Professional Memberships--Fees Worth Paying

As part of its series, "Beat the Fees," Toronto Star reporter Chris Carter identifies 10 that are actually worth paying.

Among them:

10. Professional fees

Paying an annual fee to belong to a professional organization in your career field can provide valuable networking, educational or information-sharing opportunities. It also looks good as a résumé item.

See the entire list of fees worth paying at http://www.moneyville.ca/article/888723--10-fees-worth-paying

Is Education Stepping Up to Problem Performance?

Teacher performance is a hot issue throughout formal education. Washington DC's superintendent, who instituted a new evaluation system (which seems intended to better reflect actual work performance) recently canned 241 teachers who received the lowest ratings (indicating unsatisfactory job performance). That's over 2.5 times more than were let go last year. Tamar Lewin recently filed a report on the situation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/education/24teachers.html?hpw

The issue is also being addressed at the university level. According to University Affairs, the Faculty Senate at the University of British Columbia, which sets educational policy, had voted to actively use student evaluations of teaching in making personnel decisions, like promotion and tenure. The faculty association (union) challenged it, saying that it violated the union contract, and took the university to court. An appeals judge sided with the Senate. Léo Charbonneau's report primarily focuses on the legal issues involved, but the personnel issues are no less compelling. Check out the report at http://www.universityaffairs.ca/senate-decision-vs-bog.aspx.

More Ups and Downs for Facebook

For those with an interest in social media, check out Susan Feinstein's recent article about a new use for Facebook: telling teachers how much they meant to us. Visit the article at Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/nyregion/14facebook.html?pagewanted=all.

And speaking of Facebook, a recent news analysis of the company explores the view by Facebook officials that it is a "utility," and what that means to the way that public officials should approach that company--especially in relation to the company's flawed privacy policies. As one expert cited in the article notes, getting the metaphor right plays a central role in getting the relationship right.

Among the interesting tidbits in that article--Americans are more satisfied filing their taxes online than using Facebook, and the choice of 'metaphors" like ut for

Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/weekinreview/25brustein.html?ref=weekinreview.

Bad News on the Salary Front

According to Ruth Mantell's June 5, 2010 report in the Wall Street Journal, "The job market may be recovering, but some salary offers are still a few years behind," and employers are "lowballing" salaries for new hires. Check out the details, as well as see some strategies for dealing with the situation at

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB127570395821401453.html?mod=rss_careers.

What's Really Happening with Spending on Training

Training spending hasn’t budged since 1986, according to an analysis of Training Magazine’s Annual Industry Report from 1982-2008. Ingy Bakir and I compiled the statistics, adjusted all expenditures for inflation, and report our results in the February 2010 issue of Training magazine. See http://tinyurl.com/yz7t44m for details.

Caught!

Earlier this month, a video clip of a Toronto subway worker sleeping on the job that had been uploaded to YouTube was a major news story. Some called it an invasion of privacy. The union defended the worker. But others—including the editorial in the Montreal Gazette at http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/Commuters+revenge+service/2558860/story.html see the situation as nothing more than “commuters getting revenge for bad service.”

In our field, we talk about Web 2.0 technologies (ones that users post information at will) as important to our work.

But as a manager, how would you respond if the result of a Web 2.0 user was something that disparaged your staff?

How would you respond?

And what is the likelihood of this happening in your group?

Looking forward to seeing your responses.

Join the Conversation--How to Post Comments to this Blog

Want to respond to something you read here?

Great! To post a comment:

Note that you should be able to leave comments "anonymously;" that is, without having an account with gmail, blogger or any of the other services listed.

1. At the bottom of a post--in the lower right corner below the last line--you'll see "X comments" (where X is the number of comments that have been posted so far).
2. Click on "X comments."
3. An open box appears, with the instruction "Post a Comment" above it.
4. Type your comment. If you have more comment than space shown on the screen--don't worry. The block will grow to meet the size of your comment.
5. When you're finished typing, click the Post Comment button.
6. The system might ask you to retype some words shown on the screen (to make sure you're not a spam machine writing anonymous responses).
7. Because the system doesn't identify you in that case, it would be helpful if you were to identify yourself in your comments, if that's something that's comfortable for you.

Reader Participation--Send Your Questions

If you have questions about management issues, send them in. Indicate whether you would like for me to answer them myself--or whether you're seeking input from other readers.

Also note that at the end of article-style posts, I've provided discussions. Please join the discussion.

