I spent some time chatting with extended family members this weekend, after attending a funeral. As tends to happen, the subject of work came up, and we got to talking about difficult times at our workplaces. I’m changing some details to protect some identities, but I thought the stories were interesting enough to share. Though we all find ourselves in different worlds, the major issues we face are very similar. One family member told me that in over 20 years of working, this was the only time he had truly hated going in to work. That’s quite a statement. What sort of environment could cause that?
Entries Tagged 'Corporate' ↓
Same problems, different worlds
March 16th, 2009 — Corporate, Life, Management
Self-centered employees and goal alignment
March 9th, 2009 — Corporate
Last Monday I got on my soapbox and told everyone to review their quarterly goals and their performance reviews, and insinuated that caring managers might do the same for their employees. On Friday, around lunchtime, I finally took my own advice (sort of). I looked over my goals and found two tasks which I had forgotten. I have 3 weeks to complete those, and it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m glad I found them when I did! But I’ll be honest with you; I didn’t find the time to crack open my performance review. I’ll do that at the end of the quarter. And, I didn’t do the exercise with my team members’ goals, just my own. I didn’t have time.
Compensation in the reputation economy
March 4th, 2009 — Corporate
In the world of compensation, a soft benefit is one which is not financial in nature. It may well cost the parent company money but is not perceived as monetary to the employee. They are hard to compare against each other as they often don’t have a hard monetary value. How much is it worth to you, for example, to have access to a gym with a swimming pool? What if the gym is on-site? What if your family could come to the gym?
I wrote a post last year for my internal company blog, and wrote about people who were not utilizing benefits like these, and how being smart about using them (as well as making more use of traditional “hard” benefits) could net you a decent raise.
In a year where a lot of benefits are being trimmed down, it’s time to look critically at an underutilized soft benefit: the ability to accumulate wealth in terms of reputation. People have been talking about a reputation economy since at least 2002, so clearly you should factor your reputation into your compensation. Some people are concerned that employees are gathering reputation wealth on their own and not gathering enough for their employers. In a world where everyday individual contributors are worried about personal branding, it’s obvious that this is only going to get more complex.
The Two Month Checkup
March 2nd, 2009 — Corporate, Life
When I was more actively pursuing my fitness, I noticed something interesting. At 2/3 of the way through any training workout, I knew I could complete it. The repetitive and incremental nature of training left me with an understanding of my physical and mental capabilities, and with only a third of the workout left I was generally able to describe how the workout had gone. I still had a full third of the workout left, but there were no surprises left in it (well, barring an injury or accident).
It’s the first week of March. The quarter is two-thirds done. If that pattern holds, there are no surprises left. You know how this quarter is going, you know what is coming in the remaining month. So now is a good time for a checkup.
Internal Brand Ambassadors
February 25th, 2009 — Corporate, EMC
Recently, Chuck Hollis wrote about discovering an army of EMC ambassadors on Twitter, and I shared a comment with him about how I really enjoyed the organic growth of passionate people into a new realm. If you read Chuck’s blog at all you’re aware of EMC’s methodology for encouraging social media use among its employees and the importance of our internal community site in that process. As I was reading some posts on EMC|ONE this morning I realized that while we spend a lot of time talking about how we’re all ambassadors for our brand to the Internet at large, we really haven’t talked about how we’re all internal ambassadors of our employment brand (our culture) to the rest of our employees.
Sticking together, revisited
February 23rd, 2009 — Corporate, Management
In the past, I’ve written about how we’re all in this together. As I read the news these days, I think it’s appropriate to revisit the topic.
Last-minute Performance Review crutches
January 19th, 2009 — Corporate, Management
I can confidently say that managers are always calm, prepared, and ready for every task. We’re skilled multitaskers, and never get blindsided by a problem that sucks away all our time and energy and leaves us rushing to complete something vital (like a performance appraisal).
Yeah, right.
This post explains some simple crutches for harried managers working on reviews. These tips are not a substitute for a year-long investment in the performance of your team, and they aren’t even necessarily best practices, but maybe they’ll help make life a little easier this month.
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Last-minute Self-Appraisal Tips
January 6th, 2009 — Corporate, Management
Walk around the hallways of any corporation around performance review time, and the conversations you hear will all sound alike. Everybody has a complaint. Starting with the awkwardness of the self-appraisal, continuing through the difficulty of encapsulating a year of effort into a few paragraphs, and concluding with the often difficult conversations that can take place when a review contains surprises, everybody loves to hate the performance review.
There’s all kinds of advice and tips which can make the review process less painful; the problem is that most of them (rightfully) require year-round investment. What if you want some last-minute tips? You’re in luck, that’s what I’ve got. Today, I’ll focus on the self-appraisal. Followup posts will talk about other aspects of the review.
First off, let’s be clear. You really should do your self-appraisal.
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But I don’t have time to blog….
November 24th, 2008 — Corporate
“I don’t have time to read blogs, never mind write one.”
Tell me you haven’t heard that one in the hallways. It’s right up there with “If my boss caught me doing that kind of stuff, I’d get in trouble.” Hey, I work for a place that’s pretty enlightened about this kind of thing and I still hear it.
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What do Obama and EMC have in common?
November 12th, 2008 — Corporate, EMC
I know what you’re thinking. I’ve created a provocative headline to lure you in, and the actual post that follows is going to be nowhere near as interesting as the title. Maybe you’re right, in which case I apologize. But this post came about as an extension to some conversation I’ve had recently with people at EMC, on the subject of change, turmoil, and heightened expectations. And when I put it like that, maybe there are some comparisons I can draw between Barack Obama and my work environment.
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