News You Can Use: 10/16/2019


Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash

  • Scratching the Itch: Knowing When to Leave a Job or to Stay

    Because talent can be difficult to come by, an employer should do something that recognizes your worth. Despite it being in the HR department’s best interests to retain talent, incentives are actually skewed to get employees to leave. Employees more quickly leave “incentivizing” companies in favor of companies that help them visualize their path within the organization.

    It’s hard to walk away from a clearly communicated path to success. That’s the bet that companies are making in the HR space. For example, Instructure introduced Bridge, an employee development platform that creates a visual roadmap for success. Bridge also connects employees with mentors, but the real benefit is that it allows each employee to visualize what he has to do in the next six months to get promoted to get where he ultimately wants to be in his career in the next three years.

    “In the 1990s and early 2000s, customer centricity was used by corporations who wanted to effectively connect with and understand their clients,” noted Dan Goldsmith, CEO of Instructure. “We see a similar focus by companies today who want to be more employee-centric.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340220

  • Meetings aren’t the biggest time waster at work. This thing is

    “There’s been an explosion in the number of software applications available,” says Jody Shapiro, Productiv founder and former head of Google Analytics. “The struggle is in the organic adoption of these tools. Ten years ago, everybody used Microsoft Office and Adobe tools. Today, SaaS [software as a service] vendors are selling directly to business units, and we are experiencing a sprawl of applications meant to increase productivity. The problem is that different departments are using different tools, and that slows everyone down.”

    Shapiro says the biggest challenge is redundancy. “Within a company, the legal team might use Microsoft Word, the engineers are using Google Docs and the marketing team is using Dropbox Paper. If you want to find a document, you may need to check five different tools. This is a massive productivity killer, and it can impact morale.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90411686/meetings-arent-the-biggest-time-waster-at-work-this-thing-is

  • Talking Tech with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
  • Millennial and Gen Z employment: 7 things young talent wants in a job

    Working in the field often requires on the spot decision-making. Without a supervisor hovering over you, one of the most essential skills field service technicians have to master is how best to solve problems. Armed with tools like augmented reality interfacing and video tutorials, service technicians are given the freedom and trust to reach the best conclusion for each customer.

    This kind of autonomous work environment demands independent thinking, keen insight, clever workarounds, and confidence in one’s own abilities. Millennials, accustomed to seeking out information just within reach of their fingertips, are ideally suited to handle the pressure and reap the rewards of satisfying tough customer requests. And this in turn explains the trend towards a gig economy.

    https://www.the-future-of-commerce.com/2019/10/02/millennial-and-gen-z-employment-wants/

News You Can Use: 10/26/2016

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  • The Sobering Stats You Need to Know When Seeking Your Next Job

    Don’t be discouraged by the “one-in-100” stat. According to Lever’s breakdown, your best bet is to be referred to a new company. Referred candidates have a one-in-16 chance of getting hired. Using a third-party agency can also better your odds — those submitted by an agency have a one-in-22 chance of being placed. Whatever you do though, forget about applying through a company’s careers site: only one in 152 candidates gets hired this way.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/283338
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  • Applying Deep Machine Learning to Spend Analysis

    Not only can its deep machine learning identify tail spend suppliers, company specific categories, and even individual items coded in obscure ways, but it can learn over time and adapt to different data models, especially since it can use evolving knowledge bases. Whereas the majority of first generation classifiers used naive statistical classification that could not learn and had to map to a fixed (UNSPSC) model, Spend360′s uses deep machine learning (based on LSTM and encoder/decoder technology) that maps to custom data models using extensible knowledge bases (which can be created and maintained by the organization) that can encode organization and industry specific knowledge (and negate the need for custom mappings or override rules).

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2016/10/14/spend360-applying-deep-machine-learning-to-spend-analysis/

  • In buyers’ market, acquirers look to lock in management teams longer

    Steve Fletcher, a managing director at the global investment bank GCA, notes that it’s “hard to say” whether it’s universally the case that management teams are getting locked into longer contracts with acquirers in this market. “I don’t think anyone has a large enough sample size to say that,” he notes. But he adds that of the deals he is seeing, there is a move to sign on incoming talent for a longer period, sometimes “three or four years as opposed to [the previous standard of] 18 to 24 months.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/06/in-buyers-market-acquirers-look-to-lock-in-management-teams-longer/?ncid=rss

  • A Reminder From Mark Zuckerberg: ‘Put People First’

    Zuckerberg explained that the way in which tech tools are structured today — as suites of apps — will not last long into the future. When a group of people is communicating or working together, they often toggle between a chat app, a video call and a shared document interface, for instance. The need to switch from one app to another doesn’t produce a seamless experience, and it makes each interface the focus, as opposed to the people working within it.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/283433
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  • IT moves to open workspaces, but not everyone is happy

    What’s needed, both sides agree, is a range of workspace options that address organizational goals while still meeting employees’ needs — meaning physical space that allows for private meetings and quiet concentration in addition to community seating. Even more important: Corporate culture likewise has to value collaboration and innovation if IT organizations are to truly reap the benefits of open space.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3127789/it-management/it-moves-to-open-workspaces-but-not-everyone-is-happy.html

Photo: Paul Gilmore

News You Can Use: 1/6/2016

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  • Are you over scheduling? (Let me answer thatYes you are)

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054966/are-you-overscheduling
  • It’s a New Year and a New Start. How About a New Job?

    If you’ve been working for the same company for several years, are you really certain that you enjoy the work? Or have you been consumed by a hefty paycheck? Changing jobs gives you the ability to not only discover your real passion but also allows you to start making money by doing something that you actually enjoy doing for a living.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254434

  • 10 habits to be better at your job this year

    4. BE THE PERSON EVERYONE ADMIRES
    From the sought-after industry leader to the person who’s unanimously approved for the promotion, people with great reputations seem to have an easier time at success. But their status doesn’t happen overnight or by chance. The first step in being that person everyone admires is to do what you say you’re going to do. “You can have a reputation of being friendly or nice, but if you don’t get it over the finish line, your reputation will suffer,” says Grace Killelea, CEO and founder of the women’s leadership program Half the Sky

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054489/hit-the-ground-running/10-habits-to-adopt-now-to-be-better-at-your-job-in-2016

  • Why adversity is good for your career

    STAY HUNGRY
    A benefit of starting out a lower rung is that it instills you with a drive to succeed. This, certainly, is the case of Enio Ohmaye. Previously a senior scientist at Apple, he’s now an executive at EF Learning. But he’s never forgotten the summer he spent as a busboy in Monticello, New York. He lived in a ramshackle house and was berated by the wealthy people he served. Now at the top, he is still attentive to the experience of people at the bottom: “When I interview people,” he says, “I afterwards often ask the receptionist how those people treated them.”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054887/how-i-get-it-done/why-adversity-can-be-the-best-thing-for-your-career

  • How to Stay Calm When You Know You’ll Be Stressed

    You’re not at your best when you’re stressed. In fact, your brain has evolved over millennia to release cortisol in stressful situations, inhibiting rational, logical thinking but potentially helping you survive, say, being attacked by a lion. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin thinks there’s a way to avoid making critical mistakes in stressful situations, when your thinking becomes clouded — the pre-mortem. “We all are going to fail now and then,” he says. “The idea is to think ahead to what those failures might be