Author Archives: Larry Janis

Don’t hire someone because of their résumé. Look for this instead

BY STEPHANIE VOZZA

Advanced degrees or years of experience aren’t always good predictors of future success.

When you’re hiring someone for a job, it’s natural to make a decision based on applicants’ résumés. But experience isn’t always a good predictor of the future. Instead, it’s important to hire based on behavior, which requires a different hiring process and mindset, says Omar L. Harris, author of Be a J.E.D.I. Leader, Not a Boss: Leadership in the Era of Corporate Social Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

“A lot of times, we ask for advanced degrees or certain years of experience, but none of that is ultimately relevant,” he says. “You can probably find examples in your own company of people who had far less experience than you’re requesting in a job description, but they learned the job and did very well. You can take people from all walks of life and help them thrive.”

BEHAVIORS OVER EXPERIENCE

Arbitrary skillsets and a certain amount of experience aren’t objective measures of how someone will perform on the job. Instead, Harris says managers should rethink the hiring process, going back to the basics and reexamining job descriptions.

(more…)

What ADP Research indicates is fueling the Great Resignation

by Philip Albinus

What ADP Research indicates is fueling the Great Resignation

This year, a growing number of employees have taken on a new or changing work role; the pandemic has had a negative impact on a majority of workers; and more men than women have received pay raises or bonuses since the beginning of the pandemic and the subsequent hybrid work model that transformed the way many people do their jobs.

These were the findings of ADP Research’s “People at Work 2021: A Global Workforce View,” a survey of32,471 workers in 17 countries, including more than 8,500 people working specifically in the gig economy.

Findings include:

  • 28% of respondents report having taken on a new role or changing roles due to shifts in the labor market. The number increases to 36% for Generation Z workers.
  • 64% of the global workforce were negatively impacted by COVID-19, including 28% who lost a job, were furloughed or were temporarily laid off, and 23% who took a pay cut.
  • 75% of the global workforce made changes or plan to change how or where they live, with that percentage even greater (85%) among Generation Z.
  • 66% of small and mid-sized U.S. employers have a hybrid work model in place.
  • 68% of workers have received a pay raise or a bonus with 62% of men receiving a bonus or pay raise compared to 50% of women.

(more…)

Why Bosses Are Inflexible About Flexible Work Arrangements

by Nicole Kobie

Since lockdown, employees have adopted new work habits, but many execs want a return to the old normal.

EVER FEEL LIKE your boss just doesn’t understand you? That’s because they don’t—and that’s especially true when it comes to flexible working.

Future Forum, a research group backed by Slack, runs its quarterly “Pulse” survey of 10,000 knowledge workers alongside focus groups with their bosses across six countries, including the US and UK. For the latest iteration, the Pulse study focused on the lockdown-imposed home-working experiment and the slow return to the office—and it’ll come as no surprise to find out that management are rather more keen to see staff at their desks than leave them working from home.

The study showed that executives are more than twice as likely to want to get back to the office full time—every single working day, just like in the “before times”—than their employees, with 44 percent of executives longing for their commutes and fluorescent lighting versus 17 percent of their staff. Some bosses are willing to offer a bit of flexibility, with two-thirds of execs saying they want to work in the office most of the time or all of the time. (more…)

4 signs you’re experiencing burnout, according to a cognitive scientist

BY ART MARKMAN

If you’ve been feeling exhausted, here’s how to know if you just need a relaxing weekend, or if it’s something more major.

If you have had a long week at work, you might be justifiably exhausted and feeling like you can’t do anything productive. That feeling might be a sign that you need a nap or a relaxing weekend, or it could be a sign of more serious burnout. How would you know?

I’ll talk about some of the key symptoms of burnout, but to begin with, it is a long-term state. It is common for people to have a bad day or even a bad week. You might say, “I’m feeling burned out today,” but if a good night’s sleep, a weekend away, a spa day, or some exercise has you ready to come back to work, you were tired rather than being burned out.

LACK OF MOTIVATION

One key sign of burnout is that you don’t have motivation to get any work done. You might not even have the motivation to want to come to work at all. Instead, you dread the thought of the work you have to do. You find yourself hating both the specific tasks you have to do at work, as well as the mission of the organization you’re working for. You just can’t generate enthusiasm about work at all.

(more…)

How good is your do-to-say ratio?

by Adam Bryant

The right balance is heavy on follow-through and reliability. Those who have it will go further in life.

Think for a moment about all the colleagues in your immediate circle, whether they are your peers or people you manage. Which of them can be trusted to follow through when they say they are going to do something? And which ones make you think to yourself, “Hmm, that’s probably not going to happen. I’ll have to follow up”?

Throughout the pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about the qualities that matter most in employees. We hear about the importance of being an agile learner or embracing ambiguity, for example. Those are important attributes, of course, but we can’t lose sight of a foundational quality that sets the best team players apart: reliability.

Reliability is a theme that has come up often in my many interviews with CEOs over the years, but it was Brett Wilson, who at the time of our conversation was CEO of TubeMogul, an enterprise software company based in Emeryville, Calif., who shared with me the memorable concept of the do-to-say ratio.

(more…)