Tuesday, September 26, 2017

"The shifting landscape of human resources"/ productivity metrics

Jul. 10, 2017 "The shifting landscape of human resources": Today I found this article by Janet Candido in the Globe and Mail:


As with most industries, HR is not immune to disruption; today’s transformation is giving rise to a new tier of business leadership JANET CANDIDO

Principal of Candido Consulting Group, a company providing human-resources services across North America

When I network with young people who are considering a career in human resources, I always ask them why they are interested in HR. What attracts them? What do they hope to accomplish? The answer is, most often, “Because I want to help people.”

At the other end of the hierarchy, I was once told by the chief executive of a global firm that, after having been encouraged to add a woman to his allmale leadership team, he decided to create a vice-president of human-resources role, because “that’s a nice job for a woman.”
A woman’s role?

The perception of HR as a woman’s profession persists. This image that it is people-based, soft and empathetic, and all about helping employees work through issues leaves it largely populated by women as the stereotypical nurturer. Even today, these “softer” skills are seen as less appealing – or intuitive – to men who may gravitate to perceived strategic, analytical roles and away from employee relations.

On the upside, the propensity to equate female attributes to human resources has made it the only profession in which women have outpaced men in the upper ranks – at least in number.

According to an HR study in the United States, women represent 73 per cent of HR manager roles, and 55 per cent of C-suite HR executives – just edging out men. But that may be the closest to gender parity we’ll get, given 2014 statistics from the U.S. Department of Labour that reveal men earn up to 40 per cent more than their female counterparts in HR, for similar roles across both junior and senior levels.

Radical shift

The downside is that the HR profession has suffered from a lack of credibility – until now, that is. The times are changing, something both women and men studying or working in HR need to understand. As with nearly every other industry, HR is not immune to disruption.

Business needs are changing radically, as are expectations of HR from within the top ranks at large, well-run companies. This change has created an opportunity that places HR in a valuable, new leadership position. As the 2017 Deloitte Global Capital Human Trends survey highlights, thanks to the digital age and an agile mindset, employers are demanding new skills from HR professionals, through the leveraging of technology for more data-driven insights and talent analytics and employment experiences. These skills are imperative for HR to deliver value to the business – and across the organization.

A quick scan of recruitment ads for senior HR roles already reveals this shift. Reskilling the stock of HR talent is critical and may be why an earlier Deloitte report found an increasing trend for chief executives to bring in non-HR professionals to fill the role of chief human resource officer.

This supports my own experience that often when a male executive is responsible for HR, he didn’t get there through the HR ranks and may in fact have no HR background, but got there because of his business acumen.

While these new skill requirements will surely appeal to a wider male audience, the reality is that HR professionals will need to combine both those “softer” people skills with “harder” business and analytical skills, not one or the other. Men and women in HR need to elevate their performance if they are to succeed moving forward.

For example, performance management, including coaching and developing top talent for leadership roles, is more important than ever. Balancing intuitive ability with strong analytical skills and fluency in business strategy will be key in making recommendations at the board level.

So how can we attract more men and women to the profession who possess the necessary business and analytical skills, in addition to people skills, and who are interested in contributing at a strategic level in order to effect change? How can we support women on the path to the C-Suite? And how do we reposition the role of HR in many organizations to be more strategic?

Raising expectations

Companies of all sizes would benefit from education and direction on how to use and maximize their HR employees, from the junior level up.

Start by putting an HR consultant on the board and an HR person at the leadership table. Demand strategic vision from both and the use of hard metrics to provide relevant insights to the business.

Now is the time to change your expectations of HR and begin to include it in discussions early – and often. HR needs to be seen and positioned as integral to the business and employers must set expectations – for women and men – to be strategic businesses leaders, not just coaches or party planners. Employers need to underscore and promote diversity on the path to the top.

Men need to feel greater acceptance in a traditionally female environment, but both men and women equally need to be trained and supported in their transition, with executive mentors to follow, in order to be successful. 


"Combining HR and finance to improve productivity metrics": Today I found this article by Russell Wong in the Globe and Mail:


Russell Wong is chief financial officer, ADP Canada.

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, in his critically acclaimed book The Age of Diminished Expectations, wrote, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.”

