On Turning a Mountain Into a Molehill | Credit Writedowns
Readers of my Scary Charts posts will note that sometimes you’ll find a chart with a link to the original article while other times you’ll find just the link.
If all you see is a link, I encourage you to read the original article.
You gotta read this one.
Managing the Productivity Paradox – HBR IdeaCast – Harvard Business Review
This is an HBR IdeaCast podcast interview with Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working.
Take 15 minutes and learn a little about ultradian rhythms and the way we work.
For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review
The way we’re working isn’t working — for employees or for their employers. There is a better way to fuel productivity and high performance. The first key to changing the way we work is recognizing that the value of those you manage isn’t generated by the number of hours they work, but rather by how much value they produce during the hours we are working. Working longer hours, juggling more tasks and answering more emails isn’t the solution.
The Job Satisfaction Paradox for the Self-Employed – BusinessWeek
How can the self-employed earn less money, work more hours, and experience more work-related stress than the wage employed—yet still report greater overall job satisfaction? The answer appears to be that people value highly the autonomy, flexibility, and opportunity to work in a small organization .
Many studies show that the desire to be one’s own boss is one of the leading motivators of self-employment. Others report flexible schedules are a key motivator of self-employment. Moreover, human beings have a preference for working in settings where they can interact with all the members of the organization, according to research by Bruno Frey and Matthias Benz of the Institute of Empirical Economics of the University of Zurich.
In short, the paradox isn’t such a paradox after all. People will work harder, earn less, and put up with more stress so that they can enjoy the freedom, flexibility, and work environment that self-employment provides.
Does Your Passion Match Your Aspiration? – Rosabeth Moss Kanter – Harvard Business Review
I got a passing grade. Did you?
Facing Up to the Demographic Dilemma
This is a thought provoking article on the challenges and opportunities aging populations present to businesses. Under Article Tools you can click the PDF button for a reprint rather than page through multiple web pages. It still fascinates me to watch businesses in the US shed competent people of all ages while ignoring future workforce and critical skills needs.
February 2010 Bridging Skills Gap – Free – ASTD
Click on the link above and you’ll be taken to the original source article for the statistics provided below. The charts themselves came from a newsletter called Workforce Training. The percentages in bold are my emphasis. Scary statistics but fixable.
Did I mention we conduct skills gap analysis and custom training to address the gaps?
| SKILL GAPS Seventy-nine percent of 1,179 companies surveyed by the American Society for Training & Development said they had a skill gap. The respondents listed their highest priority gaps as: |
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WHERE THE GAPS ARE The same companies listed these as their greatest skill needs: |
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I’ll be in San Antonio for the annual AHOU meeting.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the city has changed since my last visit.
Who’s creating US jobs? Mexicans. / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com
“In fiscal year 2008, the US issued E-1 and E-2 visas to 1901 Mexicans and their families, nearly three times the level of a decade before. “
Where are all of these Mexican immigrant investors going? San Antonio!
Kansas City to Close Nearly Half Its Schools – NYTimes.com
I haven’t been posting any Scary Charts recently because there are too many of them.
Then I came across this article in the NYT.
What are the Top 10 nations for online workers? / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com
And the fastest-growing major economy for freelance work?
The United States. “We’re seeing a huge number of Americans come online,” says Brian Goler, vice president of marketing for oDesk. “More and more people are working this way.”
Perhaps they have to because of the economic downturn. Perhaps they want to.
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