Workplace Culture Caution

Workplace culture unfolds to be what it is due to interactions of several influences. Included among these affects are how leadership and managerial styles project specific decision-making approaches, the modes of communication present, and guidance behaviors displayed by management and mentors. In addition, organizations may attempt to adhere to mission statements or other codified value declarations to drive operations, policies, and procedures. Workspace design can also matter when assessing the safety, comfort, and efficiency of the workplace. Further, diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and work-life balance initiatives can make a difference in employee attitudes.

All of these factors are important, but I will argue that the quality of employee engagement internally within their workplace and especially among each other’s colleagues is chief among the impacts shaping workplace culture.

Workers in an organization or business typically make up the bulk of bodies at the workplace. For any establishment to be successful several conditions must be evident among the members of this cohort. We know that the type of work being performed must feel meaningful and purposeful; that there are prospects for career growth or advancement; that positive and productive behaviors are recognized and reinforced; that employees feel a significant degree of empowerment and autonomy to make their own decisions; and that workers feel transparency and fairness is always evident in how decisions are made and performance evaluated.

The collective psychology of employees plays a crucial role in whether organizational prosperity is achieved or not. But workers should not expect managers to be the sole kingpins of whether their progress is favorable or not. Sure, poor leadership can sink the ship. However, workers themselves are also critical to workplace positivity, or lack thereof.

Poor or even dysfunctional workplace culture results from a series of mishaps and inadequate calculations caused by management or workers or a combination of the two. But it is the workers I want to stay focused on at this time. In particular, I want to address the phenomenon of a workplace culture that is misguided psychologically with the cause originating from the employees themselves.

I will use an example from my own professional past to help make my point. I worked for many years in an environment that praised egalitarianism. Equity was baked into system. We bargained for contracts collectively. There was no compensation differential between men and women. Unionism was strong. To be clear, I think these are all great traits and would not trade any of them away. But this equity-based culture produced an unintended liability that to my knowledge has never been resolved.

Workers largely prided themselves on staying in their own work lane — working collaboratively at times, but mostly performing a solo function that required a lot of stamina. We were all pulling oars, which meant we needed to work mechanistically. To have someone stray off course because they wanted to be too creative, or too much of a leader, or too, well, different in the way that they wanted to handle their job, then the mainstream raised their shackles. Questions of, ‘Who-do-they-think-they-are?’ and ‘Looks-to-me-like-they’re-trying-to-suck-up-to-management?’ began to get buzzed about.

Homogeneity was culturally rewarded. Divergence and distinction were not. Inbred psychological unsafety and insecurity had too much of a hold on the group. There are many other scenarios that embody cultural breakdown. The journey to worker psychological unsafety can come a number of different ways.

So, once a consensus of stakeholders recognize there is a problem, how then best to remedy it? One suggestion is for the workforce to consider adoption of an agile mindset. Let me explain. About twenty years ago a group of software development engineers instituted an Agile Manifesto, which they believed would strengthen an organization’s ability to produce. Agility was their reaction against an overly bureaucratic and rigid process which they claimed slowed production and innovation. Being agile meant introducing flexibility and adaptability to the process, leading to greater invention and dynamism.

The agile movement has since found applications in many other areas of operations, including HR, sales, customer service, project management, employee management, and elsewhere. The changed frame of mind an agile approach ushers in has demonstrated value and it can as well in employee-to-employee relations.

Among the benefits an agile process brings is to address how to handle internal conflicts within the group so that each group member can function efficiently and securely. What is encouraged is open communication, give and take, question and answer, working the problem, and acting and reacting with respect for each participant and the process. What is discouraged is staying rooted in unchanging and low-production practices and in censoring one another. The anticipated outcome is a shift to a workplace of high psychological safety and greater production.

The scaffolding necessary to transition to a cultural change of this magnitude is beyond the scope of this essay. However, for many workplaces it can happen and needs to happen. A workplace saturated in creativity, managed risk, and mutual regard beats a workplace steeped in fear and survival any day of the week.

 

Innovative Journeys: Unlocking Opportunities for Creative Recognition

The world of creativity is a realm brimming with boundless imagination and innovation, yet the journey to being discovered often proves challenging. Emerging artists, fashion designers, and makers confront the daunting task of standing out amidst a sea of talent. Fortunately, there are strategies that can illuminate the path to recognition. Leslie Campos of Well Parents unveils seven proven paths that creative minds can tread to claim their spot in the spotlight.

Why an Online Presence Is Essential for Creatives

In the digital age, an online presence acts as a creative’s virtual storefront, open 24/7 to the world. A captivating website serves as a central hub where admirers can explore their portfolios and learn about their journeys. Social media platforms amplify their reach, enabling direct engagement with an audience that resonates with their artistry. A curated online portfolio showcases their work’s evolution, providing a snapshot of their creativity and growth.

The Importance of Networking for Creatives

Networking is a cornerstone of success in the creative industry, and industry events serve as fertile grounds for making connections. Conferences, trade shows, and exhibitions allow creatives to interact with peers, mentors, and potential collaborators. Showcasing their work at these events positions them in front of a relevant audience, leading to exposure that can propel their career forward.

How Competitions Elevate a Creative’s Profile

Competitions aren’t just about winning trophies; they’re gateways to recognition. Participating in renowned competitions places a creative’s work on a prestigious pedestal, catching the eye of judges, fellow artists, and industry experts. Even if they don’t claim the top prize, the exposure garnered from competing can lead to invaluable opportunities, solidifying their position within the creative landscape.

The Power of Collaboration in Fueling Mutual Creative Success

Collaboration is a potent catalyst for creative success. By teaming up with fellow artists, designers, or makers, creatives can tap into new perspectives, skill sets, and audiences. Collective efforts amplify their reach and introduce their work to fresh admirers. Collaborative projects also nurture a sense of community and mutual support, reinforcing their position within the creative ecosystem.

How Community Events Can Propel Creative Careers

While the digital realm is expansive, local exposure should not be underestimated. Participating in pop-up shops, art fairs, and community events fosters connections with neighbors and fellow creatives. This local support serves as a foundation upon which national and international recognition can be built. The media attention garnered from such events often serves as a springboard for further exposure.

The Role of Workshops and Courses in Enhancing Creative Skills

A creative mind is a constantly evolving entity. Engaging in industry-specific workshops and courses refines skills and expands professional networks. Learning from established experts and sharing experiences with peers fuels personal growth. The insights gained from workshops empower creatives to adapt to evolving trends and challenges, ensuring they remain at the forefront of their field.

Reaching the Right Audience at the Right Time

Technology is a beacon of opportunity for creative professionals. By embracing customer data management systems, this is a good one to consider. Creatives can personalize their interactions with admirers, enhancing engagement and loyalty. Informed decisions based on data insights streamline marketing efforts, ensuring their work reaches the right audience at the right time. This technological approach revolutionizes how creatives connect with their supporters.

The path to creative recognition is a multifaceted journey, but with these seven proven paths, emerging artists, designers, and makers can pave their way to the spotlight. By crafting a powerful online presence, participating in industry events, embracing collaboration, seeking local exposure, expanding horizons through learning, and leveraging technology, creative minds can rise above the noise and shine brightly. As they embrace these strategies, they empower themselves to confidently navigate the creative landscape, ready to claim their well-deserved place in the limelight.

Image via Pexels

 

The Data Dilemma

Data-driven decision making has been the rage in business for some time now. The collection of data based on what are determined to be key performance indicators specific to a business is used to justify the outcome of higher quality organizational decision making, which in turn drives the formation and execution of business strategy.

Data aggregation can be crucial with tasks as basic as answering difficult questions to more sophisticated functions such as developing and testing hypotheses and formulating theories. Further benefits of having vital information available include risk evaluation, resource allocation, program and policy assessment, and performance measurement. The use of data is seen as a more efficient means of implementing these activities than would be the case in relying on intuition, hunches, and observation alone.

It is hard to argue against the utilization of data in running a business. McKinsey reports that data-driven organizations are twenty-three times more likely to attract customers, six times more likely to retain those customers, and nineteen times more likely to be profitable.

It is not difficult to find examples of how data-driven decision making has led to business success. Anmol Sachdeva, an independent marketing consultant, has researched several. For instance, Red Roof Inn positions their hotels near airports. They figured out how flight cancellation data and weather reports could be combined to increase their bookings. Netflix compiles user data concerning watch time, location, and programming preferences to predict which shows will become big hits. Coca-Cola leverages social media data to determine who mentions or posts pictures of their products. With this data, personalized and targeted advertising has led to a four-time increase in clickthrough rates.

In short, data collection has become the proverbial game-changer for business. By helping organizations pinpoint the factors that better address challenges and boost productivity and profits, data and its astute analysis, is now an essential component of business success.

However, despite the advantages of focused data there can come a point in which the zeal to collect information can become extreme and intrusive, particularly for employees. Of course, it is reasonable to expect that management would want data to make improvements in productivity among their workforce. Performance metrics can be used to spot shortcomings, training needs, and specifics for employee performance evaluations. An organization that leans toward a results-only performance model for their employees need objective data more than a manager’s potentially skewed or biased interpretation of how employees discharge their duties.

Quantification can be misused if it is used to go beyond the reasons stated above. There are now too many documented instances of employees being excessively monitored such that the workplace has become a surveillance culture. A career cannot thrive in a context where someone is always looking over your shoulder. Questionable monitoring may be the result of management wanting to identify organizing threats such as unionization communications. Or maybe the surveillance is used to spot ways of automating tasks so as to reduce the workforce. In extreme cases, data may be applied to limit wage growth, exploit labor, or even discriminate.

Amazon may be the poster child for such data fanaticism. Brishen Rogers, an associate professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, notes how in 2020 Amazon sought to hire two “intelligence analysts” who were to use data analytics and other means to find “labor organizing threats” from among the Amazon workforce. The company goes on to insist their outsourced delivery providers hand over geo-locations, speed, and movement of drivers to use however the company wants. Inordinate corporate surveillance has also been chronicled at Uber, Lyft, Tesla, and Apple.

Inappropriate use of data results in loss of privacy, greater stress. and increased pressure on workers. The workplace can become a place of distrust and fear, not an environment conducive to innovation, high morale, and career enhancement. Instead, let’s insist that data collection be ethically construed, transparent, and legally justifiable.

 

An AI Bill of Rights

Often it is difficult to separate living from working. Our personal lives and professions can become intertwined such that it can seem pointless to differentiate those aspects which are personal from professional. Such is the case when considering one of today’s hottest topics, the impact of artificial intelligence. Is AI going to sway our lives in general or be mostly an employment issue? A fair prediction is that AI is going to change the landscapes of both our lives and of our work. 

As citizens and as workers we should have a strong say in what the influence of AI is going to be in our daily lives and on our jobs. The disruptive potential is too huge to leave AI development solely up to engineers and their corporate employers. If AI advancements are to be the result of free market innovation, then those of us who are future customers and recipients of its consequences should have the freedom to weigh in and heavily influence its maturation. 

A practical way to approach this challenge is through the lens of individual rights. Ever since the seventeenth century philosopher John Locke proposed the existence of fundamental natural rights, such as of life, liberty, and property, we westerners have organized our social, political, and economic institutions around the notion of personhood rights to both preserve and extend the enjoyment of our lives. We bestow upon ourselves the rights necessary to live fruitful lives free of destructive intrusion. Now is the time to apply these rights in the face of AI infiltration. 

A useful place to ground a national debate about AI’s proliferation is with the Biden Administration’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s proposal known as the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights (https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/). This is a thoughtful approach to identifying the key areas of contention in the planning, application, and mobilization of AI-based automated systems. 

Five principles are presented as foundational to designating what constitutes an AI Bill of Rights. To summarize: 

Safe and Effective Systems: An AI system should undergo input and testing from various sources to ensure its ability to deliver value free from the risk of malicious or unintended consequences. Humane industry standards and protective measures should apply, including the power to shut down harmful applications. Data usage is to be transparent, necessary, and respectful of personal integrity. 

Algorithmic Discrimination Protections: The biases, inequities, and discriminatory practices of people should not migrate to automated systems. Indefensible digital treatment of people based on their individual differences is to be considered unjust. Legal protections of ordinary citizens and farsighted equity assessments of intended and unintended uses of systems should be crucial in the design and deployment of AI systems. 

Data Privacy: This concern has been with us since the advent of Web 2.0. People should have ownership and agency over their data. The right to privacy is strong among free and independent people. This should be reflected in the automated systems they use. Exercising consent and having the ability to opt in and out of these systems with no restrictions should be inherent in their development. 

Notice and Explanation: It should not take a computer science degree for ordinary users to understand what they are getting into with AI systems. Clear and unambiguous language that informs operators about system functionality, intent, outcomes, updates, and risks are to be considered basic. 

Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback: In short, when a user determines that an automated system has become too unwieldy or its functionality too untenable, then he or she should be able to have access to a real person to help them. No one should feel trapped within the confines of an all-powerful system they do not understand and cannot properly operate. 

These principles could become a friendly conversation starter. As citizens we need a simple tool to unify the discussion as we confront this significant challenge. This AI Bill of Rights could be it. 

We Are More Than Checklists

Back in 2009 a well received book was published called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, a surgeon, author, and public health researcher. The book promotes the use of developing and utilizing checklists to enhance the quality of outcomes resulting from the execution of complex procedures. Dr. Gawande cites many examples of how the deliberate use of checklists leads to greater efficiencies, more uniform discharge of protocols, and improved protections, particularly regarding procedures in which safety is a concern.