This rings particularly true today, as more and more competitive Canadian organizations look to better understand productivity and how it’s impacting their work force. In fact, a recent evaluation by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the G7 countries’ levels of productivity shows that Canada is the second-least-productive country.

This puts our country at 27 per cent below productivity levels in the United States, and this gap is only widening. The big problem, however, is that most organizations don’t have a clear understanding or definition of what constitutes “productivity,” and even fewer understand how to measure it.

A recent survey of senior financial executives conducted by the Canadian Financial Executives Research Foundation (CFERF), sponsored by ADP Canada, showed that nine in 10 of those polled felt that the key performance indicators (KPIs) their companies had put in place to track productivity weren’t supporting their business objectives – an alarming statistic at a time when other research has shown that almost half (49 per cent) of Canadian workers say they aren’t as productive as they could be at their jobs.

In fact, almost one in five of those companies polled as a part of the Understanding Productivity Through the Lens of Finance study said that they aren’t using the productivity metrics they’re tracking to inform decisions at all.

If improving success depends almost entirely on increasing output per worker, as Krugman asserts, then this disconnect between employers and employees spells trouble for the Canadian work force.

One of the biggest challenges is that often HR departments use metrics such as vacation tracking, payroll management and attendance as indicators of productivity – each valuable insights on their own, but not truly reflective of work force productivity in most organizations.

The secret to improving productivity – or at the very least, improving the ability to track and understand it – very likely already lies just down the hall from HR, in the finance department.

It’s likely that finance and HR are already working together in some capacity – nearly three-quarters (71 per cent) of those polled by CFERF said finance is involved in HR functions such as payroll.

But beyond the transactional, combining the people-focused knowledge of HR with the analytical capabilities of finance can be the special sauce that allows an organization to better determine what defines productivity in their workplace, and how to develop metrics and KPIs to track and improve it.

Finance departments have more experience extracting value from data by developing and analyzing metrics, and are increasingly becoming more involved in the HR functions of an organization largely through culture, staffing and strategic planning. Coupling their level of data-savvy capability with HR’s ability to understand the people side of the business can and will ultimately lead to better identification, measurement and insights gleaned from productivity metrics.

The reality is that effectively measuring productivity provides numerous benefits for any organization, regardless of size. Respondents of the CFERF survey said the number one area where they would be interested in applying insights from productivity data is to appropriately upgrade employee training and skills.

When correctly leveraged, organizations can identify the key areas where their teams could use extra training and even identify if certain aspects of their existing training models need to be updated.

Other areas where insights gleaned from productivity data could benefit the company include employee engagement, improving work flow design, and expanding or recalibrating the work force.

For example, an organization can determine which parts of the business might be over– or under-staffed, and which employees have the capacity to take on more work. This can grant busineses the ability to make informed hiring and staffing decisions to ensure that they are assigning reasonable volumes of work to their employees. That, in turn, should result in higher productivity and less turnover over the long run.

At the end of the day, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to productivity. In fact, what defines productivity can change from organization to organization. However, what’s true for nearly every organization at the outset is the need to clearly identify what productivity metrics matter to them and then to determine how best to measure against those items.

By combining HR and finance to identify and quantify the metrics that truly matter, an organization is heading in the right direction to finally glean value productive insights from their productivity data.


Flyer4
6 days ago

a little light years behind with this article, I came to canada 8 years ago..and was shocked about the mismanagement here, no concept of HR, Finance etc. the whole company/organization approach. Hiring consultants who have no clue...etc.There is a complete disconnect within HR ( most of them really have no clue here, and are just paper shufflers, do not understand people or even resumes), Finance...production etc. I guess that is why you have so much hidden unemployment. I had to move part of my business back to Europe due to the incredible inefficiencies here ( e.g. the banking system, HR etc.)


Nancy Gougarty/ "Today's business leaders need be heroes"

Jul. 3, 2017 "The Ladder: Nancy Gougarty": Today I found this article in the Globe and Mail:


Nancy Gougarty, 61, is CEO of Vancouver-based Westport Fuel Systems, which makes alternative-fuel systems and components such as natural gas engines. Before Westport, Ms. Gougarty was vice-president of TRW Automotive Corp.’s Asia-Pacific operations. She started her career as an industrial engineer at the Packard Electric Division of General Motors. She has a bachelor of science in industrial management from the University of Cincinnati.


