A Tool Kit to Identify Energy Solutions in Off-Grid Areas

A Tool Kit to Identify Energy Solutions in Off-Grid Areas A Tool Kit to Identify Energy Solutions in Off-Grid Areas A Tool Kit to Identify Energy Solutions in Off-Grid Areas A new package of data-collection and decision-making tools helps communities with poor energy access make informed decisions about how to meet their fruchtwein pressing energy needs. MIT D-Labs Energy Assessment Toolkit is aimed at organizations that work closely with communities that have been overlooked in the work to provide energy to everyone around the world.While aid organizations tend to focus on dense populations where infrastructurecan serve the most people, and private business seeks optimum markets, hard-to-reach and sparsely populated communities can fall through the cracks.In 2015, MIT D-Lab began working with Mercy Corps to develop the tool kit with a goal to create a means by which organizations with strong connections in off-grid communities can assess energy needs and select market-based solution s for residents and businesses.Expertise in the energy sector is not necessary to use the tool kit. The essential qualifications are a strong presence in the community and the ability to take action based on the opportunities identified. Organizations that have used the tool kit include community-based businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society organizations. They all have ongoing programs in off-grid regions and are looking to further develop energy access programs that leverage their existing connections with communities.The Energy Assessment Toolkit, which is open-source and available online, includes surveys and interview guides that an organization can use to gather information from a range of stakeholders, such as community residents, business owners, government officials, and others.Lamine Keta (left) preparing for an interview in Segou, Mali. Image Eric Verploegen / MIT D-LabThe kind of information the surveys and interviews explore includes current energy access and expenditures, aspirational energy needs,existing supply chain,community institutions, and stakeholders (private sector, government, NGO).The tool kit is modular, allowing the organization conducting the assessment to determine the scope and scale of the study. In addition to the data collection tools, the tool kit includes data entry and visualization tools that can be used to analyze data and guide the design of the assessment plan by identifying technologies and business models that address the most pressing needs in a specific area. The goal is to enable organizations to collect the information needed to make informed decisions about how to meet the particular needs in their community through market-based initiatives.An example is an assessment conducted by Mercy Corps in Mali, which identified the need for households to reduce the money spent on cooking fuel.It also found that the major reason why efficient cookstoves had not reached this market was a poor supply chai nbeset by security issues in the northern part of the country. Mercy Corps is now helping facilitate the distribution of cookstoves by connecting manufacturers in southernMali to wholesalers and entrepreneurs in northern Mali.The Energy Assessment Toolkit is part of a larger suite of initiatives developed as part of the MIT D-Lab Off-Grid Energy Roadmap. D-Lab is also working on developing and curating resources to help organizations identify technologies and business models that can meet the needs of off-grid communities and guidance for designing pilot programs and market deployment.MIT D-Lab is known for its work in Creative Capacity Building, an approach to international development that trains people in resource-poor settings around the world to create or adapt technologies that will improve their lives and strengthen their communities. In this way, people become active creators of technology, not just recipients or users of technology. The Energy Assessment Toolkit approaches development in a similar way it views organizations with a strong local presence as powerful agents of change and provides the tools and training necessary to assess community needs and implement the right solutions to meet the energy needs of the community in which they work.Eric Verploegen leads the MIT D-Lab Off-Grid Energy Group.

