In my travels I have noticed that despite media reporting that the economy is improving, American workers are still anxious. Lack of sleep and worry about the stability of current employment are often cited as sources for the overwhelming anxiety. I am convinced that daylight savings contributes a bit to the angst of the average worker because beginning the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November the time between sunset and bedtime is one hour shorter than in the rest of the year. The movement of the clock saves on electricity usage because we spend more time outside of the home. Movement of daylight hours also means shorten periods of rest. Lack of sleep is a known stressor.

This year the early spring weather coupled with daylight savings is creating a new conundrum for workers. Companies are reluctant to cut their profit margins and continue to rely on their employees to do more with less. Warm weather and later daylight beckons people to the outdoors but workloads demand indoor productivity. Changes in benefit plans regarding sick days, personal days and vacation days are weighing heavy on the minds of workers and are causing them to reconsider the consequences of taking a day off. The scarcity of movement in most companies keeps employees cautious about abandoning work for more leisure, less stress time with family and friends.

Instead of the warm inviting days entering the work scene in late June, July and August this year the middle of March is reminiscent of summer days. If this weather pattern continues the northeast could experience six months of warm weather instead of the gradual onset of spring and then summer that is the pattern we are accustomed to experiencing. Employers and employees may have to develop a new business strategy to accommodate changes in climate. The old adages about March winds, April showers and May flowers could soon be a distant memory. Despite the warm weather, business cycles continue to operate at a familiar pace and employees are expected to save spring fever for their personal time. The employer has the upper hand in the current economy.

Balance in professional and personal life remains the key to surviving the challenges of living in stressful times. The reality of modern life is that we spend most of the year in daylight savings time. We can make adjustments to create balance in our lives. I have developed a list of options to help you get your life in balance.

• Listen to your circadian rhythm (your internal time clock for sleep, activity)

• Exercise (30 to 60 minutes a day/build momentum)
(walk, run, dance, swim, bowl, garden, sports but remember to move)

• Eat healthy
Make an appointment with a nutritionist
Take a cooking class to discover new foods
Experiment by sampling unfamiliar fruits and vegetables
Discover different ethnic meals (Have you heard that a Mediterranean diet is healthy?)

• Reassess your job satisfaction
Ask yourself if you are in the right job. If the answer is no, start researching new prospects.
Review your skill sets. Update your resume.
Look online at career websites to check possibilities for job/career change.

• Teach someone else something you like to do

• Volunteer (give back to the community)

• Treat yourself to an outing
Take a drive
Go to a museum, park, lecture, shop
Join a Meet Up group
Visit a friend

• Create an opportunity for quiet time for yourself
Meditate or consult a spiritual advisor
Yoga
Special bath
Read or listen to a book
Take a walk

• Learn something new (become a lifelong learner)
Plan daily, weekly or monthly to learn something you didn’t know before

• Journal
Write down your thoughts or record your thoughts to stay in touch with who you are

• Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from the experience

• Rest when you are tired (Listen to your circadian rhythm)

Experiment with the list to keep your life in balance. With every new experience a bit of healthy stress may surface but gradually destructive stress will slip away. A life in balance can weather any storm even daylight savings time.

For more helpful hints about destressing your life visit the APLS Online store.

I did not realize at the time how the conversation with my son would haunt me. As I prepared a proposal for my next client it hit me. How many times have I said OSDFA (one size does not fit all) in a training session or at a client meeting? Have I really meant it or is OSDFA a clever mnemonic device used to impress clients? I prefer to think that as a trainer and consultant part of my value is that I am consistent in the belief that one size does not fit all. There are many theories about learning styles from the traditional visual, auditory and kinesthetic to the current trend of adding social- emotional value to the way people learn. Learning styles from a business context can loosely be categorized as follows:

Auditory:  hearing information
Kinesthetic: hands on, learn by doing
Logical :  reasoning, logic, systems thinking
Social:  learning through group interaction
Solitary:  self -taught, solo, intrapersonal learning
Verbal:  words, talk, writing
Visual:  seeing, images, drawings