I was born in Berkeley, Calif., but Ohio is where I was mostly based growing up. I have three older brothers and one younger sister. My father, a nuclear physicist, was a university professor and a researcher. We moved a lot. He would work nine months in his teaching assignment and took on research opportunities during the summers and took sabbaticals, which allowed us to live in interesting places around the world.

One of his assignments was to the University of Saskatchewan. We lived in Saskatoon for 14 months. I was in the seventh and eighth grades. That was my first real winter. I don’t think I’ve been through another one like that since. We also lived in Australia when my father spent some time at the University of Melbourne. Needless to say, I changed schools quite a bit.

Moving around a lot as a kid showed me the world is 360 degrees. You also get to know who you are. It’s almost like starting over each time. You get to tell people what they know about you. They have no history. It made me realize that behaviour and power of speech matter and need to be managed.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for a career when I was growing up. My parents didn’t pressure us to figure it out. They had the attitude that we would find our way in life. They didn’t want us to work during high school and university. They felt that was our time to be free. My first full-time job was after graduation. That’s when I started my career with General Motors in Warren, Ohio.

I called them Generous Motors. I worked there for 29 years in a few different divisions – everything from engineering and sales to recruiting and finance. I was also able to obtain my executive MBA while working there, and while mothering three children.

Having the opportunity to live in lots of different places as a kid made me more willing to do that in my career. I spent nearly 15 years of my career in Asia, most of which was in China. Shanghai remains a special place for our family.

As a leader, I like to go and see people in person. I can’t manage remotely. I can’t make decisions based only on e-mail or phone calls. People can have very polished e-mails. Also, in my experience, you can’t liken someone’s speaking skills to their capability. I spend more than 80 per cent of my time outside of headquarters. When you’re in the room, you can read body language. You can see comfort or discomfort. You can see happiness or sadness. There are also different nuances in different countries. Doing business in China has a very different nuance versus India versus Italy.

My husband enabled my career success to date. He never held me back saying, “We have three kids, you can’t do that.” Instead, he would say, “If that’s what you want, go for it.” The two of us always tried to figure out together what was best. I never felt constrained; I wanted to be a wife, a mother. I wanted everything and he enabled a good bit of that.

I’m a person who likes to get things done. I don’t really have limits on the kinds of things I’m willing to do. I can type my own presentations. I’m pretty self-sufficient. I describe myself as a roadblock remover. I think, as a leader, my job is to get those speed bumps as low as possible or remove whatever is blocking the road.

I see my job as making sure I understand the whole voice of the organization. You can get very insulated at the top.

I have a good memory. People say, “Don’t tell her anything you don’t want her to remember.”

Some people might say I move too fast without enough facts. My opinion is that a bad decision is better than a perfect decision, as long as it keeps up momentum. I’m not sure with the kind of speed, in the [business] environment we’re in today, that we have the luxury of waiting for the perfect decision.

I make mistakes, and I readily admit it. I sense that we have to move quickly and swift and when it’s not right, we’ll fix it. People also need to be able to tell me it’s not right. That means having an environment where people can tell me, “That wasn’t your best decision.”

I’m very happy with where I am today. I’d like to continue to make Westport Fuels Systems even more successful. I also want to learn to laugh more and enjoy life more.

As told to Brenda Bouw. This interview has been edited and condensed.


INTJer
19 hours ago

Excuse me! "I'm a person who likes to get things done." What is this? Paid advertisement? So that's how this person is distinguishing herself from the rest of the world? Is there a psychological or blood test for that? OMG. Has leadership been reduced this?

"Today's business leaders need be heroes": Today I found this article by Diana Bishop in the Globe and Mail:



Diana Bishop is the creator of The Success Story Program and author Living Up To A Legend, My Adventures With Billy Bishop’s Ghost, published by Dundurn Press.

I had a built-in superhero – my grandfather Billy Bishop, who shot down 72 German planes in the First World War and was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery 100 years ago.


My grandpa Billy died when I was only three, so I never knew him. But he lived on for me with mythical status because of all the books, movies, the popular musical Billy Bishop Goes To War, as well as the stamps, streets, cafés, bars, buildings, a mountain in the Rockies and two airports named after him.

Billy embodied the qualities I thought a hero should have.

