“IT” is a big deal…

…at least in my own world.

So what is coming you ask? What is this “IT” really? Is “IT” a big deal? I don’t know you will have to keep coming back to find out!

Stay tuned…

But in the mean time keep a watch out for a cool post to come on “So I got a Job… Now what?” Mainly focusing on what you should focus on when you are leaving the world of unemployment into the daily work life and some small but huge tips on how to break in the right way!

Some great folks are contributing!

Same pants… for the rest of your life!

Scenerio:

Hiring Manager: “So what do you want to do”

Candidate: “I’d like to do XYZ but I would also be interested in working later on in ABC!”

Hiring Manager: “Well I think you could really do well doing GHI so you’re hired! Congrats… Hear is your uniform, this is what you will wear for the rest of your career!”

Candidate: “The rest of my career?”

Hiring Manager: “Yes, the rest of your career”

Candidate: **sad and dissapointed look on face**

Is this what you want when you choose a job, a company or an industry? Is this how you treat the people you hire or source for a position?

We would never truly want to force anyone to wear the same shirt, pair of pants, britches day after day. Besides being icky it would also be depressingly constricting. So why would we expect a person, over their working life, to do the exact same career, specialty or job title?

Now largely this is not what we as individuals wish for ourselves, but many times as managers or supervisors this is what we often do to the people who work for us. Especially when they are really good at that one job regardless of the level.

So what do you think? Is this what too many companies and hiring managers do? Is it easy in this economy for organizations to place these career restrictions on people?

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln

and I’d like to think I hustle!

Feel free to fast forward to the header to the “They Have Landed” at the bottom to see what I will be doing, but if you like a story, then read on!

The long walk down the hall.

In the beginning of October of 2009 I was in quite an unfamiliar place. My position leading a Corporate Training and Development department had been eliminated. I found out on a Friday. I left later that afternoon. It was not too hard to pack and leave the desk I had spent a few years in. The reason it wasn’t hard: (1) I was in charge of the budget lines and P&L (2) which gave me insight into my department and the companies situation. (3) As a result I had started packing boxes inconspicuously for about 5 months. I knew things were getting tough as in every part of construction and manufacturing. I had the information in front of me as I received the monthly budget reports.  As I have said to many of my colleagues, while I hoped for the best and that nothing would affect my job, I wasn’t blind. I understood that there was a strong possibility that I would be gone before the year was out. So when my boss walked me into her office and gave the news, I was fortunate enough to not be as surprised as I may have been 1 year previous. Before the day was out, I had closing conversations with my boss, my dotted line boss – the CEO, and a few others. I obtained referrals from the people that mattered.

If you have no plan, then you have no plans.

I had prepared. I was now like many people who had found themselves with no job and now on a 20 minute drive home that felt like an eternity. Five months before this drive, my family and I had sat down and looked at our financial situation. What came into the household and what went out. For years we had a monthly budget. I would enter in and adjust everything from salaries and contract income, to the expenses of diapers, food, credit cards and extra curricular activities. Ultimately this gave me out profit and loss of the household.

This time, when reviewing the budget, I added another column to help calculate the salary of $0.00. It helped to give a true picture of what the coming months could look like. What sacrifices we would have to make and helped to light a fire under my butt to try and shrink the time-line as much as possible. I was working on my MBA and paying for it out of my own pocket which made matters a little tougher.

The one thing you can’t let go of…

In order to stay sane, there has to be something you can enjoy and not allowed to get rid of. My wife and I discussed this. In order for us to function she decided on her one thing and I decided mine. My one thing would be golf. Outside of family and my network, golf continued to help me think strategically, not take things so seriously and hold my tongue (not always, but I tried) in what seemed initially to be tough-to-face challenges.

Just because you are not working, does not mean you don’t have work to do!

I remember colleagues at my last job, making statements like “so what are you going to do now?” or “are you going take a break?” My response was exactly this: “Hey, just because you are not working, does not mean you don’t have work to do!” I believe this. In the almost 10 months that have passed I have created what I think is a strong personal footprint, a heck of a good site in ReThinkHR.org, been asked to speak at various groups and have received a great handle on Social Media and how it can work for me. Most of all I have made a lot of good contacts, built a new foundation of relationships with new colleagues that I would have otherwise never had a chance to meet.

