Kermit the Frog (from Sesame Street) says, "It's not easy being green." Maybe not, but it's beginning to look like "green" has a bright future for many careers.
As you consider your first career or a new career, contemplate how what you do can be applied to work with and in the environmental field. It appears that opportunities are growing rapidly, at least according to the article, "Green Jobs Take Root and Proliferate."
As I read the results of CareerBuilder.com's recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive, certain numbers jumped off the page at me:
Take a few minutes and read the entire survey results. There's a lot interesting data here gathered from November 13 through December 3, 2007. Hope it helps you with making your career plans for 2008.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Gotta get the book, The New American Workplace, by James O'Toole and Edward Lawler. The authors presented a webinar today based on their book (sponsored by the American Management Association) where they analyzed the changes, consequences and choices of today's organizations. They also traced the evolving history of work in America. Their book is based on serious research.
Some items of interest from the webinar:
1) Every individual has to manage his own career as companies won't accept that responsibility anymore.
2) Companies are less willing to make long term investments in their employees' professional development.
3) Although there are several companies out there that encourage participative work environments, many large companies resist this mode as it would limit executive pay checks.
What can an employee do?
More money or something else? According to an 11/13/06 article in the Wall Street Journal ("Opportunity Knocks, and It Pays a Lot Better" by Erin White, section B-3), a recent survey of top performers showed that 71% considered compensation to be one of the top three reasons for changing jobs.
What's up with this? I disagree with this survey. In fact, when interviewed by the reporter for my take on this finding, I said that money is often an employee's camouflage for some other reason, such as career stagnation, boredom, or feeling unappreciated. (See my quote in the article.)
How about you? What do you see as the main reason people change jobs? What would be your reason?
After 35 years of dedicated service to a job he could count on everyday, my father retired from his company in 1985 with a good pension. Unfortunately, many of us will not see such a reward for the years we put into our careers. In fact, most of us won’t spend our entire lives working for the same employer.
The American dream of retiring from a company after working there a lifetime is no longer a realistic expectation for today’s workforce. Instead, thousands of workers who entered the workforce believing in retirement benefits have fallen victim to company downsizing, or rightsizing, as the process may be labeled today in an effort to turn a negative experience into a positive one.
How can we survive in a work world where there is no job security? Today’s job security must come from within. Each of us must ensure his or her own job security by becoming so competent and so self-confident in whatever we do that we can do it anywhere.
How do we accomplish this?
Build your job security by taking risks. Submit that application for a new and challenging position, even if you are comfortable and satisfied with your present job. Always be ready for the unexpected. Don’t ignore the proverbial “writing on the wall.”
Did you know that the best time to write your resume is immediately after starting a new job? That way you always have your resume up-to-date and ready to go on short notice. Have you ever seen that perfect position in the Sunday help wanted ads, but didn’t have the time with your busy work schedule to write a resume and submit it before the application deadline?
The worst time to write your resume is when you are hit with an unexpected termination or layoff. Emotions will take their toll when this happens making it next to impossible to organize your thoughts into a sharp, professional resume. Instead, be prepared!
Become friends with the unknown. Embrace change as an opportunity for career growth. “Fortune favors the bold,” is an observation from Virgil, a wise poet of long ago, that holds true even today. Are you bold enough to create your own job security? You will need to do just that to survive in this rapidly changing work world of the new millennium.
Our economy has endured many layoffs over the past several years. While the economy has definitely improved of late, do not take your job for granted. Don’t wait until the proverbial handwriting appears on your own company’s wall. Take charge of your own career so that you can design for yourself a happy, productive life.
Workers are not only still unhappy at work, but getting more unhappy, according to a recent Harris Interactive Survey as reported in the business section of the Kansas City Star today.
"Fifty-eight percent of 1,050 adult full-time American workers recently surveyed by the Harris Interactive said they might leave their jobs if the economy continues to improve, an increase of 12 percentage points from the 2005 survey."
When will employers start to "get it" that workers need more than a paycheck to stay happy on the job? They need to be shown respect, appreciation, and have the opportunity to stretch their skills set. And they need decent benefits.
What else would keep you happy?
Fired by email - what's this work world coming to? Several hundred Radio Shack employees have started dusting off their resumes after learning their job fate this week electronically. Though they had advance warning of layoffs in the air, can you imagine the shock when you log on to your computer and find out you've been permanently logged off?
In this fast-paced electronic age, we seem to have lost our human touch and compassion. Is this firing by email another new job trend we just have to get used to?
It's official - "Higher Stress Costing Job Satisfaction in U.S. Companies." Duh!
Take a look at the results of a survey that claims everything from loyalty issues to generational differences as reasons why employees are unhappy in the workplace. Some interesting information here, some of it based on common sense.
Is there really any way to manage stress or it is just something we have to live with?
What a week! As I finish packing and get ready to leave Boston, I look back on my global experience of these past few days at the annual Association of Career Professionals International conference. Once a year I join colleagues from 30 countries as we expand our learning on how to better help people manage their careers. This year we listened to founding experts remind us of our professon's roots - how today's best practices were founded on principles from a half century ago. But more than that, we heard about how yesterday's future has become today's reality.
Words like expatriate, outsourcing, talent management, dual careers, emotional intelligence, retirement careers - all dominated workshops and dinner conversations alike. Whether from the Netherlands, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Canada, Brazil, UK or USA (and so many other countries), attendees are leaving this careers conference with the common understanding of the critical role we all play in today's global economy.
But more than that, we go home today with our own global network intact and even stronger - knowing that we have allies around the world supporting each other as we return to coach and consult our clients on how to grow their careers at home and abroad.
Top Ten Workplace/Workforce Forecasts for 2006 are now posted by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, principals of The Herman Group and workforce futurists. These guys were early predictors of the "talent shortage" that's running rampant across the U.S. today. Take a look at what's possible coming to our workplace next year.
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