He set his sights really high and accomplished great things. And he showed remarkable courage in the face of adversity. My grandpa Billy inspired many people and I, too, have looked up to him as a role model to motivate, guide and help me define who I am and what I want to be.

Billy Bishop was not the only person in my family history where I found a hero.
My great-great grandfather was Timothy Eaton, founder of the Eaton’s Department store, which was once Canada’s largest retailer. Timothy became a hero to me, not only for the successful business he built, but for being a great leader who cared about his customers and his staff.

He instituted the ground-breaking policy, ‘Goods satisfactory or money refunded.’ Timothy nurtured his staff by reducing the 12-hour workday, and in 1898 he held a New Year’s Eve party for 2,000 of his employees. He seated them at tables around the store with fine white linens, silverware and more than 100 turkeys.

It may be a stretch to suggest that the demise of the family business in 1999 was due to a lack of a hero at the helm. But it certainly didn’t help.

Look at many of the businesses and corporations we most admire and respect today; they are usually launched, led or managed by passionate, innovative leaders who have become heroes to many. In fashion, think Coco Chanel, Ralph Lauren and Tom Ford. Elsewhere, think Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sandberg and Oprah Winfrey.

These icons embody the characteristics of a hero with their originality, daring, determination and commitment. People want to work for companies that are led by heroes. People also want to buy stuff from companies that have a hero at the helm.

Companies spend a lot of time and money in developing their brands and today’s CEOs can be an integral part of that branding. Personally, I think executives could benefit by highlighting the heroic qualities that got them to where they are – for instance, by making a list of where in their careers and lives they have shown:

a) courage, b) passion, c) selflessness, and d) caring, and then bring these qualities to the forefront of their stories.

Imagine if they made the same list for their management team and their employees. It could be eye-opening for business leaders to see where the hero resides in themselves. And by harnessing the hero in others these same business leaders will inspire greater loyalty from their employees and get much more from them.

I believe this to be just as true today as it was in my grandfather’s and great-great grandfather’s days.

In our increasingly cynical world, we have never been hungrier for responsible, focused, authentic visionaries whom we can look up to and who prompt us to be the best we can be.

Yes, we still need our heroes and I believe there is an opportunity for today’s business leaders to be heroes.


Ceejaybee
4 days ago

But don't we have the greatest Visionary the world has ever seen leading Canada out of the dark and into the glorious Liberal sunshine. He is Zoolander. He is ours. We are Him.
Funny
Sad
2 Reactions

Thomas Darcy McGee
4 days ago
Clobbered your guy in the election, didn't he?
What was "your guy's" name again?



Ceejaybee
4 days ago
Andrew Sheer. Watch him wipe the floor with Boy Wonder whose star burns less every single day. The Press is finally starting to actually pay attention to the drivel that exits Zoolander's grinning yap. 12 months from now, it's all downhill for the Libs. And there ain't nothing they'll be able to do about it.

Thomas Darcy McGee

"Andrew Sheer"
--
I was right, you have already forgotten the name of "your guy" in the last election.
What was it again?
And no one is afraid of Andrew Scheer.
Another creationist who believes that ignorance is virtuous.
The CPC are pulling 30% in the most recent (June 12) Campaign Research poll.
"Wipe the floor"?
That's how Scheer will be earning his living in a few years, with a mop and pail.


Name Witheld


Missing from this assessment of 'leadership', and in any discussion of 'great leaders' as icons is any mention of acceptance of consequences - in another word, INTEGRITY. The icons mentioned became icons, because the consequences of their actions worked out in their favour.
Not mentioned, however are the leaders for whom the results of their actions did not lead to fame, fortune or personal success, but whose leadership was no less heroic, and no less worthy of replication, in fact, perhaps more so.
My grandfather was also a war hero; there's a line in the citation for his medal that tells me all I need to know about leadership, and my aspiration to it: "encircled by the enemy, he was given the chance to evacuate by sea. Instead, he chose to fight is way out, with his men". My grandfather died shortly after the war, I never knew him. There are no schools, no streets, no airports named for him.
That doesn't make him any less of a leader.



Popsiq


Good point. I'll be watching at this years fireworks to see who's wearing the most red and white and doing a 'crazy dance' during the national anthem. As usual I don't think the problem is with visionaries, as much as it is with us not liking what they're seeing.

