"Five steps to get people on board with big initiatives"/ customer complaints

Aug. 30, 2017 "Five steps to get people on board with big initiatives": Today I found this article by Brian Scudamore in the Globe and Mail:

Rolling out a new idea is tricky, but you can avoid major headaches as long as you have a plan and involve employees in the process

Imagine that herding cats is a lot like running a franchise network. We’ve spent three decades perfecting our systems, but it still takes constant effort and communication to keep a team of 4,000 people aligned. When we have to roll out new initiatives, things can get complicated.

In 2012, we decided to make our first foray into radio marketing. At first, not everyone could see the value – myself included. We’d always done our own PR, and our main form of advertising was driving around in our branded 1-800-GOT-JUNK? trucks. The way I figured it, why should we pay for expensive radio spots when we can advertise for free?

Many of our franchise partners agreed, but a few forward-thinkers convinced us that we had to embrace paid media to take our brand to the next level.

It took patience, strategy, teamwork and trust, and while it wasn’t easy, it’s been one of the most profitable business decisions we’ve ever made.

Rolling out a new idea is tricky in any organization. But you can avoid major headaches as long as you have a plan and involve your people in the process. Here are the five steps you must take to effectively introduce any new program.

1. Have a clearly defined strategy

To get buy-in, the key is to be straight-up about how everyone will benefit (and what they stand to lose). In the case of our radio campaigns, our goal was to reach local markets by maximizing the frequency, reach and consistency of our ads.

The benefit was massive growth and brand awareness; the potential loss would be missing out on this huge opportunity. But our plan wouldn’t work without the right person. We needed someone whose style matched our company’s quirky personality, so we found the Wizard of Ads (a.k.a. Roy H. Williams). His work isn’t loved by everyone. You know those over-the-top Spence Diamonds commercials? We hired that guy.

His magical thinking and proven track record perfectly matched what we were after, and once he was on board, he set a strategy we all bought into.

2. Prove it’s working – then keep on proving it

It’s one thing to talk about hypothetical results; it’s another to provide evidence of success. To keep people excited and moving in the right direction, you need to prove your program is working.

Several of our top franchises volunteered to be our guinea pigs and invest in a 14-week radio campaign. The ads took off unexpectedly fast, and, encouraged by the early success, our largest franchise committed to a 52-week test campaign. In its first year with ads, our Toronto franchise saw an increase in revenue we couldn’t have predicted.

Seeing those results, more and more of our franchise partners opted to launch their own radio programs. Now, we have more than 60-per-cent buy-in to the strategy.

If you’re testing an unproven plan, start small, experiment and validate your idea. A more clearly-planned start will lead to wider acceptance in the long run.

3. Continuous communication and training are key

In a franchise system with a million moving parts, communication and alignment are absolutely critical. To ensure we stay on the same page, we have a team in the field available to help our franchise partners adapt to major changes, plus weekly phone calls and newsletters.

By keeping the lines of communication open, we’re able to identify and react quickly to challenges. We have people designated as the main contact for new programs (such as our radio campaigns) to ensure a smooth roll-out for everyone involved.

Our hands-on approach to communication allows us to consistently monitor success and support our franchise partners when they have questions or doubts.

4. Be patient – change takes time

The success of our radio ads didn’t happen overnight; we almost called it quits a few months into the program. The Wizard calls this the “chickeningout period,” when people drop off even though they’re about to turn the corner.

In radio, it’s been statistically proven that if you hold on past 12 weeks, the program will take a turn for the better.

Whether you’re implementing a new hiring process or transitioning to new software, there will be times that you’ll question why you did it, and you might even want to give up altogether. Don’t! If you’re ready to quit, you could be on the verge of success.

5. Don’t listen to doubters

Our radio ads have inspired some very strong opinions. People either love the campy quirkiness, or they absolutely hate it. We get an endless barrage of less-than-favourable responses on our social media. Do we care? Heck no! Because what makes our ads annoying also makes them work.

No matter what, when you introduce new programs, there will inevitably be naysayers – employees and customers alike. But if you trust your instincts, take a risk and can prove your case, the opportunity for reward is more than worth the challenge.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-alberta-edition/20170830/281968902822944

"This is what happens when an angry customer complains": Today I found this article by Roy Osing in the Globe and Mail: 

Roy Osing is a former executive vice-president of Telus, blogger, educator, coach, adviser and the author of the book series Be Different or Be Dead.

