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centerforhci · 2 years

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Best Practices for Hiring Gen Z

The US workforce is more diverse than ever: racially, ethnically, and even generationally, with different generations working side by side. Each generation has somewhat unique characteristics and, generally speaking, is distinctly different from the others. This can present organizational challenges. However, it is also an opportunity to leverage generational strengths for improved organizational performance. Since talent is infused in everything successful organizations do, it’s important that organizations can attract, hire, and retain Gen Z employees as part of their success strategy. Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z currently makes up 20.35% of the US population. The eldest among them are between 22 and 25 years old, so you can expect members of this generation to start trickling into your ranks more and more in the coming years. They will impact the workplace for decades to come. This generation:

Is the most racially diverse generation, comprised of 52 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 14 percent Black, and 4 percent Asian people.

Has been raised with the internet and mobile devices from birth.

Faced more financial challenges, as well as greater mental health challenges, than Millennials or Gen X.

WHAT DOES GEN Z EXPECT FROM AN EMPLOYER?

Gen Z is interested in who organizations really are in terms of their mission, vision, and culture. Additionally, they value benefits like short-term loans, mental health applications, daily pay features (same day pay option), and fitness and weight management services. They want fair and ethical bosses who encourage them to speak up and also help them create social impact. Gen Z is looking for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) culture. The majority of them (86%) want to know a potential employer’s commitment to diversity before accepting an offer. 67% are reluctant to accept an offer if they don’t meet any underrepresented employees during their interview process. Career advancement plays a prominent role in retaining Gen Z employees. They are seeking mentoring, training, and meaningful roles. 75% expect a promotion in the first year. 60% expect to change roles within the organization within two years; 50% admit they intend to look for a new job within three years. Some best practices to fine-tune the Gen Z hiring process include:

Employee Referrals: Referrals are the number one source of Gen Z hiring. Over 60% of Gen Z candidates say referrals from current or former employees and alumni networks are their favorite way to learn about potential employers.

Employee Influencer Networks: Lean on your current employees to attract young talent. Invite team members to share their work lives on social media, and post when you have new open positions.

On-Campus Career Fairs: Gen Z values face-to-face communication. They prefer college career centers and hiring events nearly twice as much as their Millennial counterparts.

Improve Your Career Site: A Careers Page is the foundation of your recruitment marketing strategy for Gen Z. Modernize your website and attract more candidates. Ask yourself: How does your website reflect your vision? Update information to make your open role postings more appealing to the newest wave of job seekers.

Personalize Your Communication Strategy: Ask candidates to join the talent community before they apply. Share content based on their indicated interests. During the interview process, give frequent updates to let candidates know about their hiring status. At the time of making an offer, send a small care package that speaks to your new hire.

Check out the diagram below for the ideal Gen Z hiring process:

Now it’s time to apply a few ideas for the career advancement and retention of the Gen Z workforce:

1. Create 30, 60, and 90-Day Objectives: Illustrate the value of these objectives and invite employees to accelerate the trajectory of their careers.

2. Build an Employee Development Engine: Start in the right strategic direction, collect all relevant data points, have a professional development plan in place, integrate learning and development as a part of the career advancement, and measure performance at regular intervals.

3. Demonstrate a Career Path: Create a framework to shape the first few years of employment. Illustrate a path that involves different tasks and roles to feed their need for engagement. Consider partnering at the university level to provide new learning opportunities. Set up internal marketplaces within your organization to match projects with needed skill sets.

4. Use a Career Lattice Pathway: Career lattice pathways allow for vertical, horizontal, and diagonal movement. They are much broader than career ladders, which are narrower, have a vertical view, and focus primarily on getting promoted to the next job title. Nearly 90% of workers would consider a cross-departmental move without a financial incentive.

5. Create Competencies: By aligning organizational competencies and expected proficiency levels with position descriptions, organizations can hire people who add value to the organization in a strategic and targeted way.

BEST PRACTICES TO HIRE GEN Z

Over 80% of Gen Z prospects expect the hiring process to take a maximum of two week. Transparent communication is essential for hiring Gen Z. 54% of Gen Z prospects won’t apply if they feel recruitment is dated. Outdated recruitment examples include:

Walk-in interviews

Generic or unclear job descriptions

In-person initial interviews

Job advertisements in print

Using temporary employment agencies

As more and more Gen Z enters the workforce, it is imperative that organizations educate themselves on what this generation values most in an employer. Hiring and retention strategies must evolve to incorporate those preferences and values. Managers and prospective hires, we want to hear from you! Tell us about your experience with hiring / getting hired. What has worked and not worked for you?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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theliberaltony · 5 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

This week’s poll

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently captured headlines in her “60 Minutes” interview when she said the U.S. should raise taxes on a portion of the income made by America’s top earners; the idea is that once a person had made at least $10 million in a single year, every dollar coming in after that would be taxed at a rate of up to 70 percent. Many have dismissed the idea, saying it would be too radical and would damage the economy. But the Democratic representative from New York might have hit on something voters want.

