly early age. But one group ended up feeling left out: The car mechanics who work at the Danish headquarters, detailing cars before theyre shipped out. They havent received as much schooling as other Kjaer employees, and consequently missed much of what was going on. The company couldve said well, theyre only mechanics, they dont really need to know much about the rest of the organization as long as they can work on the cars but thats not how a happy company does things. Instead, the company hired a retired school teacher to come in once a week and spend two hours with the mechanics teaching them english. The result: The mechanics are now more involved in the organization and best of all, they feel appreciated and valued. Swap jobs At Southwest Airlines, employees regularly swap jobs. And no, the baggage handlers dont get to fly the planes, but they may get to follow a pilot for a day, just to see what their job is like. And pilots get to be counter staff, executives try working as ground staff and flight attendants get to be executives. In one case a baggage handler explained how hed always enied the pilots. He was down on the tarmac in the sun and hot weather loading and unloading luggage and from where he was standing he could see the pilot sitting in the cockpit eating an ice cream. The lucky bastard! But after following a pilot at work, he gained a new understanding if the pilots. That pilot has probably been up since 4:30 in the morning and flying almost non-stop since then. Hes eating an ice cream because he doesnt have time for a real lunch the plane is taking off again in ten minutes. It also works the other way if a plane is late Southwest pilots often leave their cockpit to help the ground crew load or unload bags. Thats the attitude of mutual respect and assistance a company gets when different groups of employees have some insight into each others worlds. And that is why swapping jobs regularly is such a great idea. Snack-boy As we sat there [on the JetBlue flight], buckling our seat belts and checking out the televisions in front of us, a middle-aged man with slightly graying hair stood up in the front of the plane. He had on the long apron that JetBlue flight attendants wear, with his name stitched into it. ?Hi,?? he said, ?my name is Dave Neeleman, and I?m the CEO of JetBlue. I?m here to serve you this evening, and I?m looking forward to meeting each of you before we land.?? Neeleman even has snack-boy embroidered on his apron how great is that. This a great example of learning, in which an executive gets to learn what customers think, what employees think and how things really are in his company. Pixar U Most movie companies rely on contract labour and the vast majority of movie people, from grips and gaffers to high-paid actors, are in essence self-employed and are hired for one movie at a time. Pixar goes against this trend, by focusing on people. Contracts allow you to be irresponsible as a company. You don?t need to worry about keeping people happy and fulfilled. What we have created here an incredible workspace, opportunities to learn and grow, and, most of all, great co-workers is better than any contract. We?ve made the leap from an idea-centered business to a people-centered business. Instead of developing ideas, we develop people. Instead of investing in ideas, we invest in people. We?re trying to create a culture of learning, filled with lifelong learners. It?s no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it?s a gift to be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people. Randy S. Nelson, the dean of Pixar University. Pixar strongly believes that happy people make better movies and that learning is a key component in making them happy. Thats why Pixar University allows all their employees to learn. About moviemaking, sure, but also pottery, improvisational theatre, sculpture, drawing and much more. It doesnt matter what theyre learning, as long as theyre learning, growing and developing. And having fun doing it. Which reminds me of this anecdote told to me by Canadian consultant Chris Corrigan: When I worked for the federal government here [in Canada] I tried suggesting that all the training allowances be used like that. Spend your $700 (!) a year on woodworking, as long as it keeps you learning. The reply was ?The Queen does not pay for knitting classes.?? I left soon after! The Queen does not pay for knitting classes thats classic. Well maybe if she did she wouldnt have lost a valuable employee. I myself have taken courses in painting, creative writing, improv theatre and singing and while none of this is directly relevant to the work I do, it all helps me to grow and develop. To feel that Im constantly expanding my horizons. To be happy at work. 3: Be open What is your companys default approach to information? is it: Information is secret. Well tell people what they need to know. Information is open. Only a few things, those that absolutely need to be, are secret. Most companies lie somewhere in between and a majority tend more towards secrecy which is a mistake happiness-at-work-wise. Sharing important information with people makes them feel trusted and valued and makes them happy. It also makes them more efficient and better able to make good decisions. Openness also works the other way: Inside-out. Does your company allow people to be open? Can they say what they really think? Can they show how they really feel? Employees who can be themselves and are allowed to be open are much more likely to be happy at work. Conversely, having to always hide their real thoughts and emotions makes people unhappy at work. Heres how some great companies do openness. Open todo-list Motek makes warehouse management software and have implemented opennes in a very interesting way: They have an internal, company-wide to-do-list of all ongoing projects, to which all employees have access. This open