Is dealing with customer complaints really a leadership issue? Absolutely.

Every customer complaint is disguised as an opportunity to improve the strategic position of an organization, as long as it is dealt with the right way.

Leaders should treat complaint handling as a priority. Service recovery is a loyalty builder.

If an organization recovers from a complaint exceedingly well, customer loyalty is enhanced. It's counterintuitive, but if you recover well, the customer is more pleased than if you had never made the mistake in the first place.

Complaint recovery means fixing the mistake fast and surprising the customer with what they don't expect.

When you have committed a service error, the customer expects their complaint to be rectified, but it must be done quickly.

If immediate action is not taken, the benefits of recovery are lost, and the customer typically broadcasts far and wide how disastrous your service is.

But even if the error is dealt with expeditiously, loyalty remains unchanged; loyalty is deepened only if the second complaint recovery step is taken – surprising the customer.

That surprise is the magic dust that leaves the awestruck, bonding them to you more than they were before the incident. Fixing the mistake fast maintains their loyalty level; surprising them pushes it even higher.

Complaint recovery is all about attention to details.

Remember these five best practices next time you're facing a frustrated customer.

1. Apologize, regardless of whose fault it is. Trying to blame the customer for the event won't get you anywhere. Apologize for the impact the event had on the customer. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you" is a way to move forward into the recovery process without having to admit culpability.

2. Never quote company policy. People don't care about your policies, and telling them that they should have behaved differently will only anger them even more.

3. Never have the issue referred to a supervisor as a means of control; empower your employees to solve the problem then and there. This gives your employees currency in the customer's eyes and enables fast resolution of the complaint.

4. Never use common "trash and trinket" items as the customer surprise. People hate them. Develop a list of more personal surprise tokens that employees can choose from depending on what they learn about the customer during the complaint experience.

5. Have a real person standing by any of your self-serve applications. Complaint recovery cannot be suitably handled through automated systems. When is the last time you enjoyed being served by technology – like an automated voice-messaging system – when you had a problem with an organization?

If leaders make recovery from negative customer experiences a priority, their organization wIll most definitely stand out from the crowd.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-lab/this-is-what-happens-when-an-angry-customer-complains/article36039746/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

Disgusted with The Globe
3 days ago

Bang on Roy - too bad these steps are even more alien to the public sector than the private sector.

2 Reactions

jphrycak

3 days ago

It is important to have a common understanding of what a customer complaint is. Too often what a customer believes is a complaint is not perceived as one, therefore not acted upon, by company staff and/or upper management.

barrister

3 days ago

Excellent approach but can we actually practice what we preach?

Joe Shlabotnick

3 days ago

"trash and trinket"?

DennisCasaccio

3 days ago

The management of any thinking organization would have already adopted this strategy; unfortunately they don't think and treat their customers with contempt.

If any of their senior managers took the time to call their company's helpline with a typical issue their atitude would soon change. Or, perhaps they just don't give a damn because virtually all of their competitors are equally inept at customer service thus keeping "churn" rates within acceptable limits.

I have not found the public sector to be worse in this regard but often the same and sometimes better.

JEJT

3 days ago

Do you think Calin Rovinescu the CEO of Air Canada is reading this?

1 Reactions

rusty55

3 days ago

I have found the large Canadian companies like bell, Rogers, Canadian tire etc. etc. to be the worst at solving complaints. The only company that really solves any complaint or problem is Costco and on-line Amazon

"Dispelling tech's myth of the loner genius"/ coding education

Aug. 16, 2017 "Dispelling tech's myth of the loner genius": Today I found this article by Claire Cain Miller in the Globe and Mail: 

Computer-programmer stereotype can deter talented coders from industry that demands teamwork, communication and empathy

The Google engineer who was fired last week over his memo wrote that most women were biologically unsuited to working in tech because they were more focused on “feelings and aesthetics than ideas” and had “a stronger interest in people rather than things.”

Many scientists have said he got the biology wrong. But the job requirements of today’s programmers show he was also wrong about working in tech.

In fact, interpersonal skills such as collaboration, communication, empathy and emotional intelligence are essential to the job. The myth that programming is done by loner men who think only rationally and communicate only with their computers harms the tech industry in ways that cut straight to the bottom line.

The loner stereotype can deter talented people from the industry – not just women, but anyone who thinks that sounds like an unattractive job description. It can also result in dysfunctional teams and poorly performing products. Empathy, after all, is crucial to understanding consumers’ desires, and its absence leads to product mistakes.