Upon examination, causes of unintended consequences and accidents can often be attributed to missed steps in a process, which had they been followed would have mitigated or prevented the mishap. Sure, we all make mistakes. But if we take the time to analyze why a mistake was made, we often find it was because of things like hurrying too much, lacking focus, being distracted, or not having enough experience. These flaws almost always mean measures that should have been taken were not taken.

So, to deploy and to use complete checklists consistently makes perfect sense. In fact, the application of step by step lists is considered so best-practice these days that many of our careers can be seen as little more than a requirement to effectively execute a series of predetermined sequential actions. Take a look at almost any job description. It is little more than a laundry list of expected deliverables like a set of boxes to be checked. It could be said that much of our work is therefore formulaic.

To the extent that we reduce our careers to predicable, stringent, and rote to-do rosters, the more accommodating we make our careers for AI replication. Author Ian Leslie makes an interesting observation in a recent Substack piece. Responding to the fear many express about the growth of AI he points out how we assist the machines to adapt to our ways of doing things because we are adapting our work lives to the ways AI works. When human agency is overly systematized we give our replacement instructions to AI which may be better at checking boxes than we humans are.

When we model our work behavior to a simple inventory we should not be surprised when AI mimics it. AI is algorithmic. It uses models and arrangements of variables in a mechanized and calculated way. As we are finding out, AI can out-perform us over a growing number of jobs, especially the jobs that are like checklists. A pertinent quote by artist Robert Irwin in the Ian Leslie piece is, “Human beings living in and through structures become structures living in and through human beings.”

As we determined above, checklists certainly have their place. However, as people we need to look at our work lives as being beyond just an amalgamation of discreet work tasks and responsibilities. To be human, especially in our careers, must be more than that.

Our evolution requires innovation and novelty. It demands an expression of humanity which is an added value above any pre-arranged framework. It seeks to celebrate intuition and ingenuity and even uncertainty. The careers of tomorrow will thrive because they bring a richness of the human experience not easily cloned by a computation.

Romanticism arose in Europe toward the end of the eighteenth century in reaction to the heavy emphasis being culturally placed on rationalism, science, and industrialization. Instead Romanticism insisted on honoring art, music, literature, nature, and the intellectual capacity of the individual. It exulted human emotion and aesthetic experience. Above all, the message of Romanticism was that to be fully human required embracing the wide range of human expression and to not be limited to the mechanized worldview of materialists and rationalists.

The time may be ripe for a neo-Romanticism in the age of AI and checklists. Efficiencies have their place. But let’s not confuse them with being human.

 

 

AI and Your Career Considered

Amper Music is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) application that can create music based on inputs from human users who may know nothing about music theory or how to play a musical instrument. Requests and conditions are submitted concerning the type of music desired for purposes such as podcast themes or home video soundtracks. Amper Music in turn generates original music.

DALL• E is an AI program that empowers human users to produce art and realistic images in a variety of modes and forms. Taking text descriptions which have been provided by users, the AI goes about creating stunning illustrations and depictions. Little to no human artistic talent is required to develop original art.

ChatGPT is a newly released open-source AI chatbot designed to yield fresh high quality written text on a wide variety of topics, including software code. Based on human user editing suggestions ChatGPT will even revise its text constructing multiple drafts until the output is just what the user wants for anything from a set of complicated directions to marketing copy.

Another chatbot called Franz Broseph was able to compete against twenty online players from around the world last year in a game of Diplomacy. The game compels participants to engage in political negotiations, form alliances, apply military strategies, and basically win a World War I simulation. Guess who came out on top? Yup, Franz Broseph.

We are no longer waiting to see when AI will revolutionize the world. The disruptive transformation is currently underway.

Note that I used the word disruptive above. Is this a good thing or not? Well, the term certainly brings to mind the late Clayton Christensen and his popularizing of the concept “disruptive innovation”. Christensen highlighted a process whereby a new product or service is introduced at the bottom rung of a market ladder. Eventually, it catches on and grows in usage displacing much if not all of the traditional competition. What Walmart did to Sears is an example.

In my judgment, it is safe to assume that the AI examples above are representative of a larger AI disruptive innovation which is in the process of rolling over the work world as we know it. Again, is this good or bad? Well, it could be both.

The manner in which writers, music composers, and artists have operated customarily is clearly threatened. AI is now a major new competitor on the block. To be sure, in the short term at least, consumers who prefer conventionally produced text, music, and art will purposefully acquire it and shun the AI-generated material. But eventually the innovations will seep into the mainstream and could very well become the new ordinary.

As the Borg in Star Trek put it, resistance is futile. AI engineers and self-learning AI itself will continue to breed one disruptive innovation after the next, simply because they can. Ethics or a concern for the greater wellbeing of humans, if it is ever considered, will not inhibit the creation of these products and services. If anything, these novelties will be presented as good for people.

Perhaps, these inventions will be good for people. Maybe “better” writing, music composition, and art will result. Possibly the shift we saw from an agrarian economy to a mechanized one during the Industrial Revolution will be an apt analogy to what we are now experiencing. Time will tell.

One thing is clear, however. A simultaneous adaptation to new practices and systems will need to occur such that the AI-fueled modernizations are integrated into the new normal while human careers can continue to flourish. Possibly first drafts of essays will be written by ChatGPT and future iterations will be the result of human edits and prompts bringing about a spectacular essay produced by an otherwise mediocre human writer.

The question I ask myself is, if partnering of machine and human does not lead to higher quality outcomes, then why are we bothering with AI?

 

 

 

 

Love Video Games? Make Gaming a Career With These 6 Tips

Another Guest Post from contributor Leslie Campos

Photo by Michael Boskovski on Unsplash

 

Video games are an enjoyable hobby, but what if you could make gaming into a career? With the right skills and education, it might be easier than you think to build the career of your dreams. Bill Ryan Writings offers this career development advice for gamers who want to make their passion into a profession.

Plan Carefully

The video game industry involves countless careers and job paths. Since you want to make quality decisions in planning your career, explore the options carefully.

 

All types of roles support video game development, including art, technical, programming, engineering, business, and marketing positions (and many more). Consider your interests, strengths, and possible job paths.

 

Then, determine how much time and energy you can invest in education and skill development.

Build Skills

Playing video games is practically a prerequisite to building a career in the gaming industry, but it’s not the only requirement. Playing games does build many soft skills, notes ZenBusiness, but to be competitive in the job market, you also need to hone skills related to your career path.

 

For example, learning to code, use editing software, and check for bugs is crucial in video game careers. Yet the specific skills you need will depend on the role you want to work in. The good news is that many skills are ones you can build on your own.

 

For example, you can self-study to become fluent in computer programming languages and begin coding projects. Practicing various types of art and graphic design could improve your craft. Yet formal education may still be an important step in building your career.

Get a Degree

For some job opportunities, you might need more than casual skill-building to get an interview. Earning a degree in graphics, software engineering, game development, or another technology discipline could make your resume stand out.

 

Online degree programs let you study and earn a degree while working and maintaining a personal life. Choose an accredited school with competitive tuition; this could be the ticket to an affordable education and a new career path.

Network Online

Gaming, as both a hobby and a career, is popular around the world. That makes it easy to connect with people you can learn from and share ideas with. Video game communities exist for every type of game, as Game Designing outlines, and joining them can help you find opportunities and network.

 

Gaming clubs may also be a way to get feedback on your work. Sharing with a gaming group could help you polish up a project for your portfolio, increasing your odds of getting a gaming gig.

Create a Resume & Portfolio

Writing a clear, professional resume is the first step in any job search. Use the resume format that best fits your experience, whether chronological, functional, or hybrid. Include relevant keywords for the gaming industry, and highlight your skills, certificates, and education.

 

A strong resume is a must for any job search, but a portfolio levels up your application, especially in the gaming industry. But because video games or graphics are hard to insert into a resume, take time to build a portfolio site to display your work.

 

Buying a domain name and creating a website may sound like a lot of work, but it’s the best way to design a professional portfolio. If you code the website yourself, it can also serve as a portfolio piece.

Apply to Jobs

With the right skills, community, and degree, finding a job might be the easiest step in your gaming career journey. Especially if you enroll in a degree program, internships are readily available for on-the-job experience and skill-building.

 

Or, you can apply to be a video game tester, start in an entry-level quality assurance, art, or journalism job, or join a gaming company in an administrative or support role to get in the door.

 

A career in gaming might seem like an unconventional path. But for people who are passionate about video games, developing skills and even pursuing a degree will be worth the effort. The result is a professional path you will love and grow in.

Reconsider Your Career

There comes a time with all of us when we find ourselves reconsidering our career. We question why we still cling to the rationale that prompted us to settle on this career in the first place. Perhaps another bad day at work sparks doubt or your hesitation results from something deeper like a recognition of insecurity or uncertainty with the line of work you have chosen. If repeated reflections of your career role continuously point to a feeling of dissatisfaction, then it is time to act. 

The measures I am suggesting need not be sudden and radical ones like going into work tomorrow and quitting your job even though you do not have other employment lined up — although that might be an option in your case. Rather, I would like to outline a mental and emotional approach you can use to assess your situation and formulate possibilities from which future career-oriented decisions can be made. 

Unknowingly, you have already taken the first step. That is, you have acknowledged with yourself that something is wrong with your career. Stay with this insight for a while. Clarify as much as possible what is off. There could be multiple reasons behind your discontent. It will be useful for you to know as much as you can about what is not fitting. Repeating a dysfunctional pattern going forward is unhelpful and to be avoided. 

From there, attempt to visualize an ideal career position for yourself. Beware of overly restricting your imagination. Instead, allow yourself the freedom to perceive energizing possibilities in which you can express your innate talents and leverage your developing expertise. When you inevitably think about an imagined choice as, “But that is something I’ve never done before,” try to shun what might be your usual response of instant rejection and instead play with the concept as an intriguing challenge. Be open to surprising yourself. 

When brainstorming, integrate remembered examples of when you were successful. Compile your greatest hits both big and small. Look for the through line which connects these events. Is it your ability to solve stubborn problems, to be adaptive when innovation is called for, to persevere when others around you are jumping ship, to lead others even when your job title says nothing about management? There will be patterns aligned with what you are good at doing. These can be guideposts to inform you while you consider new career opportunities. 

Another avenue of thought to factor into your self-examination has to do with emerging trends. It is no secret that the world is changing. Set aside for a while your career history with its experiences and the present state of your chosen industry to forecast where your fields of interest are heading. Look for possible intersections consisting of your expertise and developing areas of growth in need of aptitude. Refreshing changes can come from leaping off your steppingstones of familiarity onto novel and steep inclines that have just enough footholds for you to master the climb. 

As fresh and exciting career potentialities take shape the time will come to assess your skillset. Are you stagnated by practicing the same tasks repeatedly? Do your imagined career possibilities call for skills you need to develop or acquire anew? Jolting yourself into expanding your capacity may prepare you for a better future but may also help you to snap you out of your current doldrums. Maybe there can even be the prospect of being able to hone new competencies while in your existing job. 

We spend way too much time with our careers to tolerate having them less than stimulating. If you are content with what you are doing, then congratulations on being part of the joyful minority. However, for the rest of you, give yourself permission to consider and act on a change to bring more purpose and fulfillment to your careers and lives. 

Flextime Workplaces: An Update

As has been widely reported over the past couple of years, workplaces, particularly in the knowledge economy, have either undergone or are being pressured to add flexibility features to their operations. The combination of Covid-related adjustments and technical innovations has resulted in a reassessment of what productivity and by extension appropriate workplace agency looks like in the modern workplace. 

A 2021 Ipsos survey revealed that globally 30% of workers would attempt to leave their jobs if required to return to the pre-pandemic office setting. Many of the ever-plugged-in younger cohort of workers see only an upside to having jobs with flextime. Benefits such as managing the complex demands of modern living, taking care of children and elderly parents, reducing commuting time, and functioning when one is most energetic and constructive during the day are among the advantages cited as desirable with pliable scheduling and task requirements. 

Flextime features are now much more present in recruiting job descriptions. Some of this is undoubtedly because of the increased demand for flexibility from a workforce that seems to be sorting itself into those oriented toward results-only vs. traditional workplaces, but also due to the uncertainty of the future. Covid has not completely gone away and with further environmental changes said to be coming from climate change, who knows what is next? Disruption is at least as likely as stability when planning operationally. 

However, workplace changes of the sort being described here need to be assessed and designed thoughtfully. It can be easy to dump on traditional workplaces as having rigid, arbitrary, and ineffectual routines, like for example, habitually scheduled staff meetings laden with fill-in blah, blah, blah. Yet, as resiliency transformations occur it can be useful to see not only what is gained, but also what is lost by such modifications. 

A case could be made that as customary practices dissolve not all the consequences may be necessarily positive. Of key importance is what it means to be professional. Parameters were established over time to separate work life from non-work life. We got used to sliding in and out of work modes with a regularity that brought predictability, certainty, and some semblance of balance. 

One negative element of blurring the distinction between work and leisure time is the always “being on” phenomenon. When flitting in and out of work mode multiple times per day, including answering supervisor emails at 8:30 pm and being ready to respond to the Amsterdam office at 6:30 am, cumulative work time can approach 10-12 hours. It begs the question of who benefits. Probably not the worker. 

Also, professional norms and protocols used in performance reviews and advancement decisions have been based on an in-person work context. Are the expected actions of workers who work from home holding up fairly to legacy achievement standards? Managers still wedded to the notion that time on task always equals productivity may be less inclined to favorably view fragmented work as effective, even if the results are of similar quality or perhaps even better than before. 