Employee Engagement for Dummies

Employee Engagement for DummiesEmployee Engagement for DummiesEmployee Engagement for DummiesEmployee Engagement for Dummies PDFNote Youll need Adobe Reader to view the PDF file above. Download Adobe Reader.Wednesday, October 22, 2014Youve heard of employee engagement, but how do you take it from an idea to an actionable plan?is pleased to partner again with Bob Kelleher as he shares highlights from his latest work, Employee Engagement for Dummies From the author of Louder Than Words, and Creativeship, comes this all-inclusive, step-by-step guide to all things employee engagement.Join for this captivating, high energy, and humorous FREE webinar as Bob takes attendees on a jurney through his brand new book. Hell explain concepts, tools, and best practices that will help you foster employee engagement at yur company (or with your team).Specifically Learn aboutThe latest employee engagement researchThe state of the workforce Gallup claims up to 70% of employees are disengagedLearn what emotions drive engagementDiscover what emotions drive disengagementThe importance of building your Employer BrandThe importance of building transparency in your communicationLearn how to imfrve employee engagementPresented byBob KelleherAuthor, Speaker, Founder of the Employee Engagement GroupBob Kelleher is an award winning author, thought leader, keynotlagee speaker and consultant, and travels the globe sharing his insights on employee engagement, leadership, and workforce trends. Bob is the author of the bestselling book, LOUDER THAN WORDS 10 Practical Employee Engagement Steps That Drive Results, CREATIVESHIP, A Novel for Evolving Leaders, and the just released EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT for Dummies.Bob can be landseen or heard on national and is a frequent guest writer and contributing editor on many national publications.Bob is also the founder of The Employee Engagement Group (EmployeeEngagement.com), a consulting firm that works with leadership teams (many from the A/E industry) t o implement best in class leadership and employee engagement programs.Prior to become a writer, speaker and consultant, Bob designed and lead award winning employee engagement initiatives at large global organizations as Chief Human Resources Officer.Check out Bobs Book Chapter 7, Chapter 10, Chapter 14Webinar Transcript Employee Engagement for Dummies.Good afternoon, Im Jim Thompson, senior writer with Monster. I would like to thank you for joining us today for this exclusive webinar hosted by Intelligence. Todays webinar is entitled Employee Engagement for Dummies.Bob Kelleher, founder of the Employee Engagement Group will be presenting this afternoon.In todays webinar, Bob will explore what it takes to be a thought leader, and why it matters. Before we get started, I would like to mention a few housekeeping items.Todays presentation, and a copy of the recording will be posted on hiring.monster.com within the next two to three business days. Please click on the resources tab, and navigate to HR Events to obtain your copy. All registered participants will also receive an email with a direct link to todays materials.Intelligence helps HR professionals improve worker performance, retain top talent, and enhance recruiting strategies. We analyze and collect data from millions of unique job searches performed on each day. We invite you to visit hiring.monster.com and read our in depth reports and analysis. For our latest materials, click on the Resources Center tab when you visit the website. After the presentation, there will be time for questions. Our meeting manager will help facilitate the QA. Please feel free to type your questions into the available space during the event and well make every effort to include them in todays QA session. And if youre listening to todays presentation via telephone, youll be placed on mute until the QA session begins.Now, Id like to provide some background on our speaker Bob Kelleher. Bob is an award-winning author, thought lead er, keynote speaker, and consultant. Bob travels the globe sharing his insights on employee engagement, leadership, and workforce trends. He is the author of the best-selling booksLouder Than WordsTen Practical Employee Engagement Steps That Drive ResultsCreativeship A Novel for Evolving Leadersand the just released Employee Engagement for DummiesBob has been a guest of several national media programs, and is a frequent writer and contributing editor for countless industry publications. Bob is also the founder of the Employee Engagement Group, a consulting firm that works with executive teams to implement best-in-class leadership and employee engagement programs. Prior to his writing, speaking, and consulting career, Bob designed and led employee engagement initiatives at global organizations as chief human resources officer.Welcome, Bob, Ill now turn the webinar over to you.Why thank you, Jim.I am delighted to be here with you today, and Im even mora delighted that is partnering wi th me. I go way back with Monster, both of us being native Massachusetts companies. Although being from Boston, Im koranvers it is a surprise to many of our listeners, because I dont really have a Boston accent. On that note, a little bit of background, I am not a life-long consultant or author. I spent many, many years working for organizations in human resources and in the organizational development field and even spent a couple of years as Chief Operations Officer for a large global company. But, it really welches probably in the late 1990s in which I started focusing full time on putting in employee engagement programs and initiatives. Some of behauptung ideas Ill be sharing with you today.Employee Engagement for Dummies will be todays theme, but let me take a step back. When I left corporate America in 2009, I wanted to take the best practices I had implemented and put it in a book. So, the book Louder Than Words became a best seller. Many, many people started asking me to talk about the book and that led to the evolution of my writing into a fable Creativeship A Novel for Evolving Leaders.And then, out of the blue one day, I got a call from Wiley Publishing, asked if I would pen Employee Engagement for Dummies.And to be honest, when I first got the call, I really welches struck, Should I or should I not write Employee Engagement for Dummies?I welches concerned about my audience, my clients, and conference attendees. But, the more I learned about the Dummy series, I found that it welches a 250 million and growing in terms of size. Its the largest book franchise of its kind in the world. In fact, they claim its the most recognized book series in the world. They challenged me to write a book that would be 350 pages that would be translated in over 30 languages. Then I started really investigating the Dummies series and quiz time the first Dummies book came out in what year? Well, if you guessed DOS for Dummies,you were correct, and that was written in 19 98. The best-selling Dummies book today? My wife would claim Wine for Dummies,but she would be wrong. The best-selling book today in the Dummies series is Windows 8 for Dummies.And Ive lost count Employee Engagement for Dummiesis doing quite well.I always try to give people a tool or two when they sit through a keynote talk or a webinar, so my special thank you to you will be to offer you three very practical employee engagement tools that I think are best-in-class that you can literally start using. During my years as an internal practitioner, I would often sit in conferences or webinars, and just try to take away one idea, one tool that I could implement. In addition to, hopefully, listening to some really fascinating data Ill be sharing, pay attention when I aufgussgetrnk up unterstellung three tools, because I really do think they are terrific.Lets just jump right in. I will talk a little bit about the state of the American workforce as part one. And I will follow the outline of the Dummies book. Part two will be Employee Engagement for Dummies, and I will breeze through some of these chapters. Just a key point to keep in mind, has, on its website, a couple of chapters that are complimentary chapters, so feel free to download either chapter 7 or 10. I believe they have chapter 14, which will be available for your downloading pleasure following todays webinar.Lets all jump right in.The State of the WorkforceAs you can see from those photos, the recessionary window that we entered in 2008- 2009 really took its toll on the workforce. In fact, according to many studies, were at a pretty low engagement level. And let me use this metaphor, picture if you and the employees in your company were represented by a crew team, and imagine if only 3 out of 10 of your crew members were actually working really hard, giving above and beyond efforts. Imagine if only 5 of the 10 person crew members were just casually looking at the scenery going by, and worse yet, imagine if 2 are actually trying to sink your boat. Well, according to a landmark study published by Gallup at the end of 2013, that really is the state of the American workforce, in which they claim based on a North American poll that up to 7 out of 10 employees are either disengaged or actively disengaged.And, in fact, to look at the studies specifically, based on 150,000 employee respondents, they concluded 3 out of 10 are engaged, 52 percent are disengaged, and almost 2 out of 10 are actually trying to sink your boat. I was so struck by this particular study, as well as countless other studies that Ive been reading and compiling over the past couple of years. I decided to focus my energy on looking at organizations not only to boost their engagement, but also to evaluate the level of disengagement.Were going to do a quick little poll and youll see the poll on your computer screen. Take a quick minute and check if you believe the employees that you work with, 7 out of 10 are disengaged. Put a check if you believe half of the company that you work with are disengaged, and if you are looking at 25 percent disengagement, check the 25 percent. And if you dont have a clue, please check box D. So, well give you a few seconds to gauge your estimate and lets close the poll, and it will take about 10, 15 seconds to pull the poll up.In the meantime, I invite you to do the following. I created a video called Whos Sinking Your Boat,which has gone viral 273,000 views at last count. It is a wonderful four-minute education on engagement. It tees up the Whos Sinking Your Boat concept. It makes a business case. What were finding, many leadership teams are using this video as a rallying cry. It also provides some hope. Now, looking at what you are telling us, we have 43 percent indicating 25 percent of your employees are disengaged. Thirty-one percent are saying half of your organization is disengaged, and 13 percent of you believe 7 out of 10 are disengaged, and 12 percent dont kn ow. Whats fascinating when you think of this engagement, thats not asking, Are you engaged? It really is a snapshot of the employees who arent even working at a baseline engagement level. Lets continue.Lets define engagement, and were going to jump right in with my definition. But before I define engagement for you, I want to tell you what it isnt. Employee engagement is not about satisfying your employees, because the worst thing you could possibly have is an under-performing but satisfied employee. If your goal is just to satisfy your employees, that is very one-sided, and you run the risk of having satisfied but under-performing employees. You can also throw money, and titles, and things at your employees as a way to build employee satisfaction. And what I like to tell clients, when you focus on satisfiers, you are building a culture of employee entitlement, not a culture of employee engagement.So, lets talk about the difference. Satisfied