The thing about an Opportunity

You can’t always wait for opportunity to knock. If you did, who is to say it would ever stop by and even deliver. There are times when you will need to create an opportunity when none exist. Look underneath when it is not traveling on the surface. You may even have to gain access without permission. I mean really, how often do you ever get anything worth having if you were only allowed to ask for permission?

‘They’ have landed

So the whole point of this is to let you know that THEY have landed. The position… Leadership Development Consultant for a Midwest, full service Document Management company. With over 2900 employees across the United States, I will be working directly with the CEO, Executives, Directors and Mid-Level Leadership. I will oversee the development, coaching and identification of talent within the organization, create programs to increase organizational capability, and help to identify emerging leadership for the organization. I will also attempt to use social media within the company in the way we deliver and interact for learning and leadership. This is the simplest way I can explain a very detailed and not as simply stated job.

I am ready and sincerely excited for the challenge. The level of investment and energy that a company takes in ensuring not only the health of its products and services, but also the health of the people providing those opportunities is something I take to heart. To actually talk with executives within an organization and receive a consistent response is greatly refreshing. Especially in these times.

No Ego Involved, sincerely

I say THEY have landed not to be egotistical. I firmly believe that my own abilities and strengths are assets. There are a few reasons my search was long (even longer than I expected).Regardless of these reasons I always believed that what I have to offer is just as good or at times better than what a company could offer me. You have to have confidence in times like these. That, a good attitude, and a willingness to laugh at the hardest and most difficult times. I still plan to take part in many of the activities I have been involved in over the past months. For those of you who just came across me recently, get use to me… I’ll be here for awhile!

It’s Friday. A day that many of us look forward to. A chance for people to wind down the week and prepare for the weekend. A time to ENJOY. But not for everyone…

8.5 Million Jobs have been LOST since the start of the economic downturn

Unemployment as of February is at 9.7%

Roughly 14.9 Million people are out of work

Some people may be finding themselves included in these numbers on this day. As a manager, supervisor or an HR representative, you may be the one to inform them.

The numbers are disheartening. More so if you can put faces and names to the numbers. Increase that feeling when you can relate those numbers to people you personally know and console going through it.

It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.

A common phrase. An easy cop-out to dismiss ourselves from the thing that is actually happening on the other side of the desk that you sit. Someone’s life has being changed and in their own world ~ shattered. But it’s OK. They’ll be OK. Won’t they? I mean, how you can empathize, when it’s not you. I get it, doing so helps make it easier to look at things as just a number. We can’t attach ourselves to every situation. Doing so would make it impossible to cope with the job you hold.

Watching “Up in the Air” (Trailer) made me think about my own situation as well as many other professionals within our field that have been faced with giving the bad news. It’s not your, my, or our fault. I get it. But so many think it’s easy to focus on the numbers. To use that as a precursor to explain the situation to the employee as if it will make them feel “okee dokee, thanks I will be ok.” To chalk layoffs up to budgets. Decrease operational lines to save the factories’. To look only at the bottom line…

The Bottom Line

The movie and its true-to-life lay-offs only drove a point deeper. (Prepare yourself for a long-grammatical incorrect sentence) With the talk of “the traditional resume is dead,” “social media will replace typical recruiting practices,” to the entire approach of technology overstepping and replacing the way we have typically approached employee relations and business in the workplace… the bottom line is this:

Statistics cannot be used to show sincerity.

You cannot replace a human interaction with a transaction that is inhumane

Think about that as I leave you with the following. The words of an individual being laid off in the movie, which was played by the actual unemployed. If I had the clip it would be more powerful than the words on the page.

How do you sleep at night, man?
Huh?
How's your family?
They sleeping well at night?
Electricity still on?
Heat still on, refrigerator full of food?
Gas tank full of gas?
Going to Chuck E. Cheese this weekend or something?
Not me.
No, my kids,
We're not gonna do anything.

What do you think? As difficult as it may be, I’d like to hear your thoughts, stories, frustrations and worries. I think that in times like this, sharing is almost as good as medicine.

Thoughts on Up in the Air ~ Adversity (Video)


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