Good Corporate Politics and Bad Corporate Politics

Good Corporate Politics and Bad Corporate Politics Its not every day we can learn from a guy who walked through Intel, and other companies, at the senior levels.  Think there are politics in these big companies?  Of course. at every level.   Mark Beckford shares some awesome thoughts on politics, including: his definitions of good politics and bad politics,   five characteristics of the negative polititians (those who practice bad corporate politics) five ways to deal with these negative polititicans This is a terrific post leave your comments on Marks blog and share your experiences, or how you dealt with the loser bosses (peers, colleagues, etc.).  I should mention, his post has one of the best pictures Ive ever seen on a blog post. Good Corporate Politics and Bad Corporate Politics Its not every day we can learn from a guy who walked through Intel, and other companies, at the senior levels.  Think there are politics in these big companies?  Of course. at every level.   Mark Beckford shares some awesome thoughts on politics, including: his definitions of good politics and bad politics,   five characteristics of the negative polititians (those who practice bad corporate politics) five ways to deal with these negative polititicans This is a terrific post leave your comments on Marks blog and share your experiences, or how you dealt with the loser bosses (peers, colleagues, etc.).  I should mention, his post has one of the best pictures Ive ever seen on a blog post. Good Corporate Politics and Bad Corporate Politics Its not every day we can learn from a guy who walked through Intel, and other companies, at the senior levels.  Think there are politics in these big companies?  Of course. at every level.   Mark Beckford shares some awesome thoughts on politics, including: his definitions of good politics and bad politics,   five characteristics of the negative polititians (those who practice bad corporate politics) five ways to deal with these negative polititicans This is a terrific post leave your comments on Marks blog and share your experiences, or how you dealt with the loser bosses (peers, colleagues, etc.).  I should mention, his post has one of the best pictures Ive ever seen on a blog post.

If past worrying was unnecessary then future worrying is too

If past worrying was unnecessary then future worrying is too ComPsych is this place that puts out research about how employees feel, and it turns out that feelings are generational. At least at work. Which is what ComPsych specializes in. The biggest problem Gen Y  has is depression. The biggest problem Gen X has is relationships. The biggest problem Baby Boomers have is death. This is surprising to me because I have read for so long that the biggest workplace problem Gen X has is that Baby Boomers arent dying. But I guess this is just showing how old I am. I have been blogging so long that I was blogging when the biggest problem Gen Y  had was helicopter parenting. I am happy to hear that Gen X has relationship problems because I dont want to feel alone. But also I see that Gen X relationship problems translate to older women telling younger women that they  marry early and  refuse to be  the breadwinner. But Gen X is not the divorce generation. I am underperforming even in the generation known for being slackers. Fuck. I have been coaching people in person. As soon as I announced that I moved to Swarthmore, which is outside Philadelphia, people started asking to meet me in person. What about business plan bootcamp?  