"Mating clues revealed by speed dating"/ age gap

Apr. 5, 2015 "Mating clues revealed by speed dating": I cut out this article by Sarah Arnquist in the Edmonton Journal on Jul. 6, 2009.   It was also published in the New York Times.  Here's the whole article:  

Scientists have long observed that women tend to be pickier than men when choosing a mate. The usual explanation is evolutionary: because women have a bigger investment in reproduction — they are the ones who have to endure pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding — they need to hedge their bets against selecting a dud to be the father.

In recent years, the emergence of speed dating has given psychologists, economists and political scientists new ways to test this and other hypotheses about mating. Because participants can be randomly assigned to groups and have no prior information about other participants, three-minute speed-dating sessions are about as close to a controlled experiment as researchers are likely to get.

Now, two scientists at Northwestern University have published an experiment that challenges the evolutionary hypothesis. The study by Eli J. Finkel and Paul W. Eastwick was published last month in the journal Psychological Science.The experiment looked at speed-dating sessions to determine whether men or women were choosier. The answer, it turned out, was neither. Regardless of gender, people who were instructed to approach other daters were less selective — that is, they were more likely to ask to meet later for a date.

Dr. Finkel and Mr. Eastwick write that this does not mean men were just as selective as women. But the scientists suggest that the explanation for the gap lies in social conditioning rather than evolution.

By making the first move, a person gains confidence and then finds more people attractive, the theory goes. Culturally, men are expected to approach women more often, which may boost their confidence and make them less selective. Citing what social psychologists call the scarcity principle, Mr. Eastwick and Dr. Finkel write that “individuals tend to place less value on objects or opportunities that are plentiful than those that are rare.” By contrast, they say, women are accustomed to being approached, which may make them feel more desirable and thus more selective.

Scientists have also used speed-dating experiments to examine the tendency for people to mate with people like themselves. A 2006 paper by economists at the University of Essex in England analyzed data from 3,600 male and female speed daters to see if people selected mates with similar traits, like height and education, because that is what they prefer or because they are most likely to encounter them in the dating market.

The economists, Michèle Belot and Marco Francesconi, found that men’s preferences for occupation, height and smoking had little effect on whom they asked out. Those factors also did not matter to women, but age did.

In homogeneous environments, Dr. Belot and Dr. Francesconi wrote, people are more likely to marry others like themselves, while more diverse communities are likely to produce more varied pairings.
“Mating requires meeting,” they wrote. “The pool of potential partners shapes the type of people to whom subjects propose and ultimately with whom they form long-term relationships.”

People narrow their market opportunities, the economists suggested, by selecting for height, weight and age, which tend to be proxies for socioeconomic status.

So how does a person increase the odds of crossing paths with someone who matches his or her preferences? Maybe by tapping into social networks. In “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives,” a book to be published in September, Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James H. Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, argue that dating is not a random process.

They cite a landmark 1992 Chicago sex survey of 3,432 adults ages 18 to 59, which found that 68 percent of married people in the survey reported meeting their spouse through a friend, family member or other mutual acquaintance.

“If you are single and you know 20 people reasonably well, and if each of them knows 20 other people, and each of them knows 20 other people,” Dr. Christakis and Dr. Fowler write, “then you are connected to 8,000 people who are three degrees away. And one of them is likely to be your future spouse.”


Aug. 7, 2016 Age gap: I found this on Yahoo:

Couples with five years apart were 18% more likely to break up than partners of the same age, and ten years between partners meant a 39% higher chance of a split.

Things look even worse for lovers who are twenty years apart, who were found to have a 95% chance of going their separate ways. In contrast, a one year gap gave you just a 3% of breaking up.

But, reassuringly, Hugo Mialon, one of the study’s researchers, said: “It could just be that the types of couples with those characteristics are the types of couples who are, on average, more likely to divorce for other reasons.”

Don’t panic, there’s no need to go narrowing your age range on Tinder just yet

https://ca.style.yahoo.com/this-is-the-ideal-relationship-age-gap-according-100041554.html

My week:

Sept. 18, 2017 Resume tip: I had went to TopResume and they did a free critique of my resume.  They said "References: Available on request" should be removed.

My brother P said he has that on his resume, and I'm sure a lot of people do too.

I removed it from my resumes.  I also changed a line in my cover letter.

