Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

Virtual Classrooms: Panacea for Employee Training?

Up until this most recent recession, business had the luxury of time, money, and resources when developing and training employees.  From this point forward, time will be short, money will be tight, and resources will be limited.  The only thing that will change will be the need and demand for faster, better training.

“Trainers used to have six months to create a learning program,” says Bob Lee.  “Now we have 6 weeks.”  Lee, Product Marketer for GoToTraining at Citrix Online, has worked on both sides of the training fence – both as a Director of Training as well as in his role today working for a training and learning vendor.  Many of the people with whom Lee worked and trained are gone, not unlike thousands of employers across the country. “That has only increased the need for training. But with every business so lean, few organizations have the time, resources, and people to experiment and adopt new technologies. The stakes are higher and time is limited.”

Like most of the other experts I recently interviewed, Lee talked about changes in terms of social learning, informal learning, mobile learning, and virtual learning.   Training was done until recently for the entire company or department on a physical campus.  But now, locations are decentralized.  Many organizations don’t even exist in a brick-and-mortar world.  Employers are dispersed - working from home, remote locations or across time zones if not large bodies of water.  The cost and logistics to bring all employees together at one time in one location is expensive and daunting. Lee sees training moving from a single campus toward “individual islands of learning.”

The challenge for organizations will be to connect these islands.  Social networks, the same online communities like Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce Chatter that many employers seek to block, may be the panacea for capturing and sharing knowledge across the organization.  “The vast majority of learning comes from informal conversation when needed,” Lee reports.  Social networking and instant messaging technologies offer a solution that requires little training and minimal expense.  And with the plethora and universality of mobile devices that employees and customers carry, learning can be delivered anytime, anywhere effectively and inexpensively.

Lee sees the near-term solution as a “new blend - a witches’ brew of new training stuff.”  Training will be all about both content and interaction. Traditionally employees sat through classes lasting about 8 hours.  E-learning took the training out of a classroom and put it online.  But many e-learning initiatives failed in the past because the emphasis was on content not learning.

The “new blend” will focus on access.  It might begin with a virtual class.  The purpose of the class however won’t be a data transfusion from a trainer to an employee but a catalyst for conversation.  And the conversation won’t end with the discussion in class but continue afterwards through instant messaging, VOIP phone conversation, wikis, and social networking communities.  The metric for effective training won’t be on how many employees participated in the training but how long the conversation continued and what knowledge was captured.

Logistics isn’t the only challenge that will disrupt the traditional training and learning systems.  Virtual classrooms are not only less disruptive to the work flow, but people learn better and faster when you can “chunk” it down into training sessions that last for 2 hours or less, says Caroline Avey.  Avey is the Director of Innovative Learning Solutions at ACS Learning Services.  Avey’s current focus is developing strategies and practical applications of learning in 3-D virtual worlds.  “It’s difficult to recall all the information heard in 8 hours, no less apply it.”  At the same time, it’s too costly using traditional learning methods to bring trainers and employees together for four 2-hour sessions of face-to-face training.

The 3-D virtual world immerses an employee in the learning experience. For example, let’s say a company like Xerox was training new technicians how to diagnose and troubleshoot problems in their copiers. The technician in training could be given a tour of the inner workings of a copier right down to the circuit board.  The trainer could then present the trainee with a series of problems to solve. Traditionally, this technician might have watched a video and then selected the correct answer from a multiple choice question.  Now the technician is forced to interact with the virtual machine and deal with Murphy’s Law – what can go wrong will go wrong.  In addition to “hands-on” technical skill training, it forces people to learn how to manage their time, how to reprioritize, and how to interact with the customers.  The technicians can’t hide behind a mouse and keyboard but is forced to interact in real time. Based on gaming technologies, the software can then respond dynamically to your actions, give you feedback, and offer recommendations.

The biggest potential benefit of using virtual worlds for training will be the move from using formal courseware for performance readiness to what Avey calls “performance proficiency” – what do I need to know right now to solve this problem?

Social Media: Productivity Killer or Training Solution?

There are few topics these days that animate a CEO more than the mere mention of social media, video games, and web surfing.  To them, these activities are a waste of time, a distraction, a productivity killer. 

But what if there was a way to harness the power of technologies like Facebook, Twitter, Farmville, and Second Life to train and retrain workers faster, cheaper, and more effectively?  Would that get management to stand up and take notice? 

