Today's post is part 2 of a 3 part series on the career myths that can hold you back professionally. Part 2 focuses on managing yourself at work.
Myths About Managing Yourself at Work
You need to be outgoing and liked by everyone to succeed.
You need a mentor to be successful.
Networking is most useful when you're looking for a job.
You need to focus on becoming the best functional expert possible. Success means knowing all the answers.
Taking risks can be bad for your career.
Today I've had the opportunity to participate in the Emerging Leaders Event of the Association of YMCA Professionals (AYP). This event is a gathering of young Y professionals who've been identified by their leadership as rising stars, and this event is an investment in their development. You can see a few of the participants enjoying themselves below.
I was invited to speak at this event, and asked to focus on career management strategies. I put together a talk titled The Top Ten Career Myths and How They Hold You Back. Today's post is part 1 of that talk, myths about getting started in your career. I'll post parts 2 & 3 over the next couple of days.
Getting Started in Your Career
Your twenties “don't count”. You can get the job you really want later, just take what's available now. You just need to try a lot of different options to figure out what you want to do when you grow up anyway.
The best way to find a job is to search online job postings.
It is impossible to advance in a large organization.
Today's guest post is courtesy of repeat guest blogger Nicole Neves, a former Kronos intern who has joined our HR department as an employee. Nicole will be guest blogging here on issues that are relevant to Millennials in the workplace.
When entering the workforce, Millennials often have this idealistic vision that we can find the perfect job and organization that will cultivate and mold our professional development. Our drive and ambition is a double edged sword, we will do whatever it takes to be successful but appear high maintenance and disloyal. The stereotype is beginning to break as we prove ourselves in the workforce but there will always be a stubborn bunch that doubts us. Still, we need to demonstrate dedication to an organization and an undeniable commitment to our work to assure employers we are in it for the long haul. If you are genuinely interested in winning a position with an employer, you need to plan and prepare in order to set yourself apart.
Here are a few tips:
Kronos is hiring. Check out our career site to see if you're a fit for one of our positions. Kronos is a great place to work!
October 5-11 is Emergency Nurses Week here in the US. At Kronos, our single largest customer population is in healthcare. From standalone long term care facilities to the biggest healthcare networks in the world, we are helping healthcare providers help their patients.
In the latest installment in our 1 in One Hundred Million video series celebrating workers, we talk to Vanessa, an ER nurse in Massachusetts. Like most nurses you meet, her overwhelming focus is on providing care. Watch, enjoy, and share with a nurse who's made a difference in your life.
You can watch Vanessa's story here:[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRGQ32hbKyI&w=560&h=315]
Prior Posts About Why We Value Nurses:
Recently I had the pleasure of talking to Zeynep Ton, adjunct associate professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, about her book "The Good Jobs Strategy". I've written about this excellent book here before. Zeynep's core message is that excellent financial returns don't have to come at the expense of employees. In fact, her research indicates that investing in employees as a driver of strategic advantage vs. treating labor as a cost to be minimized will ultimately drive higher returns for all stakeholders. You can listen to a podcast of our discussion about the lessons from her book below:
Zeynep was kind enough to invite me to MIT Sloan School last night for a symposium on the recent Market Basket story - wherein loyal employees and customers successfully organized and disrupted store operations in response to the ouster of their trusted CEO. Market Basket is widely known for applying many of the principles Zeynep reviews in her book. In fact, Zeynep and some of her colleagues will be writing a case study on Market Basket for aspiring business leaders to study. Several hundred students, faculty (and members of the public like yours truly) packed a sold out auditorium to hear management and labor experts talking about the lessons to be learned from Market Basket.
One of the more interesting observations last night came from MIT finance professor Andrew Lo, who said the Market Basket approach proves "Finance doesn't need to be zero sum game." His point, and that made by others on the panels, was that Market Basket employees act like owners. They care about their bonuses and profit sharing - and they understand that maximizing their personal returns is dependent on doing right by their customers. They've been empowered to do what it takes to keep those loyal customers coming back, a "distributed leadership model" as one professor noted. In the end, those ties that bound the Market Basket employees to their embattled CEO and each other during the standoff were also connected to their customers. And ultimately it was the customers' willingness to boycott the stores in order to preserve the brand they loved that turned the tide.