employees, generally, are there to get t hings from the company, think tangible things. Engagement is about forging relationships. Its about what can I do for you, but what can you do for the organizations, this shared commitment. Its having common goals. Its about developing your staff. Transparency and communication. Its the culture that defines who you are. Its about having a culture of high performance.Lets look at it a slightly different way. I like to define the word engagement as a mutual commitment. It is my job as the company or my job as the boss to unlock the potential of my employees to help drive company performance. See, it is a quid pro quo. We will help you as the employee reach your potential, but there has to be a mutual aspect to it. How are you going to help your organization reach its potential? And this bond between the two the intersection is were in this togetherand what transpires is magic dust in discretionary efforts when your employees go above and beyond. Now, I have often worked with highly left? grade executives who are very analytical.And theyll often want us to justify if I focus on engagement, what are the business intangibles? Is this a business driver or is this a touchy-feely type of initiative? And, based on my experience, if you engage your employees, they drive customer or client satisfaction and the two of those things done well, usually leads to success. So, based on a lot of research, if you can focus on engagement, if you can get your employees to give above and beyond, there are concrete quantitative facts and statistics that will prove that an increase in engagement will increase employee revenue, will increase your ability to hire and retain the best employees, will increase your ability to develop great leaders internal. And it will increase your ability to be able to respond to market changes and market conditions. It also allows you to better plan for the future. So, you are not just investing in today. Engaged employees help you plan in investing i n tomorrow.In a decrease in engagement, you will see on the decrease side 28 percent of organizations that have engaged employees experience less downsizing, 40 percent lower turnover of high performing employees, and 17 percent voluntary turnover decreases overall, when you can see a boost in employee engagement. By the way, this is just one metric, a study from Burson. You can go on employeeengagement.com my website youll see in the resources section, were trying to archive a lot of the business metrics in order for you to be armed with data concrete evidence that, hey, if we focus on engagement, there are tangible business results.Now, lets continue. Hows this for a startling statistic? Disengaged employees cost the US economy 370 billion annually, according to a Forbes article. And if you have employees with low engagement, they are four times more likely to leave their jobs than those employees who are highly engaged. But there is trouble in paradise, as this picture depi cts. According to a recent study by Silk Road, less than 40 percent of companies even focus on engagement, and I believe what happened post the recession, many organizations saw their voluntary turnover numbers shrink.In fact, during the depth of the recession that we were in, voluntary turnovers decreased two-thirds. So, if your voluntary turnover was 15 percent in 2006, it was 5 percent in 2010. And what happened, I believe, was organizations started focusing on survival. Counting paperclips, increasing sales, and many organizations lost sight of their talent management programs, as evident by this particular study. And what were seeing today, with the far healthier economy, the job market doing significantly better, were now seeing many organizations rethinking their talent management strategies because of the burning platform, which, historically, has been voluntary turnover.Employee EngagementNow, lets talk about engagement and motivation. Let me start off with one of my all-ti me favorite entertainers. For those who have ever heard me speak, youll know that Im a Beatles junkie. And last summer, I had a wonderful opportunity to hear Paul McCartney in concert. And as I heard Sir Paul rocking Fenway Park, it dawned on me that this 72-year-old entertainer, who by all accounts does not need to work, based on being quite wealthy, what was driving him to give a three hour concert? Why was he working, at his age, to drive his band to deliver this amazing concert? And I turned to my wife during the concert and I remarked that Paul McCartney is engaged. And, of course, my wife joked, Bob, you really need to be thinking about something else. But what I was realizing, seeing Paul, is that we all will go above and beyond if we really love doing things that we love to do, or if we are practicing things that we have a particular skill at.And what Ive learned over the years in business, that the intersection of these three areas what the employee wants to do, what the e mployee is good at, and what the company needs to get done that intersection is an engaged employee. And someone like Paul McCartney or Bruce Springsteen or Tom Brady or the New England Patriots, they happen to be quite fortunate in that theyre very, very good at what they do. They obviously love what they do and the market in which they get to play or pursue their craft. In the workplace, we all end up with things that we dont like to do. But the more that you can see overlap, the more that youll see a boost in engagement.Now, on that note, for some reason the visual didnt come out, but we have a terrific tool that weve created thats based on these three circles. We like to call it the performance appraisal form for the future. Most millennial dont really tolerate 15-page performance appraisals all that well, so what weve done is work with a subset group of our clients to develop what we think is a terrific, easy, best-in-class performance appraisal form, based on these three circ les. And at the end of the webinar, I will share with you how to get your hands on this particular tool.Now, lets talk about engagement and emotion. I do a lot of partnering with Dale Carnegie, and in fact, we will soon be launching in partnership with Dale Carnegie, an employee engagement certification course. Look at employeeengagement.com for more details. But based on Dale Carnegies research with MSW, they have concluded that there are emotions that drive engagement, and emotions that drive disengagement.There are a series of positive emotions, that if your employees feel valued, confident, inspired, enthusiastic, and empowered, there is a high probability that you will have an engaged employee. Conversely, if your employees experience negative emotions, if they are bored in their job, if they are disinterested, if they are working with a project group of employees, or on a lethargic brand, or a group of managers, if they are irritated, if they see someone who was just hired in at a higher salary than themselves, if theres a perception of unfairness. If they feel manipulated in any way, if they are uncomfortable, if they feel vulnerable. Part of the reason I believe Gallups study, that states record low levels of employee engagement, has to do with this feeling of vulnerability.The past five years, weve asked employees to do more with less. Weve seen spouses, neighbors, relatives, friends, parents, siblings, and children lose their jobs or not be able to find jobs. And even if weve been actively or gainfully employed, I believe that has created a level of insecurity, and collectively, weve seen this negative cloud that weve been under drive a level of disengagement in the work place.Why even care at all about emotions? Well, employees who feel negative emotions are ten times more disengaged than employees who feel positive emotions. So, are your employees working within a positive culture or a negative culture? And negative emotions are more contagious, in fact, based on MSWs research with Dale Carnegie, negative emotions travel four times faster than positive emotions. If you are working in a toxic culture, you can see the significant disengagement effect of negative emotions.Let me take a step back and move in to our second poll.What do you believe is the number one influencer of emotions in the work place?If you believe money, check off A. If you believe training and development, check off B. If you believe leadership, check off C, and if you believe my boss, check off D. Well give you another couple of seconds. Okay, lets close the poll. And let me just take a step back and let you know that the number one influencer of emotions is the number one influencer of engagement, and is also the number one influencer of disengagement. So, let me jump in with the answer.The number one driver of both positive and negative emotions, or I like to say the number one driver of engagement, is also the number one driver of disengagement, and its my relationship with my boss. Now, that came in second place with 39 percent. You folks said leadership at 46 percent. Now, I can tell you organizationally-wide, having trust in leadership is a significant engagement driver, but when it comes to the individual level, what makes me positive, what makes me negative, what makes me engaged today, what can drive disengagement, its my relationship with my boss. So, if I was to do nothing else, if I was on this call and I was on a member of your leadership team, focusing on making sure that you are selecting and developing the right people to manage people.Lets continue. The importance of communication in my first book I called communication the cornerstone of engagement. So, lets talk a little bit about what I call line of sight. Based on extensive research, organizations that are able to crystallize their mission and vision values, in a way that it creates line of site with their employees, lets their employees understand what the compa ny stands for. They understand where theyre going, the purpose, and the overall mission of the organization to outperform companies that dont, and have higher levels of engagement. Its actually quite simple. This is my job, and I understand how my job fits in with where the organization is going, and that line of site has been proven to be a significant engagement driver. In fact, this is a 2012 study by the research firm Aberdeen, in which they actually claim the top way organizations can drive engagement is by establishing a process in which they will align the goals of your employees with the business priorities.I work with companies in all industries today, and I must say, this is an area that many organizations struggle with. That they try to have too many goals, too many priorities, and the employees dont really see how it relates to the job that theyre actually doing. Its even more pronounced in these days, because of the overwhelming number of communication sources, communic ation experts now claim that we dont hear something as an employee unless we hear it or see it 13 times. Are you communicating your values 13 times? Your mission? Are you communicating your operating goal 13 times in a way that resonates with your employees? Are you building redundancy and variety into your communication messaging? We do a lot of workshops now with organizations on how to lead and engage the millennials. And if youre not bringing in texting and mobile technology platforms to help you communicate with the millennials, I believe you really run the risk of disengaging that population.Now, there is a terrific tool that Im going to offer. Its called My Communication Protocol.Its highlighted in all three of my books, because I think its so critically important. How do you build a cascading message approach in which this is what the CEO is going to communicate? This is the frequency. This is the audience. This is the venue, and this is what the direct reports