This can be especially problematic for new hires onboarded with a company practicing flextime. How well can management really get to know their direct reports when they are working remotely? Perhaps fine — or perhaps not. New workers are motivated to do well at their new jobs and are trying to navigate expectations and learn company culture digitally. Might they be ripe for various types of exploitation, such as working exceptionally long hours or having to face other unreasonable demands from management or co-workers in a flextime environment? The possibility is certainly there. 

Decentralization does have its benefits. But it also could have liabilities. As we redefine what it means to be professional in a flextime world, we need to be mindful of how to achieve efficiency in a way that rewards both management and front-line workers. This challenge is a subset of organizational agility and a crucial one going forward. 

Career Advancement and the Management Myth

An odd convention has fixed itself into the career psyche. It involves widespread practice that when a worker has demonstrated specialized competency and efficiency over a period of time, then the next step in that person’s career must naturally be an elevation to a management position. A causation is assumed linking proficient performance with an ability to lead direct reports. 

This assumption may be oversold, resulting in the selection of many managers who find themselves unhappy and detached from what they do best. 

Surely, there are many cases when a stellar individual contributor turns out to be an excellent manager of workers who does what they once did. As managers, they know intimately the challenges their subordinates face and having been skilled in addressing them formerly they can guide teams with heightened awareness and credibility. A once knowledgeable and experienced provider, who is also an inspiring leader, is a great combination indeed. 

Unfortunately, there are times when the “advancement” of a well-versed individual contributor to management is misplaced. During these pandemic times, it is no secret that many workers are reassessing their roles. This includes managers. It is not uncommon for some managers to feel a nostalgia for work that was more purposeful and fulfilling compared to being supervisory. They remember the satisfaction they felt at being an excellent contributor, and with reflection, may realize they like that better than being a boss. 

However, we are ingrained to think hierarchal. Once we have moved up, it is considered a disgrace to move back down. What will people think if I give up this management post and return to a job I once had? That will be seen as a demotion, right?  

Thoughts like these would discourage many managers from reversing course. If the future of one’s career is a choice between continuing in a less than satisfying management role or risking possible shame by returning to a former position, then one is very likely to feel stuck. This is not a good place to be. 

One thing helping with such a conundrum is the fresh post-pandemic attitude allowing for workers to search for more meaning in their work. Just as there is now more evidence of hiring managers being more accepting of job-hopping over the past two years when they look at resumes, there may now be greater acknowledgment of managers leaving to search for greener pastures. 

Reframing your traditional ideas about hierarchy may also help. Get out ahead of any perceived criticism or doubt from others by publicly admitting that returning to a role, which again makes possible more autonomy and the practice of mastery, is a better fit for yourself than management. It is possible to state that your career and the organization can both profit from such a move. This can be communicated in a way which is both believable and face-saving. 

Leadership, as well, can be viewed with old-fashioned limitations. Management jobs need not be the only way to lead. An individual contributor who trains and mentors colleagues through sharing of expertise and proven methodologies can have a greater leadership impact than someone who is overly consumed with analyzing productivity metrics of direct reports. By claiming you prefer to lead more by guidance and coaching than the old management job allowed for, it can help to substantiate your re-entry move. 

Then there is the possibility of retaining your management position on the hierarchy by proposing a new strategic venture that better incorporates both your individual contributor and management values. From your perch within the organization, you may be able to see more creative ways of approaching potential opportunities, which call for just the right fusion of skills you can provide. 

Greater agility does not just benefit organizations, it enhances careers as well. If you are questioning your contributions due to limitations placed on you by being a manager, the time may be right for a change. 

Workers Are Flexing Their Muscles

An unmistakably big story in the 2021 career space has been about what is being dubbed “The Great Resignation” or “Turnover Tsunami”. Of course, I am referring to the throngs of workers in both the relatively high paying knowledge economy, but also in the lower income sectors, like hospitality and retail, who are leaving or not returning to their pre-pandemic fields of employment. 

A whopping 40% of the global workforce has left or is planning to leave jobs this year. The U.S. Labor Department has never seen such an acute spike in resignations in the twenty plus years it has been tracking such statistics. 

The popular media has for months now been pumping out pieces referring to the phenomenon and the suspected reasons behind it, such as higher savings rates thanks to government financial assistance, fear of catching the virus at work, insufficient childcare options for working parents, and a growing realization that a lot of hiring is now going on.  

However, the monumental reason for this employment churn appears to be a dignity factor. The Covid pandemic is allowing for a massive reassessment, and by extension, a realignment of what truly matters in one’s work and life. 

Shelter-in-place directives, social distancing, and closed office buildings, restaurants, and stores shook people’s mindsets in numerous ways. Many front-line “essential” workers who were heralded as heroes early in the pandemic are now either burnt out or tired of the abuse they get, like healthcare workers. Many well compensated workers ensconced in jobs pertaining to information flows and the means of production are bailing from positions because of the stress levels and long hours. Those on the low socioeconomic end feel abused, disrespected, and exploited and are not going to take it anymore. The number of workers and the type of worker taking the employment shift plunge are both expanding. 

This spectacle is causing economic hardships for a range of stakeholders from business owners to customers. The flux in employment is helping to fuel in part the larger pandemic-related worldwide economic convulsion. Shouldn’t we all be really concerned about this dramatic and disruptive turn of events?  

Yes, we should be, but not of fear for the interests of the wealth holders becoming suddenly inconvenienced, but in support of workers who are all in different sounding ways and from different points of view collectively saying they want and expect fair compensation, respect, and a voice in how their careers are going to develop. This brief period in history may be seen as a possible inflection point in the 21st century morphing of work and career into something different from the way it has been in the past. 

I come back to the three intrinsic motivators for professional workers eloquently described by Daniel Pink about ten years ago. Pink wrote and spoke about the need and quest for autonomy, mastery, and purpose as to what gets successful and satisfied workers out of bed in the morning. We are more motivated and driven to perform well at our jobs when we feel we have relatively free rein to innovate and produce, when we feel we are developing a skill or talent, and when we feel that what we are doing at work matters in a value sense. 

It seems to me that what many of these job searchers are looking for comes very close to what Pink is describing. Combine dignified levels of compensation with workplace cultures that honor worker autonomy, mastery, and purpose and a job can become more satisfying and sustainable. 

I get that some just want a decent job and not a career, but what makes an employee want to stay and thrive is fundamentally not very different between a highly educated contributor and an hourly employee. Dignity and respect can go a long way. 

Revitalizing Meritocracy

Merit denotes goodness. It is a word synonymous with excellence, value, and quality. We strive to live meritorious lives, because to do so brings happiness to others and distinction to ourselves. When society thrives, it does so largely due to the actions and contributions of people displaying merit. 

There is no hotly contested debate about the virtue of merit. It is generally thought to be a desired attribute, particularly among employees. What boss would not want to have positive, reliable, and worthwhile workers on her team? And yet, another term derived from the word merit, meritocracy, seems to be under fire. 

Broadly speaking, meritocracy refers to an institutionalizing of talent, ability, and skill which when present and operational results in optimally run organizations, whether in business, government, or the nonprofit sector. Compensation and power are steered toward those individuals who best demonstrate the desired traits of a meritocracy such as intelligence, valued credentials, and solid performance. 

I always thought meritocracy was an affirmative construct, so I have been surprised to see that meritocracy has now become, counter-intuitively for me at least, a controversial concept. To see why, I decided to examine what the dispute is all about. 

Examples of meritocratic administration are historic reaching back millennia. More recently though, it turns out the word meritocracy was originally coined and used derogatorily in 1958 by a British politician who was criticizing the British education system as overly favoring student intelligence and aptitude above other characteristics, leading to elitism. 

It was not until 1972 when Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell put a positive spin on the term by championing a combination of intelligence and energy as ideologically desirable. Today, there are many proponents and critics of meritocratic systems. Their divergent views seem to rest on differences in how one determines what is fair in an organization or institution. 

For example, Jim Whitehurst, who is now president of IBM, is bullish on meritocracy. He sees only advantage in strongly rewarding the best people with the best ideas. Establishing a culture that encourages listening and sharing and where every associate can contribute makes it easier for management to discern which inspirations result in high end gains over time. By enabling leaders to spot emerging talent and to position this ability where they can create the greatest value, followed by generous compensation for the quality influencers, is the hallmark of a highly functioning meritocracy. Keeping associates engaged and identifying in-house leadership makes for a stronger organization. 

A recent significant criticism of meritocracy was released in 2019 in the form of a book, The Meritocracy Trap by Yale law professor Daniel Markovits. He sees meritocracy as “a pretense, constructed to rationalize an unjust distribution of advantage.” According to Markovits, meritocracy has two profound liabilities — it is often an unfair system that benefits those of a certain traditional type of leadership, say white males over women or minorities, and that those seen as meritorious find their lives consumed by competition and long hours devoted to the company. Hence, the trap. In practice, not all talent really percolates to the top and if one is “lucky” enough to be among the chosen, then one’s life becomes less than satisfying. 

So, does meritocracy need reform? It depends on how “fair” is defined within an organization that purports to practice it. The style of meritocracy described by Whitehurst sounds fair to me, if and only if, the culture is truly open to high quality ideas no matter who puts them forth and that selection of those with desired aptitudes are chosen for their skills and abilities alone and not for extraneous considerations. And Markovits’ point about exploitation of expertise is also in need of monitoring, primarily by those whose careers and lifestyles are most affected. 

One thing advocates and critics alike can agree on is that merit is a virtue to be promoted and defended. We all benefit when it is. 

Green Values Meet Manufacturing

Increasingly, we see workers wanting to aim their careers in the direction of green pursuits and sustainability. Many careers are being chosen to align one’s environment-friendly values with their need to earn a living. Jobs ranging from LEED building inspections to ecotourism to aquatic biology and much more are under consideration. What is rarely considered by the environmentally conscious job seeker is a career in manufacturing. 

Manufacturing gets a bad rap among the green crowd. Although we all heavily rely on the diverse range of products yielded by the sector, it is nevertheless often viewed as unclean and a source of resource depletion. The 20th century image of soot-stained smoke belching factories beside lagoons of toxic waste still clings to many minds. Choosing work between an industrial plant and say a green initiative nonprofit is a no-brainer for the ecologically inclined. 

But wait! There may be reasons to look at the modern manufacturing sector as harboring some initiatives that could make even the most devoted tree hugger stop and slowly nod in the affirmative. 

Gradually, we see evidence of manufacturers attempting what is known as a circular business model. This approach seeks to establish supply chains that involve recycling and recovery of constituent materials used in the making of products. If the circle is really tight, supply chains swirl themselves into a continuous loop, whereby new raw materials are rarely needed in the reproduction of products. 

Imagine knowing that once the usefulness of a manufactured product has expired it can be returned to the industry from whence it came, rather than a landfill, and be reused or repurposed into future products. Sounds pretty green, doesn’t it?  

Beyond the PR-positive social responsibility and environmental gains of instituting green practices, there are other economic benefits for the manufacturer by going circular. These include reducing production waste and utilizing raw materials more efficiently, both of which are cost saving activities. 

Implementing a circular business model can involve up to three strategies, according to operational experts Atalay Atasu, Céline Dumas, and Luk Van Wassenhove. They identify the following as practical schemes manufacturers can apply to adopt a circular model. 

The first is known as Retain Product Ownership. Typically, this involves leasing rather than selling products. Once the product is past its usefulness it goes back to the manufacturer for reprocessing. This approach may work best for products with a lot of components and complexity, and which can be transported back to the manufacturer relatively easily. 

Another direction may be in Product Life Extension. Here products are made more durable and longer lasting than the competition. Gaining a consumer reputation as a quality enduring product makes premium pricing more justifiable and builds consumer loyalty. Throw in easy exchange policies for worn or defective products and people take notice. 

There is also the intentional Design for Recycling action plan. Designing and creating products built to be fully recycled ensures the eventual reuse of products or at least their elemental parts. It is surprising we do not see more of this in general manufacturing now. To have an infrastructure that efficiently captures reusable products that are made to be recycled would be a very exciting development in manufacturing, indeed. 

To be sure, management may have to get creative with how to weigh these different approaches to reduce both costs and their environmental impact. What is most important is for the manufacturer to see that value can be reclaimed from their products. With value comes profits. Re-energizing product value time and time again at lower costs may make good business sense. 

So, when searching for “green” lines of work consider whether these circular business model techniques align with your eco-consciousness. You may find manufacturing is the place where you can best express your environmental principles. 

The Post-Covid Office

The knowledge economy office workplace got a sudden shake-up over the past year plus. At its peak, not that long ago, the pre-vaccinated office-based workforce (March 2020-March 2021) was functioning more from home than from the traditional office, approximately ten times more so than pre-pandemic rates. According to the University of Chicago, as recently as March 2021, 45% of work services were still being performed in home environments. 

This begs the question, is office work going to snap back to the way it was with workers committing to long hours away from family spent in bustling office buildings arrived at via thick commuting traffic? And if so, why? 

Whether or not the Covid pandemic has unwittingly ushered in a paradigm shift in how work is dispensed over the long term is yet to be determined. It will certainly be one of the interesting trends to observe over the next few years. At present, a look at some of the currently available, albeit sparse, indicators seem to show some degree of change in how work operations are conducted. And they may be with us for the foreseeable future. 

It is fair to assume most management desire a return to normal times, during which management practices they were accustomed to can be resumed. If there is to be a more permanent realignment to include more flexibility such as remote work activity it probably will not willingly come from supervisors. To dust off that old business expression from the 20th century, it will come from the rank and file. 