Take digital assistants, such as Google Home or Amazon Echo. Their programmers need to be able to imagine a huge variety of home situations, whether households with roommates or abusive spouses or children – as made clear when a child ordered a $160 (U.S.) dollhouse and four pounds of sugar cookies on the Echo.

“Basically every step is very collaborative,” said Tracy Chou, who was an engineer at Pinterest and Quora and is now working on startups. “Building a big software system, you could have dozens or hundreds or thousands of engineers working on the same code base, and everything still has to work together.”

She added, “But not everyone is the same, and that’s where empathy and broader diversity really help.”

The memo distinguished between empathizing with other people’s feelings and analyzing and constructing systems, and said coding is about the latter. But it requires both, as do most of the jobs that are increasing in number and in wages, according to economic research.

Jobs that require a combination of math and social skills – such as computer science, financial management and nursing – have fared best in the modern economy, found David Deming, a professor at Harvard.

It’s true that programming can be a solitary activity in college computer science classes or entry-level positions. But soon after, it’s impossible to avoid teamwork – with the business or legal departments, but also with other engineers.

Computer programming was originally considered a woman’s job. Women were programmers of the ENIAC during the Second World War and at NASA, as shown in the film Hidden Figures. That began to change when programming professionalized in the 1960s. The stereotype of an eccentric genius who would rather work with machines than people was born, according to Nathan Ensmenger, a historian at Indiana University who studies the cultural history of the software industry.

Yet, that was never an accurate description of the job. It was social from the beginning, in university computer labs and, later, Silicon Valley garages, he said. The social circle just didn’t include women.

“For a lot of these young men, a certain computer culture becomes an expression of masculinity,” he said. “These are people who aren’t doing physical labour, aren’t playing professional sports.

But they can express their masculinity by intense competition, playing pranks on one another, demonstrating their technical prowess, in ways that don’t translate well to mixed-gender environments.”

The mythology of the antisocial programmer is self-perpetuating, said Yonatan Zunger, a senior engineering leader at Google until this month, when he joined Humu, a startup.

Early on, children who are less comfortable with social interaction – particularly boys, who are more likely to be socialized that way – are channelled toward science and engineering, he said. Teachers generally focus on the technical aspects and not the interpersonal ones. The result is a field filled with people who dislike social interactions and have been rewarded for it.

Silicon Valley culture encourages it. Google calls engineers who aren’t managers “individual contributors.” Technical skills are valued above soft skills or business skills. “Anyone who deals with a human being is considered less intelligent,” said Ellen Ullman, a software programmer and author of a new book, Life in Code.

“You would think it would be the other way around, but the more your work is just talking to the machine, the more valuable it is.”

Problems arise when engineers get to a point in their careers when they’re required to demonstrate social skills, Mr. Zunger said, such as understanding diverse points of view, building consensus and reading people’s subtle cues. “Suddenly they’re told that these skills that are their weak point might be really important,” he said. “Their own value is in question.”

In the tech industry, the lack of interpersonal skills has become a weakness and a liability.

Technical skills without empathy have resulted in products that have bombed in the market, because a vital step to building a product is the ability to imagine how someone else might think and feel.

“The failure rate in software development is enormous, but it almost never means the code doesn’t work,” Mr. Ensmenger said. “It doesn’t solve the problem that actually exists, or it imagines a user completely different from actual users.”

With Google Glass, for example, it was a technical feat to make a tiny computer you could wear as a pair of glasses. But the product wasn’t one that typical people needed or wanted.

When Apple introduced its Health app, it tracked sleep, exercise, food, medications and heart rate, but not menstrual cycle. Yet, period trackers are one of the most used health tools for women. (The app now includes it.)

Google Plus, the company’s social network, initially required that users make public their name, photo and gender. There was a technical argument for including gender – to construct sentences such as “She shared a photo with you” – but it also exposed women to online harassment.

“The team that made this decision was entirely male,” said Mr. Zunger, who was the chief architect of social networking at Google at the time. “It was a really clear case of getting things wrong, for the simple reason that the people in the room weren’t diverse enough to notice an obvious problem.”

When engineers build products with empathy, it can seem like magic: Technology seems to predict what people want before they know they want it. That was part of Steve Jobs’s genius. Just look at the number of people connected to their phones.

One way to develop empathy at companies is by hiring diverse teams, because people bring different perspectives and life experiences. But the more widespread the stereotypes like those in the Google memo, the harder it becomes.