of the CEO communicate. And you can build a communication protocol all throughout your organization, and we have found when you put this blueprint in place, you create line-of-sight, you create a healthy communication culture, while also reinforcing your communicating alignment 13 times. So, we are offering up our communication tool. I absolutely believe this tool is worth the hour of your time today and well give you some idea of how to implement this communication promise in your organization at the close.PurposeNow, lets talk about purpose. If youre trying to get the discretionary effort of your employees, you need to capture not only on the minds of your employees, but you need to capture the heart of your employees. So, think of both the intellectual and the emotional aspect of your employee population. And, based on extensive research, organizations that focus not just on what it is they do, but also focus on the why and the who, outperform their peer group. So, let me give you a homewor k assignment. At the close of this webinar, Id like you to go on your organizations website and see what jumps out at you. I would speculate that your firm, your organization, your institution does a terrific job of telling the world what it is you do, what you sell, what you manufacture. But I would suspect that you struggle with telling the world why do you do it and who you are.Now, lets take a case study Whole Foods. This is a case study of an organization that has done a terrific job of articulating the why. In fact, Whole Foods has proven that they can actually charge a premium, and customers, if they feel an emotional connection to the brand, they will actually take more money. And look at their value statements, their purpose statement. We provide choices for nurturing the body, the community, and the planet. Now, a second, vastly different company is a management consulting firm, and I learned recently that Bain and Company came in number one on glassdoor.coms best employe r, both in 2012 and 2013. So, I went on Bain and Companys website, and what did I see? I see this slide. The very first slide is not telling the world what it is they do, its telling the world who they are. And only when you stay on their website a bit do you see a toggle and you realize theyre a management consulting firm. So, when I see these messaging aspects to a brand, it makes me understand why Bain scores so well on best place to work surveys, because theyre not just telling the world what it is they do, theyre also articulating both the why, and in this case, their who.Well, by the way, if you focus on purpose, it is doing well by doing good. In fact, evidence by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, if you can somehow articulate your purpose and values better than your competitors, you will out-perform your peer group six times. And I believe it plays direct to the engagement of your employees, because youre capturing both their intellect and their emotional connection to the busin ess.BrandingNow, lets talk about branding. Sometimes I feel old when I look at this song by Looking Glass Brandy, Youre a Fine Girl.My kids tell me Im a dinosaur, because theyve never heard of that song. But lets talk about engagement in your brand. Well, based on the same Gallup study that I created Whos Sinking Your Boat, 59 percent of employees do not know what their company stands for, or what makes its brand different from its competitors brand. What an opportunity lost. I sometimes will work with a client, after a couple of weeks, Ill circle back at the leadership team, and Ill say, Great news. You dont have an engagement issue. You have a hiring issue. You have a selection issue. You dont understand who you are. If you dont understand who you are, youre going to struggle with hiring the types of people that can succeed at your culture.I always work with organizations human resource groups to try to get them to understand the importance of creating an employer value aussage . What is unique, what is different about working here? We tend to run in the same road race that everyone else runs in, and therefore, we cant articulate, why are we different? And if you cant articulate why you are different, then you cant differentiate yourself, and I believe you struggle with creating that unique value proposition. When I worked on the corporate side, I used to focus on getting organizations to understand the importance of linking their employer brand with their product or service brand. So, think Southwest Airlines. As a customer to Southwest, we will experience a fun culture. Its a different flight experience compared to some of the major US-carriers. Well, its not by accident. Their employment brand is very much on, how do we identify employees who are fun type of employees to work here?Now, there is a third dimension, which I find quite fascinating, its a concept that I call tri-branding, which is highlighted in Employee Engagement for Dummies,as well as my second book, Creativeship.Let me talk a little bit about tri-branding. Tri-branding is when you can link your employer brand with your product or service brand in such a way that it not only resonates with your employees fostering employee engagement but it resonates with your clients and customers in a way that theyre not just satisfied, but they are engaged.See, employee satisfaction is passive, employee engagement is active. Customer satisfaction is actually passive. If someone calls me and asks if I enjoy the product that I purchased, I might say yes, but if Im an engaged customer, I might initiate that telephone call, go on Trip Advisor, go on Yelp and proactively be a brand ambassador. In each one of these brands you see on the screen, I believe are all benefiting by this magical aspect of tri-branding, in which not only do you have engaged employees, but you have also engaged customers who are helping to leverage your brand. If you live in the Boston area, or if you do not live in the Boston or New England area, Id like to share a very recent case study on tri-branding. Arthur T was the CEO of a supermarket chain in New England called Market Basket. This past year, Market Baskets board of directors replaced the CEO, Arthur T. Arthur T was a very enlightened, engaged leader. He was very much focused on providing a great work experience and a great value proposition for his employees. He also cared deeply for his employees. This is a non-union supermarket chain.Upon the firing of Arthur T, the employees stopped coming to work at all of the Market Basket stores. Customers stopped shopping at Market Basket, and this was such a fascinating employee engagement case study. It also was a fascinating case study of an employer brand and the customers relationship with that employer brand, and it became such a fascinating case study and a business reality for Market Basket that the board had to bring Arthur T back. And Arthur T ended up buying the entire organiz ation, bringing both the employees back to work and the customer base back to work as well. And ask your leadership team the following if your CEO is replaced by the board of directors, do your employees stop coming to work?I know some of you are probably laughing, but you should be asking your CEO or your leader, If not, why not? Picture the engagement level when employees are so engaged in the leader and the brand, in which collectively employees and customers stop coming to work. I encourage all of you on this call to Google Market Basket. Share it as a case study with your leadership team, because there are fascinating lessons.We all struggle with our employer value proposition we tend to struggle with vision, mission, and purpose. Weve created what I think is a terrific tool to have you work with your team to help create your own employer value proposition. So, lets continue. How do we measure engagement respectively in our organizations? Well, before I give you the answer, le t me ask you, what is your top metric that you use in your firm to measure your current levels of engagement? If it is a baseline employee engagement survey, check A. If you look at voluntary turnover as your top metric, check B. Employer referral percent, check C. If you dont measure engagement at all, check D. If there is another metric, please check E.Okay, key employee engagement metric that Ive seen organizations use, and I wont share with you what I think your top should be, because I think its very customized. But voluntary turnover of key staff, now that is a very different metric than voluntary turnover. I will work with some clients and I will say that their voluntary turnover is not high enough. A low voluntary turnover in and of itself is not a measure of engagement. What if you have a group of disengaged employees who are staying? Again, low turnover can be fools gold, but looking at voluntary turnover of key staff is a very valuable metric. I believe every organization should do some baseline employee engagement survey. And your baseline becomes a historical snapshot in which you can measure your engagement progress. It also allows you to benchmark how other companies in your industry are doing.Employee recognition, almost every engagement survey that Ive ever participated in, employee recognition shows up as a low score, meaning employees want more of it. And I happen to believe recognition is one of those areas that we need to measure recognition, budget for recognition, and plot its progress. And you will see businesses at a higher level of recognition usage, usually have a higher a level of employee engagement. Employee referrals are you referring? Or, do you see an increase in referrals? If you do, you usually see an uptick in engagement. Recognition of budget, are you measuring and budgeting for recognition of people and spending dollars to recognize? Chances are, there is no recognition taking place in training and development.Okay, we se e our survey. Take a couple of seconds, check which is your top metric A, B, C, D, or E and we will close the survey right now, and in a few seconds, we will show you the results.Rewards in EngagementLets talk about rewards in engagement. If I were talking to a general employee population, I would probably never say to a younger group of employees that money doesnt matter. Okay, let me just take a quick look at our poll. Okay, engagement surveys 29 percent of you use engagement surveys as your top metric. Only 17 percent use voluntary turnover. Only 5 percent use employee referral percent as a top metric. Forty-six percent dont measure engagement at all. Let me just caution that if you want to make engagements, part of your strategic initiative inside your company, you have to measure. Thats how you get the attention of your operational leaders. You can make a quantitative case that engagements drive business results if you can build in some quantitative metric. So, again, if you d ont have any metrics at all it seems like half of you dont I strongly encourage you to introduce some metrics.Okay, the role of money. Well, Im going to share a fascinating commercial with you, which we cant play live. Some of you may have seen it. Its a metaphorical point on the role that money plays in engagement. See, I dont believe money is a driver of engagement. I believe the perception of unfairness drives disengagement, and thats where money comes into play. So, at the end of this webinar, go on YouTube and type LI Bank.And youll see this neat little commercial, but let me explain it to you. There is a social experiment technician with two young girls, and he asked the very first girl, Would you like a pony? And the girl has a big smile on her face and she says, Sure. And he takes out a little toy pony, and you could see that shes thoroughly engaged with the little toy pony, until he asked the second girl, Would you like a pony? and he brings out a real pony to the