There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, but it may help you clarify what’s important to you in life.
In a recent issue of Recruiter Daily, life coach Sophie Robertson said we all need to determine what life balance means to us.
“For some people, they really live to work, which is fine. I heard a radio interview with the late Bing Lee and when asked whether he regretted not having spent more time with his family, he replied ‘No, my work has always been very important to me’.
“So there is no right or wrong answer. However it is important that you live according to your own values.”
Robertson suggests people divide their lives into 10 different areas:
Health
Knowledge and Learning
Social
Financial
Family
Partner
Spirituality
Career
Giving to others
Giving to self.
Then assess your level of satisfaction in each of these areas. It will rapidly become evident where your life is out of balance.
Managing your life effectively means balancing each of your priorities and pursuits. If one significant area of your life is neglected, the whole wheel of life will eventually give way and the road will become bumpy.
There’s no denying that work life balance is a challenge. John Howard called it a ‘barbecue stopper’ in 2007. Keeping your career on track, your family happy, your social life buzzing and your bank account in the black often seem adversarial goals. Life just seems to play an “either/or” game at times.
In my book, Selfscape: Success through balance, I remind people that we are all busy. Henry David Thoreau once said: “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” If you are able to spend the best part of your time on the things that really matter to you – that speak to your highest values – then life slides along on an even keel. And what do you get? Work/life balance.
New research reveals that half of all workers “fell into” their careers.
A survey, commissioned by recruitment firm Chandler Macleod, finds half of all workers did not plan their careers, and instead left their career paths to chance.
Interestingly, the survey found three-in-four workers reported being pigeonholed by employers because of their current jobs or careers. The university-educated (86 per cent) were more likely to feel pigeonholed by their career than those without a tertiary degree (70 per cent).
The top three reasons why respondents chose their current jobs were:
they felt ‘able’ to do the job
the job was available at the time of their search
the job was linked to subjects they were interested in at school.
Involving some 648 workers aged between 18 and 64 years, the study also found that 20 per cent were actively looking for a new job or career and 44 per cent were “keeping an eye out”.
So, not only do we have an escalating skills shortage, but we have millions of people who are unhappy, unsuited to their position and unsure of how to approach their next career move.
In What color is your parachute, the world’s best selling career hunting book, Richard Nelson Bolles says that finding a “life-changing” career involves:
Wanting to basically put a sense of mission into your life
Looking for a place where you (like a flower) can grow – even if it means you have to talk organisations in to creating a job for you
Learning as much about yourself and what you want .
So, here’s my piece of advice: manage your career like you’d manage a project. Think strategically about your strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself: what kind of work do I find both energising and challenging? Analyse your skills gap and look for education or knowledge to close that gap. And look for opportunities that complement your skill set, your values and your life ambitions.
BBC.co.uk has posted a great collection of comments from readers about management speak. In their campaign against office jargon, they’ve listed 50 of the best worst examples, including:
product evangelist
incentivise
let’s touch base about that offline
forward planning
granularity
leverage
cascading down information
Anyone who’s worked in a corporate office environment will get a laugh out of these. One commenter said that his employer had advised staff they were no longer allowed to use the phrase ‘brain storm’ because “it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really.”
Coming from the ICT industry, “not enough bandwidth” was a particularly popular piece of jargon that grates. What about you? What’s your best worst piece of office jargon?
The race has never been more intense to acquire, develop, and retain long-term client relationships as the e-business evolution continues to redefine corporate models.
The last 10 years has spawned such buzzwords as: customer-centric, customer loyalty and client relationship management. While many companies are ‘customer-centric’ as a core value, I know of few that have ‘partner-centric’ as a core value.
And yet, partnering has proven to be one of the most powerful business tools for dealing with fast changing markets, technologies and customers. As the global economy speeds up, partnering is becoming the weapon of choice for today’s successful competitors.
There are, of course, many variations in partnering arrangements, from informal arrangements, through teaming agreements, outsourcing and joint ventures. Partnerships exist within and between industries and sectors – and are crucial in Australia’s highly competitive recruitment sector.
Being part of a globalised economy means doing things faster, cheaper and at world’s best practice. In order to be successful it is no longer enough to work within an organisation, we need to think outside in and develop relationships with key partners.
YouTube has a great video - one of my favourites - of the world’s first IT help desk professional. It’s a timely reminder of why we all need to update our skills!
Is our education system rapidly becoming archaic as we plunge headlong into a world where people trade their DNA on eBay? Where virtual supply chains and on-demand products rule? And where people conduct virtual romances with people they’ve only met through Cyberspace?
Thought leaders in education are now suggesting that the top ten in-demand jobs for 2010 did not exist in 2004 (see Karl Fisch’s The Fischbowl). If this is the case, how do we prepare the next generation of workers for technologies that are not yet invented?
This question is vitally important to business leaders, educators, parents, politicians and recruiters in today’s world. Together, we must examine the way we are educating our kids. Ensuring our young people receive the best education possible is not so much about algebra and alliteration, but arming them with the knowledge and skills they will need to enter the workforce.
Young people today seem to be born with an innate ability for text-messaging and gaming. And while they may not be able to spell they can tell you their life story on MySpace, entertain you on YouTube, muse philosophically in the blogosphere, contribute to knowledge on Wikipedia, create cutting-edge art on Flickr.
But they learn very little of this in school.