When people hear negative stereotypes about the skills of a group to which they belong, they are less likely to pursue those skills, according to a variety of research. In a study by Shelley Correll, a sociologist at Stanford, when participants were told that men had a higher ability to complete a task, women said they were less competent at the task and less likely to enter a field that required it. When they were told that men and women were equally good at it, those differences disappeared.

“That nerd identity is really damaging to women,” Mr. Ensmenger said, “but it’s also damaging to minorities and to a lot of men who don’t want to subsume their identity in that.”

That’s why the consequences of the Google engineer’s memo could reach far beyond the particular case, influencing which young people choose to go into technology, and which products they make that affect every aspect of our lives.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-ottawaquebec-edition/20170816/282153586388997

Aug. 26, 2017 "Coding education reboots as camps close": Today I found this article by Steve Lohr in the Globe and Mail:

The existing business model for digital skills development is in flux as purveyors find industry requirements of graduates are shifting

In the past five years, dozens of schools have popped up offering an unusual promise: Even humanities graduates can learn how to code in a few months and join the high-paying digital economy. Students and their hopeful parents shelled out as much as $26,000 (U.S.) seeking to jumpstart a career.

But the coding boot-camp field now faces a sobering moment, as two large schools in the United States have announced plans to shut down this year – despite backing by major for-profit education companies, Kaplan and the Apollo Education Group, the parent of the University of Phoenix.

The closings are a sign that years of heady growth led to a boot-camp glut, and that the field could be in the early stages of a shakeout.

“You can imagine this becoming a big industry, but not for 90 companies,” said Michael Horn, a principal consultant at Entangled Solutions, an education research and consulting firm.

The demand from employers is shifting and the schools must adapt. Many boot camps have not evolved beyond courses in basic web development, but companies are now often looking for more advanced coding skills.

One of the casualties, Dev Bootcamp, was a pioneer. It started in San Francisco in 2012 and grew to six schools with more than 3,000 graduates. Only three years ago, Kaplan, the biggest supplier of test-preparation courses, bought Dev Bootcamp and pledged bold expansion.

It is now closing at the end of the year.

Also closing is the Iron Yard, a boot camp that was founded in Greenville, S.C., in 2013 and swiftly spread to 15 campuses, from Las Vegas to Washington. Its main financial backer is the Apollo Education Group.

Since 2013, the number of bootcamp schools in the United States has tripled to more than 90 and the number of graduates will reach nearly 23,000 in 2017, a 10fold jump from 2013, according to Course Report, which tracks the industry.

Tarlin Ray, who became president of Dev Bootcamp in April, said in an e-mail that the school offered “a high-quality program” that helped thousands of people join the high-tech economy. “But we were simply unable to find a sustainable business model,” he wrote.

Iron Yard echoed that theme. In an e-mail, Lelia King, a spokeswoman, said that while students benefited, the company was “ultimately unable to sustain our current business model.”

Boot-camp courses, aimed at adults, vary in length and cost. Some can take 26 weeks or more, and tuition can reach $26,000. The average course length is a little more than 14 weeks and the average cost is $11,400, according to Course Report.

The successful schools, analysts say, will increasingly be ones that expand their programs to suit the changing needs of employers. Some have already added courses such as data science, artificial intelligence, digital marketing and project management. Other steps include tailoring courses for corporations, who need to update the skills of their workers, or develop online courses.

Ryan Craig, a managing director at University Ventures, which invests in education startups, including Galvanize, a large boot camp, predicted that the overall market would still grow. But students, he said, would become more concentrated in the schools with the best reputations and job-placement rates.

The promise of boot camps is that they are on-ramps to good jobs. But rapid expansion into new cities can leave little time to forge ties with nearby companies, the hiring market for boot-camp graduates, said Liz Eggleston, cofounder of Course Report.

That message was underlined by Mr. Ray of Dev Bootcamp. While he would not discuss specifics about what happened to his school, he wrote: “We do think that as the boot-camp industry continues on, it will be important to create stronger alignment with employers.”

Some boot camps cater directly to corporate customers. General Assembly, which operates 20 coding campuses and has raised $119-million in venture financing, now works with more than 100 large companies on programs to equip their employees with digital skills

“Employer-paid programs are now a big slice of the pie” for General Assembly, about half of its business, said Jake Schwartz, its chief executive.