What about a writing workshop? Ive been trying stuff. Ive met really cool people, and Ive done  it all at my dining room table. My younger son said, Are you going to keep taking over the dining room with people from the blog? My older son said, Are you  going to keep coaching couples on how to keep their marriage together when everyone can see your  husband is not moving to Swarthmore? I said, Yeah. Ill coach them on how to have a long-distance relationship. And we laughed.  Because my cousin just called and I told her to relocate for her boyfriends job if she wants to marry him. Long-distance relationships dont last! I told her. It reflects lack of commitment from one or both parties. The thing is, I have an amazing track record on helping couples keep their marriage together. How can I have that and be so bad at it myself? The people who live below us fight all the time. The guy is on drugs and the woman kicks him out when hes high. Or whatever the word is for the drugs hes on. And when hes not on drugs she is yelling at him for being a bad husband. I can tell that she needs to stop yelling at him and tell him hes either on the street or in rehab. And hed go to rehab because he loves her. I can tell. And she loves him because people dont yell at people for being a bad spouse unless they want the spouse to change. The farmer and I stopped yelling after two years. Thats about how long it took. And now we are like a ComPsych report, doing great at our jobs and struggling to maintain our relationship. Sometimes I think Im doing a terrible job at something, and then I realize Im just like everyone else. In my 20s I thought I was a total fuck up, and then I realized that everyone in their 20s is struggling to figure out where they fit, and the people who struggle the most figure out the most. And I was fine. In my 30s I gave up my career to stay home with kids and was ashamed for being a stay-at-home mom. And I had to keep earning  the money for the family and I was ashamed at how little I was earning. Now I see this is very  common landing  ground for high-earning women turned into moms. I wish I could have known I was doing just fine and cashing out our retirement fund to give me time to figure out how to work from home was a really good idea. In my 40s I thought I was so stupid for having a failed marriage. And I told myself I have to focus on keeping my next marriage together. No more failed marriages. Only incompetent people have failed marriages. I told myself that. And I believe it. I think its terrible for the kids. Melissa tells me there was nothing else I could do. Your kid was born to play cello. You have to get him to where he needs to be. The farmer would tell me I dont have to do any of that. He tells me that culturally this is Jewish. I tell him that culturally it is farmer to tell kids the land is more important than relationships. We are probably both wrong. I just cant see. Its so hard to see ourselves. The only way I know that Im not losing my mind is that the people I coach are all so smart and so interesting and they cant ever see their lives as clearly as I see them. And they think Im a genius about their lives. But I know the truth is that they cant see themselves just like I cant see myself. I was doing fine in my 40s, as blind as everyone else, and picking up pieces when they fall. Except  now Im 50. And Im going to be one of those people with two failed marriages. I think. Its not yet. All my stuff is still at the farm. I keep looking at the pictures for my  blog I didnt use while I was at the farm. And I thought I would save them and use them for all the days Im writing about missing the farm. But instead I find myself using them to take inventory of things I want to take off  the farm. Carla told me she knows Im going back to the farm because I left all my plates there. But the last time the farmer came to visit, I  made him bring a few.