Saul

Next Section of the Technical Communication Manager Certificate

For those of you who are interested (or who have colleagues who might be interested), the next scheduled class of the Technical Communication Manager Certificate program offered by the Society for Technical Communication is scheduled:

May 1-2, 2010

Before the Annual Summit of the Society for Technical Communication

Course will be taught in a classroom format.

For a course description and registration information, visit http://conference.stc.org

Disclosure: I am teaching the course.

The Challenges of Managing Performance

In this Entry: Do Performance Appraisals Work? / But That Won’t Stop Efforts to Improve Them / But Maybe Performance Doesn’t Tell Us Much / Questions for Discussion

One of the primary responsibilities of a manager is coordinating the performance planning, coaching, and evaluation process (the point that I’ll address at more length in this entry). Formal evaluation processes of one sort or another exist in a number of organizations. But do they work? And even if they do—how can they be made more effective? And does excellent performance in a current position really predict more of the same following a promotion?

Do Performance Appraisals Work? Not really, according to a survey conducted among managers in Sri Lanka (HR managers doubt accuracy of evaluation process – study, Sunday Times, December 20, 2009, http://www.sundaytimes.lk/091220/BusinessTimes/bt31.html). The survey, conducted by MTI Consulting, found that

“HR managers expressed doubts regarding the ability of evaluations to act as true performance indicators. As such, a lot of the time, evaluations are considered mere formalities, done for compliance sake or other superficial reasons, rather than with the intent to improve.”

On the more mundane matter of how frequently organizations assessed their employees, the survey found that 60 percent of organizations in that environment evaluated employees once a year, and 33 percent evaluated them twice a year.

But That Won’t Stop Efforts to Improve Them. On the other side of the globe, the U.S. civil service is trying to revamp its performance appraisal process to make it more transparent, to better link employee performance to organizational goals, and to upgrade pay practices so that civil servants are paid for performance (4 lessons on changing employee performance metrics, By Mary Mosquera, Federal Computer Week, March 27, 2009, http://fcw.com/articles/2009/03/30/agency-employee-performance.aspx).

That’s no small order, because an early effort to do so in the Department of Defense did was stalled in response to what appears to have been some confusion and pushback.

Part of the effort for revamping the process involves upgrading performance management software and making more effective use of it. But part of the effort involves changing the traditional performance appraisal process from “an ingrained yet sometimes uncomfortable meeting between supervisor and employee” to a “new approach with ongoing and regular dialogue between the two,” in which progress is tracked in the software, and all of the parties have access to the information.

(Maybe it’s me, but I always thought that the original design of these systems—once called management-by-objectives—included regular conversations between the two parties so that the end-of-year appraisal wouldn’t be a surprise.)

But Maybe Performance Doesn’t Tell Us Much. Wondering how to avoid the Peter Principle. According to the New York Times (Random Promotions, December 13, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/?ex=1276059600&en=3315a37210ca3555&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=GN-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M127-ROS-1209-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click#business-1):

Promot[e] people at random. That's what a trio of Italian scientists discovered this year. They created a computer model of a 160-person corporation and programmed it with Peter Principle-like logic: the best performers were promoted, but they had only a random likelihood of being good at their new jobs. Sure enough, the firm was soon cluttered with incompetents, and its efficiency plunged. But then the researchers tried something different: they reprogrammed the firm so that promoted people entirely randomly, and the overall efficiency of the firm improved.

They also tried alternately promoting the absolute best and absolute worst performers. That, too, worked out better than promoting on merit. The scientists say these strategies work because they harness "Parrondo's Paradox," a piece of game theory in which you win by alternating between two losing strategies. "In physics or game theory, this isn't new," says Andrea Rapisarda, a physicist at the University of Catania in Italy and a co-author of the study, which was recently published in the journal Physica A.

Questions for Discussion:

• What do you find effective about the idealized performance planning and evaluation process?
• What do you find most challenging about implementing it in practice?

Hiring Remains a Challenge

In this Post: Hiring / Maybe Hiring? / Maybe Not Hiring? / And Getting Paid? / Questions for Discussion

Hiring, maybe hiring, hot hiring, and starting salaries. Lots of interesting stuff from the recent news.

Hiring

Although the most recent jobs picture wasn’t too pretty (the US economy unexpectedly shed 85,000 jobs in December), one group of workers might be in demand: Human Resources executives. Apparently, they’re suddenly “hot” (HR Executives Suddenly Get Hot, Joann S. Lublin, Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704201404574590393758936648.html?mod=googlenews_wsj).

Well, sort of. Openings for HR executives haven’t really changed; but some corporations are actively seeking HR executives to serve on their boards.

Maybe Hiring?