second girl. Watch the facial expression of the first girl. That is the face of disengagement.When you introduce unfairness in your compensation practices, in your reward and measurement practices, you will introduce disengagement. Money, based on my experience, is not a long-term engagement driver. It is, if you can somehow introduce reward and behavior in a relatively quick window of time. If you are a waitress or a waiter, or a bartender or a doorman, I would argue that in those professions, money does drive engagement. Youll see the behavior.The behavior is so quickly reinforced with a reward. In the vast majority of our jobs, if we pay people fairly, money does not play into engagement. If theres the perception of unfairness, meaning you are paying me low, you paid someone more than I think should be paid, I cant believe my bonus is less than Henrys bonus. I know Im a higher performer. Then you run the risk of seeing disengagement. So, theres some fascinating sections on money, and th e role that money plays, both the plus and the minus in Employee Engagement For Dummies, but I tend to believe it plays more a factor in disengagement.Fairness rules its about fair pay not high pay. Rewards dont necessarily drive engagement, but they do reinforce achievement, and achievement does drive engagement. So, for those on the call who are wrestling with this, your employees are driven to achieve, money reinforces achievement, and its the achievement that is the engagement driver. In closing, and we try to finish with a few minutes of a QA, I know we promised you three tools, if you go on our website employeeengagement.com, if you look on the right hand side click on that website and youll be able to sign up your three tools and well send them asap, and I think youll find them to be terrific tools. With that, part three to take your questions and well have questions books coming in via chat and I believe were taking calls as well. So, QA. Jim, turning back to you.Great, t hank you, Bob. Id like to thank Bob for sharing his inside knowledge with us today. At this time, Ill turn the webinar over to our meeting manager, who will help support our questions and answers section.Question and AnswerThank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to register a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. Youll hear two tone prompts to acknowledge your request. Your line will then be accessed from the conference to obtain the information. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the one followed by the three. If youre using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before entering your request. One moment, please, for the first phone question.And Bob, while were waiting for the first verbal questions to come through, weve got a couple on our end all ready.Ill start right off.The first is, could give us your thoughts on the impact of engagement for companies that do community w ork?Yeah, companies that do community work and Im assuming, Jim, youre doing community work like corporate social responsibility type of focus areas. Companies that get involved in the community, based on my experience, will see a lift in engagement, and in fact, one of the things I tell organizations if they dont have much money, or if they dont have a budget, is that getting your employees involved in community activities Walk for Hunger, Habitat for Humanity, a volunteerism you will see a spike in engagement. It is fascinating, and I think it has to do with the connection of both the head and the mind. My mind is connected with my job, my heads connected, but if I want to reach down into my heart, how do get at that purpose, how do I really see that my company is connected with the community, and I can be a participant?There are fascinating case studies. Timberland, the manufacturer of boots and shoes, they showcase in my first book. Not coincidentally, a group of Timberland em ployees just helped in my community finish our bike trail. So, a group of employees on their own were building a bridge over swamp land. Kind of giving back, and if you know anything about Timberland, every employee at Timberland has to sign up for a week community service with pay. And Timberland claims that it is a huge difference. So, in my experience, those organizations that reach out, get involved with the community, see a boost in engagement. And the CFOs amongst us will say thats a cost. My experience is the above and beyond effort, that discretionary effect that comes from your employees head and their heart, in the company, more than offsets whatever potential cost might come from a balance sheet.Excellent. Thank you, Bob. Id just like to say the questions are coming in fast and furious now on my end. Im guessing we may have some verbals as well. If we do run out of time, well make sure to get these to Bob, and hopefully get as many as we can to drafts.Next up on my end, t he next question is what has more impact on engagement, the companys culture or personal career growth? Yeah, I think a companys culture can really help. A great culture can even sustain a lousy boss experience. However, that line-of-sight, right, where am I going? There are many studies that say line-of-sight is so important. So, if Im working in a terrific culture, but yet Im in a dead-end job, right? There is no professional development, and at some point in time, Im going to change jobs. And at some point in time, I would encourage that person to change jobs.So, its the reason why companies say, Grow or die. And even great cultures, unless youre growing, allowing for opportunities for people to grow, I think a companys culture will be not enough to sustain a high level of engagement. I also think they go hand-in-hand. I think if a companys not growing, no matter how great your culture might be temporarily, lack of growth means youre probably not winning in the marketplace youre in. And if youre not winning, its really hard to maintain a positive long-term culture.Excellent, thank you, Bob. Weve got quite a bit of engagement here on the question-side of things that Im going as fast as I can to keep up here.So, Ill keep right on going on my end. Could you describe the first steps youd recommend when starting off an employee engagement initiative? Where should an organization start off?If you have the budget, the first thing I would do is to say a baseline employee engagement survey. Ask your employees what they think, because you run the risk of assuming that we should focus on this, and your employees telling you something very, very different. I will share with you a real life example. Once upon a time, I was owned by a firm that was German owned, and we went to a management lead private equity pot lid ownership transition, and our private equity partner a terrific company, a terrific group of owners wanted to come in and do something really cool for the employees. And one of the things they wanted to do was to double the 401k company match. Now, on the surface you could say, Wow, thats a terrific thing to do, lets do it.And the cost to the organization to do that would have been $1 million. However, we decided to before we launched down that path, we decided to do a baseline employee engagement survey. And we had about 1500 employees, and of 1500 employees surveyed, not one employee in the narrative comments asked for a more enhanced 401k plan, but the number one request from the employees was to have a best-in-class training and development culture. So, we were ready to spend $1 million in an area that was of no need from our employees.So, what we did was we allocated the funds and we built what ultimately became an industry best learning culture in a corporate university. And they were able to do that at a fraction of the cost, compared to investing a million dollars. So, if you can do a baseline survey, there is a tremendous le vel of intelligence that will be gathered to help you know what to do first. The other thing I would caution is to embark on an engagement journey with small steps. Dont come out of the gate and try to build Rome tomorrow. The worst thing you can do as an organization is to over commit and under deliver. So, when we work with clients, we always try to tell them to do a couple of big impact things first, in year one. Communicate effectively and look to year two to tackle maybe the second wave, but dont try to do too much, because your organization has many competing priorities, and if you cant sustain it, it becomes a flavor of the month.Great advice. Thanks, Bob.Lindsay, Ill check in with you now. Do you have any questions going up on your end?There are no questions at this time. However, as a reminder, to ask a question on the phone, please press the one, followed by the four.Were approaching the top of the hour. Im going to sneak one last question, if you dont mind, Bob. Do you ha ve any suggestions on how to engage part-time staff? As companies do hire more and more part-timers, is there a tactic you could share with us thats helpful in that space?Yeah. I love that question. We struggle with part-time folks. We tend to treat part-time people like theyre second-class citizens in many organizations. My personal opinion with part-time employees, they are as valuable as gold. A great part-time employee gives above and beyond. Theres a lot of discretionary effort that comes from that part-time employee. And if you want to engage them, do not limit their career progression based on the number of hours they work.Continue to evaluate the capability, the potential of the employee, whether they are part-time or whether they are full-time. Do not discount their need to be on task teams, to be flexible in scheduling department meetings so your part-time employees can participate. Really look at your policies, do your policies treat your part-time work forces this conti ngent workforce as second-class citizens? If so, how can you change your policies to really allow for full engagement in the involvement of the part-time workforce?The definition of the job is radically changing, and if your organization is still treating the job as a full-time role, boy, youre not paying attention to the evolution of the job in the American workforce. And the variability in the workforce and the new role and what defines companies and its a really melting pot of full-time employees, part-time employees, consultants, independent contractors, and freelancers. The definition of the job is radically changing, and part-time workforce, I believe, are incredibly valuable, so treat them as such.Excellent, thank you, Bob. And we are now at the top of the hour.If I could ask, Bob, if you could reiterate how folks do access the free tools you mentioned?Yeah, if you just go on employeeengagement.com thats our website. Youll see the icon right on the website. Just click that icon. I hope you enjoy it. Employeeengagement.com is also a great resource, and theres a resources section, we post the latest articles. There are a number of articles Ive written for that are posted. There are free downloads, so please, look at that as a resource. Twitter, you can follow me at Bob Kelleher. Were always posting new factoids and research projects. We try to comb the Internet for the latest and greatest case studies, research, and send them out to you, so you dont have to. Thank you Jim, thank you, Monster. Thank you to the hundreds of folks who have joined me today.Thank you, Bob. We appreciate you sharing your expertise.This does conclude our webinar today. A recording of this event, as well as the presentation materials, will be available shortly on our hiring website. You can access that at hiring.monster.com. Just look under the Resources Center tab for the information. Thank you for joining us. Please visit us at hiring.monster.com for additional webinars those are also located in the Resources Center tab.Have a great day.

