She started on a Monday.  And quit the following Friday.

Why would a young woman just starting out in her professional career quit her dream job only five days after starting it?

Because they wanted her to clean the toilet in her classroom bathroom.  Not only that, they also boldly expected her to disinfect the children’s toys every day.  She, however, has two (2!) bachelor’s degrees and was not about to clean any toilet or disinfect any toys because “that’s what we have janitors for.”

This young woman didn’t just quit, however. She also proudly and righteously bashed the former employer via FaceBook.

Truly, as I sit here writing I still find it incredible and, quite frankly, a totally stupid thing to do.  She is now jobless, as her previous retail employer would not take her back. (Hmmmm … wonder if she had other attitude issues when she was there …)

I think cleaning the toilet falls into the “… and other activites as needed” category in any given job description.  Let’s face it … sometimes the bathroom has to be cleaned and you’re the one to do it.  If you use it, then sometimes you might have to clean it.

Perhaps a Gen Y-er would find a more plausible explanation than complete stupidity but, honestly, I can’t even fathom what it would be.

The implicit message here is that a janitor simply is not as important as a pre-school teacher.  Can you imagine a world without a janitor??  If you have one, I’ll bet you really appreciate him or her.  If you do not have one (home office, small office, whatever), I’ll be you’d really like one.  And in that case if you did have one you’d probably really appreciate him or her.

Perhaps at times you’ve found yourself feeling a little more high & mighty than the lowest paid person in your company (unless you are the lowest paid person in your company).

If you want to energize your workforce, or engage and motivate your employees be sure to appreciate every single one of them – from the lowest paid people who clean the toilets to the ones who sit in the corner offices on the top floor.  Know their names.  Learn what their hobbies are.  Ask about their family or what they did over the weekend.

In other words, show them the respect and consideration they deserve.  And then thank them for cleaning the toilet.

It is completely overwhelming.

That is exactly how I felt with the task of writing “What I’ve accomplished in 2012″ for my business coaching program. On the one hand, I was excited to think about what I want to (will) accomplish this year. On the other hand, just putting it all together was overwhelming.

Having recently written an article for the synergizer! newsletter – (Almost) Everything I Learned about Business I Learned from Chickens – it made me think about our little feathered friends. Chickens lay about 365 eggs every year. Personally, if I were a chicken I would be totally overwhelmed at the prospect of laying 365 eggs a year.

But thinking of laying one egg every day isn’t all that oppressive.

So I sat down and brainstormed what I want to accomplish in 2012 with the following categories:

• Creative
• Financial
• Personal
• Physical
• Spiritual
• The Women’s Center (a new revenue center for synergize!)

And then, since I am supposed to consider how I accomplished these goals, went back for each one and wrote what I did to accomplish it.

The time spent on this was well worth it – I ended the exercise ready to sit down at the piano, not eat that bowl of ice cream, get to bed on time, and get up before dawn to run.

What will you accomplish this year? Laying one egg a day brings astounding results at the end of the year. What ones do you need to lay to get you where you want to be at the end of the year?

On my vacation I did a 4 mile race, which means I did a pattern of running for 10 minutes then walking for two minutes.  Early in the race I passed an “older” man (who was probably my age – or younger).  Apparently he stayed behind me just about the entire way.  Hot, dehydrated and tired at the end of the race I was thankful to do a little walk before I would end with a run.

And he passed me, saying, “I’m really sorry!  You had me the entire way!”

When I looked up to see him zoom by (zoom, of course, being a relative term) I saw “FINISH” around the corner just yards ahead.   It would have been quite easy to see – if I had been looking for it.  And it would have been quite easy to finish before him, if I hadn’t lost the momentum by slowing to walk.  (He actually came up to me after the race and apologized for beating me!)

What kind of race are you running right now?  Where do you want to go?  What are you doing to get there?  Are you taking time to look up and look ahead at what’s coming?  Do you know what might potentially derail you and what might give you joy along the way?  Are you visualizing yourself at the finish?

Tunnel vision is very limiting.  If we don’t know where we want to go there’s a good chance we won’t get there.  But even if we do know where we want to go if we’re not looking for it we might miss it.

So look up.   Know where you are.  Watch where you’re going.  Enjoy each step along the way and appreciate it as moving you one step closer to accomplishing your goal. 