A Microsoft WorkLab report from earlier this year reveals some pertinent findings. Nearly three quarters of employees wish for an option to work remotely. Although remote work has its downsides, enough workers have experienced that productivity can still be maintained by way of technological means in a comfortable environment with less stress and less exhaustion. Demand for a more permanent flexible, distributive, blended, or hybrid production model has arisen among office employees, according to this report. 

Older Gen Z and younger Millennials form a cohort that may be informative here. Living and working from devices is second nature to them. It is reasonable to expect the momentum for more flexibility will come from them. If their resumes and LinkedIn profiles start showing more quantifiable accomplishments derived from working remotely, they will be communicating not only that they can do it, but that they want to be hired for positions honoring such skills. Balancing productivity with wellbeing in the modern era will only grow as a necessary calibration and younger workers are likely to show the way in the context of adaptable workstyles. 

Business need not be driven into this transformation kicking and screaming. Signs are emerging among C-levels showing a recognition of the likely changes to come. A Work Trend Index survey conducted by Edelman Data & Intelligence discloses that 66% of business leaders are contemplating refashioning office space to allow for more flexibility.  

Reasons are twofold. As implied earlier, the workforce appears to be increasingly desirable of workplace flexibility. This could likely become an incentive for luring needed talent not wanting to be bound by traditional institutional rules. 

Additionally, business is identifying some benefits as a result of the Covid-induced remote working experiment in terms of lower overhead, as reported by NPR, and increased productivity, as claimed by Harvard Business Review. 

It is likely multiple variations on a hybrid model will become established moving forward that incorporates combinations of conventional office-centric requirements with increased distributive or remote work options for employees.  

Although no one could have reasonably predicted that a congruence of modern communication technologies with a global pandemic would steer this trend, the result could ultimately be a boon for workers and their bosses. Let us hope employers give such changes serious consideration. 

Employment and the 2020 Election

Here we go again. Time for another national election to choose a new Congress and a new president. The feeling in the air is that this election is more urgent and consequential than our garden variety face-offs, particularly at the presidential level. This choice of president is viewed as fundamentally determinative of the direction of the country and with starker contrast than most such contests. Or so both Republicans and Democrats claim. Great attention is being paid to this election and hopefully significant participation will be realized, which together should lead to a substantive and declarative outcome — like it or not. 

Typically, “It’s the economy, stupid!”. This time the sense is, “It’s the culture, stupid!”. Without getting into the developmental concerns related to our civilization’s maturation or lack thereof, economic claims, projections, and promises will likely continue to drive much of the partisan discussion. 

Are we Americans going to orient ourselves toward the past in an attempt to retain economic successes driven by tried-and-true practices previously delivered by legacy-styled business operatives or are we instead going to innovate and design for a paradigm-shifting economic future characterized by increasing competition, transformation, and multiculturalism? The decision we make will have consequences for the vitality of the economy going forward and for the quality of the employment it will spawn. 

Conventional wisdom states that if the economy is sufficiently robust, then vigorous employment will take care of itself. Indeed, high employment levels are intrinsic to a strong economy. Widespread employment matters. So, it is worth examining the economic approaches both parties are offering to see who is most prepared to fashion a jobs-rich environment over the next four years. Here is my broad summary of the selection before us. 

Donald Trump has shown us his economic priorities through past performance, which included low unemployment rates. Given that Republicans did not present a party platform this year we have to assume they are thinking ‘steady as she goes’. 

The Trump administration’s economic focus has been on individual and corporate tax cuts, deregulation targeted primarily to the energy and financial sectors, trade protectionism, immigration restriction, and rejection of a federal role in providing universal healthcare. In recent months there have also been attempts to resurrect the economy from the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic by promoting a reopening or ‘get back to normal’ agenda. 

Joe Biden, despite pressure from the Democratic Party’s left flank, is not proposing sweeping or revolutionary changes to the economy, but does advance ambitious federal interventions, nevertheless. Principally, he is centered on reinvigorating America’s middle class by encouraging greater inclusivity across lines of race and levels of education with less income inequality and a reclamation of optimism born of opportunity. 

He wants to expand Obamacare, impose a more progressive tax code, eliminate middle class student debt, raise the federal minimum wage, encourage low-carbon manufacturing, combat climate change, and much more. Biden/Harris also have a 7-point detailed plan to defeat Covid and plan for future such threats. 

Both the incumbent and the challenger want full employment. Which ideology is likely to produce this universally desired outcome? Excluding all other factors which will influence who gets my vote, I see the following as salient with regards to employment. 

The past 150 years have generated great economic advancements resulting in profound improvements in the lives of many millions, both as consumers and as producers. We have learned a lot about how to engender wealth and to provide life enhancing products and services. There are lessons from the past worth carrying on. 

But the past is gone. What we must look forward to is the future with all its uncertainty and ambiguity. Meeting this challenge requires a mindset that sees more opportunity than threat from the future. I think it is this frame of mind that impresses me more than candidate tactics and positions. Durable, but resilient employment will best come from an outlook that sees the world as it really is and that enthusiastically leans into the contest. 

A Hospitality Story

Recently I wrote a piece in which I lamented the condition of the hospitality industry as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. As of this writing, the economy is cautiously reopening around the country, including in both the hospitality industry and in the state of New Hampshire.  

However, it is also becoming clear there is a correlative rise in Covid infection rates following the reopenings. Whereas there is strong public sentiment to address both the public health and economic health of the nation and state, finding a satisfactory calibration benefiting both sides simultaneously still appears elusive. 

New Hampshire’s economy relies to a significant extent on the hospitality industry. This is not only to serve the state’s nearly 1.4 million residents, but to provide a backbone for the state’s lucrative tourism sector. Deterioration of hospitality services such as restaurants, hotels, resorts, amusement parks, theaters, and sporting venues will negatively impact tourism. The state of New Hampshire’s economy simply cannot afford to have that happen. Of course, we also cannot tolerate an adverse turnaround in the infection rate given the relatively favorable handling of the epidemic thus far in NH compared to many locations. 

Salvaging and rebuilding hospitality requires a management and employee workforce with agility, creativity, and resourcefulness exercising ingenuity and moxie beyond what has been required during past garden variety economic downturns. To get a sense of what this determination and imagination looks like on the ground I had the opportunity to converse with Lexi Townsend, owner of the Corner House Restaurant and Bar in Center Sandwich, NH.  

Lexi’s story is not only inspiring given the range of obstacles with which she was suddenly confronted, coupled with the ongoing originality she has had to muster to keep her business alive, but her situation and responses provide a glimpse into the kind of resilient decision making required to not only save a business, but an industry. 

Lexi Townsend is a long-term hospitality professional with restaurant experience that includes work as a server, host, manager, and owner. Most of her career has been in management of fine dining establishments in both urban and rural settings. Just before Governor Sununu mandated restaurants were to no longer accept on-site patrons in mid-March her chef resigned. After the shut-down order nearly all her service staff followed stay-at-home orders from the state government. 

Not wanting to close the business Townsend and one of two remaining employees took on chef duties and facilitated curbside pickup takeout orders from their website’s menu. Knowing many Squam Lake residents were shut in she offered local area delivery of both bulk and prepared food items. Many of these deliveries were done dockside, giving the service a Lakes Region flavor.  

Other events included “Feed the Frontline” serving care staff from Speare Memorial Hospital and a drive-through Mothers Day/Memorial Day barbecue involving community volunteers. 

Looking ahead to reopening, Lexi knew she needed to rebuild her server team. Offering employment and housing for J-1 visas to foreign nationals was considered, but that is now banned by the president. Instead, she has begun piloting a junior service program to train young staff members with limited server experience. Knowing the importance of safety, comfort, and visual communication she has purchased transparent face shields for servers in lieu of masks. The expectation is patrons need to feel not only secure, but also want to be understood and consoled by seeing the faces of their servers. 

Overall, Lexi is optimistic for the future of her business. Although her expectation is that once the Paycheck Protection Program is concluded the economy will plunge further. Nevertheless, she believes her restaurant’s good reputation and obvious commitment to survival will sustain the business. A new chef was recently hired and plans for a safe and enjoyable in-house dining experience are underway. 

Lexi’s advice for her fellow hospitality providers going forward is to persevere above all.  Be mindful of changing times, be adaptable, and know customers want protection in addition to a rich experience. Also, to understand and to accept recovery will take a long time. 

No question, these times are a stress test. Working smarter, not just harder, is essential. 

Hospitality, Crisis and Promise

Such wreckage. Such devastation. Such uncertainty. The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the present, shattered futures, and taken lives. In a quick couple of months life, as we have known it has been turned upside down. There is much to despair about this shock to our previously well-constructed world. Looking for hope can seem unattainable, especially for those whose careers, livelihoods, and businesses have been heavily damaged. 

I especially mourn for what is happening to the hospitality industry. Restaurants, hotels, resorts, amusement parks, theaters, concerts, sporting events and the like are where we go to refresh and rewind by enjoying time with friends and family, interacting with others, and being treated warmly by caring staffs. 

Hospitality is in many ways one of the most human of all career choices. Here is where your value is largely determined by how well you engage with others and how well you make others feel. Being socially distant is aversive to hospitality. It is like trying to paint landscapes with only two colors. The genial experience is catastrophically abridged when we are apart. 

Hospitality was to be the great redeemer for a world becoming increasingly technical, remote, and isolated. At its core, hospitality resisted the forces of automation and outsourcing, which is transforming so many other lines of work. It benefited from an economy relatively flush with disposable income. This industry really has made the world a better place to live. And now we ask ourselves, what happens to us all if our capacity to be social beings is painfully curtailed for the long term? 

In the US it is unlikely we will see the government stepping in to support hospitality for more than several months. Projections point to the second half of 2021 before a widely distributed and effective vaccine is put into place. Therefore, social distancing is expected to be among the chief tactics we have available to mitigate outbreaks during our slow build up to herd immunity. 

Then there is the very real fear people have about mingling as before. Think of the questions we could have while in crowds, such as who among these people is asymptomatic and carrying the virus? Why is that person coughing? Is it right to hug or shake hands with this friend anymore? How can I keep my glasses from fogging when wearing this darn mask? Many may and probably will opt for staying home. 

There are no easy answers or quick fixes for hospitality. That said, two broad ideas come to mind that may point to some sort of solution for the future of those whose hospitality jobs are evaporating. 

This is a time for hospitality professionals to reflect on their skills and the value they bring to the public. My advice is to inventory what it is about your engagements with people that activate your energy and bring deep satisfaction. Then think about other more employable areas where these talents can be expressed. For example, healthcare related services benefit from a workforce rich in soft hospitable skills infused with those of the technical expertise providers. Sales and customer services also are enhanced by those who can deliver personal, attentive, and solution-oriented care and advice. Think about it. There are many fields in which a hospitable mindset and presentation can find a home. 

Secondly, now is a time for the entrepreneurial, innovative, resourceful, and ingenious among us to design and develop novel ways of offering hospitality contributions that have not been tried before. The pent-up public demand is certainly there. Necessity is still the mother of invention. Let us please be pleasantly surprised by having creative hospitality professionals discover new and refreshing ways of building community, strengthening social interaction, and giving us respite from these stressful times, all while maintaining safe and prudent distancing measures. 

Times were dark in the economy ten years ago and they are even darker now. But if we are lucky, it may be our friends in hospitality who can shine a light when we most need it. 

Distributive Work Gets A Boost

One of the significant consequences foisted upon the economy during the Covid-19 outbreak has been the rapid scaling of work completed outside of the office, i.e., at home. What is commonly known as remote work, now increasingly being referred to as distributive work, has been increasing over the past twenty years or so. But in its short history it never has experienced a shot of practice like it is getting now. 

My guess is that distributive work is conventionally thought of across most businesses as secondary in its productive impact relative to being onsite, not unlike the way online courses have tried shaking off their reputation of being course lite. However, the severity of social distancing to break the chain of virus transmission is forcing the knowledge economy to rely on high quality distributive work to stay alive as never before. Indeed, it is in the knowledge economy, comprised of smart and skilled workers producing goods and services worldwide, where distributive work holds its greatest promise. 

It may be useful to know the thoughts of someone who has pioneered and cultivated distributive work for years and is now a leading voice in the movement. Matt Mullenweg was one of the founding developers of WordPress, the digital content management system, and founder of the diversified internet company Automattic with ~1200 employees distributed over 70 countries. He continues to not only evangelize distributive work but leads a set of companies that practice it daily. 

He is also convinced distributive work need not be just an off-the-shelf option management reaches for during times of disruption, but a model of productivity capable of surpassing the performance of traditional office-setting work. 

Mullenweg promotes worker autonomy as key to motivation and efficiency and is much more concerned with worker output than input. While retaining some in-person collaboration, but in a much more reduced and targeted manner, he recognizes the impediments of cramming a lot of people onto a single site. A myriad of distractions such as office politics, intrusive co-workers and managers, long off-topic chats with co-workers, shared facilitates, a narrow set of expected in-house behaviors, and a feeling of having little control over likes and dislikes from the office temperature to the smell of someone’s lunch can all negatively factor into the worker feeling a lack of autonomy. 

With that in mind he identifies five levels of distributive work from low to high effectiveness. To quickly summarize: 

  • Level 1, which is now old-school, has workers using telephone and email offsite to augment their work, but with the belief that the “real” work is done at the office. 
  • Level 2 is an attempt to recreate the office elsewhere by use of VPN and conferencing software to supplement voice and email. Most business is still mired in levels 1 and 2. 
  • Level 3 demonstrates an intentional effort to adopt the best software and equipment available to share knowledge seamlessly and transparently across the organization. This can include good lighting, microphones, and communication tools like Zoom, Slack, and P2. 
  • Level 4 places a premium on asynchronous and written communication, meaning to move away from an over-reliance on live interactions. The goal here is to improve the quality of decision making even if its pace is slowed. 
  • Level 5 is where production capability is shown to be measurably improved over traditional work methods. 