At Galvanize, Jim Deters, the chairman, said he recently stepped aside as chief executive to concentrate on getting more business from corporations. This year, Galvanize will have 2,000 students who pay their own tuition, and about 1,500 people in its programs tailored to – and paid for by – companies such as IBM, Allstate and McKesson.

“The business reskilling marketplace has become one of our biggest drivers of growth,” Mr. Deters said.

Kaplan is not closing Metis, a data science boot camp, which has corporate training programs.

Several boot camps are deploying “blended” models with both in-person and online teaching. Entirely online courses, in theory, could deliver rapid, profitable growth. But that is a different model from the immersive, faceto-face learning that has been the hallmark of the boot-camp experience.

“Online boot camp is an oxymoron,” said Mr. Craig of University Ventures. “No one has figured out how to do that yet.”

The Flatiron School in New York may have discovered one path. Founded in 2012, Flatiron has a single campus in downtown Manhattan and its main offering is a 15-week immersive coding program with a $15,000 price tag. More than 95 per cent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-alberta-edition/20170826/282033327325036

"Harnessing the power of positive emotions"/ Hire disabled staff

May 4, 2015  "Harnessing the power of positive emotions": I cut out this article by Eileen Chadnick in the Globe and Mail on Oct. 25, 2013.  It's a business article, but I would also file it under health.

Jon and Solange are both on the short list for a promotion at work. Jon has more experience and technical know-how. Solange is newer to the job but is known for her exceptionally positive attitude and a track record of resilience, even in stressful conditions. Who has the greater edge?

Before minimizing Solange’s positive attitude as a soft skill, think again. Positivity matters, and in recent years a great deal of science has affirmed that positivity can bolster one’s capacity for critical thinking, resilience, personal growth and, ultimately, greater well-being and success.

Positivity is a very brain- and body-friendly emotion, conducive to bringing our best to our work. How so?

According to Barbara Fredrickson, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, positivity does more than just replace bad thoughts with good ones.

The pre-eminent scholar on the science of positive emotions says the right dose of positivity can actually change how we think and, over time, even increase our success in life.

In her books, Positivity and Love 2.0, Prof. Fredrickson attributes this to her “broaden and build” theory, based on more than 20 years of research:

BROADEN

Positivity can broaden your mind and open your heart, thus making you more creative and open to new perspectives, she found. A positive attitude can also boost critical thinking skills and ultimately help you to see more possibilities, too. Conversely, negative emotions (such as fear and worry) can limit your thinking and narrow your mindset.

BUILD

People who practise positivity are more apt to build new skills and social connections, acquire new knowledge and reach for bigger goals. Over time, this can create an upward spiral of effectiveness and success.

Paradoxically, whereas negative emotions tend to stick and endure, positive emotions don’t reside in a permanent state. They can be fleeting. To reap the rewards of positivity, one needs to create a steady supply of positive emotions over time.

Prof. Fredrickson is currently teaching a class on the science of positivity through the training organization

MentorCoach. (Disclosure: I am a participant.) In a recent lecture, she said positive emotions are more than “icing on the cake” but rather essential nutrients needed for success and well-being.

How much is enough? The more the better, but it turns out the the ideal ratio is at least three positive emotions per negative one. This ratio distinguishes those who thrive from those who merely get by, or worse, languish.

There are many ways to experience more positivity in your life – even when circumstances are challenging.

Here are a few ideas that might be helpful:

Commit: Much as people must commit to eating better or exercising more, they must commit to bringing more positivity into their daily lives. Often this calls for reframing situations or trying new perspectives.

Diversify: Prof. Fredrickson cites 10 positive emotions that have been proven to bolster well-being: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love.

Savour: Slow down and enjoy the positive moments – and then savour them again by capturing them in a journal. Identify at least three good things that happened in any given day and talk about them with others. See the rewards compound as you replay them.

Connect: Prof. Fredrickson says the most powerful of all the emotions is “positivity resonance,” when two or more people share a positive emotion. A passing smile, a shared joke, a moment of celebration – the possibilities are endless and can happen with anyone, not just people you know well.

Tap inside: We can have an infinite supply of positivity if we empower ourselves to tap into our internal well. Those who rely only on good things happening externally will find themselves struggling in times of challenge. Positivity can be just a thought away.