Well, the future is now and the timing couldn’t be better. It’s no secret that America’s businesses have a real need to educate and re-train workers quickly.  The skill levels of the current workforce and unemployed don’t match the needs of employers.  Unemployment remains high but job openings go unfilled because the skills required today have completely changed since the post-war industrial era began, when many workers were trained.  If employers fail to educate, train, and re-train workers quickly, they will miss out on the global economic recovery that is underway now, and they will fail to improve productivity, the key to future growth.  Ironically, the very technology that many employers see as a workplace distraction may be the magic bullet they seek to close a growing skill gap.

Employers Scale Back Online Job Boards; Social Media Recruiting Expands

In a trend started during the latter half of the past decade, employers were forced to sift through mounds of online applications, thanks to the convenience of online job boards.  The recession and millions of displaced workers only exacerbated the challenge. Recruiters are forced to read a lot of applications submitted by candidates who don’t qualify. That has led many employers to scale back their use of online job boards. 

According to a December survey from the Corporate Executive Board, about 24% of companies plan to decrease their usage of third-party employment websites and job boards this year. Instead nearly 80% of the companies surveyed are hiring a different breed of recruiters who can find passive candidates, using networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIN , as well poaching candidates from competitors.

The experience of a Northeastern Wisconsin employer highlights the problem of what I projected several years ago would be a “resu-mess.” The employer had 134 $15-an-hour entry-level job openings. It received 850 applications. After reviewing them for high school diplomas or GED certificates, work history and experience, it eliminated 450 applicants. The remainder were tested for physical dexterity and given eighth-grade reading and math tests, which eliminated 208 more. The remaining 192 applicants were given personal interviews which focused on character issues.

That article enticed me to visit our applicant processing system to assess the relationship between the number of ad views to completed applications per open position.  For Chief Marketing Officer, 285 potential candidates viewed the ad using a combination of an online job board and LinkedIN. Seventy-two completed the application, but only one candidate met the requirements of the client.  A sales executive position attracted 170 candidates after being viewed by 5,636 jobseekers. A search for hospitality associates caught the eye of 21,234 candidates.  Eight hundred thirty-nine (839) applied.  Less than 150 applicants qualified for interviews.

This sheer volume of applications is forcing companies, small and large, to rethink how they recruit. Simply cutting back on posting jobs to CareerBuilder or Monster isn’t enough.

Qualified but passive candidates are building connections in LinkedIn. But many companies have blocked accessibility to networking sites.  Human resources professional, generally a conservative group, are also often reluctant to join networking sites.  Without access to online networks and a robust list of connections, recruiters are fighting this war for talent in handcuffs.

This onslaught of applications is also being processed and filtered by fewer recruiters and downsized human resources departments. Recruiting, compliance and administrative human resources functions in many small businesses are handled by one employee.

More applications and fewer resources lead to delays in responding to candidates. Top candidates may fall through the cracks and be ignored.  Likewise, they might be turned off by a slow response and lack of acknowledgement.  That’s an ill-advised strategy that employers competing for a precious few qualified employees afford to continue.

An online applicant processing system (APS) is one solution many companies are adopting.  An APS allows employers to open the recruiting funnel without overwhelming resources to filter out unqualified candidates.

Using an APS, a hiring manager creates a job listing and then adds screening filter questions. Each question is carefully weighted and prioritized. Candidates can apply using an unlimited number of online job boards such as CareerBuilder, Monster, Indeed), free job boards, social media networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, employee referrals, and other sites like Craig’s List. When the manager logs into the APS system, he or she can quickly view all candidates or filter for only candidates who meet the minimum qualifications. Unqualified candidates can be notified automatically using the system’s email templates. 

An online Applicant Processing System is a smart, cost effective solution to a growing problem confronting nearly every organization – recruiting qualified candidates.

Labor Stats Tell Troubling Story Of Rising Turnover

The most recent turnover information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is very telling. As the economy continues to run at a new normal, employers need to be aware of a wide range of factors waiting to sabotage productivity.

One of the most startling stories is the proportion of Quits to Layoffs & Discharges. Back in October of 2009, a full 50% of private sector separations were due to Layoffs & Discharges, with 42% attributed to Quits. For October 2010, those figures had flipped almost completely: 50% of separations where due to Quits and 43% were due to Layoffs & Discharges. In other words, the exodus has begun. People know they have new opportunities, and they are leaving the employers who have kept them captive for the last few years.