Ziprecruiter: Have you heard of this job website?  I signed up earlier this year.  They seem to be sending the same job ads like for Sykes Canada where you work from home.

This website is not good.

Sykes Canada: I click on the Ziprecruiter ad and it leads to this Careebuilder website:


http://www.careerbuilder.ca/jobs/customer-service/edmonton/customer-service-representative-work-from-home/j9076p6q5ywhfqmncql/?showNewJDP=yes&utm_campaign=publisher-delta&SiteID=sep_cbc004_delta&utm_source=ziprecruiter.com&utm_medium=aggregator


Careerbuilder.ca: There seem to be a lot of staffing agencies on this site.  Lots of job sites have staffing agencies listed, but there are companies there too.  CareerBuilder.ca, you have to really look for a job ad that is from a company.

Sept. 19, 2017 Applify: Today I found this website for companies and people who are looking for job applicants:


Pay-Per-Applicant

Manage costs by only paying when someone applies.

http://www.applify.ca/

Kijiji: This is the website I go to everyday and look for a job.  I have gotten jobs and job interviews from there.

Indeed: This is the website I go to everyday and look for a job.  I have gotten job interviews here.

Monster: Now I'm going through my emails where I get these job alerts.  There are lots of staffing agencies too.  There are lots of companies, but I can go to that company's website and apply there. 

I don't usually go to this site, so that's why I'm going to it now.  I have never gotten job interviews here because I don't go to this site. 

Sept. 20, 2017 Workopolis: Have you ever gotten a job or job interview from this site? 

I don't usually go to this site, so that's why I'm going to it now.  I have never gotten job interviews here because I don't go to this site. 

Job articles: I mentioned that I read the Edmonton Journal and the Globe and Mail to read  job articles and tips on how to get a job. 

Are there other websites where I can read good job articles?

Workopolis does email me some articles.

https://careers.workopolis.com/category/interviewing/

Sept. 22, 2017 Monster: This is a good article:


Chan International Model and Talent Agency: This is probably the most interesting thing that happened to me all week.  On Tues. night I got a call on my cell phone from them.  Last month I had stopped by their table and filled out an application and had my photo taken when I was at West Ed mall to pass out resumes.

I did want to be an actor as a kid and teen.  Then my parents wouldn't let me go to Victoria Performing Arts school and then I decided to become a TV writer and producer.

I then went to the appointment.  The receptionist told me that 60 people were at the booth, and I was the top 20 who got a free $1200 scholarship to go to this modeling/ acting class.

I went to the appointment and got more info.  It turns out 2 people got the full scholarship of $2000 to have free 10 classes (1hr and 30 min) for 10 weeks.  They're at night on a Sat. or Sun. The other 18 would have to pay $800 and a $75 admin. fee.

I talked to the president of it, Mary Chan.  She seems nice.

The class was about how the modeling business works, etiquette, how to meet clients and read commercial scripts.  This is Edmonton so the work would be part-time.

My opinion: I thought I was going to have free classes and instead I would have to pay $800 for it. 

If I were to spend a lot of money on something, the questions are:

1. How much do you really need this?
2. How much do you really want this?

These are classes so the questions are:

1. Are these skills and what you learn really helpful?

It comes down to that I'm not that interested in modeling to take this class.  I am not that interested in putting time, effort, and money into this.

Filmmakers meetup: It's not like going to these fun meetings to talk about filmmaking, TV and movies.  30 min. bus ride.  1 hr of hanging out.

Pupillary: Word Origin


adjective
1.
of or relating to a pupil or student.


Midnight, Texas: I saw the whole first season.  It was average and fun to watch.  If it gets a season 2, I may watch it if it comes out during the summer.  This site says it has a low chance of getting renewed. 

https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/midnight-texas-nbc-cancelled-renewed-season-two/

21 Thunder: I saw the whole first season.   It was average and fun to watch.  If it gets a season 2, I may watch it if it comes out during the summer.  I only watch it for Edmonton actor Kyle Mac.  If he's in the 2nd season, I would probably watch it.

Sept. 24, 2017 Somewhere Between: I just finished watching the season 1 finale.  It was really good.  I went into the show with low expectations and it was fun and entertaining.

There is lots of mystery and running around.  If there is 2nd season I would probably watch it.