The need for creativity in all aspects of economic and political life is beginning to be recognised. Creative talent is now gaining economic as well as symbolic currency.
Charles Leadbeater, author and Senior Research Associate with the independent think-tank Demos, says that “our children will not have to toil in dark factories, descend into pits or suffocate in mills, to hew raw materials and turn them into manufactured products. They will make their livings through their creativity, ingenuity and imagination.”
Technological innovations are closing the gap between physical limitations and productivity and a significant, untapped workforce is looking for job opportunities.
There are many wonderful assistive-technologies now available that ease access and increase productivity. From video-descriptions to screen readers, technology is encouraging people with disabilities into the workforce and integrating them further into society.
Accessibility experts and executives from corporations such as IBM, Yahoo, Internet Speech, Deque Systems and e-ISOTIS are already telling us about new products such as the latest and greatest speech recognition software, assisted-listening devices, real-time translators, keyboard filters and alternative input devices which enable individuals to operate computers without using standard keyboards or mouses.
These tools, which are designed to enable employees with disabilities to overcome barriers in the workplace, can help those with hearing, speech, vision and mobility impairments. Coupled with this, mainstream technology, such as word processing software and operating systems, also have features that can benefit people with disabilities.
And of course, the more companies move toward the paperless office, the more it opens the workplace up to people with mobility impairments.
One of the greatest perceived barriers to implementing assistive technology is cost. But a study by the US’ Job Accommodation Network (JAN) has revealed that 15 percent of assistive accommodations cost nothing, 51 percent cost between $1 and $500, 12 percent cost between $501 and $1,000, and 22 percent cost more than $1,000.
The digital divide still exists between people with disabilities and those who are non-disabled, but the Web has the ability to be even more accessible than other parts of society.
Let’s work together to ensure that accessible technology continues to advance and that our workplaces are flexible and open enough to consider using the tools to harness the untapped potential of a new pool of talented workers.
Everyone’s talking about Facebook. And if you’re an employer, you’re probably worried about your workers wasting office hours social networking when they should be productive.
Relax. Facebook can be an essential addition to your employees’ web working toolbox.
So how can Facebook benefit business?
For starters, Facebook is all about community. As a social networking tool, it allows you to leave messages on users’ walls, join groups and participate in discussions. You can connect with old and new co-workers and clients without being intrusive. Add these people to Facebook and stay in touch without needing to actively maintain a conversation via email or phone.
Use Facebook to virally tackle a business cause. Look for business opportunities out of shared interests. Ask questions, and take advantage of Facebook’s collective intelligence with the My Questions application. Gain insight into business challenges and discover new resources through your network.
Of course, it’s important to edit your profile and security settings, giving careful consideration to exactly who sees your profile and when. Facebook can come back to haunt you, as the Australian swimming team found out recently.
But before brushing aside Facebook as a fad, remember: if you are hiring the next generation of workers, it’s important – regardless of your age – that you remain web-literate and in touch with the latest Internet trends.
A new Australian study has found that women are more suited to senior executive and management roles.
Researchers at Peter Berry Consultancy surveyed more than 1,800 Australian male and female executives and managers, using the Hogan Assessment System to rate the leaders in eight profile areas known to contribute to successful business leadership: strategic drive; risk taking; people skills; emotional stability; hot buttons; innovation; control and command; and bottom line dollars.
Female executives scored higher than males for being ambitious, bold, mischievous, colourful and imaginative;
Males scored higher for commerce. “For men, money rules. Males measured success in financial terms. Females are driven by motivations other than money,” the report says;
Female executives also scored higher in the area of people skills for their sociability, interpersonal sensitivity and affiliation, but lower for being reserved;
Females come up in top when it comes to building emotional connections, trust and loyalty with others, the report says, making them a better choice than male executives for organisations that want people to feel valued; and
Males are out in front when it comes to control and command.
The report adds: “If you are looking for hard nosed, ‘take no prisoners’ performance, then males have the stronger profile… Males have scored higher on ‘control and command’ and ‘bottom line dollars’. Because they dominate executive positions, these two factors will set the tone of the culture for the whole of the organisation.”
I wonder if the time-honoured ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse is finally dead and buried as a new generation of kids blame the dog for eating their iPods?
Schools and universities are already waking up to the potential of the iPod as an educational tool, podcasting lectures, making audiobooks available for students and using iPods to record music lessons, for example.
In the foreseeable future, iPods will become essential pieces of equipment in every student’s digital backpack.
Instead of being seen as disruptive devices with no place in the classroom, iPods can be exciting educational and training tools.
In the future, the MP3 player will probably look more like a memory stick with a roll out screen, and have enough memory to carry not only a student’s lifetime of notes, but rich media references, assignments, presentations and portfolios – not to mention a vast personal library of songs, audiobooks, photos and movies.
iPods are emerging as a popular device at universities across the globe as lecturers realise their messages can reach the masses of students who skip classes, and students realise they can use what used to be ‘dead time’ (such as sitting on a bus) more productively.
And iPod learning need not be confined to traditional educational institutions. Baby Boomers are downloading language lessons to brush up on their French and Italian before taking their grand tours through Europe, for example.
There is huge potential for students and educators alike if educational organisations harness this emerging technology. Today’s students are already ‘digital natives’ and we must find ways to engage students in learning, ensure that their educational experiences are relevant to Australia’s prevailing knowledge economy and to their lives outside the classroom.
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