It is important to tune into the learning styles of your trainees whether you are an internal or external trainer or consultant. Your job is based on people learning. Clients are not cookie cutter people. It makes sense that as trainers and consultants we differentiate our instruction in order for our clients to learn. Do an informal survey of your trainees prior to your presentation to see if you can assess the learning styles in your group. Review the seven prevalent learning styles and see if your presentation has something for everyone. Be versatile in your approach. Do not rely on any one set style too much. The more you vary your message, the more people you will reach. According to (Computer Technology Research, 1993) the following information attests to the importance of paying attention to learning styles:

We retain          20% what we see     30% what we hear                                              

We remember   50% what we see and hear      80% what see, hear and do at the same time    

                            90% what we teach others      

If we agree with research the nature of our business (teaching others) makes us experts. However, we can increase our value to clients and increase our credibility by remembering OSDFA.

Read more about Learning Styles by checking out our publications at the APLS Online Store.

Much is written about why companies use downsizing as a corporate strategy to increase or stabilize profits to keep the company solvent. Some pundits even speculate that downsizing is the negative result of poor business strategy during prosperous times. Downsizing is widely popular in tough economic times when terms like “lean and mean” become tag lines for companies during restructuring. According to wiseGEEK, “downsizing is a commonly used euphemism which refers to reducing overall size and operating costs of a company, most directly through reduction in the total number of employees.” Unfortunately, the employee who stays takes the brunt of the seesaw juggling that occurs during downsizing.

Complaints like those of my client are both audible and silent depending on the personal situation of the employee. The prevalent attitude of management is that the employees are lucky that they kept their jobs. My client’s company has been steadily downsizing for the last three years. There has been an unofficial hiring freeze. Any jobs that were lost through attrition, the personnel were not replaced. The remaining employees have had to restructure, rework and consolidate duties to deliver company services. Management did not provide training to the remaining employees on unfamiliar job functions nor did they give adequate incentive for employees to seek education on their own. The job my client’s education prepared her for has morphed into a continuum of putting out fires, working on unfamiliar projects and keeping current on her job duties.

Has downsizing in your company changed how you feel about your current position? Change is inevitable but change due to downsizing does not have to alter your career plans. How can you keep your career on track and dispel the negative effects of downsizing?
• Be proactive even though the company is in a reactive mode
• Visit Human Resources to review your job description
• Meet with your manager to discuss where you fit in the reorganization of the company
• Discuss with manager projected timelines for consolidation of duties
• Offer suggestions to management on ways to work more efficiently
• Seek training for unfamiliar duties (preferably turnkey)
• Plan time to relieve stress during business hours (take a walk at lunch time, use of gym)
• Realign work schedule to reflect new responsibilities
• Network with other departments
• Update manager on your progress
• Stay aware of the best practices in your industry
• Commit to updating your education

Downsizing has not proven to be the panacea business pretends it is. Statistics show that well over 60% of companies that engage in downsizing, retooling, and restructuring as a means to change profitability do not get the prolonged boost expected. In fact quite the opposite is true. Unhappy employees create havoc on a business bottom line. Employees are the human capital that is the most valuable resource of most businesses. The costs attributed to employee low morale, exiting, survivor guilt, overwork, frustration, absenteeism and confusion is rarely accounted for in the original equation of renewed profitability through downsizing.

Coach Nanci has the following advice for companies who are considering downsizing:
• Communicate with your employees before you take any action that involves them
• Explain the company situation in terms employees understand
• Seek employee suggestions on how to do the work more efficiently (the people who do the work are the best resource not management)
• Turnkey retraining (use the expertise you have in your employees to rebuild)
• Reduce management perks (travel, bonus percentages, business expense accounts)
• If you have to eliminate positions do it proportionally
• Praise employees for tightening belts and incentives for cost saving ideas
• Communicate! Communicate! Communicate! Manage Up and Down

For more ideas on how to be proactive in your career take a look at Juggling Elephants in the APLS Online Store.