Rinse and repeat: It takes repetition to build new habits and to rewire our brains to have a more positive outlook. The good news is that our brains have a tremendous ability to build new neural pathways. You can indeed teach an old dog new tricks if you try.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/harnessing-the-power-of-positive-emotions/article15056756/

"Why you aren't happy at work": I cut out this article by Leah Eichler in the Globe and Mail on Oct. 26, 2013.

Twenty years ago, I saw a play that changed my life. (Yes, good theatre can have that effect.) It was called Escape from Happiness by Canadian playwright George F. Walker and it not only launched my life-long love of theatre but, true to its title, it opened my 18-year-old eyes to the part of the human condition that craves misery.

How do we manage to get into so many situations that make us unhappy? It never ceases to amaze me how my career-driven friends and acquaintances continue to make choices they know will render them miserable. Admittedly, I’m not immune to this.

It took me years to tell a former colleague that his incessant e-mails were slowly driving me mad. Now, I pay attention to my own happiness quotient and weed out aspects of my work that negatively affect it.

Yet, so many of us continue to wallow in roles and occupations that render us miserable. Don’t believe me? Then check out a recent Gallup poll, which showed that a lucky 13 per cent of employees worldwide feel engaged at work. The rest just shuffle through their days or completely disengage and spread their malaise to others.

Here’s my theory – we don’t expect to find happiness at work, so we don’t. Many of us spend our working hours knowingly undertaking a Dilbertesque exercise in futility and frustration. We may think we’re soldiering on bravely, but frankly, this unhappiness is bad for business and the economy. It’s time to stop escaping from happiness.

According to this year’s United Nations World Happiness Report, happy people live longer, are more productive, earn more and are better citizens. The report suggests that countries should place as much emphasis on citizens’ mental health as on economic growth. (Canada ranks sixth on the world happiness scale. The United States came in at 17th, just after Mexico.)

Perhaps it’s time to rethink our approach to our work-life happiness quotient. Forget balance. I’m convinced that if we enjoyed what we did more, the time between punching in and out would feel less like suffering. But before embracing happiness as an important contributor to productivity and profits, we need to define it.

That’s easier said than done, according to Rachel Schipper, chief executive officer and founder of Toronto-based Curated Wellness, a firm that provides wellness workshops for companies as well as individual coaching. Ms. Schipper, who spent five years as a lawyer on Wall Street, argues that happiness is not a matter of ticking off a series of boxes – and says a prestigious job, nice house and good marriage may not do the trick.

“I meet an awful lot of professionals who have all of these things and aren’t happy, and moreover don’t know what would make them happy because they haven’t done the unfamiliar task of checking in to find out,” she said.

Happiness, according to Ms. Schipper, is like a muscle that we’ve forgotten how to use in our business culture – but there are ways to pump it up. Ms. Schipper cited a team of volunteers she formerly managed. These volunteers needed to apply for the unpaid job, and be available from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for both days of four weekends – and they kept coming back for more. She believes three key components contributed to their enthusiasm: they regularly received praise, food and drinks, and the opportunity to see the impact of their work in real-time.

“I rarely see all three of these components in a work environment,” Ms. Schipper said.

Another way companies can inject happiness into the workplace is by demonstrating they care.

“If people feel happy, cared for and respected at work, they will want to work hard and excel,” said Vanessa Judelman, president of Toronto-based Mosaic People Development, which offers leadership, management and executive training.

“I have often heard my clients say things like, ‘Why should I take the initiative and put my heart and soul into my work if my company doesn’t care about me?’ But if a person feels happy and cared for by their organization, they are more likely to go the extra mile, work long hours and exceed expectations,” she said.

Jessa Chupik, manager of recruitment, retention and employment equity at Ryerson University, said there is one obvious way to boost happiness levels at work: simply ask employees what would make them happier.

“We tend to make broad generalizations about Gen Y, X … about what makes them happy in the workplace,” Ms. Chupik said. “Instead, we should be asking employees for their opinions or input into how to improve the culture and happiness of an organization.”

Who knew it could be so simple. Almost as easy as sitting down to watch a life-changing play.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/life-at-work/why-arent-you-happy-at-work/article15081429/

				Why aren’t you happy at work? If we don’t expect to find happiness at work, we won’t – and that’s hurting our productivity
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Hire disabled staff: In the Globe and Mail on Oct. 26, 2013, there was a short article "Small firms urged to hire disabled staff."  Here it is:

Canadian small businesses could be doing more to hire workers with disabilities, a new survey suggests.

The Bank of Montreal poll found that nearly 70 per cent of small-business owners say they have never hired a person with a visible, or non-visible, disability.