Mullenweg contends the manufacturing factory model of all employees looking busy at the same time and in the same place does not always translate well into the cognitive economy. By valuing quantifiable and qualitative output primarily and providing workers with the means necessary to cooperatively join forces across distance the “workplace” can be not only redefined but rendered more fruitful. 

Looking for a humane and profitable opportunity amidst a global contagion may be difficult. Perhaps, refining distributive work is one such occasion. 

Shareholders, Stakeholders, and Careers

When an assessment of a long-term economic operating procedure and theory becomes a key element of debate during a presidential election, then the practice in question, and its rationale, has reached a level of weighty significance. Such is the ongoing case of a possible post-neoliberal corporate economy. Neoliberalism, a commonly used term by economists referring to the late 20th century style of free market fundamentalism, is facing its biggest challenge to date. 

Going back to the mid-century writings of Milton Friedman, which focused on monetary policy, taxation, deregulation, and privatization, there has been widespread acceptance of his economic philosophy of unfettered free markets as the best way to support both a free society and national economic wellbeing. The economic low tax, low regulation, and small government principles of the Republican Party continue to be driven by the Chicago school of economics, of which Friedman was a principal contributor. 

A current widely held view, particularly by the political left, and increasingly the center, is that this neoliberal style of capitalism has led to well documented wealth inequality being blamed for much of our economic and political angst today. It is argued that despite the claim of free markets as best providing economic expansion, the benefit of such growth is limited to a small and wealthy segmented slice of the population and therefore is an inadequate model for the greater good. 

To a large degree, the public debate emerging in the presidential election race is a referendum on whether free market economic conservatism first preached by Barry Goldwater, a Republican presidential candidate in 1964, is relevant any longer when so many Americans are struggling to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. 

Shared prosperity is the new buzz term. It suggests that a system, including government and private business, should together have a more inclusive outlook about how generated wealth should be diffused across the country and citizenry. This contention goes on to state that wealth inequality is not just unfair, but contrary to robust economic growth, because most of the people who would spend broadly for goods and services are unable to do so if capital is sequestered to the richest top strata. In other words, there is a call for both social responsibility and economic invigoration. 

To take this thinking to the employment level, especially among corporations, it is enlightening to look at the production and governance paradigm used by many large businesses. Friedman advanced the notion of shareholder primacy. Shareholders assume the greatest risk through their investments and therefore should receive the largest reward. Employees and management exist to create wealth for shareholders. Plain, simple, and very hierarchical. 

It turns out however, there are other stakeholders within or close to a corporation who also have a vested interest. They include employees, management, and the ancillary businesses relying on corporate success in their communities. Marginalizing these other stakeholder groups can minimize the financial gain they receive. 

Milton Friedman once said, “Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundation of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility…” (Adam Smith Institute). Extrapolating from this belief to the practice of shareholder primacy is not hard to do. Could exceptionally high executive compensation also stem from this persuasion? 

And what of your career? I hypothesize not many employees are content with simply serving shareholders. True, shareholders make possible their very jobs, but would not productivity, innovation, and morale be enhanced if there was an ethic of shared gain in corporations’ achievements? Perhaps, a more intentional perspective of collective advantage could boost profits for all involved. 

The election appears poised to devolve into a silly, “Which is better, Socialism or Capitalism?” debate. Let’s not get caught up in that bumper sticker. This is a time for a serious and measured examination by all of us to decide for whom an economy is supposed to work. 

Factor AI into Your Career Plans

It does not matter what career field you are in, anything from finance to fashion is being and will increasingly be impacted by Artificial Intelligence or AI. Whether you believe AI will create lives of no-work luxury for us all or will end civilization as we know it, our challenge in the 21st century is to understand and participate in shaping AI’s repercussions. Therefore, when pondering your career long-game a critical planning component is to consider the impact AI will have on what you do for a living. 

So, what is AI? I like Kathryn Hume’s working definition (Director, Product & Business Development Product for Borealis AI), which is that AI is whatever computers cannot do until they can. This implies that AI is a moving target, compiling and sorting vast amounts of data one year to leveraging machine learning that promotes employment obsolescence the next. 

What once passed for AI is now integrated into standard operating procedures across many industries. Currently, we are wondering about and bracing for unexpected consequences derived from ever more sophisticated machines “thinking” like superhumans. 

AI certainly engenders anxiety. Sam Daly (Builtin.com) reports on a 2018 survey in which 72% of respondents conveyed concern for human jobs being subsumed by technology. Even Elon Musk of electric car and SpaceX fame refers to AI as more dangerous than nukes. And of course, the current US Presidential campaign includes a candidate, Andrew Yang, who showcases a universal basic income for all Americans to help offset the workforce changes and employment displacement being caused by increased automation or AI. 

Given this AI anguish, what is a career planner to do? To begin, it may help to view AI as something old-school, as in business development processes which require change management procedures aimed toward adoption of innovations which lead to competitive advantages. In other words, AI may be no more threatening than any other big change. In this case, the adjustment is in the area of human-machine collaboration. (But we did that once during the Industrial Revolution, right?) 

Also, let us not think of AI as Alien Intelligence. There is nothing otherworldly going on here despite how opaque AI may seem to the layman. AI is constructed by the design and application of algorithms, which are sets of executable instructions leading to an output. Algorithms can be written to consist of one or many criteria or inputs, ranging from if…then… statements to text, images, videos, voice, and more. As the algorithms become more complex it can be unclear which criterion establishes dominance, but this does not diminish the validity and importance of the outputs. 

The quality of the inputs determines the caliber of the results. For example, if data sets that “train” algorithms are too narrowly selected, i.e., too old or demographically skewed, then that limits the scope of the output. We can think of such algorithms as biased. When relying on AI to plan market capture strategies, for instance, this can matter a lot. 

“Decisions” made by computers can also be fickle, as in different from one day to the next, requiring retrospective pattern analysis. In short, algorithms now are good at processing relatively restricted tasks, but far from totally taking over the universe of human capabilities. 

Many professional job descriptions will change due to AI. To prepare, develop a nimble and adaptable perspective to change. Do not wait to have your job transformation be forced onto you. Get out in front of the inevitable and think, for example about how AI can be used to eliminate mundane parts of your job to free you up for more innovative endeavors.  

Influence the way AI can improve your performance and the service you provide. By thinking critically about what AI can and cannot do you have a better chance of determining your professional relevance moving forward. 

Entrepreneurism’s Evolving Promise

Entrepreneurism has a strong and positive brand…and it should. Its contribution to the growth of the economy and by extension to the betterment of lives is immeasurable. Counting the total costs of national goods and services only begins to calculate the value of entrepreneurial activity. 

A harder metric to identify, but no less important, is the qualitative significance of longer, healthier, and happier lives we collectively enjoy due to the innovation, risk taking, and intelligence of successful entrepreneurs. 

It could be said that the popular image of the entrepreneur is the self-confident driven performer productively balancing inspiration and perspiration, flawlessly timing the market, persevering with a laser-like focus, and venturing forward willingly into uncertainty, all leading to the realization of sweet success and generous profits as a just reward. We value that illustration. It is reassuring. It goes a long way to shaping our national and cultural identity. 

It is known too that start-ups with an eye toward growth furnish boosts in hiring, strengthened competition, and improved productivity by injecting fresh products, services, and business designs into new markets. 

Given the near universal gains we receive from entrepreneurism what possible improvements can be expected from the practice? Well, I can suggest one. A quarter in which we desperately need entrepreneurs’ creative problem solving is in the promotion of shared prosperity. The time is right for an entrepreneurism that cares less about concentrated wealth and more about dispersing capital, particularly to key stakeholders such as employees and citizens of communities in which businesses operate. 

We do not need corporate social responsibility manifestos to get there, just energetic, aware, and engaged business owners who choose to direct their talents toward providing a greater degree of distributed benefits over the more common asset consolidation we more typically associate with entrepreneurs. An alternative form of enthusiasm and sense of reward can be derived from constructing enterprises that intentionally advance expanded economic growth and strong job creation among the greatest number possible. 

The political pressure to confront wealth inequality is growing and looks to be a key issue in the upcoming election season. If the current trajectory of wealth amassing does not change, then the call for government intervention will only increase. Some or most governmental intercessions will undoubtedly be seen as interference and obstruction among many in business. Encouraging executives both young and old to integrate into a shared prosperity ethic may mitigate policy making coercion. 

It is not as if entrepreneurs and business leaders have not practiced this approach before. It has been widely reported that the period from the end of World War II until the 1970s was more economically stable due largely in part to the relative lack of discrepancy between management and rank & file. Granted this was a time of strong unions and more widespread political endorsement of income flattening approaches by government. However, one cannot help but wonder if the shared sacrifice evident during the war spurred a nationwide value system whereby wealth distribution was more easily realized. Can we care for each other similarly now? 

Perhaps the most endearing gift entrepreneurs give us is tangible creativity. They model and encourage thinking, which develops into options from which consumers can select the most solution-oriented or life augmenting potentialities. This has historically sparked human progress. It continues to do so.  

Given the current and ever-present range of problems in the world calling for answers and resources we look to the influencers, thought leaders, and groundbreakers to develop and implement transformative strategies, services, and products. 

Purposely including and addressing those Americans being left behind by a shifting and segregating economy could turn out to not only be nationally unifying, but also good business. 

A Reason for Employment Inequality

Much is made of the dearth of economic opportunity and income equality across the U.S. workforce. Though a perennial issue, the conventional wisdom these days more than most appears to be that there are segments of the American population for whom high paying jobs are elusive or non-existent. This belief persists despite the lowest unemployment rate we have seen in nearly twenty years. 

The primary reason, we are told, for this situation boils down to the fact that an automated, globalized, and corporate-led economy produces winners and losers — a somewhat different set of winners and losers apparently than the more nationally-based economy of yesteryear. 

Inequality, or even the perception of it, tends to raise the hackles of key constituencies such as left-leaning individuals and nowadays working class folks who find that many low to mid-skilled jobs are evaporating. These groups agree there is a fundamental unfairness to inequality, and they are inspired to fight against it, sometimes in dramatically different ways, whenever possible. 

One element of inequality that I do not see getting too much attention however pertains to the number of people with a college education vs. those without one. As we look over the last half century or so we can see that this is a significant economic phenomenon. Indeed, the discrepancy between those with and without higher education impacts a variety of inequality factors, including not just income, but housing, community makeups, cultural upbringing, socioeconomics, and social status. 

The number of working-aged Americans with college degrees is steadily rising and now is at or slightly above 40% according to the Lumina Foundation. That is ten times the number compared to a hundred plus years ago when Andrew Carnegie, of all people, claimed college was irrelevant and even damaging. Despite the high cost of college, projections are that attendance will continue to grow another 15% by 2025 (Inside Higher Ed). 

Bruce Cain, a Stanford University political scientist, points out that people with knowledge-based characteristics attributed to being college educated, such as professionally oriented behaviors, digital familiarity, an understanding of financial services, and innovative inclinations, tend to congregate residentially and in employment. In today’s world the “Haves” are most often the ones with a college education, and they like to stick with and hire others of their own kind. It is easy to see how this can appear unequal. 

Many Baby Boomers were raised with the notion that getting a college education would lead to greater economic gain. Although the message is more nuanced these days the central point remains the same. One unintended consequence of this virtue is that it also leads to economic inequality and resentment among those not sharing in the bounty. This acrimony can sometimes be heard among those who have taken an anti-intellectual / anti-education stance, such as when expressing skepticism (to put it politely) regarding the viewpoints of the “elites” and the “establishment”. 

Addressing this imbalance requires initially a level of respect and acknowledgement that we all have something of value to offer. Working toward an economic system that honors and tries to achieve an opportunity-for-all ethic could arise from such a belief. Those who benefit from the hard work and commitment of pursuing higher education can assist those for whom college has not been a viable option through assistance measures designed to encourage greater and more affordable college attendance. 

And for those not choosing to pursue higher ed? The means of providing employment training, entrepreneurial support, and apprenticeship alternatives, along with other opportunity options, could be made more available. Full employment across all socioeconomic groups should always be our collective objective. 

Sharing prosperity across all segments of a pluralistic society is a great challenge. Perhaps we need to see more committed action from those who have succeeded, many of whom profess liberal leanings, to drive opportunity-for-all programs so that no one’s economic prospects are left behind. 

The Age of Mobility

Mobility has become something of a buzz word these days, particularly in the context of one’s economic and employment condition. Increasingly we see movement among people, whether in terms of place, jobs, education, or social groups as more common, at least among a growing segment of the population. 

There has always been the phenomenon of socioeconomic mobility, the upward or downward movement of economic status with its resulting standard of living levels. As Americans, we pride ourselves on having created a meritocratic system, in which ability and talent rather than simply inherited wealth and privilege, can lead to upward mobility. And ingrained in that potential is of course the risk of failure and descent. 

The mobility I am emphasizing, however, goes beyond this more historic form. It is a mobility that in part defines the changing nature of career and economic success in an evolving economy. It is mobility that is encouraged and motivated by discovering and acquiring that increasingly elusive premium known as opportunity. 