How to Engage Employees Through Your Company Vision

How to Engage Employees Through Your Company Vision Picture this. It is 10:24 A.M., Monday. You are going through your inbox typing away replies and setting your priorities for the day. Click.Click.Click Then, one of your employees drops by. An expression of unease displayed on their face. Your initial reaction â€" something’s happened. Work-related. Well, yes and no. They want to leave. Call it quits. Right away, you have to find them a replacement. The team can’t be leaderless. Several thoughts race through your mind: how will this impact our bottom line? What will the team members say about it? How did it happen in the first place? You didn’t pick any signs your star employee has been wanting to quit. But does it matter now? What matters is that you now need to find them a replacement while making sure others won’t leave. And this is what this guide is designed for. Today, you will learn how Zety went from a retention rate of 67% to 87% and how you can do the exact same thing by engaging your employees through company vision. Why Is Employee Engagement Important? If you wish to build a ship, do not divide the men into teams and send them to the forest to cut wood. Instead, teach them to long for the vast and endless sea. The better employees are aware of and align with the vision of the company, the more likely they are to stay on board and get you to the best possible destination helping you reach your true north. Need some proof? Companies that have more engaged employees have 51% higher productivity. Estimates show that turnover due to poor millennial engagement costs the US $30.5 billion a year. Employees that are engaged outperform disengaged employees by 20-28%. People don’t want to work for yet another money-making corporation. People want to work on something that could change other people’s lives for the better. On something inspiring and great. Here is an example to consider from Google. Google’s goal is not to become the fastest search engine on the planet (for one, they are already there). Google’s primary goal is to structure the world’s information and make it accessible to everyone. This is how they hired the best people and empowered them to create great things. The problem is that when companies become larger, it becomes increasingly challenging to get everyone on the same page. Solution? There are several ways you can go about it. But there are 2 essential ways Zety does it. Continually Promote Your Company Vision To keep the entire company unified and moving in the right direction, companies need to talk to the talk and walk the walk on the core values. However, oftentimes, employers have trouble enacting their ideals. You can’t put your companys vision on the poster and expect everyone to follow. At Zety, we strive to continually communicate our mission â€" creating the best career site on the planet â€" through every medium whether it is in person, email, bi-weekly all-hands meetings, etc. And we do it long past the point where it gets boring for our people. We repeat our key strategies, objectives, and priorities, and we take the time to articulate who we are and what want to be culturally on a pretty much daily basis. People perceive information in different ways, so only through constant repetition do people begin to internalize and understand. And if you are a rapidly growing company, constantly repeating your vision will inspire the future torch carriers. Reinforce the Company Vision Through OKRTs The vision of the company needs to be intertwined with the employees’ goals. This ensures that people are working toward the same thing and in end of the day, this is what makes them come to work each and every day. At Zety, we introduced an OKRTs (Objective-Key Result-Tasks) system developed by Andy Grove at Intel, which helps our employees relate more to our vision by defining individual goals weaved in the companys vision. In his book called High Output Management, Andy introduced OKRTs by answering 2 questions: What are my objectives? What key results do I need to stay on top of to make sure I am on track? In essence, these questions are personal in nature pertaining to how employees spend their days at work. And this makes it reasonable for people to set up their OKRTs each and every quarter. However, an important thing to keep in mind is that each staff member needs to tie their individual OKRTs to the team goals, and ultimately, the company’s OKRTs. Such alignment allows for a common vision in mind and efficiency when it comes to achieving it. OKRTs should not be easy to achieve. While setting low expectation can bring in some tangible results, in the end, they might stall the company. Setting unattainable goals, however, may be detrimental, as employees will start to feel demotivated and stressed out. With that in mind, OKRTs need to act as beacons, which can’t be fine-tuned from week to week. They need to be set before the next quarter arrives and stuck to throughout. For example, at Zety, we ask our people to set 3-5 OKRTs for the quarter (adding more would shift the focus and distract them from what needs to be done). We also make OKRTs accessible to all our staff so everyone knows what is on their coworkers’ plates. besides, we encourage each and every employee to challenge each other’s quarterly goals to push them to deliver more than they think is possible. Ultimately, seeing where we are going and seeing a bigger picture keeps employees engaged in the workplace. Adding It All Up Making your company’s vision a focal point is crucial for giving your people a higher sense of purpose, which manifests in engagement. Ultimately, this empowers employers to attract top talent while making sure that everyone is going toward the same goals and feeling the success of reaching those. And if you dismiss the concept of vision as somewhat separate from work, your boat will sink before you get there. About the author:  Max Woolf is a writer. He is passionate about helping people land their dream jobs through the expert career industry coverage. In his spare time, Max enjoys biking and traveling to European countries. You can hit him up on LinkedIn.

How to Choose the Right Degree to Pursue

How to Choose the Right Degree to Pursue In a previous article, we talked about how to advance in your career. One of the most effective ways to take that next step and get a promotion is by getting a master’s degree that will help you in your career, such as an online MBA. Even better, the best online MBA schools now incorporate experiences, practical knowledge and industry-specific classes to make their online MBA degrees more valuable. There are also plenty of MBA careers waiting for students currently pursuing their degrees, especially with the economy growing at the current rate. Choosing the right degree to pursue and a specialization to opt for can be tricky. The best approach is choosing a field you actually love and one that will help you pursue a better career in the future. There is no shortage of options too, making the whole thing a lot easier to tackle. Be sure to learn more about this by reading the How to Choose the Right School for Your Career Path infographic below. This infographic was created by Northeastern University. Northeastern University’s Master of Business Administration Online Program