Exhaustion — Many companies took advantage of the economy to preemptively cut labor costs by reducing staff more dramatically than business required. In many cases across the country, remaining employees were left with a greater workload than before, with fewer acknowledgments of the need for work-life balance. In addition, fear of losing a job during a recession drove many employees to be less assertive in insisting upon reasonable work limits.

Pay & Disillusionment — Citing reduced profits, companies around the country froze pay rates and halted promotions. While in many cases these actions kept companies afloat, it was the rare organization that asserted with management the need to ensure employees continued to be recognized and commended for their work. In many cases, the tenor of management during these rough years has seemed more corrective than appreciative.

Retirement — In the years leading up to the recession, fears abounded regarding an impending shortage of qualified workers. But better health, longer lives, and less physically demanding jobs plus a major hit to retirement funds thanks to the recession have delayed the much anticipated mass exodus from the workplace.  But improvements in the stock market as well as an improved job market for family members (spouses and children) that Baby Boomers have been supporting, individuals who delayed leaving work will again start to plan to retire soon, leaving gaps in staff as well as in knowledge.

Return-to-Home Parents — One surprise group of “heroes” who kept families afloat during the recession was the At-Home Parents set. Many at-home moms and dads dusted off their resumes and returned to the workforce as their spouses and partners were laid off or were forced to accept reduced hours or salaries. Some of these newly re-engaged employees may happily remain in the workforce going forward. However, in many cases, before the recession these families considered a number of factors — salary being only one of many — to decide which adult would remain at home with the children, and as the original working spouse or partner becomes able to support the family again, the original at-home parent may return to his or her preferred place of work: the home.

The coming return to a solid economy is positive, without question. The unemployment rate will start to go back down as jobs become available, and then the upward spiral — the antithesis of the downward spiral of the last couple of years — will begin. Those who are employed and who are more secure will spend more money, creating greater demand, thus prompting companies to produce more products and provide more services. The greater work volume will require more staff, driving up job openings, creating more employment opportunities and more security for those who are employed. And yet, companies that have taken advantage of their employees over the past few years should be concerned. Their challenges — in the form of voluntary turnover — are only just beginning.

Adapted from a post at ERE. Click here to read the original article.

Wake Up Everybody! 6 Diversity Competencies Successful People Share

Today marks the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We recognize the ever-changing demographics in our country, schools and work areas. These changes have influenced the way we relate to one another and how we do business. Based on the recent tragedy in Tucson and divisive political rhetoric, King's dream of "one day [living] in a nation where [everyone] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” has not been realized. Managing diversity remains a business imperative.

An organization's success in managing and promoting diversity rests heavily on how well it harnesses the array of skills and experiences of its employees while they remain a part of its workforce. How good is it at fostering teamwork? Does it bring together people of diverse backgrounds and styles in order to enhance creativity, solve problems more effectively, and discover new approaches to old issues? The organizations must do all these things if it wants to achieve its goals and hold on to its best and brightest workers.

  Many researchers and industry experts believe that the organizations that excel at managing diversity have six characteristics in common - six competencies form the foundation of a successful team of people who take pride in together achieving greater levels of success.

These six competencies are:

1. Awareness. Organizations and their employees develop and awareness of the benefits that can flow from cultural diversity, and establish and maintain a climate of mutual trust.
(Watch this video! Diversity - Wake Up Everybody - Contact us for permission to use at your next workshop or training.)

2. Inclusion. Minority groups feel a part of and are included in the major decision-making processes of the organization. Their views and ideas are genuinely valued and seen to be important.

3. Tolerance and Understanding. Different beliefs, stated views, actions, and reactions are fully understood and are naturally tolerated and accepted as part of the rich overall "tapestry" of human behavior.

4. Empathy. Warmth, sincerity, and goodwill are extended to every individual and group without applying stereotypes, so that each person feels high levels of mutual empathy.

5. Adaptation and Change. Groups and the organization as a whole permanently adapt and change when bias or prejudice toward people who are different from the majority begin to hold back the organization or the work of individual employees.

6. Persistence and Commitment.   Individuals and the organization as a whole persist in their efforts in their efforts to recognize diversity and cultural awareness shortfalls; commit to increasing overall knowledge; and seek to reap the long-term benefits from people's differences, rather than insist on similarity.

(Source: Diversity and Cultural Awareness Profile, Jon Warner)

Click here for more diversity training aids, books, workshops.

The Party's Over, Employee Turnover On the Rise

Hiring figures are starting to creep up. Layoffs and terminations are falling. That’s great news for our economy and the unemployed. But there’s some danger lurking in the shadows for employers.