If the work you want to do is more likely to be found in Los Angeles, then you leave your home in New Hampshire. If hiring is more robust in accounting, then you do not follow your parents’ careers as teachers. If the variety of diverse lifestyle and work choices within a multicultural neighborhood is more appealing, then you leave your mostly white and Protestant hometown. If your impetus is to develop truly innovative and groundbreaking services, then you don’t follow the path of anyone else. 

As one prepares for adulthood and career there appears to be a fundamental choice to be made — opt for a career characterized more by features of mobility or more by tradition. Throughout much of our history we were content to stay close to where we were born and to do work, whether in or out of the home, that was done by our parents. We continued family farming, worked in the same paper mill as our father and grandfather, raised children full time at home, and provided goods and services for families much like ours in the area. There were social and economic benefits, in short the opportunity, to carry on these traditions. That continuity still has appeal for many, but perhaps for a decreasing number of people. 

Economic opportunity now is seen by an expanding number of people as requiring mobility. For home grown and newly arrived Americans the ticket to a broader range of career options is education. It may be difficult to know exactly what the right thing is to study at first, but a belief is widely accepted that continuing education beyond high school and indeed throughout one’s working years is necessary to keep one economically viable and marketable. Similarly, is the understanding that one’s career now has an inherent mobility with many twists, turns, and iterations. (For example, most CEOs did not major in business administration, but rather in subjects like history, political science, and communications, according to Investopedia). 

Immigrants continue to serve as examples of assertive mobility. Sure, the attraction of the US has long been there for those from abroad who have wanted to put America’s socioeconomic upward mobility reputation and principles to the test. Indeed, that continues to happen. But many of today’s immigrants to America also know that to achieve a decent or higher standard of living they need to more intelligently hunt for and snag opportunity. The word is that opportunity will not be handed to them. Immigrants disrupted their lives intentionally, leaving much of their past and what is familiar behind. Their energy, enthusiasm, and drive are worth paying attention to and perhaps emulating as much now as ever. 

Hopefully, we can make our world friendly and prosperous for those with inclinations toward both mobility and tradition. Collectively, we should not have to conclude one way of life survives and the other does not. Yet, the trend toward mobility is mobilized and gathering steam. No matter how you choose to engage your career and livelihood your relationship with mobility must be considered. 

Consider a Career in Gaming

I recently conversed with an old friend who was transitioning into retirement from a lifelong career as a golf course owner and superintendent. He shared with me his observation of a decline in the golf business in recent years not only at his course, but at others in his region (South Coast Massachusetts), and indeed nationally. 

Not being a golfer myself I did a little research and found that the industry is either thriving or declining depending on who you talk to. PGA officials point to statistics that paint a rosy picture of the game’s future, but other sources, such as The Economist for instance, show years of net golf course closures since 2006 and a drop of five million players since the game’s participant high point. 

In the case of my friend there was an unmistakable reduction in players at his course. I asked why this was the case thinking that recreational activity in general seems robust. His unscientific conclusion is that younger game players are choosing online gaming over golf. 

Online or digital gaming is big business. In looking at sources that track gaming data I found the following: Worldwide revenues in 2017 reaching $109B this year with 42% coming from mobile gaming (Newzoo); $18.4B of those revenues are being generated in the U.S. alone (Statista); and in May 2017, 9% year-over-year market growth was measured (SuperData Research). Unless you live in a cave, it is obvious anecdotally that lots of people enjoy spending lots of time gaming on devices. 

To try getting a better understanding of this phenomenon and how it relates to current and future careers I spoke with Ryan Smith, a New Hampshire-based game programmer, consultant, and game design instructor. Before our conversation, my image of a video gamer was restricted to adolescent boys in front of a console tethered to the family television. Ryan, who has been a gamer all his life and who earned a degree in game design from SNHU, has considerable background in this field both technically and culturally. 

Ryan began by sharing that digital gaming is now an entertainment industry double in size to the movie and music industries combined. Increasingly, women and older players are indulging in digital gaming. Gaming devices are grouped into PCs, consoles, and mobile categories with the first two losing market share to mobile.  

As interesting as these facts are, what I really wanted was a sense of what motivated players to play. Not being a gamer myself, I was curious about what is so appealing about this pastime to produce such a high level of engagement. 

According to Ryan, the attraction rests in otherworldly immersion where one can live out dreams and fantasies not possible in reality. There exists a level of interactive control, instant gratification, and risk taking that is not possible in ordinary day to day life. This leads to an expressive activity that is more stimulating and satisfying than the passive receptivity one gets from watching movies or listening to music — and it would seem more provocative than trying to refine a physical skill such as golfing. This type of engrossment is centered around action themes, stories, and scenarios, but is so enthralling apparently as to become a unique experience not found in more traditional amusements. 

The industry is trending toward more social, networked, and global gaming experiences with platforms known as Massively Multiplayer Online or MMOs and identity/community simulations. The other game changer, if you will, is the introduction of Virtual Reality (VR), a technological sensation that places a player more realistically into an imaginary environment. 

There are benefits to gaming aside from entertainment says Ryan. Discipline, motivation, eye-hand coordination, faster decision making, brain training and yes, even social skills can be enhanced through gaming. 

Digital gaming is a classic case of a newly disruptive industry changing a traditional landscape and presenting new employment opportunities not previously available. Despite the playfulness implied in gaming, a market this big must be taken seriously. 

Educating for Impending Careers

Many of us in the United States were educated as children and young adults so that we could succeed both as citizens sustaining our democratic way of life and as productive workers able to sustain ourselves and our families economically. For the most part, the combination of public and private K–12 schools and higher education universities and colleges has served us quite well. We are by and large a well-educated and constructive populace. 

But can we rely on the old-school methodologies to sustain us for a world of work that will be characterized as mercurial and erratic calling for agility, adaptability, and rapid evolution? There is reason to think not. An economy that is experiencing increased speed and transformation will not be well served by an educational structure and model designed to prepare students for a relatively static and predictable work world. 

Let us examine the existing paradigm that traditionally and currently defines most American high schools and colleges. There are two patterns at play based on the concepts of liberal education and career-focused education. By the time a student reaches high school they select or have selected for them one of these persuasions or the other. 

Liberal (or liberal arts) education refers to an approach that encourages a broad and diverse exposure to fundamental and diverse subject matter with the goal being to educate a student for a complex world requiring a variety of perspectives, skills, and areas of knowledge. When and if college is reached, the student fits into this mix a concentrated focus in one or more disciplines. 

A career-focused or vocational path on the other hand focuses much more on preparing the student for a relevant job that is in demand in the workforce. Breadth gives way to depth in that a craft or skillset demonstrably employable is chosen, studied, and eventually mastered by the student. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that there is anything fundamentally wrong with these models. My concern is in the traditional modes of delivery of the designs. We are still under the assumption that a high school diploma and/or college degree program that terminates upon graduation is enough to provide a student for a lifetime career. It used to be. However, projections are that it will not be enough going forward. 

The workplace and its career needs are becoming increasingly digitized and globalized, resulting in an urgency for malleable, resilient, and entrepreneurial workers to address the ever-vibrant economic demands across the planet. To maintain these attributes workers will need to accept and embrace continuous lifelong learning, upskilling, and training to keep up and stay ahead. Schooling will never end. In fact, it will become an integral and ongoing part of any advantageous job worth having for most people. 

We will likely see a time when liberal and career-focused methods become more of an as-needed hybrid with a greater proliferation of skill and knowledge-based certification and training programs not necessarily tied to slow moving traditional education settings. Students, employees, and educators will begin migrating more intentionally into online, virtual, and yes, brick & mortar learning facilities that offer the highest quality, data driven, short and long-term instruction essential to the requirements of the emerging economy. 

As an educator myself with 31 years in public schools and 5 years as a part time college adjunct I can say with some certainty that this industry will not on its own move in this direction without a lot of resistance. There are many entrenched interests compelled to resist such changes.  

A more responsive and pragmatic instructional delivery will likely arise from a combination of innovative educators and demanding students and employees requiring relevant reactive instruction. We can all begin by getting our heads around the concept of lifelong learning. I predict it will be far more energizing and efficient and much less stuck and draining. 

The Continued Evolution of LinkedIn

The professional, business, and employment social media online platform LinkedIn is at it again, but in a bigger way this time. As individuals who regularly use LinkedIn to source talent, post jobs, display professional profiles, or network with other users we know that LinkedIn frequently tinkers with the interface to “improve” usability. It has always been a dynamic and growing service and one must assume they are doing something right with $3B+ in annual revenue and 460+ million user accounts worldwide. Not bad for a novel concept that first went live in 2003. 

The latest big set of changes has been rolling out for the past couple of months following the completed acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft in December 2016. Time will tell of course if this will be a good move for both parties. Let us hope this deal does not go the way of doomed Microsoft ventures like Nokia’s handset and aQuantive software. However, given the financial heft and prominent position in the digital services market Microsoft enjoys it is reasonable to expect that this takeover will boost LinkedIn’s standing and influence in the career and employment services space. 

Without getting into the weeds of all the many new minute interaction changes of the website, and there are enough, so that a new learning curve has appeared to get familiar with the site, it nevertheless appears to someone like me that I am increasingly finding LinkedIn to be my digital place to go to work. And I am not alone, Logging into LinkedIn.com is becoming my virtual commute to a real job. 

As in a traditional workplace there are those I work with frequently and closely on a project, those I know remotely, and those I am reaching out to as potential sources of value and opportunity. It is in these areas of taking connectivity among professional people to a more functional, transparent, and far-reaching level where LinkedIn holds great promise. 

The effects of globalization have thankfully become a hotly debated issue politically, but in the world of e-commerce impacted as it is by the powers of social media and crowd sourcing, the players are not waiting around for slow moving governments to set the rules. Global inter-connectivity and commerce is just starting to get ramped-up via international platforms like LinkedIn. It looks like we are heading into a world in which small-scaled and remote outreaches among millions of entrepreneurs, freelancers, microbusinesses, and small businesses across the planet can be exchanged 24/7. 

LinkedIn, and now by extension Microsoft, are betting on this proliferation of e-business, so much so that there is a mission to “economically graph” the world through its site. What does this mean? As Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO puts it, they are committed to digitally mapping the global economy by building a profile for every member of the international workforce and for every company in the world. 

Further they intend to digitally list every available job in real refreshed time, list every skill needed to perform those jobs, and identify every school or training facility providing the skill instruction needed to perform these jobs. Facilitating an efficient, timely, and rich flow of information that connects these dots completes the goal. 

Given this infrastructure the potential for enriching current employment, business development, and career needs while also fulfilling the talent requirements for the innumerable jobs of the future seems highly likely. 

An expansive vision of the possibilities e-commerce and e-networking can deliver should be embraced. Many new careers can be made from leveraging a dynamic global economy. Engaging in international business does not any longer have to just be reserved for large multi-national corporations. If one can get a higher quality business or career solution from New Zealand rather than from New Hampshire no matter where in the world one lives, we should expect that to be the new normal and compete appropriately. 

Preparing Your Career for a Binary Star Economy

Career Development is as fluid a field of study and method of personal improvement as can be found anywhere. Its progressive elasticity and growing erratic nature are due to the changing state of the world of work. In an environment that requires continual improvement, adaptability, and thorough planning as does ours, long-term career design can be a difficult and uncertain endeavor. 

As discovered by ancient mariners when navigating vast and strange oceans, it helps to have a North Star to serve as a beacon and guide. As we each seek to chart an unclear and enigmatic career development landscape for purposes of changing existing careers or determining new ones, we too can benefit from a North Star. However, Binary Star may be the more apt metaphor — a system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. This is because the duality we must now regularly consider are the two interdependent powerhouses known as globalization and automation. 

The future of work appears to be heavily influenced, if not governed, by these two harbingers. In tandem, globalization and automation are in a process of modifying the way we live, and therefore how we work. The expanding utilization of technology combined with the spreading integration of people, businesses, and governments around the world is altering economic history in a way that has not happened since the Industrial Revolution. 

As paradigm shifting as the change from hand work to mass production was a hundred plus years ago, we are now witnessing a transformation just as groundbreaking, if not more. When people like Ray Kurzweil, the 67-year-old Director of Engineering at Google, predicts that by 2029 computers will be able to perform all tasks humans can now do, only better, then I pay attention — and you should too. 

It is not just the prognostications of one man that matter (and he has some doozies), but the unmistakable short and long-term trend lines indicating rapid proliferation in new and disruptive technologies and business models (think Airbnb, Uber, SaaS, MOOCS) and increased activity in what the International Monetary Fund refers to as the four basic aspects of globalization: international transactions; capital movements; migrations of people; and knowledge dissemination. 

Ask yourself, how well do your career plans hitch themselves to the forces of globalization and automation? It is wise to look for some connection. Enough current work is already being made redundant and new ways of organizing work tasks are in the process of being discovered. If I was as prescient as I wish I could be, I would now present a neat and tidy list of specific and guaranteed jobs of the future. But alas, I am not that farsighted. Nevertheless, here is what I think will help in preparing for the Brave New World and strengthen our decision making as we move forward. 

Paramount is the need to remain optimistic in the face of uncertainty. Pessimism and hand wringing will not fortify us against ambiguity. Those who will find success are those with a positive attitude allowing themselves to see and grasp an opportunity others do not or cannot. 

We also need to get back to having big ideas. The Hoover Dam, the Golden State Bridge, and the Empire State Building were all built during the Great Depression. Winning World War II, constructing the Interstate Highway System, and launching six crewed moon landings followed. Today we are all in a twist about whether to extend health insurance to the uninsured and whether to fund bridge repairs. Big problems exist that need substantial solutions. Let us find our lost courage to make grand proposals and realize lofty outcomes. 