If you’re not sure where you’re going, contact me.  My Four Steps to Success process provides an excellent framework to help you accomplish your goals.

“What we’re really looking for is a nice looking female to sell for us.”

Huh?

Didn’t that kind of hiring go out with the collapse of Pan Am?

Apparently not – since a business owner just said that to me.

“Sex and the working girl” was cited in a recent synergize! survey as one of several challenges that women in the workforce face that men do not face. Others high on the list included work / life balance (number one at 34% of respondents), being taken seriously, pay inequities and gender stereotypes.

synergize! is excited to launch The Women’s Center to help women in the workforce deal with these unique challenges. (I mean, c’mon … can you imagine somebody saying, “What we’re really looking for is a nice looking guy who can sell for us.”)

Ummmm … I don’t think so.

The Women’s Center consists of programs designed for women to help them develop their potential, deal with their unique challenges and enjoy the support of other women in the process.  On August 23rd we will introduce the following programs and services:

1. Peer Accountability Groups
2. Individual one-on-one coaching
3. The Kee to Your Future Mentor Program (a partnership with the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which will be officially launched at the October 6, 2011, Professional Women’s Forum)
4. Our four steps to success process to develop stellar employees

Please be our guest for lunch on the 23rd to learn more about these exciting programs.  Or, if you’re not close enough to come for lunch, I hope you’ll contact us to learn how The Women’s Center can be a resource for you or for the women on your team.

• August 23, 2011
• 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
• FREE lunch
• The Hampton Inn, Greenfield Road, Lancaster, PA

The event is free but you must register to attend.  Just contact us and we’ll add you to the list!

Meanwhile … I think I’ll go look for a nice looking guy to sell for me ...

A big yellow sign from Lamar Advertising with a checkered flag that said, “Gentleman, start your business.” 

Gentleman, start your business?? 

I know this is from the “Gentlemen, start your engines” days when race car drivers were all men.  But where has Lamar advertising been?

Looking at the most recent facts from 2009:

• Female-owned businesses have grown at a higher rate than male-owned businesses for the last ten years
• 30% of US businesses – that would be 10.1 million – are owned by women
• Women-owned businesses employ 13 million workers
• 20% of firms with revenue over $1 million are owned by women
• Women are responsible for over 80% of US spending

I’ll bet if they tried, Lamar Advertising could have come up with an equally creative slogan that didn’t overlook the group of business owners that is responsible for $1.9 trillion of revenue in the US annually.

This advertisement may be a perfect example of the Good Old Boy‘s mentality that women in business come up against frequently, which goes hand-in-hand with being taken seriously, cited in a recent survey as the second greatest challenge women face in the workplace that men do not.  (The greatest challenge?  Work-life balance.)

Women’s reality is that we’ll never be able to get past some of that “Gentleman, start your business” mind-set, which is certainly not to say all men are like that.  (And, for the record, my best mentors and best bosses have been men.)  The men who do not share that way of thinking should believe us when we say that there really are still some chauvinists out there. 

Women in business who have experienced the GOB‘s should understand that in spite of how limiting their viewpoint is, the only limits we really have on our personal success are the ones we place on ourselves.   (And that, of course, is true for women or men.)  Whether our boss takes us seriously or not we’re the ones responsible for our careers. 

Because of the unique challenges women face in the workforce synergize! is developing some new programs for women in business. 

1. Starting in the fall we will offer two women’s accountability groups – one for women who are new to the workforce and one for business owners.  We hope to expand this to other groups in the spring.
2. synergize! will partner with the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce to provide the Kee to Your Future mentor program for women over the age of 30.  This will be introduced at the Professional Women’s Forum in October.

Women face unique challenges in the workforce.  Not worse than those that men face, just different.  Women have a long way to go when it comes to pay equity or a voice in upper management.  There is more pressure on women to maintain the home front as well as the office.  Perhaps those are reasons why so many women are starting businesses today?  As a business owner my only ceiling is self-imposed and I set my own schedule.

So, go ahead, women … start your businesses. 

And Contact us to learn more about the upcoming women’s programs at synergize!

One of the men said to his friend’s wife, “I couldn’t believe how hard it was to make these flight arrangements!  It literally took me hours to get them done!”

“That’s terrible!” she replied.