My curiosity went from mild interest to intense scrutiny when I read that my state, North Carolina, had spent $9.4 million of taxpayer money to train workers for companies like Caterpillar, Honda Aircraft, Siemans and US Airways. The justification was that these companies were providing jobs in North Carolina. Caterpillar spent $426 million on a new factory. Siemans had jobs for seven hundred workers and US Airways brought 200 positions back to the US to Winston-Salem from Manila last year. Whoa! It hit me. Big corporations are using quid pro quo on states. States invest in training for the new hires and the companies agree to relocate to the state and provide jobs. Politicians sign off on the agreement because it makes them look good at re-election time to be able to shout out how many jobs they created in the state. Corporations like the arrangement because besides tax breaks for relocating to certain areas they also get free training of their employees that is industry specific. The tax payer is happy that jobs are available in their area. The downside is most taxpayers are not aware of the personal cost these jobs calculate to each state tax payer. Is the cost worth the jobs? The $9.4 million North Carolina invested in training covered 4,500 jobs at a training cost to taxpayers of roughly $2,000 per job. What guarantee does the state have that the corporations will stay in the area? North Carolina spent $2 million on industry specific training for employees of Dell only for the factory to close after five years leaving 1,000 people out of work.

As Clint Eastwood said in a commercial during the Super Bowl, “It’s half time in America …” It is time to think. Just because the unemployment rate in January came down to 8.3% and 243,000 jobs were created how much quid pro quo was involved in the creation of these jobs? The stock market reached its highest level in January since May 2008 but what were the hidden costs to tax payers? We are an innovative nation but we need to be a thinking nation too. We need to question more and follow less. Why can’t corporations pay for their own company training? Why should tax payers foot the bill?

For more information on this subject look at the website for Good Jobs First. They keep a running list of corporations, subsidies and the tax payer investments used to create jobs. I am interested in hearing your assessment of the situation. How much is too much of an incentive to bring business to a state?

According to research done for the publication Help Wanted we already know that by 2018 we anticipate 22 million new workers will be needed for jobs that most definitely will require a college degree. Since the US is a service economy these jobs will be servicing information systems, education, government, financial services, business and healthcare. STEM occupations will be in high demand but workers must have post- secondary education to qualify for these jobs. According to The Center on Education and the Workforce in the publication The Undereducated American by Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose, “America has been under producing college educated workers since 1980.” During the 20th century prior to 1980 the supply of educated workers kept pace with business demand. In 1980 the trend began to turn, the demand exceeded the supply of workers. By 2006 the US National Academies loudly voiced their concern about the lack of educated college talent to move into STEM positions. They even went on record with suggestions on how to rectify the devastating effect the under education was having on our economy. Their solutions included improving K-12 math and science programs, upgrading teacher training in math and science, and encouraging more students to study math and science in post- secondary schools. . If we keep education status quo we will find ourselves 3 million qualified workers short to meet the job demand in 2018.

American business needs to stop bellyaching about not being able to find skilled workers and start using this recession as an opportunity to influence how public education and higher education prepare students to come into the workforce. American corporations need to step up and create opportunities for students to meet the demands of the workforce they are going into. It is not too late to salvage the imbalance in the workforce and turn the economy around.

American businesses can:

• Use R& D statistics to help set federal guidelines for public education curriculum

• Engage state DOE’s in dialogue to promote skills needed to move from K-12 to work readiness

• Adopt school districts and let industry workers do community service with children in schools:
exposing students to different careers, sponsoring career days, work visits, job shadowing, mentoring students, develop financial readiness programs for students

• Work with teachers to do a co-op exchange program so that educators can experience what skills are needed in the workplace instead of speculating what is needed

• Provide internships in different areas of the business for both high school and college students

• Provide summer youth employment for a stipend (good way to start youth initiation into work habit, introduction to business, chance to guide students toward post-secondary education

• Offer scholarships from your industry with diverse criteria to encourage high school graduates to pursue
post-secondary education and college students to continue on to graduate school

• Partner with colleges to provide continuing education and certificate programs for employees

What does business get out of these initiatives?