Free thinking of the type that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship also needs to be encouraged. This has always been America’s strong suit and it demands continuation, if not invigorating, in an ever-competitive global economy. Our schools for one can do a better job of transitioning from the mechanized industrial-aged model to one more consistent with a broad-minded enterprising ethos. 

Business dedicated to sharing, rather than old fashioned consumption and disposal of resources is becoming fashionable — and profitable. Making money by sharing homes, cars, locally grown foods, breweries, office spaces, etc. is becoming increasingly common. Disruptive of legacy business models to be sure, but isn’t that the way it is going these days? From an ecological viewpoint, an economy that utilizes resources in common with others may in part reverse the throw-away trend of the last half century. 

Reframing our attitudes and ways of thinking about the binary impact globalization and automation is having on our economy, careers, and ways of life may be the best approach we can profitably take away from this economic conversion. 

Keeping Your Workforce Productive and Happy

When assessing the state of our careers we quickly turn to determining how satisfying our workplaces are. After all it is hard to feel our careers are on track if the place where we work is lacking in some fundamental ways. Since each of us is ultimately responsible for growing our individual careers as optimally as possible we rightly feel justified in influencing our workplace environment to be the best it can be. 

Also, business owners and organizational executive directors naturally care a lot about the productivity of their respective workforce. It is certainly no secret that a happy workforce is a productive workforce. Therefore, it is in the direct interests of bosses to facilitate their workplaces to be environments that increase satisfaction, and by extension, production. 

The question then naturally arises as to what are the steps that need to be taken to create and sustain a positive workplace? Ideas can be derived from a variety of spots, including in-depth research done by organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management, but other sources of opinions and suggestions can come from surveys, blogs, and LinkedIn threaded discussions that give a more candid and authentic perspective into the issue. 

My eavesdropping of the chatter reveals several consistent themes centered on values such as respect, flexibility, equity, stability, fairness, and jocularity. When we listen to the concerns about women in the workplace, for example, we find that work-life balance competes strongly with income. Accenture, the management consulting firm, concludes that women prefer work-life balance first, money second, and recognition third. Given that women make up 47% of the national workforce, their opinion matters a lot. 

Google still holds a reputation as one of the best places in the world to work. It topped a recent survey of 6200 companies conducted by Great Place to Work, a global consulting firm. So, what is it about this place? Yes, we know about the perks such as massages, horseshoe pits, and slides that take you from one floor down to another, but is that all there is? 

Well, it certainly helps that every employee is a stockholder, and a share is worth north of $500, but there is also a community culture that encourages giving, growing, and being bold along with supports for creativity and risk taking not apparent in many other places. Google management has made a science of calibrating the right mix of benefits and cultural values resulting in high retention rates and maximum productivity. 

But it is expensive to offer Google-esque perks to employees. For most companies and organizations, it may be worth noting the coming changes to the workforce, so that benefit and culture changes can be considered knowledgeably and possibly implemented without breaking the bank. For example, the definition of workplace stability may be undergoing a change whereby more workers may be thinking of freelancing, temp working, and short-term contract working as the new stability. Flexibility becomes key. 

Another workplace condition to prepare for will be the increasing number of older workers who cannot or do not want to stop working. What might this cohort want? We can start with respect for their historic knowledge and proven dedication to employers along with wellness programs, good lighting, and diminished information overload. 

Another key morale enhancer may involve candid discussions of how technology is used. It is great when tech increases productivity instead of being a distraction or job killer. However, many employees will become increasingly distrustful of how management leverages technology given its workplace disruption potential, so bringing employees into conversations about the role of technology could show worker respect. 

Yet, the most apparent ideas to foster great workplaces are quite old-school and effective. Most of us simply want to trust the people we work for, have pride in and recognition for our accomplishments, and enjoy the people we work with. Is that too much to ask? 

The Future of Careers

The official U.S. unemployment rate is down to 6.1% (in New Hampshire 4.4%). This is the lowest it has been since September 2008, the month we all realized the U.S. economy was in a tailspin. The raw number of employed workers has also recovered from the start of the recession. 

So why do we still feel in a funk about the employment recovery clearly underway? Perhaps it is because the recovery is taking so long. Or maybe it is due to the poisonous political relations turning into a national fratricide. It could also be the growing mainstream realization that capital has become densely concentrated among a relative few while the middle class feels its power and influence waning. 

I think all these developments play significant and disturbing roles in our continued malaise. However, there is another factor tugging at our collective insecurity. It is an insidious threat running just below the surface and not yet apparent to most, except for those who see their jobs and careers steadily dissolving. Call it automation, robotics, technology, or robo-sourcing. Whatever you call it, the reality of machines replacing people in the workplace is as historic as craftsmen and artisans being replaced by factory workers during the Industrial Revolution. 

I am not talking about just low-skilled jobs which do not require much education being erased. We all know that has been going on. The news is that computers are becoming better at replacing mid-level jobs and there is no end in sight to this trend. 

Here are some examples of a possible near-term future: Why hire a paralegal when computers can research and collate case histories and precedents? Let’s reduce family expenses by eliminating auto insurance, since our new car is autonomously operated. Who needs mid-managers when employees are now empowered by sophisticated software to give them direction? 

Examples such as these (and there are plenty more) of automation reaching into and killing traditional careers will become more numerous. No wonder we feel unsettled. Uncertainty for our jobs is the new certainty. 

Every great story involves individuals or groups trying to handle adversity with the goal of regaining equilibrium in their lives. Among the great stories of our age will be how working people adjust, manage, and flourish given the challenge of ubiquitous career disruption. This will not be easy. There will be a lot of anguish, questioning, indecision, and yes successes as we share in the development of a new economy characterized by new rules and choices. 

How we as individuals adapt to a world in which technology handles all the work tasks comprised of rote, logical, ordered, and sequential attributes will be centered around one fundamental question —What can people do that computers cannot do? 

In answer to this question there appear to be at least two areas in which people are superior to machines. One, people can be creative, innovative, and novel. We have viewpoints and experience leading us to devise new and exciting ways of doing things. We can make decisions and present new perspectives as opposed to merely accomplishing tasks and computations. 

Secondly, Hollywood movies about falling in love with operating systems aside, people can relate emotionally with other people. We can touch feelings, inspire and comfort others, understand, bless, and believe in other people. To date no automaton can do that. 

Careers subsisting on creativity and human contact will survive and thrive. They are already the basis of many careers currently and jobs requiring facility in these areas will likely expand. We will have our machines, but above all we will still need and have each other. Maybe even the Creative Arts could experience a boom the likes of which we have not yet seen. Time will tell. 

So yes, we feel that despite the hopeful employment numbers we are not very hopeful. Since we are not going to return to the past let’s start looking forward to and planning for a future that will certainly be different, but not necessarily bleak. 

Mid-Career Considerations

So, you’ve reached mid-career. How can you tell? I would say there are three signs: Your age is north of 40 but is less than 55; you have developed a substantial skill set in a particular field of expertise; and you have established a solid and growing base of enduring professional relationships. So now what? Engage in complacency? Cruise to retirement? Be satisfied with inertia? 

Mid-career is actually a very good time to appraise where you have gotten to with your career and where you see yourself headed next. Most long journeys require a time or two to pause and reflect on how you are navigating things and calibrate as needed. Given that many careers are now approaching 40 years in length it certainly qualifies as an odyssey in need of careful attention. 

Since we live in a time when there is always some new trend, phenomenon, practice, or competition coming down the pike we cannot risk becoming too smug with our career status or else we risk becoming outdated, irrelevant, and unemployed. It is probably best to have an advancement, expansion, or improvement plan of some sort. By this I mean a strategy designed to differentiate yourself from others in your field to leave you positioned for realizing outcomes of your own choosing. 

Mid-career is a great time to set meaningful and achievable goals for yourself. Ambitions that take you in the direction of stimulating engrossment, a sense of purpose, continuous professional mastery, and durable autonomy. Your career objectives should move in the direction of capitalizing on your strengths and interests while accommodating your weaknesses. And they should have long-term prospects. If your career is headed for obsolescence, now is the time to plan for a more enduring future. 

In general, you do not need to re-invent yourself or propel yourself on a course in which there is a lot of daylight between what you want to do and what you have done. Usually, the task before most mid-level careerists is simply to get especially good at what you do. Strive toward becoming a genuinely great mechanic or insurance executive or golf course superintendent. Be clear what passes for success and value in your industry and align your efforts and abilities with those indicators. 

For those areas where you do not excel, find and utilize the people and resources that can help you compensate or counterbalance so that you are still coming out ahead. 

It is worth evaluating how you are doing in the soft skills department as well when pondering your career at the mid-way point. You know what I mean by soft skills, that constellation of personal attributes like communication, social habits, friendliness, attitude, and so forth, which most people will remember you by. If pervasive anxiety makes you grouchy at work, or you wear your stress on your sleeve too often, or you are consistently misunderstood by co-workers, then work on remedying these inhibitors. Career progress is measured by hard and soft skills alike. 

Among the relevant factors to accompanying your career refinement strategy is looking at how well you are taking care of yourself physically and mentally. Sound fitness, diet, sleep, and mindfulness practice can keep you energized for the career work ahead.   

Since there really is not that much difference between work and life, maintaining health allows you to approach everything you do with vitality, confidence, and positivism. With these traits it becomes easier to learn new things, interact with other healthy people, and grow professionally. 

Mid-career is a great time to take stock, plan for the times ahead, and make the moves that matter for your career. You make plans for most other things. Here is a plan worth making for yourself. 

Seven Must-Have Transferable Skills

As career adjustments and job switching pick up pace, resulting from a somewhat improved employment picture and with the trending migration from long-term employment with one employer to a more free-lanced economy, the need for establishing and cultivating transferable skills becomes more important. 

Transferable skills are those capabilities one develops in one employment context that has currency in another. For example, a teacher may find that her or his skill in curriculum instructional delivery translates well to a training & development position in business or that a police officer’s ability to confront behavioral conflict situations with the public translates well to managing order and productivity among a large retail workforce. 

Transferable skills are most often not specific and discreet competencies, such as being able to make a metal forming roll in a tool and die shop, but rather more general qualifications that lend themselves to a variety of expressions. Convertible skills describe proficiencies that have value across a diverse set of employment situations and for this reason are skills the aspiring employee should know about and develop. 

Here is my list of seven transferable skills each worker with a proclivity for a lattice rather than a linear career should work to expand and refine to increase their chances of customizing their career the way they want. 

  1. Making Quality Decisions — Knowing how to make high impact and consistent decisions that take into proper perspective and consideration relevant information and that balances risk appropriately is a strong skill appreciated almost anywhere. Decision theory is like game theory, involving a durable ability to rationally reach an optimal outcome. If you are making decisions based mostly on fear and inertia, then you have something to work on.
  2. Solving Problems — Name me a business or organization that does not have a significant need for someone who can find resolutions to perplexing problems both big and small. Refining a problem-solving approach that is orderly and technique-based with a track record of success is best. Being able to cite examples of accomplishments as performance evidence of your steady problem-solving methodology is even better.
  3. Persuasion and Negotiation — What is the thing most workers hate about their boss or irritating co-workers? It is when they bully and intimidate to get their way rather than engaging in a thoughtful and genuinely persuasive argument. And yes, although it does not appear to be practiced by members of Congress anymore, reaching compromise through good-faith negotiations usually yields outcomes that satisfy the greatest number of stakeholders.
  4. Analysis — Being able to examine a task, phenomenon, procedure, or problem can go a long way to interpret the meaning of data or to determine the best course of action. By reducing complexity to constituent parts, a better understanding and new prospects can result. This can be useful when trying to assess and grasp the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a venture, business, or mission.
  5. Synthesis — Conversely showing the skill of combining, mixing, and merging ideas or materials into new and novel concepts and products is the basis of innovation and creativity. Sometimes perspectives need to be reframed so that new and different viewpoints can emerge, from which a competitive edge can arise. Freeing up and training the mind to develop unusual, but valuable means of expression allows organizations to provide improved ways of doing things.
  6. Collaboration — Working in concert with colleagues and stakeholders increases productivity, more efficiently achieves quality outcomes, and effectively reaches shared goals. The process of sharing knowledge and reaching consensus is essential at a time when the means of production grow ever more complex. Let’s face it, having a workplace where people get along and work together is energizing and spiritually uplifting, dare I say even fun.
  7. Networking with Talent – Ambitious and competitive employers know that having talent in their organizations is a good thing. Now, if that talent frequently interacts and learns from other gifted individuals then there is a value-add. When you fertilize your career with esteemed people who you respect and who respect you there comes an increase for the mastery of your career and perhaps even the bottom line for your employer.

May Luck Be With You

Striving for quality and building a solid record of achievement in one’s profession is what rightly motivates the most successful among us. Impressive and valuable companies, organizations, and careers can be the result of targeted and sustained execution of talent and skill. 

Indeed, when I work with clients a substantial amount of my effort is in helping individuals define what specific capacity they have for realizing achievement. The premise being that if one knows succinctly what they are best at producing, then they can more effectively promote their value to those most willing to pay for it.  

At a social and political level much is made about creating and maintaining economic conditions whereby motivated individuals can freely apply their aptitude and inventiveness to achieve professional success. It has become deeply ingrained in the world view of many that a near-divine correlation exists between incentive and success. Such belief drives our national self-perception and serves as the basis for many of our political debates and battles. 

I am hardly able to dispute the sanctity of a system whereby private production in pursuit of profits leads to economic success for many. It clearly does. But I would suggest that in our zeal to elevate the virtues of expected and proper economic behavior in a market economy we not neglect to consider the power of luck. 