sharing of information means that Moteks employees can make more and better decisions because they can get the information they need, resulting in happier, more motivated people. In addition, Moteks customers and supplies also have access to the same list, and it regularly happens that a customer or supplier offers to help with an item on the todo-list. Any Motek employee can take on any item on the todo-list and set a deadline for it. If the employee completes the task inside the deadline, he gets $100 towards his next vacation. If he does not complete the task, but says so and asks for help inside the deadline, he still gets the $100. This is a great way of stimulating the right behavior meaning that its OK not to meet your deadlines, as long as you take responsiblity for this and ask for help. Open salaries One consultancy tried something interesting: They made all salaries public knowledge inside the company. Open books Semco want their employees to know as much as possible about the company so they publish their financial statements for all employees to read along with a guide to the numbers. This gives employees a deep insight into the companys present situation. The result: Employees make better, more responsible decisions because they know how those decisions affect the companys health. Invite dissent 4: Share decisions A financial analyst once asked me if I was afraid of losing control of our organization. I told him I?ve never had control and I never wanted it. If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don?t need control. They know what needs to be done, and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchs and control mechanisms you need. Herb Kelleher, ex-CEO of Southwest Airlines The more decisions that can be made by employees themselves, the better. The department store chain Nordstroms famously give their employees only one rule to live by: Rule #1: In all situations, use your good judgment. There will be no additional rules. Abolish the org chart General Electrics employs well over 100.000 people in a wide variety of industries. Their top performing production plant, the one in Durham in North Carolina, is organized according to this principle. Their organization consists of 1 CEO, 15 self-managing production teams and various support functions (IT, finance, HR, etc). There are no vice-presidents, middle managers, controllers, etc., leaving the production teams themselves responsible for quality, training, production planning, maintenance and more. The employees have shown themselves to be more then capable of that challenge, and new GE production plants will be organized according to this model. Let people plan their own work time Who is better able to plan their time than the employees themselves? This approach has been working for a log of business. At Motek, every employee has a designated backup available to provide cover while they?re out of the office. Employees can leave for the day or for a week whenever they want, the only requirement is to check with the backup to make sure he or she is around before the employee leaves. Great Belt, who operate one of the worlds longest bridges have a staff group who operate the toll booths. Their shift planning can get quite complicated, because the need to staff a variable number of the booths depending on time of day, day of the week and holiday seasons. For a long time managers did the planning, resulting in many problems when employees started swapping shifts to accomodate their personal lives, when employees called in sick or when they went on vacations. The solution: Let the employees do the planning themselves. That way they can take all of that into account and the result has been: Increased happiness at work Much less time spent finding replacements at short notice Lower absenteeism Less money spent on overtime for employees called in on short notice Semco lets each and every employee choose their own working hours. Some prefer to get in really early to avoid the hideous rush-hour traffic in Sao Paulo. Some are late risers and are more efficient if they get in shortly before lunch. Each employee gets to decide for herself. When they introduced this, some people worried what this would mean in their factories. A factory line can only operate when all the people are present. What f some decided to get in early and some late? What happened was this: The people in the factory line looked at each other and went Wanna start at 6.30?. Yeah, that sounds good. Problem solved. Finally, if you visit Patagonias headquarters in Southern California, very close to the beach, you may wonder why there are surf boards lined up in the hallways. Founder Yvon Chouinard explains why: I?m a businessman, but I?m still going to do things on my own terms. I?m going to break a lot of rules, and we?re going to blur the distinction between work and play. So we have a policy here it?s called ?Let My People Go Surfing.?? A policy which is, when the surf comes up, anybody can just go surfing. Any time of the day, you just take off and go surfing? That attitude changes your whole life. If your life is set up so that you can drop anything when the surf comes up, it changes the whole way you do your life. And it has changed this whole company here. Who is best set to decide an employees working time? The employee! Firing people together Schaefer Systems had a problem. They had a 120 employees but times were rough and they needed to get down to 100. Their dilemma: They were an employee-owned business, the employees having bought out the previous owner five years back. How do you decide who to fire in a democratic organization? You cant possibly decide on this together, can you? It turns out you can. The company started by having a discussion about what a good employee is. Then each employee got to decide who should be fired. Each employee could make a list of as few or as