Starting a new job soon The tip that changed my life

Starting a new job soon The tip that changed my lifeStarting a new job soon The tip that changed my lifeHeres a tip that my mentor told me a few years ago before I started my most recent role and it CHANGED. MY. LIFE.I report to the CEO of the company I work at and he is incredibly busy and pretty hands-off of my work. So when I was starting my new role I decided to try this tip to impress him right off the bat.Here is what my mentor said Bosses are busy. Busy people like to react, notlage create.REACT. Not CREATE.What do MOST of us do when we see our boss is super busy and stressed?We ask How can I help?Thats mighty fine.But what SHOULD we do?Find ways to contribute and give them something to REACT to.The tip is to create a reaction document. Which is a fancy way of saying a rough draft of ideas for a person to react to.The crazy thing is, even if what you come up with is wrong, and they want the complete opposite of what you came up with, that is still excellent progress. Because m any busy leaders dont know exactly what they want until they have something to react to.Imagine if I told you to describe your perfect house.Youd have a lot going on in your, noggin may not know where to start. But then I put photos of 4 different houses in front of you and asked you which one you liked the best.Youd probably say, Well this one I like the best overall because of the windows and ceilings, but this other one has the best yard because I love trees and dont want a pool.And suddenly our conversation of designing the perfect house, made tremendous leaps and bounds forward because I gave you something to simply react to.Probably none of those 4 houses I presented to you in the reaction document are your dream house but it got us much closer.Warning DO NOT put lots of research and time into a project before your boss reacts. That is a huge waste of time because they may hate it. Im talking directly to you perfectionists out there. Get comfortable sharing documents before th ey are far from perfect.Now, youre probably asking, what does a real-world reaction document look like? Well, a reaction document can take many different forms, but it can feel daunting if youve never made one. Check out this video where I walk through an example of a reaction document.This has become a way of life for me all thanks to that mentor Wishing you the bestThis article originally appeared on Quora.

How Does a Record Label Decide What Advance to Pay Me

How Does a Record Label Decide What Advance to Pay MeHow Does a Record Label Decide What Advance to Pay MeOne thing that often tempts musicians into signing a record deal is the promise of an advance. This is especially true for up-and-coming acts who have been slogging through on their own dime and making many financial sacrifices in the process. An advance they say. Were going to be rich Well, not so fast. The most important thing to remember is that an advance is just that an advance. Its an advance against royalties you expect (hope) to earn on future record sales, and the label requires a return of the advance. In fact, they will keep revenues until they recoup the full amount of the advance, and that holds true across multiple doppel-lps and advances. Thats because record label advances are cross-collateralized - a very important concept to master so learn more about that here. Theres your warning about getting too excited about advanced cash. But now for what you really want t o know - how do record labels decide how much of an advance to pay? How Do They Decide? The answer is that it is part art and part science. For your first advance - the advance for the first album you record with a label as part of a multi-album deal or for the only album in a single album deal - the label will consider a lot of different factors. Indie labels, in particular, will consider how much they can afford to pay and still have enough cash left to promote the album release. If working with an indie, opting for a small advance in exchange for a bigger promo spend is the right choice in the long run. Considerations Major labels will consider things like how much they plan to spend on promotion in addition to how many copies they think they can sell off your release in order to recoup your advance and make extra money. Of course, indie also considers sales potential, but for many indies, its a pure cash flow issue. Even if they think you can sell millions, they cant pay you an advance to cover that. Thats the art part. Labels consider your sales potential, often based on what youve accomplished before, as well as plans for touring, feedback received on your music, and more. However, its still a gamble for they dont know if the advance is going to be too small, too big, or just right (though you can count on them trying to err on the side of caution unless you are the subject of an intense bidding war). The science part comes in with the advance formula associated with multi-album record deals. These formulas arent included in all record deals, but if youre signing with a major label, a good lawyer can insist that your contract includes a formula. How this works is by setting out amathematical equation for determining the advance for each album in a multi-album deal. This equation usually sets the advance as a percentage of royalties earned on the previous album. There is also usually a minimum and maximum payout amount stipulated in the formula. The percentage is computed using sales from within a specified territory during a specified period (e.g., sales in the US for nine months after the album release). The formula is applied to each release so, album two sales will determine album threes advance, album threes royalties will determine album fours advance, and so on. The beauty of the formula is that it rewards good sales and conserves when sales have dropped. Conclusion The best thing to understand about advances, however, goes back to the beginning this isnt free money. Its more like credit. Take what you need and wait for your sales to come in it will put you in better control of your career.

7 Experts Offer Their No. 1 Cover Letter Tip

7 Experts Offer Their No. 1 Cover Letter Tip7 Experts Offer Their No. 1 Cover Letter Tip7 Experts Offer Their No. 1 Cover Letter TipThe titel letter is a crucial lead-in to your resume that allows you to communicate directly with the employer about your skills and background. But some cover letters sache flat, and we have our theories why (which you can read about in our blog posts and in our Career Corner).But this time, we looked beyond our in-house knowledge and queried authors of other career- and job search-related blogs that we read regularly. We asked themIf you could offer job seekers just one cover letter tip,what would it be?And here are their responsesMake sure the letter is targeted and specific. You cant just say Id be a great team member. You have to let the hiring manager know what specific skills you have that would make you a great marketing manager or office assistant.Anita Bruzzese45 Things Syndicated Columnist, On The JobAuthor, Take This Job and ThriveMake it eas y for the screener to quickly see why you are perfect for the job. A screener only has a few seconds to look through each cover letter and resume and make the all-important decision. Your job is to grab their attention by tailoring your letter to their specific needs.Ronnie Ann Blogger, Work Coach CafOrganizational Consultant and Workplace CoachWrite a cover letter that helps me mentally place you in the job before I even review your qualifications.Tim Tyrell-SmithBlogger, Spin Strategy - Tools for Intelligent Job SearchThe whole point of a cover letter is to get the recipient to read your resume. To achieve its goal, the cover letters message needs to hint how your resume will prove your ability to go above and beyond the needs described in the job listing youre responding to. If you let people hear the sizzle, theyll come looking for the meat.Jacob ShareBlogger, JobMob Job Search Expert and Professional Blogging ConsultantAlways make your cover letter specific to the job being app lied for. What a perfect place to describe a solution to a problem that - through research - youve found that the target company is having. (It doesnt matter if your solution is elend workable or even executable ... the important thing is that you tried to offer up a business solution to a problem you discovered.)G.L. HoffmannBlogger, What Would Dad Say Columnist, USNews.comAuthor, Dig Your Job, The Not-So-Serious Career HandbookMake the letter more about them than about you. Employers do not care about you and your needs. Theyre more concerned about themselves and their needs Thats why a really good way to get an employers attention is to show that you understand the employers problems and priorities and you have some ideas about how you could help address them.Karen BurnsBlogger, WorkingGirl Author,The Amazing Adventures of Working GirlReal-Life Career Advice You Can Actually UseBe sure to edit and proofread your cover letter very carefully. Check your grammar, punctuation, and s pelling thoroughly. This includes the spelling of the name of the person to whom the letter is addressed and the spelling of the company name.Connie KomackBlogger, LifeWork Enterprises Developer/Author, Designing Your Life Program and Workbook

Find Out Who is Discussing What Should a Resume Look like and Why You Need to Be Worried