Relevant Links:
News coverage of the symposium on Boston.com
Seismic Shift - Waking Up to the Strategic Value of Workforce Management
New York Times article “Thinking Outside the (Big) Box”
Good Jobs Strategy = Happier Employees = Better Customer Service
In addition to my Workforce Institute responsibilities, I also manage the voice of the customer program at Kronos. The image to the right expresses our core service message. We do a great job with customer service at Kronos, and have the awards to prove it. We keep it that way by by actively and constantly soliciting feedback through multiple channels. We receive over 20,000 customer surveys a year - and we review all of them. Of course we hear about problems through those surveys, but we hear a lot more feedback like this:
"Your representative was very easy-going & informative - made having to call in about the ticket a pleasant experience. Has very good customer service skills!"
We use this feedback to identify and prioritize improvements needed in our products, services and processes. We help different parts of our business do ad hoc analyses to dive more deeply into specific areas. Today, I got a question about what constitutes the ideal cloud customer experience. Here's my response - the top ten expectations I believe that cloud customers have of their vendors.
From what I've seen from Kronos customer feedback, my own experience as a VP of products and services for a SaaS company before I came to Kronos, and my experience as the manager of two SaaS vendor solutions for Kronos, the following are key expectations of SaaS customers:
Do you use cloud solutions? What criteria for a great experience would you add to this list?
Today's guest post is courtesy of Nicole Neves, a former Kronos intern who has joined our HR department as an employee. In her post below, Nicole reflects on the impact her internship had on her decision to join Kronos and how her new position will allow her to make an impact on the workforce of the future - who, according to this article from the New York Times, need all the help they can get.
Will Smith said in an interview several years ago, "If you're not making someone else's life better, then you are wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other people's lives better." That quote instantly came to my mind after viewing the “1 in One Hundred Million” video. In the workforce there are millions of people contributing to making someone else's life better. Whether you are a developer, a salesman, a firefighter, a chef, an engineer or a recruiter, you are giving back to the organization you work for making their lives and their customers lives better.
This quote made me appreciate my job and the technology Kronos has to offer. We cater to the needs of nearly any industry to make managing their employees easier. At Kronos I was recently hired in the College Relations department. During the interview I was asked what interested me in the job. I told the interviewer that I wanted to help mold the lives and careers of students entering the workforce by giving them an unbelievable experience in the Kronos Internship Program. At that moment it dawned on me that the program can truly impact the future workforce and that's a remarkable feeling. Take a second to reflect on the organization you work for and how you contribute, you'd be amazed how much more rewarding your projects and everyday tasks at work will become. And don't forget to appreciate the work done by others because together we are all making a difference.
Today we are launching the Kronos “1 in One Hundred Million” video series to celebrate US workers. Our technology touches over 35 million people around the world every day - and every one of their stories is different. This video series will focus on how each of the individuals featured feels about his or her job - and the ways in which those jobs shape them as individuals.
Our first story features Chris Merrick, a 34-year veteran firefighter from Brookline, Massachusetts. You can hear about Chris and his love for his job and his firefighting brothers below. I dare you to get through this story without getting a little teary.
The series features interviews by Lea Thau, a Peabody Award-winning producer and director, who created The Moth Radio Hour and produces and hosts the podcast “Strangers”. The series is directed by five-time Emmy® award-winning director and producer Alan Chebot, founder of Parallax Productions and best known for the nationally syndicated TV series “The Wild Wild Web” and acclaimed documentary “Song for New Orleans”.
You can view a trailer for the series at 1in100Million.com and get a preview of the first three episodes that will be released. Tell us what you think about these stories. And is there somebody whose story you'd like to see us include in this series?