many co-workers who that person felt didnt belong in the company. The 20 people who got the most votes were then let go. This can sound like a barbaric process, but according to Victor Aspengren who was the companys CEO at the time it was still the best thing to do. While having these discussion was certainly tough and a strain on people, it meant that everyone at the company had a say in the process and a deep insight into who got fired and why. The practical result was that the company was very quick to pick itself up and get back in gear after the layoffs. This is of course an extreme model of employee participation and I include here to show that an organizations capacity for making decisions together, rather than have decisions mandated from the top, is much larger than most people think. Lose the dress code Think about it: Who is best placed to decide what attire is apropriate for any given employee on any given day? If your company has done an even half-way decent job of hiring responsible people, then the answer is clear: The employee him- or herself. With a few exceptions where dresscodes are mandated for reasons of safety or hygiene, telling people what to wear at work is an insult to their own ability to decide for themselves. Drop the dress codes. No more casual fridays. Trust your people to choose for themselves. Then do what ice cream manufcaturer BenJerrys did. The company was founded in the 70s by two hippies, so they obviously have no formal, corporate dress code. Rather than ?casual fridays?? they sponsor ?clash dressing day?? where employees put on their worst matching outfits. One time they even did a ?corporate day??, where everybody came to work in suits, ties, dresses, etc? and loved it. Employees have been begging for a repeat of that event. (Source: Managing to have fun by Matt Weinstein). St. Lukes Open meetings Have you ever been trapped in a two-hour meeting where you learned nothing new and had nothing really to contribute? That doesnt happen at Semco where they have what I think may be the single most brilliant and effective policy to share decisions in a company. This is it: All meetings are voluntary and all meetings are open to anyone who wants to participate. Yes, this includes board meetings. Meetings are announced on the company intranet, and people can participate in as much or as little of each meeting as they want. Heres how it works according to themselves: You go to the system and you advertise [the meeting]. Then on a given day say, Wednesday at 4 o?clock, meeting room 11 you say we?re going to discuss this, whoever?s interested. Because of the fundamental tenet that we don?t want anyone involved in anything that they really don?t want to do, all of our meetings are on a voluntary basis, meaning that the meetings are known, and then whoever is interested can and will show up, and should also leave the moment they become uninterested. It is a bit unnerving to watch these things, because people come in, plunk their things down, and then 15 minutes later somebody else says ?Bye bye, see you.?? But the fact is that whoever is left there has a stake in the decision being made, and the decision is final in the sense that it?s going to be implemented after the meeting. Source: http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1397,1569009,00.asp 5: Think and act long-term Its difficult to be happy at work when you know that the work you do is not sustainable. When you do lasting work however, when you know that the work you do is not only good today, it will be good 5 and 10 and 50 years from today you can be proud of it. That is why companies that can think and act long-term are much more likely to make their employees happy. Imagine building a house and doing it so badly that you know that house is coming down inside the next 10 years. That makes it hard to be happy and take pride in your work. But imagine building that house just right, using good materials, having the right skills and resources at your disposal, and therefore knowing that that house could easily still be standing 500 years from now. That can make people happy at work. Many publicly held companies today, face huge pressure to make the numbers and meet the budget every single quarter. The stock market is very quick to punish even small negative deviations from a companys stated goals. This means that executives are forced to focus mostly on decisions that pay off this quarter, rather than decisions that pay off years from now. Several companies are bucking this trend, and are de-listing from the stock exchange, buying back their own stock so they regain their freedom to plan for a wider horizon. The fact is that companies with a quarter-to-quarter outlook have a very difficult time making their employees happy because: The next round of layoffs may be no further away than the next disappointing quarter It can be difficult to justify to investors that the company wants to spend significant resources on making employees happy Short-term business planning makes no sense and employees will pick up on this and wonder why the company is being run so shoddily Google to investors: Treat our people right or go away When Google announced their IPO founders Sergey Brinn and Larry Page made it very clear that they would continue to run the company their way. They promised to go on treating their employees extremely well and making long-term decisions rather than living from quarter to quarter. If investors didn?t care for that, they were kindly requested to take their money elsewhere. As we all know, investors flocked to buy the stock anyway and Google is doing great, in large part by making their employees happy. 