“Nah, it wasn’t that bad.  I wasn’t busy at work that day anyway.”

Is that the epitome of productivity, or what?!

So this guy’s boss is paying him to work, and he is spending his time – hours – making flight arrangements.

What makes employees spend their work time on personal tasks?  Undoubtedly there are lots of really good reasons, like “I don’t have time when I get home” or “Everything is closed by the end of my work day.”  But what they’re really saying when they take work time for personal activities is “It really doesn’t matter if I do [my job] or not.  They’ll never notice / care / tell the difference / do anything.”

In 2005 AOL and salary.com completed a joint study on wasting time at work.  Since then salary.com has repeated the study every year (the Wasting Time at Work Survey) with similar results: On average American workers waste 2.09 hours at work every day – not including lunch.  The biggest culprits?  Personal internet use, socializing with coworkers, conducting personal business, spacing out and running personal errands. 

According to The Tragic Cost of Google Pac-Man by RescueTime.Com, employees around the world spent more than 4.8 million hours playing  Pac-Man when Google created its logo in the form of a Pac-Man game to celebrate Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary a year ago.  This resulted in an estimated $120,483,800 worth of employers’ money wasted away, which did not take into consideration the bandwidth costs and lowered productivity of other workers trying to use the same networks simultaneously.

There’s no motivation to be productive when there’s no connection with the bigger organizational picture.  When management hasn’t conveyed the importance of a role or established measurable goals then why bother?  And the employee is right – nobody will notice / care / tell the difference or, most importantly, do anything. 

So if you don’t care whether your employees are productive or not keep doing nothing.  They’ll be sure to follow suit!

But if you want to increase employee engagement let each person know how important his or her role is, and why.  Provide meaningful, measurable and track-able goals.  And hold employees accountable for reaching those goals.

And if you are thinking this isn’t as easy as it sounds contact me.  synergize! has the tools to help you become a best place to work – with employees that spend their time – and your money – getting the job done.  You can also reach me at 717-575-0942 or mwalker@energizeyourworkforce.com.

She had a script and was asked to first identify herself not as my daughter, but as calling on my behalf.  She was also asked to clarify the e-mail address for anybody who didn’t remember getting the invitation and wanted it re-sent.  While I could have printed every e-mail address, with the names, companies and phone numbers (and big print so she could see it easier) there wasn’t room so she was instructed to say, “Could you please give me your e-mail so I can be sure we have it right.” 

Unfortunately not everybody on my carefully chosen list was as “nice” as I thought they would be.

When she asked one of the contacts for the e-mail address she got a rude response: “Well, if you sent it to me before you should still have it now!” and then slammed the phone down.

This response was rude, inconsiderate – and unprofessional.  This wasn’t a telemarketer – although I personally don’t think there is any reason to be rude to them, either.  The woman could have even said, “I’d rather not give that out so please re-send it where you sent it before.”

Did she really think she was so much more important than the person calling her that it was okay to treat her so rudely?  We’ve all seen this kind of person – the one who is rude to the receptionist but ever-so-pleasant with the boss.  And we’ve all heard stories of how the receptionist, who was treated badly by someone, grows up to be the president of the company and doesn’t forget how people treated her when she was the receptionist.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we are no more – or less – important than the next guy.  We may be smarter, or more skilled, or better educated but we are never more important. 

Princess Rude is in sales.  And she sells for a company that will someday want my business. 

Think she’ll get it?

Top performers don’t remain in a job because of the money. They stay when organizational goals are clearly defined. They stay when they are engaged in a meaningful role that has a direct correlation with organizational success. They stay when they get what they need from their manager. They stay when they feel appreciated, and when problems are dealt with directly and immediately.

They leave when chaos reigns.

When management can’t get along, when they send mixed messages to the workforce, when there is no structure and problems are not openly dealt with and resolved then chaos reigns. And the good guys start to leave.

One of the good guys I know is on his way out of company he has worked with for five years. He was a valued employee with a bright future. In a recent organizational survey he was referred to as the “back bone” of the company.  With a future like that why is he leaving?  “Everybody knew there was an elephant in the middle of the room and nobody wanted to talk about it. The owner hasn’t taken action and gears haven’t turned toward implementing changes. Everything has just been a delay tactic. It’s not about the money. It’s about the working environment.”

