October 27, 2007

Revenge of the fembots: happy to be child-free
Posted by Diane Danielson at 8:28 PM

First the Today Show hit a new low a few weeks ago with their episode on "fembots." Apparently, if you don't have kids, and instead, focus on your career, there is a good chance that you are "emotionally unavailable" and therefore a fembot.  But, wait, these "working women" (an editor from Marie Claire, a psychologist and a Today Show interviewer), didn't mean "fembot" in a negative way ... huh?  While if you really listen, they don't classify "all" working women with no kids as fembots, but you really have to listen to figure that out. 

Unfortunately there are too many bad inferences in this piece including the fact that "unmarried" is a mental illness; and that men who don't marry are simply "bachelors," but women who don't marry are either spinsters or fembots?  Neither one is flattering.  I'll have to admit, after watching this, I'd have a hard time ever reading Marie Claire or watching The Today Show again.

Where's Elizabeth Hasselbeck on this one?  She loves to throw other women under the bus.

Click here to see the video

But, wait, life as a fembot might not be that bad …I caught this other story on the Forbes website about a survey where childlessness seems to bother men more than women.

Koropeckyj-Cox speculated that some women may not be choosing motherhood because of the burden of how difficult the dual roles of mom and working women are. "Other studies have documented that men tend to experience pretty strong economic and social rewards from being a dad, whereas women experience more of the pressures and more of the demands of the immediate day-to-day reality of parenting and juggling work."

Click here to read the full story.

This is not too surprising coming on the heels of all the "happiness gap" stories. But, hey at least if you’re going to be a fembot, at least you get to be happy about it!

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October 23, 2007

Does experience count?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:09 PM

When making a hiring decision, how much weight do you put on a candidate's experience? A little? A lot?

Here's an interesting take from NPR on just how much experience may or may not count when considering a candidate for a position - in this case, a fairly prominent position:

All Things Considered, October 22, 2007 -- The word "experience" has been thrown around a lot in the presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton hints that Barack Obama doesn't have enough of it. Obama says Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld prove that experience is overrated. Rudolph Giuliani points to Sept. 11 as his experience. John McCain has his time in Hanoi.

To hear the audio segment (running time: 4:47) by NPR White House correspondent Mara Liasson, which includes some interesting observations on how much experience has worked for or against previous presidents, visit this page and click on the "Listen" button.

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Learning career skills on the playground
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:12 AM

I caught an interesting article from Penelope Trunk called "Thriving Careers Start Earlier Than You Think."  In the article, she looks at a few life skills that your children need including:

1. Perserverance
2. Making decisions when you may not have all the information
3. Teach your kids to be positive thinkers
4. Teach frugality
5. Realize that you have limitations and your child is living in a different society from the one where you grew up.

Click here to read the full article.

These all made complete sense to me, so I found it striking that there was vehement opposition to some of her recommendations.  Clearly people mistook her #2 suggestion to say "don't research ever."  The point she was making was that most of the time we have to make decisions where we don't have and will never have all the information.  Perhaps the people who read her advice and see such an "extreme" all or nothing, need a few "positive thinking" lessons to be more accepting of the fact that not everything is black or white, but mostly in-between.

There are only two things I would add to her list: 

1. Resilience.  We need to teach our kids that sometimes bad stuff happens to good people, sometimes we lose, and sometimes life is just not fair.  I'm a big fan of children playing sports for this reason. On a side note - as it's impossible to not mention the Red Sox this week - this new generation of kids in New England has no idea what it's like to stand behind a team during rough times. As a sometimes coach, I'm starting to wonder whether it's harder for some of them to comprehend that not everyone gets to play or root for a championship team all the time
2. To take responsibility for their actions.  Too many kids (and adults) are being taught to blame  others for their problems and are unable to take responsibility for their actions.  Yes, the dog may have eaten your homework, but who was the one to feed it to the dog in the first place? Or may have forgotten to feed the dog, so that he was hungry? Or left the homework on the floor where the dog could get it?  And, the likelihood that the dog specifically ate your homework just to get you in trouble ... not likely.  Although, if it was a cat ... that could be a possibility. 

My last example may sound silly, but we've all heard the excuses before (especially the teachers!).  Flash forward 10-15 years, and what happens when your child is in the office claiming he couldn't get the assignment done because someone else didn't give him the information, or she wasn't given proper instructions, or didn't have time because he had all these other crises, and the absolute worst excuse of all time, because "the rest of the team is out to get me."  Any of you bosses out there heard any of those lately?  Any of you then had parents call in to defend their children? 

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October 17, 2007

See you in Providence
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:16 AM

Many of the readers of this Boston-based blog may be attending the annual NEHRA Conference in Providence tonight through Friday.