When workers do find jobs, they’re most likely to be temporary ones. The “Labor Data Show[s} Surge in Hiring of Temp Workers” (Louis Uchitelle, New York Times, December 20, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/business/economy/21temps.html?_r=1. Visited December 22, 2009.

According to the conventional thinking,

“The hiring of temporary workers has surged, suggesting that the nation’s employers might soon take the next step, bringing on permanent workers, if they can just convince themselves that the upturn in the economy will be sustained.”

At least, that’s the way things worked in the recovery following the last two recessions. So it could be a sign of hope.

Maybe Not Hiring?

One group that faces a particularly challenging road to re-employment are older workers (“older” varies among experts, but can start as young as late 30s according to some). Among the many gripes with older workers: they use too much sick leave (more than average, yes—but too much, perhaps not); they cost too much (though that doesn’t stop many employers from offering salaries that do not reflect experience), they’re resistant to training (not really true, although some different teaching and practice techniques might be in order), and that younger workers are more effective decision makers.

Studying the last assumption (The Myth of the Deficient Older Employee, New York Times 9th Annual Year in Ideas Supplement, December 13, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/?ex=1276059600&en=3315a37210ca3555&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=GN-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M127-ROS-1209-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click#business-1):

In The American Economic Review in June, Gary Charness, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Marie Claire Villeval, a colleague from the University of Lyon, published the results of a study in which they pitted "seniors" (those over 50) against "juniors" (those under 30) in three different decision-making tasks. These were formulated to test risk taking, competitiveness and cooperation.

As it turns out, the "seniors" more than hold their own.

Charness and Villeval also found that heterogenous teams—older and younger workers—performed better than homogenous ones. According to the New York Times piece, “Charness says. ‘Older workers . . . don't suffer from the deficiencies that a lot of people think they do.’"

And Getting Paid?

Perhaps because of the hard times, some people think that people should just feel lucky to have a job—whether or not it pays a living wage. At least, the Montreal Gazette editorial board feels that way. In their editorial, “Raising minimum wage carries a cost, December 17, 2009, http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/Raising+minimum+wage+carries+cost/2350441/story.html), the editors argue that the 50-cent rise in Quebec’s minimum wage that goes into effect May 1, will cause massive unemployment for students seeking minimum wage summer jobs. I’m not saying it won’t.

Hey, with Tim’s and Starbuck’s recently raising their coffee prices, shouldn’t the employees benefit a little bit.

Seriously—the minimum wage isn’t just for students seeking summer and part-time employment; it’s also for people who work. I’m the partner of someone who had to live on minimum wage from a real job—one of those highly educated immigrants who’s under-employed because credentials aren’t recognized.

The Gazette’s editorial page often writes in sympathy of these people—but apparently that sympathy does not extend to their pay. The editors argue, too, that anyone with a minimum level of experience can get better than minimum wage. But $10/hour (about $20k/year) isn’t exactly living high off the hog. Every $.50/hour makes a difference,. Raising the minimum wage might benefit them, too.

Even at higher ends, wage disparities prevail. According to an article Canada’s National Post, October 2009, touting the good job prospects in high tech despite the poor economy, the goodness of those prospects seemed to extend more to some categories of workers than others. Technical writers had the lowest starting salaries on the list—14 percent lower than the second-lowest paid job.

Questions for Discussion:

• What assumptions have you seen drive hiring practices?
• Do you feel that wages in technical communication and training are representative of the skills we offer? Why or why not?

Reader Participation--Send Your Questions

If you have questions about management issues, send them in. Indicate whether you would like for me to answer them myself--or whether you're seeking input from other readers.

Also note that at the end of article-style posts, I've provided discussions. Please join the discussion.

Changemeister

According to consultant and author, Jiri Maly (Achieve change by accepting these inconvenient truths, Globe and Mail, Monday, December 28, 2009, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/managing/achieve-change-by-accepting-these-inconvenient-truths/article1413125/), planning a process or business change is only part of the challenge of instituting change. Encouraging the staff to join in—especially one that’s battle-scarred from layoffs—poses as much of a challenge.

Maly offers no silver bullet, but finds the “inconvenient truth” approach apt. Succeeding in change requires accepting three:

• Employers must seek buy-in for the change from the staff. To do so, employers must acknowledge the “thoughts, feelings and beliefs of those” affected.

• Employees need to be motivated to make the change. But Maly derides “the common practice of ‘communicating the change story,’" which can “backfire;”suggesting, instead, that employees need to discover the need for change on their own and write their own stories. In that way, the develop “ownership” of the change process.