The unemployment rate fell in December to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent in November, the Labor Department just reported. It was the lowest in 19 months as the economy generated a net total of 103,000 jobs and marked the biggest one-month decline in the jobless rate since April 1998. The economy added 1.1 million jobs, or an average of 94,000 jobs a month in 2010. While that’s a far cry from the 200,000 needed to jump start our economy, it’s a dramatic turnaround from just a year earlier.

In addition, fewer jobs were eliminated in nearly every major industry in 2010. Downsizing in 2010 fell by 59 percent compared to the previous year. Employers announced 32,004 planned job cuts last month, the lowest monthly total since June 2000, when employers cut 17,241 jobs. The 2010 total was the lowest since 434,350 job cuts were announced in 1997.

Ironically this good news may not portend good times for employers. An employee migration has begun from those businesses that reduced labor cost by massive downsizing and squeezing every last bit of productivity out of the survivors. As the economy improves, an employee exodus will accelerate, especially for employers who aren’t paying attention.

The media rang in the new year with multiple reports that hiring is on the rise. Goldman Sachs projects that employers will add 2.2 million jobs this year, or about 180,000 a month, double last year's amount. Moody's Analytics puts the figure at about 250,000 per month.

For employers that have used the economic downturn and the scarcity of jobs to justify putting it to employees by freezing wages, cutting benefits, and reducing resources, the party is about to end.  For employers who took this tactic, voluntary turnover is almost certain to rise dramatically as their employees learn there are new outlets for their efforts and talents. In addition, these employers likely will have a more challenging time making new hires as word of their actions gets around and impacts their reputations.

Wolfe Selected As One of Top 25 Online Influencers

Ira S Wolfe was recently selected as one of the Top 25 Online Influencers in Talent Management by HRExaminer.  Wolfe, who is president of Success Performance Solutions and the "chief" blogger for Perfect Labor Storm 2.0, placed 10th on the list. This is the 2^nd year in a row that Wolfe was honored as one of HR’s top thought leaders based on his utilization of Social Media and Search Engine Technology. To qualify, Wolfe was measured against three key variables: Reach, Relevance, and Resonance.

HRExaminer.com is a new magazine focused on the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital.

Wolfe is also the author of several books including Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization, Perfect Labor Storm 2.0, and Understanding Business Values and Motivators.

Could bullying be the “silent epidemic” of today’s U.S. workforce?

Over 53 million Americans, 35 percent of the U.S. workforce, report having experienced bullying. And according to a 2007 survey, bullying is 4X more prevalent than illegal harassment.

According to the 2010 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey, it appears that the 30-49 year age group is the most vulnerable. In addition, 62% of bullies are men; 58% of targets are women. And women bullies target women in 80% of cases. The majority (68%) of bullying is same-gender harassment.

An additional 15 percent report witnessing bullying. Half of all Americans state they have directly experienced bullying in some form.

What does bullying look like? A list was offered in a recent post on Examiner.com. The actions of bullies are not always obvious but when reading this list, I have to ask: "is changing work guidelines" really bullying? Isn't flexibility and change what makes a business competitive in today's marketplace? Where do we draw the line between holding employees accountable and creating a workplace full of wimps?  Clearly a few of these descriptions of bullying are morally and legally wrong?  But really.... is "blocking applications for training" a form of bullying?

According to the article, bullies are characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity and self importance, the need of admiration and a lack of empathy. Bullying looks like...

• Spreading malicious rumors
• Undermining a person's work
• Threatening physical abuse
• Constantly changing work guidelines
• Withholding necessary information or purposefully giving wrong information
• Pestering, spying or intruding on one’s privacy
• Assigning unreasonable duties or workload which are unfavorable to one person
• Underutilizing - creating a feeling of uselessness
• Yelling or using profanity
• Criticizing a person persistently or constantly
• Belittling a person's opinions
• Unwarranted (or undeserved) punishment
• Blocking applications for training, leave or promotion
• Tampering with a person’s personal belongings or work equipment

At the core of bullying are isolation and humiliation. Bullying behavior creates feelings of defenselessness and undermines the individual’s right to dignity at work. Different from aggression, bullying involves repeated attacks creating an on-going pattern of behavior.  While bullying may feel like harassment, workplace harassment has a legal definition supported by state and federal civil rights laws designed to protect workers from discriminatory mistreatment as a member of a protected group.