6 Ways AI Can Enhance Workplace Employee Experience CareerMetis.com

6 Ways AI Can Enhance Workplace Employee Experience An organization’s success is largely determined by the productivity of the employees. One of the factors that has an invariable effect on employee productivity is employee engagement and satisfaction.Over the years, the ways to achieve these have changed. Different companies have different ways of measuring , assessing and determining the health of their employee experience.evalEven today most organizations use outdated methods such as employee reviews or engagement surveys. However, few forward thinking organizations have started tapping into tools that offer more valuable and more frequent information. Artificial IntelligenceA key benefit of artificial intelligence is its ability to derive meaningful insights from large volumes of data. With AI and ML based applications, organizations can make use of the information received from Big Data. These informations are mostly employed to generate more sales. However they can also be used to create more happier and productive employees a s well.One example of how AI is used to generate meaningful insights is how some organizations tie together multiple feedback and communication systems and apply natural language processing AI can improve employee experience by automating repetitive tasks which are tedious or require high level of precision. This is one example of the good way in which human workers can be substituted with AI.One of the reasons for this is that there are some kind of tasks which machines can perform much better than humans.Some instances of AI performed automation include identifying ways to improve how processors or information work. What this means is that just like how customer journey orchestration works with external customers, companies will be able to automate the information flow from one system to another system internally as well.In this way, AI will ensure that information can be accessed/seen fast and that things like employee feedback is utilized much more easily.3)On-the-job Trainingev alAs you know, learning does not stop once the employee settle into their job role. AI is going to play a critical role in ensuring that employees continue to learn even while they are in the job.Artificial Intelligencewill also help with transferring of skills from one generation to the next â€" as employees retire or join other companies, AI can ensure that they leave behind their invaluable expertise they have gained for others to gain from as well as take it with them.For example, Honeywell, a multinational company has developed tools that employ AR and VR along with AI for capturing the experience of work and for extracting insights from it that can then be transferred to new employees. In this, employees while they are working wear AR headsets.These are able to capture everything that the engineer does with the help of image recognition technology that enables new employees to get an experience of their job role through VR.The information from the video image is also employed to develop AR tools that offer real time feedback while engineers carry out their job, alerting them when their danger or setting reminders regarding their routine tasks.4)Recruitment OnboardingSource â€" DepositPhotos.comAI enabled machines can help you to zero down the right candidate for the job. A common practice in large companies where there are thousands of applicants involve pre-screening of candidates with the help of AI.With Pymetrics, which provides tools that use a series of games driven by the principles of neuroscience, employers can assess the candidates before they are called in for an interview.Pymetrics works by analyzing the emotional and cognitive features of the candidate while at the same time ignoring any kind of demographic biases based on their race, socioeconomic status or gender. This is carried out by matching the candidates performance against that of an existing employee who has performed well in the jole role that is being recruited for.When the AI en abled system finds that a particular candidate is not a suitable fit for that job role, it will automatically identify another role that they are suited for and recommend them to apply for that job role.evalChatbots enabled by AI are the new rage when we talk about onboarding. This would be a great tool that can help new hires to settle into their roles and adjust with the different facets of the organization that they have joined.Let’s take the example of Unabot, a chatbot employed by multinational consumer goods manufacturer Unilever to understand the use of chatbots in onboarding. Unabot uses natural language processing5) PersonalizationIs there a way you can offer each and every employee a personalized experience? Yes there is. With artificial intelligence, you can take your data and match it with your employee’s preferences or some other contextual details to create a personalized experience for them.AI can enable personalization for employees in a number of ways. One such way involves clubbing employees into segments at big companies or providing very specific messaging and communication when needed. Other than segmenting based on title or department, it is more intelligent when processing is driven by interests or communication preferences. For example, with AI you can easily identify employees with specific characteristics that make them the perfect match for leadership opportunities. You might also be able to identify complementary skill set within your team which can help you to create new working groups. This becomes critical when you are working with a geographically diverse workforce, employees spread across countries and with work from home kind of policies. AI can aid you in all this.eval6) Workplace SurveillanceA survey found that more than 50% of companies with a turnover above $750 million employ digital data-gathering tools for monitoring employee performance and activities. This also consists of analyzing the email content to determine the employee engagement and satisfaction levels.There are also certain companies today that use tracking devices to determine the frequency of breaks and use audio analytics to monitor the stress level in voices when the employees communicate with each other.For example, Blizzard Activision, a video publishing company recently announced their plans to give incentives to employees who allow the company to track their health through specialized apps such as Fitbit. The idea behind this is that the company will be able to anonymous, aggregated data to determine the areas where the health of the employees as a whole can be enhanced.ConclusionThese are some of the ways in which AI can transform organizational experiences today. Though the application of AI in the workplace is not very common today, the increasing frequency of research in this area suggests that in the near future AI enhanced workplaces are going to become the trend!

