News You Can Use: 10/18/2017

  • I Was a Skeptic, Now I am Convinced Unlimited PTO is Good Business

    Even if it’s just symbolic, unlimited paid time off (PTO) reinforces the fact that we hired you because you seem like the type of person who can handle a little freedom. If I say that I trust you, and then follow up that supposedly heartfelt declaration by shackling you to your desk, you can be certain of two things:
    1. I don’t trust you.
    2. You shouldn’t trust me, either.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/298410
    Unlimited PTO sounds lovely, but I can barely manage to take the time I have off. I think for many, by not having set days off employees will take even less days, and I think companies like Netflix knows that.

  • Podcast: Ariba: Talking Treasury with Jerry Bernard

    From investment decisions to monitoring regulations and managing currency fluctuations, the treasurer’s life is never boring. Join us in this conversation with SAP Ariba’s own treasurer, Jerry Bernard, to hear about a day in the life of a corporate treasurer and to get an idea of which issues he feels are most important in the field.

    https://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/makeprocurementawesome-with-sap-ariba-episode-6

  • Want to Boost Your Career and Income? Develop a Side Project or Hobby
  • Struggling With A Work Setback? Reflect On Your Childhood (Yes, Really)

    Reflecting on my childhood and young adulthood isn’t just daydreaming–the point isn’t to avoid my present challenges by indulging in escapist nostalgia. Instead, it’s to try and remember the sequence of experiences that led me to where I am now. I try to reach beyond the fear and constraints of the moment so I can reconnect with something deeper and more permanent.

    When I work with clients who are struggling with professional difficulties, I ask them to do the same–to remember what inspired them to move along the career path they chose, no matter how frustrating the circumstances that path has led them into right now: What was in their work that originally gave them the feelings of pleasure and fulfillment that they’ve built their career on? What was an early moment of discovery and delight that first got them excited?

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40477510/struggling-with-a-work-setback-reflect-on-your-childhood-yes-really

  • One Year After Its Fake-Accounts Scandal, Wells Fargo Isn’t ‘A Better Bank’

    Indeed, the scandal has only gotten worse since it first came to light. Since Stumpf’s appearance before Congress, the estimated number of accounts affected has been revised up to 3.5 million. Additionally, a separate scandal, involving auto loans the bank issued, affected some 500,000 customers, who had insurance policies taken out in their names that sometimes resulted in defaults and vehicle repossessions.

    While Sloan tried to focus on progress made in the past year—bringing up changes made to the bank’s organizational structure, review processes, plans for repaying customers, sales incentives, and corporate culture—the senators focused on how long it took Wells Fargo to open official inquiries into the claims of fake accounts, the predatory nature of the sales processes, and the compensation executives received. The committee members dwelled on the questions of how the bank’s practices could be improved and whether it should be allowed to continue operating in the first place.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/wells-fargo-fake-accounts-sloan/541875/

Photo: Patrick Hendry

News You Can Use: 10/19/2016

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  • 6 Ways to Convince Your Boss That Traveling is Important

    The potential ROI gained from the trip is greater than the trip’s cost:
    For anyone who wants his or her boss to approve a business trip, it’s a good idea to map out the specific costs in advance, then estimate the potential ROI that could be garnered if you attended the event.

    Ensuring you keep all your business expenses related to the trip low — though many trips are tax deductible — will help create an optimistic view of the revenue potential and what positive gains could occur that could become the leverage for future business trips.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/282904
    sn_travel_mindy

  • Rock ’em Sock ’em Telecom Services

    In telecommunications, acquisitions have strong influences on pricing structures, service offerings, and overall capabilities. The competition for these services continues to boom with more localized suppliers playing against the big wigs. Going for the “popular” name does not always result in the best fit for your company. When choosing a provider whether through a formal sourcing engagement or going to the market direct, you need an unbiased opinion and should focus on the facts versus fiction.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2016/09/rock-em-sock-em-telecom-services.html

  • How To Manage Your Anxiety During Tough Times At Work

    When paranoid thinking creeps into your work life, you tend to look for evidence to prove your thinking right. It’s a cognitive function called“confirmation bias.” When you have a belief, for example, that someone is trying to keep you from getting promoted, you look for evidence that confirms that belief. In this case, you believe your colleague is blocking your promotion. When he doesn’t respond to your email, you see that as evidence of your belief.

    Instead of jumping to this conclusion, ask yourself, “What if the opposite were true?” What if he wasn’t blocking your promotion? What other reasons could there be for not responding to you?

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3063975/work-smart/how-to-manage-your-anxiety-during-tough-times-at-work
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  • How Wells Fargo’s Work Culture May Have Cleared The Way For Scandal

    The key ingredients that foster a hostile work environment, according to Faas, are unreasonable expectations put on employees, an acceptance of questionable practices, and reluctance to complain out of fear of retaliation. “If what we hear in the media about the treatment of whistleblowers is true, Wells Fargo has a much bigger issue than the fraudulent accounts—they have a culture of fear,” he says. “If this is validated, it puts to question the credibility of their leadership’s response.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3064175/how-wells-fargos-cross-selling-scandal-grew-out-of-workplace-culture

  • New Ernst & Young Report: Supply Chain Data “Overwhelms” Businesses, Stunting Automation, Efficiency

    Managing the data growth dilemma: The growing tsunami of data is both a boon and bane to businesses in the digital age. Limitless oceans of data, often reflecting customer experience as it happens, have the potential to remake supply chains and business models. These models can and should be more efficient, productive, flexible and responsive. But right now, data is a mess. The current period of hyper data growth leaves most companies in a position where their ability to uncover business insights is effectively hidden within an increasingly complex and often unfathomable amount of data.

    http://www.scmr.com/article/new_ernst_young_report_supply_chain_data_overwhelms_businesses_stunting_aut#When:12:53:00Z

  • Supply Risk and Compliance are Disconnected — That’s a Problem and an Opportunity

    So, you’re stuck in the supply risk swamp and bogged down by compliance regimes. And you know there is waste everywhere and opportunity all around. So, as a supply professional, what should you do? You need to align risk management and compliance management with not just each other but with performance management (including continuous improvement) — and tie them all into your value chain processes. As those processes go upstream and external, this is where procurement and supply chain groups feel this problem — and need for alignment — more than anyone in the enterprise.

    http://spendmatters.com/2016/09/27/supply-risk-compliance-disconnected-thats-problem-opportunity/

Photo: JD Weiher