Find Out Who is Discussing What Should a Resume Look like and Why You Need to Be Worried Perhaps most significantly, it supplies information regarding the writer that wont ever be available from a resume partal traits and work habits, and just a reference to feedback from an earlier manager. Now there are other means to learn about a candidate often with increased nuance and detail. Without personality, its likely youll be screened out. Putting personality on paper can be hard. A well written resume can offer you an appointment to an interview at which you will be in a position to prove to the employer why they ought to hire you. You must also understand what a very good titel letter resembles. For instance, a cover letter is a terrific place to speak about a career shift or maybe to explain a lengthy gap in employment. A strong cover letter is able to make your application stick out from the crowd. To summarize, the purpose of your resume must be to stand out and draw th e attention from your intended audience. For this reason, you must give writing your resume a good deal of attention so you can find with one that will earn a strong effect on employers. In such situations, its a superb idea to write down two sentences that correctly describe your targets and objective for the position. Lastly, its possible to always leverage the ability of the pause. If youve got diverse work experiences, then attempt to filter and include only ones that are related to the job youre interested in. Its difficult to do that if they know youre searching for different jobs also. Men and women link the great stuff. They find the good stuff. Lets start at the very start. 1 font is all you really require. Now, lets take an illustration of both a bad objective statement, which you ought to avoid writing and the good one that you ought to copy. The Downside Risk of What Should a Resume Look like As you research a prospective employer, start looking for culture cues on the organization website, social networking, and review sites like Glassdoor. Several are in groups for the time being. Maybe you could function as a volunteer victims advocate. Sooner or later, youll still require solid resume content to actually sell yourself to employers. Applicants who want to relocate for a work often decide to include their present mailing address, but otherwise, its up to you whether to include things like an address. First of all, employers wish to understand if youre qualified for the job. When an employer is made to question your trust from the start, youre not very likely to find the position and news will travel fast. Legally, an employer cannot refuse to employ a work candidate based on age. Dont forget that your resume is a sales tool which should convince employers that youre the very best person for the job and thus supply you with the opportunity of an interview where you are able to finish the sales process and find the job. Dem onstrate your understanding of new technologies in the event the job requires it. For example, it may require someone with expert-level experience using a software application, which means you know how to manipulate every function. You also desire a no-nonsense email address as a portion of your contact details. There ought to be a heading at the beginning of your resume that contains your name, contact number and mailing address. If you have an expert website then its internet address may also be included. Your resume will provide additional information. Introducing What Should a Resume Look like The point is to find the readers attention, so base the information that you supply on what precisely the job description is searching for. The peak of your resume should includecritical key terms and a fast snapshot of your core strengths, Leavy-Detrick states. Whether youre creating your resume for the very first time or in the procedure for revising it, you should keep the sub sequent design tips in mind. As a consequence the ums yeahs and sos can on occasion be plentiful. Try to get in touch with your roommate at least two to three weeks before you begin the very first week of school. After being at your initial entry-level job for more than a calendar year, youre prepared for change. Even though most people today assume youre applying for at least 1 job at a moment, it is a great idea not to act just like you are. You wouldnt wish to open your email on the very first day of school and be bombarded with 20 distinct things from all your professors. As soon as an employer is experiencing a hoard of resumes, he will probably choose those that LOOK finest before starting to read. Lets answer the previous question first, as its answer is so open-ended and easy it merely makes you wish to cry. You may assume it is a stupid mistake, but really it is a truth. Dont make the error of answering each job posting with the exact same generic resume.

Virtues of Novel Behavioral Dynamics Program to be Demonstrated at MAGI Conference

Virtues of Novel Behavioral Dynamics Program to be Demonstrated at MAGI Conference Consulting company EurekaConnect, offering products and services based on a proprietary Behavioral Dynamics Program (ECBD), will be presenting at the Model Agreements Guidelines International (MAGI) Conference in Boston from May 5 to 8. The program focuses on combining assessment technology and model 17 leadership characteristics. Organizations use the evaluation data obtained by ECBD to train their workforces and drive organizational growth and efficiencies. ECBC objectively identifies why individuals and organizations face difficulties in achieving optimal outcomes. The program assists organizations with evaluating individual personality characteristics, job performances, and leadership effectiveness to help them in understanding behavioral tendencies that affect individual performance levels. The primary goal of ECBC is to strengthen both personal and professional skills through a process including identifying personality and behavioral tendencies, understanding assessment results, acceptance of feedback, and managing personal behaviors more effectively.Once data is received from ECBD, individuals are given greater personal insight into how to have more effective collaborations with others to benefit the greater team and increase performance.Curtis Sprouse, CEO and president of EurekaConnect, said, The purpose of ur program is not only to help people understand how to be more effective and efficient in different aspects of life and the workplace, but also to give them a glimpse of the remarkable program we use and how it can dramatically help employees advance. This ultimately improves the working environment and pushes businesses to reach success at a higher level. Its also great for team building.

5 Interviewing Mistakes Hiring Managers Should Avoid

5 Interviewing Mistakes Hiring Managers Should Avoid5 Interviewing Mistakes Hiring Managers Should Avoid5 Interviewing Mistakes Hiring Managers Should Avoid HerrenkohlWere all busy so finding the time to prepare to conduct a job bewerbungsgesprch can be tough. But if you spend a little bit of time with the steps below, youll add a lot more value to the hiring process and make better decisions.Here are 5 mistakes made every day by hiring managers with some simple steps you can take to avoid them.1. Fail to define a clear picture of the job requirementsIf you dont see a target clearly, chances are that you will miss it.Do you have a clear picture in your mind of the performance you want to see from the position you are filling?Are you and the other people interviewing candidates in agreement on what you are looking for in the part you hire?Get everyone involved in the hiring process together in a room.Agree on the priorities of the job and the kind of accomplishments that make a candi date a top contender.You would be surprised at how rarely this happens in some companies.2. Fail to create a scorecard for the interviewBefore the first interview takes place, create an interview scorecard that lists the key accomplishments and skills you want in the person you hire. You might have 7 criteria (sales skills, organizational skills, leadership abilities, etc.) for which each interviewer scores the candidate from 1-5. This helps you to grade every candidate objectively against criteria that are important for the job.Additionally, encourage every interviewer to write down what candidates actually say during the interview, rather than what they thought was said. When interviewers review these verbatim notesit will jog their memories and recall the candidates actual responses. In turn, this will enable everyone to more accurately discuss the candidates strengths and weaknesses and decide who makes the next round of interviews.3. Fail to ask open-ended, accomplishment orien ted questionsIf you had to walk into an interview right now, with zero preparation, could you ask good interview questions and learn everything necessary to make a judgment about the candidate?Ask the following one interview question and follow-up and you will conduct a good interview.What do you consider to be the biggest accomplishments of your life and your career?Why so?Of course, with more preparation you can ask more focused questions. But open-ended follow-up questions allow the candidate to describe what he or she has accomplished in life and the opportunity to provide details that prove their expertise. Try these questions in your next interview you will be surprised at how much you learn.4. Fail to listenWhen you conduct an interview, what percentage of time do you spend talking? In most interviews, if the percentage exceeds 25%, youre talking too much. Heres how to fix that problemIn most interview situations, you should be asking open-ended questions, listening, asking a follow up question, listening, and then repeating the process. Stop telling, and start asking and listening during the interview process. Your hiring decisions will improve.5. Fail to do a post-game debriefOptimally, you should have multiple people interview a candidate. If you dont, you should. You get the most value from having multiple people interview a candidate.Immediately after everyone has interviewed the candidate, or as quickly as possible thereafter (within 24 hours at the most) meet with the other interviewers to do a post-game debriefingto discuss your impressions.Youll be amazed at what other people catch that you miss and vice versa.Author BioEric Herrenkohl is the founder and president of Herrenkohl Consulting, a firm that helps clients build great sales teams. He is the author of the book, How to Hire A-Players (John Wiley Sons, April 2010.) To receive his free e-letter, subscribe at herrenkohlconsulting.