You Can Hide but You Cannot Truly Hide - CareerEnlightenment.com

Both of these studies show that your online persona is actually reflective of your real life, highlighting that a user cannot truly create an online facade. This is logical because our social network activity is constantly validated by our friends, who wouldn’t continue to support a false image.Given that our online profile actually does reflect our personality, now we can go back to our main questionâ€" what do we do with our privacy settings? In this era of massive sharing of our personal information, can people still learn about us even if we choose to hide?Turns out, a lot of telling information can be deduced from seemingly minor aspects of your profile. For example, “Likes”, which are usually publicly available information, can tell much about your personality. Michal Kosinsky, David Stillwell and Thore Graepel tackled this notion, through studying a large sample of Facebook users. Together, they analyzed a pool of 58,466 Facebook users and found that by studying the page s an individual likes, you can draw accurate conclusions about their personality, demographics, and social media presence.Zuckerberg’s take on this emerging social norm is that individuals are more open with their personal information. In today’s society it seems as if true privacy is often unattainable. Since judgement on your personality will be made anyway, choosing to hide your personal information can be questioned, or perceived as though you have something to hide.Our verdict? Instead of hiding on social media â€" use it to your advantage. Be mindful of your social media past and continue to manage what you post in the future. Maintain an image that portrays your true self in a positive light.Get started with your social media cleaning  here  and begin shaping your positive online reputation!To check out how to clean up your Facebook for future employers, click here!

Finding the Right Online Resume Service For Your Business

Finding the Right Online Resume Service For Your BusinessAs a business owner, you need an online resume service to help you build your career and network. You need the right person to help you develop a professional resume that can stand out from the crowd. A resume is the first impression of a person.Online service providers have a variety of services available. They have an easy to use interface, giving you the ability to quickly see what is available and how to apply for what you want. An online resume service is highly competitive, as it needs the right people to help you develop your skills and knowledge in order to be a professional. With all of these tools at your disposal, it is time to select the right service for your needs.You want to look for a service that has presence on all of the social media sites. For example, Facebook and Twitter are two that are crucial to the world of professionals. Other options include LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and MySpace. These are all avail able to you. It doesn't matter what type of service you select, but make sure it is well known.With a selection of services to choose from, it is time to choose the right one for your needs. A resume service is like a sales person. It will take your experience and your skills and convince you that you deserve a better job and that this service can help you reach your goals.The online service should be able to generate an amazing job description that matches your skill set and experience. Some services allow you to choose your own professional title, such as 'Chief Executive Officer'Vice President of Marketing'. They can also allow you to customize the resume, so that it reflects your true professional personality. A resume service will not make you the perfect candidate.The best way to get a job with a resume service is to avoid competition by researching the services first. That way, you can create a resume that is best for you and fits your personality and the needs of the company . After all, you are the most important thing, so you need to make sure your skills are in line with the company.Getting a resume service can be a little overwhelming, but when you think about it, you want to have the best possible opportunity for success. Even if you hire a professional service, you should also have your own tools to promote yourself to potential employers. You want to make sure that you are receiving the proper training for the position you seek.