TV comparisons: 

A group of teens or twenty- somethings are partying.  One or all of them either kill or accidentally kill someone and they all have to cover it up.  They all cover it up because their futures and lives are at stake:

I saw this on in the movie I Know What You did Last Summer and the TV movie What We Did That Night.  I really had to look up that TV movie.  I remembered Tara Reid was in it:

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0170801/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_50

It was done on the TV shows Castle and The Mentalist.  It was also done on the Veronica Mars movie.

I want to add:

There is a picture or film of all the friends killing or doing something bad at the time of murder to implicate them:

It was done on Somewhere Between and the Veronica Mars movie. 

This site says there is a low chance it will be renewed.

Greyston Holt: This actor who plays Kyle stood out the most to me.  He was a supporting character who played guy who was bad and good at the same time.  There was depth to him. I have seen him before on other shows like Durham County, but on this show he really stood out to me.

It says here he is from Calgary and his birthday is Sept. 30, 1985.


https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/somewhere-between-cancelled-renewed-season-two-abc/

Zoo: I also saw the season 3 finale.  I liked it.  The show is so crazy and full of action.  The show is very global and the characters have to save the world.

"Despite a 30% drop in the ratings, CBS chose to renew its Zoo TV show for a third season, rather than cancel it. Can the network turn things around and regain some audience, or will this  summer TV series go the way of the Dodo? Will Zoo be cancelled or renewed for season four? Stay tuned."

https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/zoo-season-three-ratings/


Monday, September 18, 2017

job experts/ "Negotiating and evaluating job offers"

Jun. 2, 2017 Job experts:

Teen magazines: I have read a little bit of job advice from them.  It's for teen girls who are mainly applying for entry jobs in retail and restaurants.

Women magazines: I have read Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan that do have a page for job advice.

Newspapers: I usually get all my job advice from reading the business section of the newspaper.  I became very job- oriented when I was laid off from the Soup place in 2010, the Year of Unemployment. 

I was reading the business section of the Edmonton Journal, the Globe and Mail and the National Post everyday.  My family subscribed to all 3 newspapers.  In April 2013, my dad cancelled the National Post subscription.  I also read the 24 News up to Aug. 2013 until they closed down.

Then I replaced 24 with the Metro.  Then in May 2015, I stopped reading the Metro.  I will only read the Globe and Mail and the Edmonton Journal.  The job advice is good from these newspapers.

It is from CEOs, managers, entrepreneurs, business writers and journalists, statistics, studies, colleges and universities.

Most of the knowledge is helpful and I can apply it.

Job newsletters: When I was writing the above, it made me think about some job newsletters I get in my email like:

Job Boom
Monster
Alberta Job Centre

I also remember Talent Egg articles printed in the Metro.

This is making me go into my old emails.  I see that the newsletters I got from Job Boom in 2013 and 2014.  I clicked on the links so I can read the whole story, and the link doesn't work.  When I want to read old stories from the Globe and Mail and other newspapers, I can access it and read it.

Jun. 6, 2017 "Make me an offer!  Tips on negotiating and evaluating job offers": I found this from CAPS- the University of Alberta Career Centre.  I went there for this seminar in 2011.  I was the only one there.  I never went to that school as a student.  I got this power point presentation and hand out here that I will type up:

Seminar outline:

Preparing to evaluate or negotiate an offer of employment

Responding to the initial offer

Evaluating the offer

Negotiate?  No?  Yes?

Negotiating tips

Accepting or refusing the offer

Determining the dollar value of your work:

Research the prevailing rate of pay for your type of work

Salaries will differ depending on:

-Experience
-size of organization
-geographical location
-labor market conditions

Jun. 8, 2017:

Sources of information:

-Professional associations
-Your professional network
-Collective agreements
-Salary surveys: career centres, Internet
-Your past experience
-Ads for similar positions

www.wowjobs.ca/salary.aspx

www.alis.alberta.ca/wageinfo

www.salaryexpert.com -USA

What's your bottom line?

Reflecting your budgetary needs and average salaries, your negotiation range starts a little higher that your bottom line and extends to a figure (within reason) that would make you very happy! 

Initial Response to an Offer of Employment:

Congratulations!  You have an offer!

Here's how to respond:

-Express enthusiasm
-Ask for time to consider
-Emphasize the importance of the decision
-Clarify the offer

How to Evaluate the Offer:

Ask yourself:

-Is this position and organization right for me at this point in my career?