Overcoming team dysfunctions starts way before a group tries to become a team. It starts with the processes, structure and systems that enable the completion of goals. If these are not in place from the outset results are severely limited. Add to that a management team with a lot of in-fighting and backstabbing and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Or, at least, a good reason for the good guys to leave.

What’s your working environment like? Does it foster commitment and engagement? Loyalty? If members of your team don’t enjoy going to work contact synergize! today for a FREE pamphlet “Five steps to take when your team needs help!”

She made a momentous decision yesterday to go out on short-term disability because the stress she has been under in her job is making her sick. She has experienced dangerously low levels of iron in her blood, heart palpitations, sleep deprivation, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, along with anxiety and depression and a 25-pound weight gain.  (Did I mention she was a size 4 former professional dancer with no health issues?)  To top it off the experiences of having been devalued, ignored, not supported, singled out and publicly criticized have eroded this successful, highly intelligent and competent woman’s normally high confidence.

She’s not alone.  More and more of us cite work stress as a significant problem.  Gallup research indicates more than 80% of Americans report job stress, and 40% of them agree they need help dealing with it.

So what?  We all know life is stressful.  And most of us accept that the place where we spend more waking hours tends to be a little more stressful than the place where we lay our head at night.

But when we experience continuously high levels of stress we are at higher risk for developing physical illnesses.  And if we don’t handle stress well (which 50% of us don’t) that’s another risk factor.  The costs of job dissatisfaction, burnout, lower productivity, absenteeism and higher turnover are great.  But those costs pale in comparison to the costs of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, digestive problems, migraines, degenerative diseases, increased infections, anxiety and depression.  All in all job stress costs American businesses billions of dollars a year.

While Mary’s stress came from being verbally and emotionally abused at work a lot of us are stressed simply because we change our behavior when we get there.  A simple, 10 minute DISC assessment can determine whether or not you are at higher risk of becoming sick just because of work stress.  And another simple, 25 minute personality assessment can tell you how well you handle stress.

Again, so what?

1. Knowing how much and where you change your behavior at work is a good starting place to consider whether that’s what the job needs, or if you simply perceive that’s what you need to do.  It’s also a good conversation to have with your manager or mentor.
2. If you know you make big changes at work, and you know you don’t handle stress well, you also know you need to be sure you have healthy ways to manage stress.  If you can’t do that on your own a few conversations with a coach or counselor would be in order.
3. It can also wake you up to some other changes you may need to make.  Is being this stressed out in your job really worth the potential health toll?  Is it maybe time to more seriously consider making a change?

Want to see whether you should pay more attention to the stress in your life?  Purchase a Prevue personality assessment (regular price $232, special Team Dysfunctions price $192) and receive a FREE DISC assessment ($92 value!  Offer good through April 30, 2011)  E-mail today (mwalker@energizeyourworkforce.com) or complete our Contact Form with code TD 4/2011)

Contact us today (717-575-0942).  Life is too short to spend it feeling worn out, burned out and stressed out.

She works in a manufacturing environment where little plastic sleeves covering the name tags are important. Can employees get work done without the little plastic sleeves?  Of course they can.

But when an employee asks for a little plastic sleeve to preserve his name tag, and the supervisor doesn’t get it for him, the message the employee gets is “He doesn’t care.” “I’m not important.”  So after a few requests the employee goes to HR and asks HR for the little plastic sleeve, sharing some choice comments about that supervisor who doesn’t care anything about him.  And when HR speaks with the supervisor what does the supervisor say?  “It’s only a little plastic sleeve.”

Yeah, but it’s the plastic sleeve that’ll burn ya.

Think of how you feel when others don’t follow-up with you.   Waiting for the cable guy who says he’ll be there between 8 and noon and he shows up at 1:30.  Waiting for housing contractors who came to your home, looked at the work you wanted done and never got back to you with an estimate.  I have a client who has failed to respond to a customer’s request for a multi-year service contract because, “I’m not sure where the company will be in three years.”  No duh.

The reality is that our employees (or our customers) won’t remember all the big things we do for them.  Probably because they think we’re supposed to do them.  They’ll remember the little things like little plastic sleeves and returning phone calls or providing information we say we’ll provide.

Your team may be able to get work done without the little plastic sleeves.  But I guarantee they’ll work harder if you convey that you care about them by getting them the little things they need.