• More educated workforce from entry level to executive
• Profits based on human capital generated from more educated and capable workforce
• Input into the public education curriculum to create a connection between education and business
• Access to new and innovative thinking in the early stages
• More diverse work group because of early public education access
• Less company expense for remedial training
• Competitive pool of educated people for possible employment
• Business loyalty and goodwill

Education + Business = Economic Growth

Please remember to take look at the APLS Online store for fascinating reads and the latest training materials.

When the economy collapsed during the Great Depression Americans looked towards better education to increase the possibility of employment. Between 1930 and 1940 there was a significant spike in high school graduation rates from 30 percent to 50 percent. Add to that the soldiers returning from World War II and the GI Bill was responsible for the explosion in college attendance. By 1947 the veterans made up 49 percent of all college admissions. If we reflect on those times we will realize that the rise in an educated work force helped make General Motors, R.C.A., U.S. Steel, and I.B.M. the giants of industry. It also was the beginning of the middle class.

We know that an educated workforce has value. In the 1960’s economist Theodore Schultz coined the term “human capital” to refer to the value of human capabilities. He saw education as an investment in human capital that helped improve business production. According to Thijs van Rens, a researcher and Affiliated Professor at Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, in his article, The Value of an Educated Workforce: What We Learn From a Comparison Growth and Inequality Across Countries he wrote:

“….the average worker in an average country that went to school for seven years
earns about 14% more on her first job than another worker that dropped out after
six years in school in her first job. Twenty years later, the difference between their
wage is still about 14%. Increasing the average education level of the entire workforce
in an average country by one year increases that country’s output by about 8% initially, suggesting the social return is similar to or even a bit lower than the private return. However, eventually the extra year of education raises that country’s output by as much as 42%.”

We are struggling in a paralyzing recession. We need an educated workforce to come up with good old American ingenuity to get us back on track. It is imperative that we teach our young people the importance of securing a good education and the impact it has on their personal growth and the economy as a whole. Unfortunately American secondary schools are saddled with No Child Left Behind, budget cuts, and shrinking graduation rates. College attendance is at an all -time high but college graduation rates are stagnant. Community colleges are coming to the rescue by providing entry level academic programs, technical programs and vocational programs. In addition, community colleges are functioning as the financial alternative and gateway to four year colleges. They are providing the additional post- secondary education that is needed to move the country’s economy forward at an affordable cost.

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This blog was written as a means to begin a continuing dialogue with my readers and fans of nancisnotions.com. Hopefully I have stimulated some reactions, insights and passion. What are your thoughts about the value of an educated workforce on business? Does more education mean higher wages and less profit for business or better ideas and more profit? Come on, share your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you!

“… implicit promises can be imbedded in things like a company
name, a company’s brand, the packaging of a product, the way
a salesperson or customer service representative behaves, or a
manager looks at his or her staff, to name a few.”

Using Hall’s Trust Model I decided to look at APL S Group with a critical eye and I liked the outcome. Our customers expect value, competent consultation and expert training services. They need advice on how to improve productivity in their organizations. Our implicit promise is that we are a quality company that cares about our clients. We are willing to work with our clients to facilitate change in their organizations. That message is evident in the website photos, explanation of services and our customer service. Our explicit promise to our clients is outlined in our initial agreement and backed up by the final contract.
I challenge you to take a look at your business to evaluate the “trust factor”. How does your company measure up? If you were to poll your customers would they respond that they trust your organization? Fall is a great time to re-evaluate business strategy and plan for the new year.

I would like to thank Mark, an invaluable member of the APLS GROUP, for pinch hitting at Nanci’s Notions during my absence. Mark’s insightful views on transitioning from college to a career have given me a question to ponder. Are you in the right career?  With unemployment in the double digits
in many areas across this country, having a secure job is enviable and daring to ask if my career fits me seems unthinkable. Yet making the proper career choice can be the catalyst for combined personal and professional success.