As the week winds down, you may enjoy checking out this video of our fun and fond farewell to our 2014 summer interns. I know they learned a lot while they were here, but we also learned a lot from them. The Kronolympics is a series of silly contests that they complete as teams, with time and quality being important. Kind of like the world of work, hunh? We refer to our culture as Work Inspired. I hope we inspired these terrific people as much as they inspired us.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNCicKMFpe0&w=560&h=315]
What We're Reading This Week:
No one said it was going to be easy -- 5 job-hunting survival tips for recent grads http://ow.ly/AbUUT via @FastCompany
Tech Insights: How New Systems Help Managers Manage in the Moment http://ow.ly/AbPtx via @TLNT_com @dcreelman
Why Asking for Help Makes You a Stronger Leader http://ow.ly/AeBNO
5 Tips Robin Williams Taught Us About Career Transitioning http://ow.ly/AeESc
You have to get lighter as you get older http://ow.ly/AhsWC via @SteveBoese
Training Millennials: 4 Keys to Look For (But First, Let Me Take a Selfie) http://ow.ly/Ahthr via @TLNT_com
The best 'Out of the Office' message might be this one from Germany http://ow.ly/Ak7rt via @SteveBoese
Kronites are Writing About:
New Time Well Spent #Cartoon: http://ow.ly/AbOiU #scheduling #overstaffed
#MarketBasket According to @hrbartender: What Does Employee Engagement Look Like? This. http://ow.ly/AbWR5 via @WF_Institute
RT @SmarterCafe: Latest post: Zen and the Art of Customer Experience http://ow.ly/AkRU0 #cx @KronosInc
Tech as Art - Simplified http://ow.ly/AhtFl via @SmarterCafe
Sometimes getting ready for vacation season can be stressful http://ow.ly/AjSoc via @SmarterCafe
Learning from your neighbors: http://ow.ly/AjYW2
Workforce Fantasy (Football) http://ow.ly/AkRWN via @SmarterCafe
Learn how you can save $200 off #KronosWorks registration if you book before September 5th! http://ow.ly/AeGql
Pioneer Metal Deploys Kronos in the Cloud to Manage Rapid Expansion http://ow.ly/Ahh2B #KronosCloud
[VIDEO] At Kronos our interns do meaningful work and have fun! Check out our 2nd annual Intern Kronolympics: http://ow.ly/AhuJB
MT @NRNonline: FREE WEBINAR (Thu 8/21- 2pmET) "Employers of Choice Discuss Technologies" w @KronosInc. Register: http://t.co/EIpqlSumUh
[EXECUTIVE REPORT] Must-read, @SHRM research highlights hidden absence costs: http://ow.ly/AkQGx
Yesterday I had a conversation with our board member, Jeanne Meister, about the future of the workplace. Jeanne is a Founding Partner of Future Workplace, LLC, a firm that provides executive education to HR leaders and high potential managers to build the skills they need to prepare for success in the workplace of the future. Our far-ranging conversation covered social media, gamification, and workplace flexibility among other topics. You can listen to the podcast to hear how organizations like Zappos, American Express and USAA are dealing with the following issues:
If you're interested in learning more about how gamification is being used in forward looking workplaces, you can check out this cool infographic from Future Workplace on how organizations are using gamification at work:
Meister Gamification Infographicfinal06-24
You may also be interested in learning more about the HR Innovation Lab that Future Workplace is hosting with the Drucker Institute. You can find more information about how innovation impacts HR practices here.
What's your organization doing to embrace (or avoid) the future?
Today, Team USA lost to Germany in the World Cup, but still advances to the knockout round. Whether the US advances any further remains to be seen, but lots of employees worldwide will continue to follow these matches with interest, including during work hours. Employers will ignore the potential workplace disruption of the World Cup and other summertime distractions at their peril. We know the summertime crunch is one of the peak seasons for unplanned absences - those absences that have the highest impact on workplace productivity.
If you'd like help thinking about how to mitigate the impact of unplanned absences in your organization this summer, read on for our advice about how to balance employees' need for time off with the demands of your business.
I learned recently when checking out a new Tesla that its fully equipped dashboard includes a web browser. Since I had the chance, I couldn't resist the opportunity to load the Workforce Institute site on the car's dash. At the same time, I ask myself if this capability is such a good idea.
Now I'm all for electric cars - I drive a Chevy Volt - but this feature seems like it would be a monumental distraction. One recent study says that 54% of the content Tesla drivers are viewing is news sites; i.e. not how to get from point A to point B. The article in which this study is referenced goes on to say that the law in most states hasn't caught up to the Tesla capabilities. Some states have distracted driving laws now that prohibit hand held cellphones, texting, and/or TV screens or the like for the driver. The Tesla browser falls in a grey area in that it's similar to a GPS system (allowed everywhere, I think), but certainly just as distracting as texting.
I love new technology - generally the more the better for me. But as we approach these new frontiers of capability, they need to be assessed for their risks as well as their benefits. Are Tesla drivers browsing while driving? Maybe you should assume they are and give them a wide berth for now, just in case they're making purchases on Amazon instead of focusing on the road.
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