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Archive for March, 2009
The blogosphere this week took a hard look at coping. As unemployment numbers continue to climb, there are certainly many worries. Even those who haven’t lost their jobs may be enduring hardships at work like a toxic environment, poor management, or many hours of overtime without extra compensation. And yet these workers stay, in most cases, happy just to have a job.
Regarding corporate restructuring and negative work environments, Steve Farber at Extreme Leadership offered strategies on “How to Get Back Up.” Tompeters! offered a fascinating survival guide for the recessionary workplace. Bob Sutton at Work Matters wrote about the benefits of indifference as a coping method when wronged, as opposed to seeking revenge. Laurie Ruettimann at Punk Rock HR extolled the virtues of “killing the competition with kindness.” Nina Simosko at Nina Nets It Out mused on how the “Pay It Forward” concept could improve the world, with some fun video clips thrown in.
Bottom line this week: When things aren’t going your way, don’t get mad and don’t get even. Just keep your head down, work harder than ever, and continue being kind to all. And if you’re in charge of overseeing unavoidable cutbacks, remember that Rise Smart’s Transition Concierge service offers transitioning employees resume writing, career advice, and individual assistance at a fraction of the typical cost.
With the economy being what it is today, many employees, including six-figure managers and executives, have expressed that they feel powerless in negotiating with their employers. This is true whether the topic of negotiation is a raise, a promotion — or the last important interaction between employer and employee, the severance discussion.
Here are five tips for cutting the best severance deal for yourself, despite the recession:
1. All severance packages are not created equal. This is the most important thing for employees at all levels to understand. Even if your company has a policy that says every employee at a certain level, with a certain tenure, receives X weeks or X months of salary as severance, decisions ultimately are made on an individual basis. You can always negotiate a better deal.
2. Know your leverage. Leverage is the currency you have to trade with your employer in severance negotiations, so valuing it properly in advance is critical. Examples of leverage are (1) the employer may need you for something later, such as testifying in a lawsuit or providing information to a replacement; (2) the employer wants to protect against you criticizing the company after you’re gone; or (3) the employer wants to protect against being sued, particularly if you’re an older worker, a woman, or in a racial minority.
3. Know exactly what you’re going to say. Even if you’re a seasoned negotiator, you should prepare for your severance discussion like you would a big job interview. Severance is the toughest kind of negotiation – because it’s not just business, it’s personal. The key is to bring up the leverage you have without sounding threatening. For example, if you say, “I think this could be age discrimination,” the negotiations will immediately be over. But if you say, “Are you getting rid of me because you think I’m over the hill?” it raises the same issue, but in a way that isn’t an accusation. It can even induce sympathy from your boss.
4. After you’ve used your leverage to negotiate your best deal, use creativity to customize the deal to your needs. Once you’ve settled on, say, six months of salary as your severance, the negotiations don’t stop there. Be creative and look at whether you’d be better off converting some of your non-cash severance benefits to cash, or vice versa. For example, many employers offer outplacement services. If you are planning to start your own business or already have a new job lined up, you might ask your employer to convert this benefit to cash. On the other hand, if you are interested in going back to school, you might ask the employer to convert part of your cash payment to a tuition benefit, which will reduce the amount of taxes you have to pay on your severance check.
5. 401(k) vesting is negotiable. At most companies, you have to work there for a certain period of time before your employer’s 401(k) matching contribution vests – meaning you can take it with you. Chances are, the timing of 401(k) vesting is the last thing on your employer’s mind when they lay you off. But employees have successfully argued in lawsuits that they were fired so their employer wouldn’t have to vest them. You can use this fact as leverage in your severance discussions. I have a friend who was three months away from his 401(k) vesting when he was laid off. In his severance negotiations, he asked if he could be kept officially on the payroll until his vesting date. The employer agreed — resulting in an additional $20,000 in his 401(k) account that would have gone away if he hadn’t asked.
 Our Career 100 directory has earned a lot of attention for its rankings of career blogs. But one of the most valuable features of the Career 100 is its search function, which enables you to query the content of all 250+ Career 100 blogs at once.
It’s a great tool for research — whether you’re a blogger, a jobseeker, an HR manager, a recruiter, or all of the above.
To use the query feature, just go to www.Career100.info and you’ll see the search box at the top of the Career 100 listings. You’ll have the option to search for individual blogs in the list by name — or to search the content of all blogs in the Career 100 at once.
I just ran a search with the keyword “recession,” for example. Here are a few of the blog posts from this week alone that this query returned:
I know that at RiseSmart, we use the search tool to help keep our fingers on the pulse of the career and HR blogosphere, and we encourage you to do so as well.
And please e-mail us if you have any questions or if there are any features you’d like us to add or improve.
The Fresh Air Fund is accepting applications for counselors for summer 2009. The New York City-based non-profit organization is looking for college-aged men and women who love to work with children.