Only 30 per per cent of respondents to the survey, conducted by Pollara, said they had hired someone with a disability, essentially unchanged since a similar survey last year.

"The irony is that business owners readily recognize the advantages of a diverse workforce ... 79 per cent see diversity as an asset, yet they seem not to understand that people with disabilities can add to this diversity and make a significant contribution to their efforts to improve business results," Sonya Kunkel, BMO's managing director of diversity, said in a release.

The survey of more than 300 small-business owners found that nearly half of those who plan to invest in their firms in 2014 intend to hire more staff. "We need to impress upon business owners that people with disabilities do have abilities that will help them succeed and grow," Ms. Kunkel said.

Feb. 15, 2016 "Bad job blues": I cut out this article by Joanne Richard in 24 News on Nov. 26, 2012.  It talks about how having a bad job can really affect your mental health.  More than half of Canadians said having good colleagues is more important than earning a good salary.

Here are depression prone jobs:

-nursing home/ child- care workers

-food service staff

-social workers

-health care workers

-artists, entertainers, writers

-teachers

-administrative support staff

-maintenance and grounds workers

-financial advisers and accountants

-sales people

My week:

Nov. 23, 2017  "For love and country": Today I found this article by Emily Yahhr in the Edmonton Journal.  I'm not a fan of either of them, but I thought it was a nice article.

During a concert in Washington, D.C., this fall, Tim McGraw performed Humble and Kind, the Grammy-winning ballad that urges people to “hold the door, say please, say thank you; don’t steal, don’t cheat and don’t lie.”

“Hope they’re listening down the street,” he cracked at the end of the song.

The past year, country music singers have stayed mostly quiet about their political beliefs, for fear of alienating any audience members. Yet McGraw and his wife, Faith Hill, are different. As the power couple released their first duet album on Friday, titled The Rest of Our Life, they are paving their own path yet remaining a dominant force.

McGraw has seen a career resurgence in recent years; and while Hill hasn’t released a solo album in more than a decade, they embarked on the Soul2Soul world tour together this year, performing their combined hits. This spring, they released a duet called Speak to a Girl, which urged respectful treatment of women months before Keith Urban’s Female.

McGraw and Hill also spoke out following the deadly white supremacist rally in

Charlottesville, Va. After U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on his remarks about how there were some “very fine people” in the group that included neo-Nazis, McGraw posted a Facebook photo of Abraham Lincoln with the quote, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Hill tweeted, “WE MUST STOP THIS HATE. It is our responsibility to leave this world a better place period. Stand for what is right. Equality for all.”

Their outspokenness culminated last week in a Billboard cover story. After most country stars stayed silent about gun rights following the Las Vegas massacre at a country music festival last month — when a gunman shot and killed 58 people and injured hundreds more — McGraw and Hill were straightforward.

“Look, I’m a bird hunter,” McGraw told the magazine. “However, there is some common sense that’s necessary when it comes to gun control. They want to make it about the Second Amendment every time it’s brought up. It’s not about the Second Amendment.”

“In reference to the tragedy in Las Vegas, we knew a lot of people there. The doctors that (treated) the wounded, they saw wounds like you’d see in war,” Hill said. “That’s not right. Military weapons should not be in the hands of civilians.

“It’s everyone’s responsibility, including the government and the National Rifle Association, to tell the truth. We all want a safe country.”

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/calgary-herald/20171121/282187946320815

Nov. 28, 2017:

Mon. Nov. 20, 2017: Last week my 2013 black computer stopped working.

Wed Nov. 22, 2017: My 2004 gray computer stopped working.  This was may day off.  I watched my TV show recordings and read the newspaper.

Thurs. Nov. 23, 2017: I went to work.  I watched TV and read the newspaper.

Fri. Nov. 24, 2017: I did the same thing.

Sat. Nov. 25, 2017: I went and asked my little brother if I can use his laptop for like 10 min.

I didn't have the internet for 3 days.

1. No email/ blog posts.
2. No job search.

I guess I could have gone to the library at the Enterprise Square on my day off.  I would then have to check my email to see if anyone emailed for a job.  After work, I could go to the library and wait for the next free computer that comes.  That could be like an 1hr wait while I'm reading the newspaper.

I had like a 5 day break from my job search.

Nov. 28, 2017 The highlight of the week: No internet for 3 days.  I had a good break from my job search.  I was busy with work.