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

8 Common Sense Interview Tips

8 Common Sense Interview Tips **I am a member of the Career Collective, a group of resume writers and career coaches.   Each month, all members discuss a certain topic.   This month, we are talking about common job search misconceptions. Please follow our tweets on Twitter #careercollective.   You can also view the other member’s interesting posts at the end of the article. +++ Getting ready for an interview is often the most stressful part of the hiring process. Many job seekers do not take the time to properly prepare for an interview. This can lead to more than a bad answer to an interview question. Not taking the time to prepare can make you late, nervous and less likely to land the job. Preparing for an interview is as simple as following a few common sense guidelines: 1. Where are you going: Be sure to do a dry run to the interview location. Whenever possible make the dry run during the same time of day as the scheduled interview, or make sure your GPS is working the day before you program itjust in case. This will allow you to easily locate the office without worrying about traffic or detours. 2. What are you bringing: Carefully review any guidelines set forth by the hiring manager. Bring extra copies of your resume, your portfolio (if applicable), a list of references and anything else requested. Prepare these items in advance to prevent forgetting items. It is also a good idea to keep clean copies of your resume in your car in case of an emergency. 3. What are you wearing: Try on each item that you will be wearing to the interview. Insure the clothing fits properly, is clean, pressed and damage free. Don’t forget to check socks and shoes. 4. Grooming: If your hair, mustache or beard needs trimming take care of it several days before the interview. Leaving this to the last minute can cause delays. 5.   Phones: OFF! Consider yourself out of the running if your phone goes off during the interview really out of it if your ring tone is Baby Got Back. Be smart and turn your phone off during your interview. 6. Questions: It is a mistake to assume that the only person asking question is the hiring manager. Instead, carefully craft a list of 2 to 5 questions to ask the interviewer. These questions should be thought provoking and demonstrate your knowledge of the company, its product or service and website. 7. Answers: Many interviews begin with the same questions: What do you hope to do? What are your goals? What is your greatest strength/weakness? Where do you see yourself in 5 years. Put some time and effort into thinking about these questions and prepare your answers in advance. 8. Eat, Sleep, Relax: Neglecting your health by failing to eat or sleep properly before your resume is a mistake. Try to put yourself in a relaxed state of mind. The more relaxed you are, the better the interview will go. Other common sense suggestions include researching the hiring manager, contacting your references and bringing along a pen and paper for notes. Preparing for an interview doesn’t take much time, but it can have a big impact on your day. ++++ Read on for more great advice from Career Collective members. Dont forget to follow our hashtag on Twitter #careercollective. 5 Misconceptions Entry-Level Job Seekers Make, @heatherhuhman How Interview Savvy Are You?, @careersherpa Employers Dont Care, @ValueIntoWords Misconceptions about Using Recruiters, @DebraWheatman 15 Myths and Misconceptions about Job-Hunting, @KatCareerGal Are You Boring HR? @resumeservice Job Search Misconceptions Put Right, @GayleHoward Who Cares About What You Want in a Job? Only YOU!, @KCCareerCoach How to get your resume read (sort of), @barbarasafani The 4 secrets to an effective recruiter relationship, @LaurieBerenson Job Interviews, Chronic Illness and 3 Big Ideas, @WorkWithIllness The secret to effective job search, @Keppie_Careers Superstars Need Not Apply, @WalterAkana The Jobs Under the Mistletoe, @chandlee 8 Common Sense Interview Tips @erinkennedycprw Still no job interview? @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes Misconceptions about the Hiring Process: Your Online Identity is a Critical Part of Getting Hired, @expatcoachmegan

Resume Writing References: How To Get The Right Ones

Resume Writing References: How To Get The Right OnesResume writing is a bit more difficult than most people think. If you've ever been at the job and turned down a job offer because you weren't interviewed or your interviewer was too busy, you know that it is very easy to do that. It's also very easy to slip and allow your self to slip back into that mindset.While resume writing can be hard, you have to remember that the applicant has already shown you their skills and credentials. These are in their resume, which is why they're applying for the job in the first place. So don't look at them as competition; look at them as an equal partner in the process.Make sure that you let each candidate know that you want to meet them before any interview takes place. This will show them that you respect them and they are anxious to get the job. Also, make sure you have recorded phone numbers and email addresses for them to call if you need to.Some potential reference should take notes about your self in order to write their resume. Be sure to use the same resume format for all of them. That way, you can be sure that you aren't misleading anyone.Recruiting agencies are a very important part of the hiring process. It's the middleman between you and the person, so be sure to keep them at the front of your mind when considering who to contact. You'll get a better result if you have these connections in place.You should be able to find multiple positions online by searching for relevant resumes. If you can't find a particular job, look through the job postings at other sites. You may find one that fits you the best.Finally, your resume is an essential part ofyour marketing strategy. If you don't use them effectively, you won't get very far. Look at them as a method of learning about someone's background and personality, not as a way to get them to hire you.