The NEHRA conference is the largest annual convocation of HR folks in the northeast, and the HR Blog will be on the job in RI. Our base of operations will be the Boston.com/Monster booth on the exhibit floor (aka, Solutions Center). Please stop by and introduce yourself if you have a moment.

You may also want to check out a recent Hiring Hub article, "Leading leaders" by Suzanne Bates, CEO of Bates Communications. Bates will be featured in one of the conference's Learning Labs tomorrow, Thursday, 10/18, from 2:30 - 5:00 pm. You can hear her speak on the topic "Ensure Your Leaders Are Communicating Their Vision and Values Effectively."

See you there.

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October 16, 2007

No quit in boomers
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:04 PM

The HR Blog has posted several times on the subject of the huge Baby Boom workforce block and the impact its impending retirement could have on the workplace.

Here, Workforce Management magazine reports on the number of boomers who intend to keep on working past retirement age - and why:

Whether or not they reach their goals, older workers seem driven in part by a desire to make a difference. A study last year from think tank Civic Ventures and the MetLife Foundation found that half of Americans age 50 to 70 want jobs that contribute to the greater good now and in retirement.

Another reason people are working longer is financial need. A 2003 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said the loss of retirement wealth and the loss of access to retiree health insurance keep older workers in the labor force longer than before.

Read the full piece. (Note: one-time free registration may be required.)

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October 14, 2007

Lighten up (your hair) if you want to succeed
Posted by Diane Danielson at 12:02 PM

Elle magazine actually had an interesting article about how beauty standards affect the women who deliver our news.  It starts with the focus on a young reporter who was told to "lighten up," i.e blondify her hair if she wants to move her career forward.

"most of us would be outraged if a boss (any boss, but particularly a man) made such a suggestion, but she accepts - if not exactly embraces - the realities of her industry, one of which is that blond hair just might make her more successful."

Now, I fully expected the article to back away from that sentiment and start recommending hair color products, but the writer, Maggie Bullock, hung in there and had a pretty thorough discussion about the fine line female professionals walk between being pretty enough to be thought intelligent, but not so pretty as to detract.  She even references a study where "smiling" will lose women IQ points, while it raises it for men.  While the focus was on anchorwomen, the article was broad enough to cover all professional women who face this dilemma although in much subtler ways.

Of course, in true women's magazine fashion, the next article that followed was about the benefits of liposuction.

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October 11, 2007

The great lie in African-American hiring
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:00 AM

Former John Hancock CEO David D'Alessandro threw down the gauntlet to Boston businesses in an op ed piece in Monday's Globe:

"I TRIED to hire an African-American, there were just no qualified applicants available, and I really need to fill the job soon."

I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times in my Boston career as an employer, board member, or adviser I have heard and still hear this comment when a management person is unable to fill a key position with an African-American.

It is a great lie.

Does this sound like your company's approach to hiring diverse candidates? This is a hot-button issue, and one that doesn't get brought up too often - and especially in such straight-talking language - by corporate CEOs.

One thing D'Alessandro does not point out: we have an African-American "CEO" (aka, governor) of the state. That was the people's choice. In an earlier post, right after Deval Patrick's election, just a year ago, I pointed out that this would help the recruitment and hiring of African-Americans throughout the Commonwealth. D'Alessandro's piece suggests otherwise.

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October 9, 2007

Retaining young talent won't be easy
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:48 PM

So says this article from Workforce Management reporting on the results of a new study:

Employers can expect a struggle trying to retain young talent for the long haul, as 61 percent of survey participants say they will stay at their first job for less than three years.

About 250 college students and recent grads from across the country participated in the June study by Manpower subsidiary Right Management.

"There is a definite shift in mind-set taking place among employees," says Shelly Funderburg, a regional practice leader for the Philadelphia-based talent training consultancy. "We are transitioning from a worker mentality of 'Show me a reason to leave a company' -- where people remained at their jobs for a long time -- versus 'Show me a reason to stay.' "

Read the full piece, which names the three key incentives for Gen Y workers and what you can do about them.

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October 4, 2007

Commuter marriages
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:19 PM

TIME magazine reports on a growing social phenomenon: commuter marriages, in which couples live apart from each other for long stretches of time - and distance:

How's this for a 21st century romance: Dr. Laura Minikel met Bent Balle on an airplane in 2000--she returning to the U.S. from practicing medicine in Africa, he escorting his parents on holiday from their native Denmark. Minikel and Balle chatted throughout the 11-hour flight and later met for coffee near her home in San Francisco before Balle returned to Denmark. They fell in love (through e-mail) and married in 2005 (in person), celebrating in four cities with friends and family. Are they happy? Yes. Are they together? Not exactly. Minikel, 37, remains in California to practice obstetrics and gynecology, while Balle, 44, an electronics technician, still lives in his homeland 5,500 miles away. She gets to work herculean hours at a job she loves; he gets to help raise his two teenage kids.

Read the full piece.

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