20% innovation at 3M 3M famously encourages employees to spend 20% of their working time tinkering on projects they choose for themselves. This may not pay off here and now, and most if the projects never will at al, but in the long run it leads to happier employees who get to spend time on projects that interest them and maybe to 3Ms next big hit product. Fire bad customers One danish company, IT service provider ServiceGruppen, even puts their employees above their customers. In one case, an employee was treated badly and insulted by a customer, following which management promptly terminated the contract with that customer. Applying these six practices in your organization will lead to a happier workplace, and to the resulting benefits mentioned earlier. Not to mention the fact that you and others will be able to enjoy work more. Not bad, huh? This is also why Hal Rosenbluth, the CEO of Rosenbluth Internation, called one of his books Put The Customer Second Put Your Employees First And Watchem Kick Butt. 6: Care Companies that care about their people are much more likely to make them happy at work. Also, companies want their employees to care about the company and its goals, but when people dont feel that the company cares about them, then why should they care about the company? Commitment has to go both ways or its not viable in the long run. The old saw that The busines of business is business, ie. that businesses should focus exclusively on doing business, sadly lacks one fundamental understanding: Caring for more than just your business is good for business! And doing good feels good. Caring about others comes naturally to people. Empathy is a genetic trait in humans and means that we cant really be happy if others around us are unhappy. Therefore, a company that cares about its people, its community, its customers and people elsewhere is much more likely to be a happy workplace. Care for the world Great Harvest are a freedom-based bakery franchise who state their goals as Be loose and have fun, Bake phenomenal bread, Run fast to help customers, Create strong, exciting bakeries and give generously to others. They tell this story on their website: When the devastating tsunami struck Southeast Asia in December of 2004, Great Harvest Bread Co. owners Dee and Bernie OConnor (Lansing, Michigan) decided they needed to do something to help. In less than one week, the OConnors organized a benefit to aid the survivors of the tsunami, enlisting the help of their crew, their community, and neighbor Drew Kloven, owner of the downtown Lansing Great Harvest Bread Co. They didnt know what to expect. While word of their fundraiser had spread and the holiday spirit was still strong, the weather was unpredictable and peoples pocketbooks drained from the holidays. So when six inches of heavy snow fell on the morning of their event, the OConnors worried no one would show up. But at 5:30 a.m. that morning, a stranger pulled into the little shopping strip where the bakery is located. In an act of generosity that would set the tone for the day, he plowed the area in front of Great Harvest, just in time for their 6 a.m. opening. Customers poured in and by the end of the day, the two Lansing bakeries ended up raising more than $5,500. Every penny that went into the registers that day?whether for bread, cookies, or coffee?went directly to tsunami relief efforts. Were just a small company, says Dee, but it sure makes us feel good knowing we can make a difference in other peoples lives. The OConnors credit their crew, who worked for free all day, and their customers for the tremendous show of support. There was a great camaraderie and sense of significance over this event, says Bernie. We couldnt have done it without them. The company could probably just as well have donated the same amount to the tsunami victims, but the approach they chose lets their employees and the local community join in helping and lets everybody make a positive difference. 1 percent for the planet Patagonia make outdoor wear and have committed themselves to longterm thinking. As an example, in 1996 they converted to using only organically grown cotton, out of concern for the huge amount of chemicals used in traditional cotton production. Organic cotton was then much more expensive and in very short supply, so on the surface this decision had the potential to hurt business. In order to make it work, Patagonia even had to support existing organic cotton farmers financially. In addition, Patagonia has founded 1 Percent for the Planet, an organization of businesses who donate at least 1% of net sales to environmental organizations. This helps make employees proud of their workplace. Clean carpets Making carpets can be a dirty businesss, using lots of water and other resources, including toxic dyes. In the excellent documentary The Corporation the CEO of Interface, the worlds largest carpet manufacturer, Ray Anderson explains how he came to the realization that his company could not continue to exploit natural resources: One day early in this journey it dawned on me that they way I?d been running Interface is the way of the plunderer. Plundering something that is not mine, something that belongs to every creature on earth. And I said to myself ?My goodness, a day must come where this is illegal, where plundering is not allowed. I mean, it must come.?? So I said to myself ?My goodness, some day people like me will end up in jail.?? Interface designed and manufactured a new kind of carpet that was environmentally friendly, and while the design and production of this new product was more expensive than their regularly line, it instantly became a bestseller and has made the company a fortune. This is in fact a pattern often found: A company decides to go clean and bear the increased cost inherent in this only to find that the new clean products make them more money than the old polluting ones. Which only goes to show that environmental thinking does not need to hurt the bottom line. Done correctly, it can lead the company to higher profits. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related