List 3 Thing You Should Not Do when You Writing Your Resume: No Longer a Mystery

List 3 Thing You Should Not Do when You Writing Your Resume: No Longer a Mystery Perhaps the most crucial point to keep in mind is that your list should do the job for you, not the other way round. It is preferable to have a shorter list, and a sense of accomplishment when it's complete. Deciding what things to put on your resume can be as hard as trying to choose what things to wear for the interview. The good thing is you don't need to feel helpless. Before you begin writing, make certain you take a close look at your career up until now and select the format that will best showcase it. Preparing a resume can be hard to do. Writing your first resume may seem to be daunting undertaking. It is crucial to bear in mind the academic fashion of writing and use the right language. What you have to remember is that the resume as a career promoting tool should connect with the hiring manager immediately. The very first issue is to become focused to be really clear about who yo u are, the job which you want, the sorts of companies which you like to work for and other elements which are likely to relate to your job. When it has to do with your job application procedure, there are definitely some rather critical points you are going to want to make certain you hit. In reality, in regards to first resumes and job applications, the idea ought to be to deal with the process for a learning experience. When it isn't directly about the job, leave it out. To start, you don't need to list every job that you've ever had. Also, don't hesitate to list non-traditional work like volunteer jobs or freelance work, particularly if you haven't held a normal job in some time. Everyone can say he or she excelled at their final job.

The 15 Most Popular Jobs in the US And How Much They Pay

The 15 Most Popular Jobs in the US And How Much They Payever wonder what the career landscape of the country looks like? here are the fruchtwein popular jobs in the us, according to a survey citing employment data from over 1 mio businesses as of may 2015and their average annual salaries. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1467144145037-0) ) 1. office supervisorthis title coversfirst-line supervision of office and admin employees. nearly 1.5 mio people have this job in the u.s, and the average pay is $56k per year.2. bookkeeping, accounting, auditingclerks in this field, numbering over 1.5 million, make an average of just under $39k per year.3. truck driverdriving heavy or tractor-trailer trucks is more popular than you might expect, with nearly 1.7 million truckers out there, making an average of $42.5k per year.4. buchen filler/stock clerknearly 2 million people pay their bills this way. the average pay for this position is $26k per year.5. gm or operations managerjust over 2 million people do this for a living and take home an average of almost $120k per year.6. janitor or industrial cleanerprofessional cleaners who dont work in domestic situations (over 2 million) make an average of $26k per year.7. secretary or administrative assistantnot including legal, medical, or executive assistants, there are nearly $2.3 million americans doing this, making an average of $35k per year.8. laborer/freight, stock, or material movernearly 2.5 million people in the u.s. are doing this heavy labor and taking home an average of just under $28k per year.9. waitstaff2.5 million people serve in restaurants in our country. the average annual pay is about $23k.10. customer service repthis country employs nearly 2.6 million customer service reps, making an average of $34.5k per year.11. registered nursethere are more than 2.7 million registered nurses in the u.s. making an average salary of $71k per year.12. office clerkover 2.9 million people work as off ice clerks, making just under $32k per year on average.13. food prep and service workersincluding fast food jobs, were talking over 3.2 million workers, making less than $20k per year.14. cashierwith an average annual salary of just under $21k per year, there are almost 3.5 million cashiers out there.15. retail salespersonretail sales is by far the most popular job in the u.s. these days, with over 4.6 million workers. the average annual pay is just over $26k.