According to Kathleen Gage’s article “How to Know if You Are in the Right Career”, 80% of working  people are misemployed. They are working in careers that are unsatisfying and unfulfilling.  Mike Rowe, popular host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, says on his website that popular culture has
demonized the idea of work and work is a place to be avoided at all costs. Unemployment and under employment figures would have us believe that the pride associated with a job well done is passé. Our country, our people and our economy are suffering. In the last thirty years we have lost or outsourced manufacturing jobs by the millions and discouraged our children from entering the trades. As a result, the college enrollments have swelled, the high school dropout rate has escalated and job dissatisfaction has increased. There are jobs in IT, building and construction trades, healthcare, and engineering but the lack of a skilled labor pool has caused a disconnect on the employment front. What’s wrong with this picture?

When I traced my own steps that led to the career that I currently have, I was pleasantly surprised that I am right where I want to be.  Though I have rarely been reflective of my professional journey, the outcome has been more design than happenstance. I am in the career that suits my personality
and my skill sets. It is impossible to be misemployed when skill sets and personality are aligned. I did not always know that I wanted to be a consultant but I always knew that the study of human behavior was my passion. As a college student,  I was fascinated by psychology and participated in numerous lab studies to test the cause and effect of human behavior. Later when I began my professional life I worked at NTL Institute where I was surrounded by the masters in the field of human behavior, training and organizational development. As my resume grew, I continued to pursue opportunities in organizations where human behavior was an integral part of my responsibilities. I developed a professional toolbox that keeps me invested and engaged in my career to this day.

Whether you are just starting a career or preparing for a change in career, consider the following tips to help you make a wise transition:

Make an investment in three assessments: personality, learning style, skills inventory
Research the industry you want to enter including outlook, pay, benefits
Interview people that are doing the job you think you want to do
Do not be afraid to switch from traditional “white collar” to “hands on” jobs
Concentrate on your strengths and seek employment that uses your strengths
Accurately assess your skills and outline what you have to offer an organization
Seek appropriate education to sharpen your skills in the field you are pursuing including job sector training
Network in the field (go to industry events including career fairs)
Meditate and visualize yourself as successful in the field (positive self -talk)

The next time you ask yourself if you are in the right career, let the answer be a resounding yes!

Visit the APL Group online store for additional material on this topic.

It is so cliché, but…
When you hear people drop the need for the “C” word, do you almost want to scream “Communication, again…?  That’s the best they have?  Yet over and over again companies see this as an area of disconnect, if you will, on the “Employee Engagement” surveys they send out each year.  And each year employees say “so you asked, now what?”
I have been a manager of people throughout my career.  I started out lousy, made mistakes, and got better over time (I think).  The main issue was not the technical aspect or lack of knowledge.  It was the communication part.  I was lousy and at times I still struggle.  The quote that sticks with me and moved me to action was from Lee Iacocca of Mustang and Chrysler fame – “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere”.
I see this in practice in the current work I do as a process improvement practitioner.  I work with managers that have gaps between what they tell me is going on versus what I observe when I work with their folks.  No one in this situation is the “bad guy”.  It is an easy trap, however, for managers to fall into.  Manage by reports from the confines of their office.  Interaction may be sporadic or situational. Sound familiar?
The cure is a bit tough, but it has been validated for me in practice and in literature on the subject.  Systematic, routine meetings with each employee on a weekly basis that the employee owns go a long way toward curing the communication symptom.  Employees are engaged, held accountable, and better yet cannot claim that they did not know.  It becomes a way of life, a way of doing business, an old way.  Not micromanaging.  That is when an assignment is given and you stand over someone asking “is it done yet?” blah, blah, blah.  Weekly meetings are planned and prescriptive.  It is effective if done over and over.  The amount of sharing and front line problem solving cannot be over stated.  And the mid year or year-end review?  A piece of cake.  There has been full disclosure throughout the year.  No surprises!  Ever been surprised during a review cycle? (Insert stomach churn here)
So when you hear that better communication is needed, do you see yourself above or below average in that category?  If below, ask yourself how often you have real, face to face (or phone to phone) conversations with your direct reports.  If you are above average, have someone observe you or get feedback from your direct reports.  You may be surprised.

 Visit the APLS Group on-line store for a variety of resources on Communication – www.aplsgroup.com