A Restaurant in the Sky

A Restaurant in the Sky A Restaurant in the Sky A Restaurant in the SkyDoes the braised lamb in balsamic reduction and the side of Gruyere with pear confit taste better when eaten at BASE-jumping heights? If youre willing to fork over $500 to Dinner in the Sky, you can find out. The company has dangled gourmandson dining platforms hung from cranes180 feet in the air in 40 different countries.How did the company reach such heights? The concept and the actualization come from Belgian Stefan Kerkhofs. Kerkhofs had the good luck to grow up surrounded by cranes. His family owned a construction company. As a child I was always fascinated, he says. You can do more with a crane than only things in the construction world. At that time bungee jumping came out. We had the crane, and we could do with it whatever we wanteda dream for a child.Guests are suspended at a height of 50 meters by a team of professionals. ansehen Dinner in the SkyCrane ExperienceA more fully-grown Kerkhofs worked for the family company for five years. But when, in 1991, they sold it, he decided to turn what had been the off-hour hobby with cranes into the business itself. He started the Fun Group, where he used cranes to let paying bungee jumpers hurl themselves to the earth, catapulted other projectile-oriented thrill seekers, and also dropped a few cars.For those more interested in going up than down, or across, Kerkhofs created a kind of viewing platform. It could hold 24 people, giving them a perspektive to look around, sort of a viewing box. It wasat a party of such view seekers that the seed for food at great heights was first planted. I was going up with a friend, and he proposed to me it that it would be a wonderful idea, when sitting at this level, to have the possibility of eating and drinking. Ok, we eat, we drink. Then who makes dinner? Ok, lets make dinner in the sky-platform. So Dinner in the Sky was born.Kerkhofs had the crane experience to make it happen. He teamed up with publicist guru David Ghysels to make it happen in a big way. Run by the duo, the company has a unique production process. Its simple how it works. Mostly Im the dreamer, the guy with fruchtwein crazy ideas. We dream out loud and then explain our dreams to the team, and its up to them to make the dreams come true. Its strange to tell it that way, but its really how it goes, says Kerkhofs. We are like children in the garden. We can play and create things no else has created.Technical specs. Source Dinner in the SkyThose kids in their garden managed to find a way to create a five-ton platform (seven when filled with the staff of five and their 22 guests) that hangs from a 120-ton crane. And safely, of course, according to the code of whatever country it is in. This was elend so simple, says Kerkhofs, because the rules are not the same for every country. In fact, Dinner in the Sky is a unique enough attraction that rules have to be created for it alone. That means we are always trying to get the local authorities to see if they need more informationyou must be open to showing as much information as you have.The biggest engineering challenge of designing the gastronomical ride was not how to put people in the air but how to quickly put the entire rig on the road. The most difficult thing was to make it easy to set it up and break it down, he says. The platform, when suspended, is nine by five meters. On the road its six by two-and-a-half. The whole shebang can be assembled in two hours and disassembled in one. The Dinner in the sky framework is made out steel and everything is designed in a way that you only need one tool for set up and break down. All materials slide in and fold down in a way that you end up with a structure that you can transport on the back of a regular trailer, he adds.Kerkhofs says that 98% of the ideas he decides to commit to paper become a reality. He attributes this success rate to his 15 years of professionally playing with cranes. Im not an engine er, but I grew up between cranes and the construction world. There is no school for learning how you must work with these activities. Kerkhofs and Ghysels team does, of course, include a handful of degreed engineers and a few designers as well.Guests and staff are all secured on the platform. Image Dinner in the SkyCustomer SafetyKerkhofs useful experience extends far beyond the mechanics of how to hoist with a crane, into areas like the psychology of the consumer. For instance, by any engineers calculations, four cables would be more than sufficient to safely hold the dining platform. But Kerkhofs uses eight. Four is good, but eight makes people trusting, they feel secure when they see extra security.He also knows that not everyone is the model customer. The seats, tables, and the experience itself are designed accordingly. You always have people who behave not how we want, he says. So bags are not allowed up on the platform. The six-point security-belts buckle on the back of the s eat, out of reach.The vast majority of Kerkhofs customers behave quite well, though. People behave at heights. You can have the biggest playboy, the biggest macho guy. Go five meters high and hes like a child. You say shut up then they shut up. Its not a normal experience theyre not used to it. So we are a little bit the boss in the sky.Thats not to say Kerkhofs has any delusions of power. We dont feel ourselves as Godtotally not, he says. We are not God, but we bring them closer to God.Michael Abrams is an independent writer. For Further DiscussionIm not an engineer, but I grew up between cranes and the construction world. There is no school for learning how you must work with these activities.Stefan Kerkhofs, co-founder, Dinner in the Sky

Lionbridge - Translation and Other Work at Home Jobs

Lionbridge - Translation and Other Work at Home JobsLionbridge - Translation and Other Work at Home JobsLionbridge offers translation, interpretation, internet research, and dataentry opportunities. As an advantage, many of these opportunities allow you to work from home. Company Description Based in Waltham, MA and founded in 1996, Lionbridge employs more than 4,000 people and operates locations in more than 26 countries. Additionally, its Lionbridge Enterprise Crowdsourcing division employs a network of 100,000 work-at-home independent contractors to provide data management, translation, search evaluation, and testing via a crowdsourcing platform. In 2012, Lionbridge acquired Virtual Solutions, owner of crowdsourcing data-entry site VirtualBee (formerly KeyforCash). For more about applying to its home-based positions, see this profile of VirtualBee. The company provides translation and localization to international geschftlicher umgang clients. This includes developing products such as software, websites, marketing materials, documentation, multimedia and e-learning products, and training. Additionally, Lionbridge provides global crowdsourcing solutions for clients with international search engines and online marketing initiatives. Its Internet assessor jobs (similar to Googles ads quality rate positions) are in this division. Types of Work-at-Home Opportunities at Lionbridge Its crowdsourcing division (Lionbridge Enterprise Crowdsourcing) and its translation and interpretation divisions (the Lionbridge tafelgeschirr Partner Portal and Interpbridge) offer work at home for independent contractors. Applicants are usually recruited from specific countries. In these crowdsourcing opportunities, the positions include Internet assessors (who evaluate results of a web search), social media search consultants (who express opinions on the quality and content available on the Internet), Internet judges (who are similar to Internet assessors, but are hired world wide), in-country financial consultants (who monitor and document changes in regulatory requirements and national standards in a given country/market), and online maps specialists (who evaluate and improve online mapping software). unterstellung are all home-based freelance jobs. For translation, Lionbridge calls its independent contractors service partners. These include providers of translation, desktop publishing, audio services, multimedia services, technical writing, testing, software development, and internationalization services. These are also home-based, but interpretation jobs may be onsite. Because Lionbridge is a global localization company, most of its opportunities are for bilingual jobs, though there are some English-only jobs in crowdsourcing. The languages needed range from commonly spoken to niche. Usually, a specific type of a general language is required, such as Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian, or French. The languages include (but are not limited to) English, A lbanian, Azerbaijani, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Faroese, French, German, Icelandic, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kurdish, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Spanish, Mongolian, Quechan, Portuguese, Russian, Tatar, Zulu, Basque, Catalan, Galician, Swiss German, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Dutch, Danish, Polish, and Welsh. In addition to its home-based independent contractors, Lionbridge allows telecommuting for some of its other employment positions. Use work at home as a search term to search its jobs database for these opportunities. Applying to Lionbridge The application process varies, depending on what type of work you want to perform for Lionbridge. For crowdsourcing opportunities (Internet assessor, etc.), go to the Lionbridge Crowdsourcing Enterprise page. For the service partner jobs (often translation jobs), register as an expert. The application begins by collecting basic information, work experience, and education. Next, you check your areas of expertise (choices range from au tomotive and business retail to esoteric practices and law). It then asks what software and equipment you have access to (translation packages, operating systems, graphics, hardware, personal productivity packages, communications equipment, utilities, etc.), and your skill level with them. For interpretation jobs, which are not necessarily work-at-home jobs, go to the Interpbridge sign-up page and submit a general interpretation application for freelance jobs, or click on the title of a job, such as linguist, to submit an application. While most of Lionbridges work-at-home opportunities are for independent contractors, it allows some of its employment positions to be telecommuted. Search the companys jobs database using home as a keyword. Additional Information About Lionbridge Lionbridge operates in Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the United K ingdom, and the United States. Corporate clients of Lionbridge include Adobe, Canon, Caterpillar, Cisco, Dell, eBay, EMC, Expedia, Forrester Research, Inc., Golden Living, Google, Honeywell, HP, Johnson Johnson Merck, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Pearson, Philips, Porsche, PTC, Rolls-Royce, Samsung, Siemens, SkillSoft, Sony, The Court Services, the U.S. Department of Justice, Verizon, and Volvo. Related Information List of Search Evaluation CompaniesLeapforce Company ProfileAppen Butler Hill Company ProfileAds Quality Rater Job Profile