• The work environment needs to support the change. Mass culture training and trying to plant change agents among the workers often fails to work as intended; Maly recommends smaller efforts such as short learning forums that explore the whys of instituting change.

When I read this article, it reminded me of one I read during the economic downturn of 1990-1992. Executives said that they knew what their organizations needed—but convincing their staffs to join the change was the challenge. What differed about this approach is that, although some of the advice was familiar (like gaining buy-in), they author acknowledged that some of the more popular tactics for implementing change aren’t working.

Question for discussion: What has worked for you in promoting change in your organization?

And just as significantly, what hasn’t?

Join the Conversation--How to Post Comments to this Blog

Want to respond to something you read here?

Great! To post a comment:

Note that you should be able to leave comments "anonymously;" that is, without having an account with gmail, blogger or any of the other services listed.

1. At the bottom of a post--in the lower right corner below the last line--you'll see "X comments" (where X is the number of comments that have been posted so far).
2. Click on "X comments."
3. An open box appears, with the instruction "Post a Comment" above it.
4. Type your comment. If you have more comment than space shown on the screen--don't worry. The block will grow to meet the size of your comment.
5. When you're finished typing, click the Post Comment button.
6. The system might ask you to retype some words shown on the screen (to make sure you're not a spam machine writing anonymous responses).
7. Because the system doesn't identify you in that case, it would be helpful if you were to identify yourself in your comments, if that's something that's comfortable for you.

Do It Yourself--Now It's a Management Philosophy?

A few years ago, Harold Jarche commented that the future of learning is Do-It-Yourself (DIY) (Febuary 26, 2007, http://www.jarche.com/2007/02/the-future-of-learning-is-diy/), in which subject matter experts prepare learning programs on their own, using software that lets them record soundtracks to Powerpoint presentations (like Captivate) or filling in templates from the learning content management systems used in their organizations.

David Merrill calls these people instructional-designers-by-assignment; they're not professional instructional designers who sought these jobs. They're people who, by virtue of their ability to explain things clearly or just because no one else was available, are expected to develop learning programs.

Although Jarche and Merrill may have been speculating, they are definitely onto something. The concept has received a lot of attention in the press in the last month or so—especially in the training press.

In her annual predictions for e-learning in e-Learn Magazine, Margaret Driscoll (my writing collaborator for a book and several articles) sees DIY as the dominant trend (http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=106-1).

Agatha Gilmore (The New Workplace Mantra: 'Do It Yourself', Chief Learning Officer Online, January 2010, http://www.clomedia.com/talent.php?pt=a&aid=2846) reports that the trend has moved beyond mere instructional design; one consulting firm found that it's standard operating procedure for many training organizations.

More specifically, Gilmore reports that many organizations are in-sourcing work that used to be outsourced. To address this trend, some organizations are teaching their clients how to do work on their own. (I don't know what's novel about this; the consulting firm I worked at in the mid-1990s has always offered this service.)

But perhaps Gilmore misses the larger picture. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sees a Do-It-Yourself economy arising from the two trends noted above--the economic downturn forcing people to do for themselves tasks that used to be performed by others, plus the availability of new software tools to make doing-it-yourself easy (The Do-It Yourself Economy, New York Times, December 12, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/opinion/13friedman.html?ref=opinion).

Called the "The Great Inflection," Friedman defines it as "the mass diffusion of low-cost, high-powered innovation technologies — from hand-held computers to Web sites that offer any imaginable service — plus cheap connectivity. They are transforming how business is done." To illustrate the great inflection, he describes how an ad agency in Minneapolis could develop a video for a client in a matter of days using low-end equipment; something definitely not feasible in earlier times.

This has profound implications for professional communicators and trainers. For those of modest skill, they can easily be replaced by a combination of subject matter experts and simple software. Yes, trained professionals might be able to produce high-quality work, but the simplicity and cost savings of avoiding these high-maintenance professionals might seem, for now at least, a worthwhile tradeoff.

Indeed, the experience of a Fool’s approach to DIY learning (that’s “fool” as in the name of the company that’s doing this—“the Motley Fool to be precise—not a comment on the strategy) is that “The results haven’t been perfect — not everyone is a natural-born orator, for example, and not everyone sticks to the plan” (Insourcing Education: A Foolish Approach, by Roger Friedman, CLO Magazine, December 2009, http://www.clomedia.com/talent.php?pt=a&aid=2829).

In other words, although DIY does address cost concerns, it may or may not address quality concerns. The producers of the soap opera Guiding Light learned that one the hard way. In a bid to control costs, Guiding Light, too, adopted a DIY approach to rehearding and taping shows. The resulting low-tech production made the show look so amateurish that viewers abandoned it--so many did so that the 72-year-old show was taken of the air.