Since 1877, The Fresh Air Fund has been giving inner-city children the joy of a summer vacation with volunteer host families and at Fund camps, creating unforgettable memories and fresh possibilities.
Call 1-800-376-0003 or e-mail sara(at)freshair.org.
Do you set your goals annually, monthly, weekly, or not at all? Goal-setting is an oft-discussed key of leadership and effective management, but can you have too much of a good thing? Last week, goal-setting was a hot topic on the blogosphere, and the following are some highlights:
Leadership Styles Blog discussed “backwards planning,” one strategy for achieving goals. Nina Simosko discussed another strategy for achieving goals - “picking your preferences.” Reminding us that not all goal-setting is perfect, Learn This discussed potential pitfalls of the exercise. Will at Work presents research regarding unintended consequences of goal-setting, as well as how goals can help measure workplace performance. It’s fine Monday material to mull over as you start your week.
The Career 100, our directory and ranking system for career blogs, has added new features and enhanced its algorithm by incorporating a broader range of metrics, including data from Yahoo and Alexa. The Career 100 is located at www.Career100.info.
Since we launched the Career 100 in December 2007, the directory has expanded to more than 230 blogs, with scores of bloggers submitting their Web sites to the list. We’ve now introduced a number of improvements to the Career 100 to make it an even better resource for those interested in job search blogs, recruiting blogs, HR management blogs, and other career-related content.
To better serve Career 100 bloggers and those jobseekers, recruiters, HR managers and others who use the directory as a reference, RiseSmart has added new metrics to its ranking system. In addition to Technorati rankings and Google PageRank, the Career 100 now factors Yahoo InLinks and Alexa traffic rankings into its algorithm.
The Career 100 also has added new features, including:
1. Search by blog name. Users can search for specific blogs in the Career 100 and quickly find their rankings and other information.
2. Search content. Users can search the content of all Career 100 blogs with a single search query. This makes the Career 100 a valuable reference tool for searching the content of hundreds of career-related blogs by keyword or topic.
3. View recent posts. Users can view a popup window displaying recent posts from each Career 100 blog.
4. OPML Feed. Users can access a feed incorporating all Career 100 blogs.
5. Career 100 badge with current rank. Bloggers can display a badge on their Web site that automatically displays their current Career 100 ranking.
Add your blog to our directory here. Please note that we update the listings, including adding new blogs, weekly on Sunday nights — so your listing won’t appear right away.
Following is a guest post by national speaker and humorist Joel Zeff, whom I had the opportunity to meet last year. Visit Joel’s Web site or his blog to learn more.
I lost my job during the last major recession in 1991. They called me on Sunday and said the newspaper would close the next day. I had just moved to Dallas a little less than six months prior to the announcement. I was told to come down to the office and clean out my desk.
I was in a new job in a new city. I had very few contacts, no prospects, and barely any savings. Hanging up the phone, I took a deep breath and looked around my very sparse one bedroom apartment. I knew what I had to do: I grabbed my harmonica.
When I arrived at the newspaper’s building, employees were packing up boxes; commiserating, a few were crying, and most were basically trying to figure out what they would do next. I headed to the back loading dock where the local media had encamped.
Let me pick up the story with the description I wrote in my book, Make the Right Choice:
For no other reason than to prove that I was back in control of my happiness and attitude, I stood on the back dock of the newspaper in front of the television news cameras and made up a blues song about losing my job. I barely know how to play one note on the harmonica. It didn’t matter. I just started making up lyrics about losing my job. The cameras started clicking. The television cameras zoomed in for better focus. I performed for a few minutes until someone pulled me off the dock and said to me, “You will never work in this town again.” I swear someone said this to me. I am not making this up.
Yep, I just lost my job. Yep, I had very little money. Yep, I was playing a very poor rendition of the blues on my harmonica. It was one of the best days of my life.
We have the choice to wake up in the morning and be bitter, frustrated and stressed. We also have the choice to be happy, energized and passionate. I chose the latter. Every normal, sane person given the choice would choose passion and happiness. Why do we so often choose to be bitter and stressed? Sometimes, we allow something out of our control to decide for us. We allow the economy, the situation, someone’s words; or someone’s actions to make the choice. If it was truly our choice, we would choose happiness.
Anyway, back to the story from my book:
I decided I was going to choose happiness. My blues performance made the front page of the Fort Worth newspaper and two local newscasts. Thinking back on it now, I think my performance made the paper and the news broadcasts because I chose my attitude. When someone loses their job, you don’t expect them to stand in front of news cameras and perform an off-key and somewhat comical blues performance.
You see, the day was a life-changing experience. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I didn’t know where I was going to live or work. I did know that I wanted to have ownership again for my happiness and attitude.
We are all going through a difficult time. We can either let it beat us down and become stressed and frustrated. Or, we can choose to be passionate and energized and find a way to succeed. We need to focus more on our customers and each other. We need to live and work more in the moment. We need to have more fun. What do you plan on doing? I am going to grab my harmonica.
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