But only 20 percent of bullying cases involve illegal discriminatory harassment. Bullying cuts across boundaries of status- group membership. It has been said that bullying is status-blind harassment. While there is currently no federal law protecting the American worker from bullying, 18 states: New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Utah, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Vermont, Kansas, New Hampshire, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, Washington, Hawaii, Missouri and California have instituted various forms of the Healthy Workplace Bill.

The Healthy Workforce Bill defines its basic cause of action in this statement:

“It shall be an unlawful employment practice to subject an employee to an abusive work environment which exists when the defendant, acting with malice, subjects the complainant to abusive conduct so severe that it causes tangible harm to the complainant.”

To read more about The Healthy Workforce Bill and what employers and individuals can do to stop workplace bullies, click here.

Anemic Job Growth Spells High Unemployment Through Decade...or Longer

Since December 2009, total payroll employment has increased by an average of 86,000 per month, for a total of just over 1 million new jobs in 2010.  Few dispute that this statistic is anemic and well below the number required to help bail us out of this jobless recovery. So how many jobs do we need to create in order to get us back to pre-recession employment levels?

According to the Brookings Institute, if the economy adds about 208,000 jobs per month, the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 2000s, then it will take 142 months, or about 12 years to close the job gap. At a more optimistic rate of 321,000 jobs per month, the average monthly rate for the best year of the 1990s, the economy will reach pre-recession employment levels in 60 months, or about 5 years. The chart below shows the number of months required to close the job gap at different rates of job creation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a minimum shortage of 120,000 new jobs created per month, high unemployment will likely be the new normal throughout this decade and potentially into the next.

Is Social Media Just History Repeating Itself?

Some people believe that social media is killing personal relationships, corrupting society, and eliminating privacy. Many wish that we could go back to the good old days when life was simpler and slower.

So let’s roll the clock back to the good old days and take a look at the uncanny similarities between the telephone and social media.

85 years ago, adults were asking, “Does the telephone make men more active or more lazy?” and “Does the telephone break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends?”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? History has a tendency of repeating itself.

The telephone was described as a fad and time waster.  So goes social media. There was fear that the telephone would erode privacy, fuel the rumor mills, distract employees and family from daily chores, and result in idle chit-chat.  So goes social media. Business people complained that the telephone would allow false rumors to travel faster and result in disruptive, bothersome requests.  So goes social media.

Before the telephone was invented people communicated in many ways, according to Paul Humphrey, author of What Was it Like Before the Telephone. “They sent letters. … It took forever to deliver one letter. Some used drums to beat out a message. Some used fire to communicate – they sent smoke signals. … They sent messages from one hilltop to another by raising or lowering a semaphore tower’s arms. If it was foggy, no one could see the message. People would put a message into a little container on a carrier pigeon’s leg. The bird would fly to the person receiving the message. People would write messages will quill pens and send them by a postal system. Some went by stagecoach. Pony Express riders galloped thousands of miles from one side of the United States to the other (to deliver mail). Lanterns were used to flash out a message in a code called Morse code. Morse code was also sent by wires through the telegraph. You had to be able to read the code to use it.”

When the telephone first began to be deployed (1890’s through the turn of the century), telephone companies faced a tough sell. They first had to explain to Americans what need the telephone might fulfill. They had to find uses for it. Today many people wonder what’s up with Twitter. But the media, government agencies, police and fire despartments, non-profits, and business are finding new applications.

The Nielsen Company recently described the Internet as a new type of phone system. Like folks on the old phone party line phone networks, social media users risk their privacy by willingly sharing a channel and personal information with other people. While the telephone party lines were usually shared by four or eight people, social media may be shared by hundreds or thousands. But party line users were never sure who, or if anyone, was sharing the phone, social media participants can choose the people with whom they share information. The phone party lines proved decades ago that people were willing to risk considerable privacy to use a new communications tool.

The triviality of tweets and Facebook is possibly the biggest objection I hear about the value of social media.  Our ancestors complained, “thanks to the telephone . . . and such-like inventions, our neighbors have it in their power to turn our leisure into a series of interruptions, and the more leisure they have the more active do they become in destroying ours.”

Disruptive innovation is nothing new. Every generation experiences a change that is resisted by the generation or two that preceded it. As easily as our great-great grandparents spoke about the ill effects of the telephone, their descendants are decrying the disruption and distractions caused by social media.

Some view the change as progress. Others consider it the destruction of tradition. But history will repeat itself. Before long we won’t be talking about “what to do with” social media, but like the telephone, email, and even electricity, we will very shortly just use it without thinking about it.