Professionalism costs, but it might be a life-saver.

Question for discussion: Are you “doing it yourself” in your organization? How is that affecting your technical communicators and trainers?

Article to Check Out

For those of you who manage training and instructional design activities--here's an article that might be of interest.

In "Locked Out: Bridging the Divide between Training and Information Technology," a just-posted article in the e-Learning Guild's e-Learning Solutions Magazine, Marc Rosenberg and Steve Forman describe how cultural differences between Training and Information Technology create tension in their increasingly inter-dependent work relationship.

As organizations increase not only their use of e-learning but, more fundamentally, on learning, performance, and talent management systems, pressure increases for them to strengthen their collaboration.

To help in this process, Rosenberg and Forman suggest several concrete steps that these groups can take to collaborate.

View the entire article at http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/285/

Note that the article is adapted from their chapter in Patti Shank's and my book, E-Learning Handbook: Past Promises, Present Challenges.

If you choose to read the article, after doing so, check out the rest of the magazine. You might find useful tips for designing and developing e-learning there.

Reader Participation--Send Your Questions

If you have questions about management issues, send them in. Indicate whether you would like for me to answer them myself--or whether you're seeking input from other readers.

Also note that at the end of article-style posts, I've provided discussions. Please join the discussion.

Saul

A New Year, A New Direction for Your Career?

OK—The new year may be a few weeks old at this point, but January is a good time to start plotting a career change (Workplace Shaman: 'Tis the season to think about career change, Mary Pearson, Financial Post , December 18, 2009,http://www.financialpost.com/careers/story.html?id=2356120).

Some things to think about as you do so.

Don’t let your age limit your opportunities. As Pearson reports—let Susan Boyle serve as your inspiration.

Furthermore, evidence is mounting that the perception of older workers as deficient is a myth (The Myth of the Deficient Older Employee, New York Times 9th Annual Year in Ideas Supplement, December 13, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/?ex=1276059600&en=3315a37210ca3555&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=GN-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M127-ROS-1209-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click#business-1).

(On the other hand, don’t fool yourself—age-ism exists (see my September 2009 article inIntercom.)

Don’t try to be a celebrity—just try to do something well, Pearson advises. Recognition will follow.

She adds that people need to define success on their own terms—the success you seek might not come from your job; it might come from some other sphere of your life.

Honestly assess the likelihood of your plans. To do so, sometimes you might benefit from the guidance of a mentor— a more experienced person who helps a less-experienced one (Finding the Right Mentor Can Bolster a Career, Associated Press, New York Times, December 28, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/28/business/AP-US-Your-Career-Mentoring.html?_r=1). More than open doors and encourage you, they can help you honestly assess your skills and abilities and suggest ways you to address those skills that need development.

If it’s new skills you need—consider education (I’m a professor—I have to say that). Consider some of these exciting new masters degrees and new twists on existing ones:

• Specialized MBAs, such as ones for clergy (Specialized M.B.A.’s: The Business of Zeroing In, Nancy Hass, New York Times, December 29, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03mba.html?ref=edlife) and an MBA for aviation industry workers (like the one at Concordia’s John Molson School)
• Social computing (New Media: The Interactive Entrepreneur, Brian Stetler, New York Times, December 29, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03socialnetwork-t.html?ref=edlife), such as degrees in social and interactive media
• Education leadership degrees that combine both education and management courses (some taught in conjunction with them) (Education Leadership: Skills to Fix Failing Schools, Laura Pappano, New York Times, December 29, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03educ.html?ref=edlife) (apparently, these degrees are really hot—Harvard’s first class had far more applicants than spaces)
• Narrative medicine (Narrative Medicine: Learning to Listen, Gina Kolata, New York Times, December 29, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03narrative.html?ref=edlife), which explores uses of storytelling to get a sense of a “whole” patient so he or she can be treated holistically rather than symptomatically.

And don’t forge about the educational technology degree at Concordia University in Montreal (hey—it’s a good program, why shouldn’t I plug it—and there’s still time to apply).

Be prepared for hard work. If your experience is similar to mine, when I transitioned from working in industry to an academic career, the transition is slow, painful, and hard. Roadblocks will exist. Some will be imagined—others will be real.

Celebrate One Success at a Time. In those instances, remind yourself why you’re doing this, focus on the interim rewards you’re receiving, and don’t forget to celebrate the intermediate milestones along the way. They provide tangible evidence that you’re making progress on the challenging path you’ve chosen.