Those of us who have the great fortune of realizing economic success tend to believe quite strongly that it is solely the result of our smarts, hard work, competitive abilities, and willingness to take risks. Undoubtedly, these criteria and others have played a significant part in our individual success stories. Many of us take the extra step in proclaiming with unwavering certainty to all who will listen that if they too follow the conventional and tried-and-true capitalist formula of business measures, then advancement, prosperity, and happiness await them also. 

What is seldom if ever said, however, is that economic fortune in the capitalist sense is often, perhaps always, as much a result of luck as it is savvy decision making. If we are true in assessing ourselves and taking stock in how we got to where we are we must acknowledge that, in most cases, we have not been tripped up by big impediments beyond our control. 

Bad things happen to good people. And these bad things often have nothing to do with how we behaved or acted. They simply just happen. Someone runs a red light and smashes into your car. You discover your 7-year-old daughter has cancer. A greedy businessperson causes the company stock and your pension to collapse. The list of unfair and uncalled for misfortune goes on and on and on. 

If we have attained great professional things, then we deserve to pat ourselves on our back for all we have accomplished. We should also thank goodness that we have been lucky. And when we evangelize about what it takes to be outstanding, we should keep in mind that not everyone’s life circumstances follow our own.  

Many among us have been presented with great adversity not of our own making. Fortune is not always an equal opportunity employer. Where and when and to whom one is born and raised can make a huge difference in one’s future. 

Sure, overcoming adversity is to be greatly admired. We all have heard the stories of people who have been terribly knocked down by misfortune only to rise, dust themselves off, and go on to accomplish great things. These are the stories that inspire all of us. But in assisting everyday common people to succeed economically we need to be mindful of not only practices that correlate with success, but with the compassion and kindness needed to create conditions whereby all have a chance and helping hand to succeed when needed. 

A great society is not measured by how many prosperous citizens it has, but by how effectively it assists all its citizens to flourish. 

Six Characteristics of Success in the Modern Workforce

Entering this twenty-first century, post-Recession, globalized, and digital workforce can be daunting. Whether you are young and just entering the job search fray, middle aged and trying to maintain or build upon your competitiveness and value, or mature and desperate to stay relevant, securing meaningful work that is well compensated is still a major challenge. 

Just look at the principal obstacle facing us. Job creation is anemic. Sure, it is better than a few years ago, but way too many workers are either underemployed or have given up looking. While Wall Street booms, employment lags. Anxiety remains high for even the employed who still seem reluctant to leave jobs they have, but do not like, for fear of not finding anything better. Why is this? I see several reasons at play. 

  • More and more wealth and power are continually concentrating on the very rich and they do not appear incentivized to be creating many jobs with it. 
  • Perhaps because of #1 the incomes and purchasing power of the middle class is shrinking, which depresses both demand, supply, and jobs. 
  • Globalization has increased competition and innovation, meaning if you are not an over-caffeinated go-getter, you are finding yourself at the back of the line. 
  • Technology expands productivity with fewer workers needed to produce than in the past. 
  • The nature of many jobs is changing. New and ever-changing skills and knowledge bases are in increasing demand. 
  • Government is being constrained to help. There seems to be nothing government can do anymore that is welcomed. Imagine trying to start a Roosevelt-like CCC program today? There would be a revolution from the political Right. 

What’s a job seeker to do? To begin with realize it is tough, but not hopeless. There are characteristics I believe it is wise to possess that will increase your chances of being seen by employers as valuable and desired. These traits transcend most careers and specialty areas and have as much to do with attitude as with training and education. Here is my list of must-have work style attributes for the times in which we live: 

  1. Stay Connected: Build and cultivate your network however you can. Meet face to face, connect on social media, join and participate in groups, volunteer, email and text, and outreach, outreach, outreach. Isolation can be a career killer.
  2. Stay Optimistic: Project hopefulness and positivity. Downers are a turn-off for people, especially co-workers and bosses. Sure, there is a lot going on to depress us, but being angry and negative rarely builds dreams or improves challenging situations.
  3. Stay Confident: Showing a can-do spirit prepares a person for difficulties and inspires others. Confidence, along with its cousinsself-motivation and goal-orientation, generates an energy that leads to high quality outcomes.
  4. Stay Technologically Current: Be curious about the skills and products surrounding us and which define our times. Keep an eye on the latest innovations that will shape our future. Resist the urge to be a luddite who thinks the old ways were always the best ways. Truth is the good old days were not in many cases.
  5. Stay Diverse: Accept and thrive on a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives. Get energized by all the richness inherent in different viewpoints. Varying ideas come from the mixed gender, ethnic, racial, and multigenerational makeup of workforces. The more sources of input the higher the likelihood of success.
  6. Stay Educated: Embrace lifelong learning as a key to staying abreast of current trends, best practices, and what works in your field. Continuous training and education enrich you professionally and will make you more of an asset to employers both current and potential.

Reframing the dismal jobs picture as an opportunity to better your employability and improve your position as a valued employee is one way to cope and perhaps succeed in the modern workforce. 

The Declining Middle Class and Its Jobs

The middle class is being displaced and with it the jobs typically held and performed by labor. This trend is threatening the way of life for millions of Americans and could change the economic, social, and political fabric of the United States. 

There are two principal occurrences underway driving this phenomenon with no end in sight for either: 

  1. The migration of low and mid-skilled jobs to developing countries with cheaper labor compensation.
  2. The automation or robo-sourcing of tasks typically performed by minimally skilled employees.

If you are now in a job that can be outsourced or automated start making plans immediately for an employment change, because chances are your job is not going to be around much longer. 

This is a good news/bad news story for business. As more relatively lower-skilled workers are finding themselves increasingly irrelevant their erstwhile employers are finding productivity does not suffer as a result. On the contrary productivity is increasing.  

Outsourcing and robo-sourcing are growing in popularity among business owners because they increase productivity and decrease costs. Good deal for the bottom line…bad deal for labor. Look at the stock market. It booms while the employment numbers generally lag. 

Much of what has historically made the middle class possible has been the availability of mid-level jobs — those that require more skill and knowledge than menial tasks, but not the more sophisticated, analytical, and critical decision-making work performed by well-educated executives. Manufacturing is where many of these jobs used to be found. But the decline of U.S. manufacturing means the loss of mid-level blue collar work. 

Thankfully, there are still mid-level service sector jobs in healthcare, hospitality, retail, the trades, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, these jobs do not often satisfy the middle-class standard of living we have become used to. The jobs are hard to come by and many of them do not pay very well. 

The labor movement is in trouble. The collective strength of labor, which in the twentieth century helped assure decent middle-class compensation and placed the worker in a position where he and she could share in the fruits of production, has been significantly weakened. These days unions only represent about 12% of the workforce and the competition for fewer and fewer good paying jobs is growing fiercer. Even government work is drying up.  

The guy with only a high school diploma is competing against cheap labor from overseas and increasingly robotics here at home. This is not a solid negotiating position to be in for finding and retaining a decent paying middle class job. 

There are no quick fixes or easy answers for the middle class. Sure, aspiring to great paying management and executive work can and should be a goal for many, but realistically that is not for everyone. 

Sustaining a viable middle class will require availability of mid-skilled employment that can be achieved with mid-level education, say the equivalent of an associate or bachelor’s degree. This type of employment should also pay a salary between minimum wage and executive compensation. What a critical mass of those jobs will be moving forward is unclear. But if we are to be more than a nation of haves and haves-nots in the 21st century, then we had better figure this one out soon. 

Career Web Services Review

It is no secret the Internet is where people go for almost everything from house hunting to car buying to job searching. Although I, and most career advisors, will not tell you to sit for hours searching for jobs on Indeed.com and CareerBuilder and call that a job search, there are nevertheless some interesting and potentially beneficial job search related services popping up on the web besides job boards. 

Here are four applications that attempt to combine and leverage well tested and proven job search best practices with the ease and power of Internet use. Conceptually I find these apps promising, but I want to be clear that I am not endorsing them. At best I have dabbled in them and do not claim to be a power user. But as more of our functionality, including career development, becomes digitized it is worth seeing what the entrepreneurial class is cooking up out there. One never knows where the next great Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn will come from. 

  1. VIZIFY — In this age of versatile multimedia it can seem odd we still place so much on a black & white paper or word-processed document called a resume. Vizify asks why don’t we spiff up that boring old doc and present it instead as a visually more appealing graphic display? Here is an opportunity to import resume and online profile data, essentially your value proposition or professional brand, into a graphical bio. This can then be included on email signatures, QR codes for business cards, and online profiles to show a brighter side of you. For job candidates looking for placements in more hip work settings this may have possibilities.

[Vizify was acquired by Yahoo! in 2014.] 

  1. JOBS WITH FRIENDS — Here’s a cool idea. We all know (or should!) that networking is the best route to go for finding meaningful employment. I recommend to clients they spend at least 70% or more of their job search time outreaching to contacts in their networks in searching for employment opportunities. Jobs With Friends identifies all your social media connections and friends and gives you tools for finding who they list as their employers, what the current job openings are where they work, and a means of asking for referrals from them to give to their employers.

[Jobs With Friends is now a service offered by CareerCloud.com.] 

  1. PERFECT INTERVIEW — Although this is an array of multimedia interactive interviewing solutions for job seekers and HR departments there is one feature, I’d like to focus on called Interview Coach. Ever notice how being videotaped can be a great learning tool? Watching yourself played back teaches you more about your performance than any other method. Interview Coach places you in front of your computer and webcam, shoots tough questions at you from professional interviewers, and records your responses. You get to see how you answered and can then better refine your interview technique.

[This service is still alive and well in 2022.] 

  1. VIZIBILITY — Here is a service that totally gets the future of career development and brand management tied into one’s online identity. Vizibility tries to cover all the bases by offering the user data analytics to show how often you are being searched, mobile business cards, ways of finding common social media connections, your Google ranking, online identity sharing, and other ways to help you push your profile to potential high value decision makers. If you believe exposure leads to opportunity, then check this one out.

[Vizibility is now vizCard, maker of digital/mobile business cards with analytic features.] 

As clever as these and other services are I think it is best to view them as tools to help the job searcher implement tried and true practices such as networking, self-promotion, and determining what efforts are time wasters vs. what has value. It is hard to imagine at this point that good old face-to-face communication can ever be completely replaced by web-based services. But meanwhile, have fun seeing how career and software-as-a-service development merge in some innovative ways. 

The 70/20/10 Career Model

70/20/10. It is a development model that is turning up in a lot of different places. I think it should play a role in career development as well. (My apologies to anyone who has gotten to this realization before me. If so, I have not yet seen your work.) 

So, what is it? Let me explain. I see it is a breakdown of time and energy spent on evolving an undertaking. Think of it as 70%/20%/10%. Some examples of its application may help: 

In education: Learning often comes from recognizing problems and the need to solve them. According to this approach 70% of our time is spent performing day-to-day and challenging tasks that contain problems we ponder by trying to think of solutions. 20% is occupied by interacting with others to collect data useful in solving these problems and 10% comes from formal course work or training to build one’s expertise. 

In business: To be innovative (and what business does not need to be?) requires what Eric Schmidt of Google says is a 70/20/10 approach. 70% should be on basic operations, i.e., making the doughnuts. 20% of the time should be spent dedicated to experimenting with different ways of implementing the core business. 10% should be on completely novel concepts not related to the core business. 

Diet: Livestrong promotes eating 70% proteins, 20% fats, and 10% carbs. 

Social Media Marketing: There is a posting rule for business to get the most ROI exposure while on social media. It goes 70% brand building, 20% sharing others’ posts, and 10% advertising and promotion. 

Job Search: Heck, even I and other career types find we recommend to clients that when job searching spend 70% of the time networking, 20% reaching out to recruiters, and 10% on job boards. 

70/20/10. It is infectious. Isn’t it? Perhaps even elegant. 

This is what I am thinking in terms of using this formula in career development. Assuming we want to mature and progress in our careers it may be useful to have a grand action plan for doing so. This plan should be easy to remember and not very complicated. Starting with 70/20/10 is good, because it is easy to keep in mind. Here is how I propose using the 70/20/10 career plan: 

70% of our time, energy, and spirit can be committed to practicing our craft. This is what we do to attain our 10,000 hours, Malcolm Gladwell’s mastery threshold. It is what gives us our sixth sense of professionalism. Sure, we may be on cruise control to some extent, but the repetition, the deep experience, and the number of times you can say, “I’ve seen this one before,” will over time build expertise. 

20% is what we devote to trying things out of our box. We allow ourselves to play a little with our career. The rule now is to think creatively and experimentally. The time has come to approach the same-old with a fresh perspective and novel approaches. Embrace change and look for new ways to perform tasks and meet responsibilities. Always improve and refine. Do not get locked into thinking the 70% is where 100% of your time should be spent. Allow yourself to play with the 20%. The 20% is not to be set aside. It is crucial. 

10% of our work time, yes 10%, is spent doing something completely different. It may be difficult to see that it is even tangentially related to your day job. Are you an accountant? Spend 10% of your time watercolor painting. Are you a parole officer? Spend 10% of your time learning how to play the clarinet. Are you an artist? Spend 10% of your time studying nutrition. But here is the connection, be mindful of what new things you learn and how they may have applications to your fundamental work. Remember, you are looking for new avenues to grow professionally. And maybe you will enrich your life at the same time. 

70/20/10. Lots of possibilities with these numbers. Think of using them with your career. Growth, purpose, and success may result.