Consider:

-the job itself
-career implications
-salary, perks, benefits

Questions about the job:

Will I enjoy my daily tasks?
Are working conditions pleasant?
Am I likely to get along with my supervisor?  Colleagues?
Will I need to make major lifestyle changes if I take this job?
Am I comfortable with the level of responsibility?

Consider Career Implications:

Will this job enable me to move forward with my career goals?
How interested am I in the organizations' business?
Does the organization have a good reputation?
What are the career prospects in the sector likely to be in 5 yrs?

Consider: Salary, benefits, perks

Is the compensation package competitive?
What % of the benefits package will I need to pay for?
How generous are the perks- stock options, signing bonus, education allowances, etc.

Should I negotiate?

Consider:

Your temperament
The importance of the issues
Your alternatives
Your assessment of the organization's norms and alternatives

Something to think about?

We spend years in school.  We spend a large sum of money getting that education.  We spend hours writing resumes and cover letters and interviewing.  But when we get to the last detail-money, perks, and benefits- we usually negotiate this in less than 5 min. -Suzanne Green, management speaker

Why so reluctant to negotiate?

Applicants are:

Uncomfortable putting a dollar value on skills
Afraid that negotiating will jeopardize job offer
Ill-prepared to negotiate

Postponing salary talks:

What salary range do you have in mind?
I would consider any reasonable offer
I didn't realize we were ready to discuss salary so soon.  I'd feel more comfortable after we're both sure we have a fit.

Negotiation tips:

Begin negotiating by "bracketing" -give a salary range
Be prepared to justify "the high end"
Offer too low? -ask for more- with discretion

Say: "I'm flexible"

This is a cordial discussion
Some salaries aren't very negotiable
Negotiate on objective grounds
Raise all your issues at the beginning of your negotiations

Ask: "Is that open to negotiation?"

Establish a negotiation style
Express enthusiasm throughout the negotiations
Recognize a firm offer
Ask for a commitment to review salary in 6 months

Accepting a job offer:

Expect to sign a written confirmation which features:

The job title
The starting date
Salary information

Read carefully, the signed document is legally blinding

Inform other potential employers that you are "off the market"

A perplexing situation:

You receive an offer from Organization A while waiting to hear from Organization B, your preferred workplace.

What do you do?

Contact Organization B to inform that that you have an offer but are still interested in their company.  Inquire about your status.

Declining a job offer

Explain why you are declining
Express thanks
Leave the door open for future work opportunities

Jun. 13, 2017 Job information and knowledge: I have been reading the business section of the newspapers since 2010.  It has been 7 yrs of reading about jobs, careers and business.

In 2011- the Year of the Office Job Search
In 2012- the Year of New Directions (looking for an office job and some temp jobs)

It got me to 2013- the Year of the Office Job.  I worked there for 5 months.

I was then dismissed because I wasn't good enough in handling customers.  I then put that job on my resume and it was a boost to it.

In 2014, the Year of Education and Research.  I was looking for an office job, and then I was researching every college program at MacEwan.  I then looked at programs at other colleges like NAIT.

You can see all this on my blog posts.

It then lead me to 2015- the Year of the Office Job and Dating (and Decluttering).  The office job was the home installation place for 3 months.  The dating was my speed dating events I went to.  Decluttering was the side thing where I put up every job article I ever cut out onto my blog.  I then gave all the physical news articles to my co-worker Je.

Job articles: You probably can't tell, but I have mainly posted most of those old job articles on my blog.  Old as in from 2007-2015.

Book reviews: These are the other articles I post.  The creative ones.

I have 500 something emails/ blog posts saved into my drafts account.

I can not send/ post all of them at once.  I can only send/ post 3 emails/ blog posts a week.

So some emails/ posts may seem dated.

Jun. 28, 2017 Job search complaints: I may have wrote about this before.  It was back in 2006 when I got laid off at Call Centre #1 and then worked at the Office Supply store.  I then got an interview to work at Chapters at West Ed.

I did the interview there.  Chapters is a good fit for me because I really like to read and write.  However, I did not get hired.

That is okay.  I then got hired at Call Centre #2 which was a really good fit for me.  If I had gotten hired at Chapters and then got to work at Call Centre #2, I would quit Chapters to work at Call Centre #2.