Reasons To Network With Women

Reasons To Network With Women In this day and age, are there still good reasons to focus energy on networking with women, specifically? Its hard enough to network, period, so what reasons are there for attending events that are exclusively for women, or joining communities that focus on women?Its a very fair question. bedrngnis only do we live in a world of HeforShe, but most of us realize that women haveand need important male allies, sponsors, mentors, managers, and role models. So is it outdated to think that you should be networking and reaching out to new women in your field?At Fairygodboss, we think the answer is simple while all of us should seek (and gratefully receive) career help from anyone who can provide it, the fact is that many women still get unique and differentiated sttze from other women. What we can get from other women is differentand meaningfully sofrom what we get from men.Consider the things any female professional needs in order to be successful. Outside her own talents and hard work, a woman needs helfende hand from people around her to champion her ideas and goals, which studies continue to show, may not get the same amount of attention as those of her male colleagues. Specifically, she should be cultivating three types of people in her professional life mentors, sponsors, and allies.Theres plenty of great advice out there about how to find these people and their value in general, so Im going to focus here on why relationships with female mentors, sponsors, and colleagues are particularly worth cultivating.MentorsMentors can come in all shapes and sizes and most of us know that life in the working world is a lot easier if you have a mentor on your side. A female mentor, specifically, can fill not only advise and guide you in career development areas, but also potentially relate to you in areas that may be mora difficult for a male mentor to understand.For example, it may be easier for a woman to give you advice about how to absprache with a male-dominated work environment because shes been through the same experiences herself, or how to handle unwanted advances by colleagues and clients, or even how to deal with sexual harassment or discrimination. These are very sensitive topics and are things that you may not feel comfortable raising with a male mentoreven a very well-meaning one.SponsorsSome argue that women are over-mentored but under-sponsored. The idea is that a sponsor is someone that does something very specific for you within the context of your employer it could mean fighting for you to get a promotion, singing your praises to management and key decision-makers at work, and/or advocating (or deciding) that you take on certain strategically important assignments, deals or projects.It may also may be easier for a woman to give you advice about how to deal with a male-dominated work environment because shes been through the same experiences herself. Though well-intentioned male mentors may try, there are certain things that are harder to give advice about if you havent lived through them yourself.Its hard to argue with the fact that having a sponsor of any gender is an amazingand rareasset. These sponsorship relationships are hard enough to come by, so why would having a female sponsor be particularly useful? In my experience, women who help other women step up in their companies typically have extremely strong networks that they are very willing to shareand these networks often include other amazing, high-achieving, accomplished women. In other words, a female sponsor may come with a built-in Girls Club (a rare counterpoint to the more common Boys Club that exists at the top levels of many companies hierarchies). It may prove easier to reap network effects from a female sponsor, compared to a male sponsor who may very well take you under his wing but be less likely to introduce you to his golfing buddies.Allies (Friends & Colleagues)Finally, we all know that women can uniquely help each other at work in terms of emotional support and friendship. These are very important relationships, even if they are not hierarchical. In fact, it is very important to build lateral support networks in the workplace. If youve never had a best girlfriend at work who can help you with emergency makeup or a run in your stockings, youre certainly not missing something that is going to damage your career.However, sometimes having female colleagues and friends at work just makes life, well, just a little nicer. Were definitely generalizing now, but its probably a tad easier to break the news of a date gone bad, a pregnancy, share the frustrations of breastfeeding and other private moments with girlfriends at the office.Its human nature to be optimistic and believe that we live in a post-gender world at work, but biology, psychology and culture all make it natural that we look for people like ourselves when it comes to building professional networks and connections. Its always tricky to generalize about people according to gender because at the end of the day, we are all individualsbut from my vantage point of being a founder of a community for women in the workplace, I see clearly that many women do seem motivated to offer more support and share different kinds of information freely when they know they are among other women. A version of this article was originally published on Career Contessa.Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women. Join us by reviewing your employer

Top Resume Services Los Angeles Reviews!

Top Resume Services und dann gib ihm Angeles Reviews The Fight Against Resume Services Los Angeles Celebrities giving their stance on their political views has ever been a thing before. To earn a competition of it is an only inviting the usage of force. The absolute most difficult matter to do is to forego force. You might or might not own a group of dedicated folks working on diversity in your organization. The Benefits of Resume Services Los Angeles Youre not a color, youre an individual. In any event, youre going to receive the exact same personalized company, and have a resume prepared which meets all your exacting needs. Its so difficult to get a style that fits me comfortably. Now, resources can be deployed to satisfy the particular needs of the website, and response teams can maximize efficiency. Always make sure to have a look at the review my essay section of any writing tafelgeschirr website youre thinking of using. It is possible to also send a duplicate of your current resume, which will supply some crucial info. Additional information can be found at ethics.lacity.org. Additionally, all her clients receive a 60-day money-back guarantee. You understand what you need and we will be able to help you get there. A great absprache of orders now are likely to restaurants, she states. Below youll find a couple of lists on all the very best rated resume writing services we could find. One of the benefits of business social media is the capacity to observe how youre connected to job recruiters or hiring managers at the organization you are looking for employment. After you locate a service you want, dont neglect to look at my review of it. A tacky site and no on-line sample resumes undermine his offering. Machine learning may be used for fact checking and it might make archiving less of a tedious endeavor for journalists. Employing a writing service is the best means to have a well-written essay to use as a guideline to guarantee t he essays you write are hitting all the important points and are at the appropriate depth necessary for your academic grade. There are some essential questions that have to be answered. Wherever youre in your career, were here to assist. Because it was not important. Interview SOS would like to continue to keep your career ship afloat. You get more powerful once you are relaxed. Political activism looks like a portion of the jobs with athletes since they are always in the spotlight. Our services are offered by professional resume writers experienced preparing resumes for a huge collection of industries, sectors and career locations. Even in case you have written a great deal of papers in earlier times you may still not have the skills necessary to finish a perfect resume.