A new poll from The Hill and Harris X found that 59 percent of registered voters supported imposing a 70 percent tax rate on every dollar over the 10 millionth a person earns in a year. (Tax rates that apply only to income over a certain threshold are called marginal tax rates.) The idea even received bipartisan support: 71 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents and 45 percent of Republicans said they were in favor. In contrast, the Republican overhaul of the tax law that President Trump signed in 2017 — which decreased the marginal tax rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent on married couples earning over $600,000 — has far less public support. A September Gallup poll found that only 39 percent of Americans approved of it.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Americans would support higher taxes on top earners given that tax rates on high income brackets were once much higher than they are today. The top marginal tax rate was as high as 94 percent in the 1940s, and throughout the 1970s, Americans in the top income bracket (which in 1970 was $200,000 and above, or about $1.3 million in today’s money) were taxed at a 70 percent rate, according to the Tax Policy Center. It wasn’t until 1981, when Congress and President Ronald Reagan implemented one of the largest tax cuts since World War II, that the top marginal tax rate fell to 50 percent. Over the course of Reagan’s term, tax reforms eventually cut the top marginal tax rate down to 28 percent.

Wanting the wealthy to pay more in taxes isn’t a new idea to American politics either. According to a Gallup poll from 2016, since 1992, Americans have largely felt that upper-income earners don’t pay enough in taxes. For the last quarter century, a majority of Americans — between 55 percent and 77 percent — have believed that top earners pay too little. And a 2017 Ipsos/Reuters poll found that 3 in 4 Americans said that wealthier Americans should pay more in taxes.

Ocasio-Cortez has not made any official policy proposal for a higher marginal tax rate, but she is already shaping the national conversation on economic policy ahead of the 2020 elections. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, who recently announced a presidential run, has already endorsed Ocasio-Cortez’s tax hike proposal in an interview with ABC News. And while it’s still too early to know for sure, 2020 Democratic hopefuls looking to appeal to The Left may soon follow suit.

Other polling nuggets

The polling news of the week continues to be the ongoing partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history. On Wednesday, 49 percent of registered voters said in a Morning Consult/Politico survey that they blamed Trump for the shutdown. That number falls largely in line with four other polls FiveThirtyEight looked at this week, which showed that a plurality — if not a majority — of Americans hold Trump most responsible for the shutdown.

A NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll suggests President Trump could face a tough re-election bid in 2020: 57 percent of registered voters said they definitely plan to vote against Trump, while only 30 percent said they definitely plan to vote for him.

A CNN poll found that President Trump has lost ground among white voters without a college degree, who are arguably his most loyal supporters, during the government shutdown. A January poll found that 45 percent approved of his job as president, a 9-point drop from a month before, when the government had not yet shut down.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become more popular with voters since the 2018 election. Thirty-five percent of Americans said they have a favorable view of her in the most recent poll from Civiqs, a polling firm associated with the pro-Democrat site Daily Kos. That marks a significant improvement from Election Day, when just 27 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of her.

29 percent of Americans said “the government/poor leadership” is now the most important problem facing the country, according to a new Gallup poll. This is a 10-point increase from when Gallup last asked the question in December. Immigration was deemed the second most important problem at 21 percent, up 5 points from December.

Nearly 3 in 5 Americans oppose expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Opinions haven’t changed much from a year ago, but the data suggests that the issue has become even more partisan. Now, 82 percent of Republicans support building the wall, a 10-point increase from last year. And the share of Democrats who support building a wall has dropped from 13 percent to 6 percent.

After news broke last week that in May of 2017, the FBI had opened a case looking into whether Trump was working on behalf of the Russian government, an Economist/YouGov poll found that 36 percent of Americans believed that he had, in fact, been working for the Russian government. Another 36 did not believe that to be the case, while 28 percent were unsure.

About 3 in 4 Americans in a Pew Research Center survey didn’t know Facebook used their personal information to target ads. Fifty-one percent said that after reviewing their “ad preferences” page, they felt uncomfortable about the information Facebook had collected.

Pew Research Center also released a study that found that the political views of generation Z (age 13 to 21) are very similar to those of millennials. Like millennials, they are less likely to approve of Trump (30 percent) than older generations, more likely to say the government should play a bigger role in public life (70 percent), and more likely to say that increased racial and ethnic diversity is a good thing in society (62 percent). Another sign that Gen Zers might be more liberal — 35 percent said they personally know someone who prefers being referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. A quarter of millennials said the same. Fewer people in older generations knew someone who used gender-neutral pronouns: 16 percent of Gen Xers did, as did 12 percent of Boomers and 7 percent of Silents.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 40.2 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 55.0 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -14.8 points). That’s almost a 2-point drop from one week ago when, 41.0 percent of Americans approved and 53.9 percent disapproved of the president (a net approval rating of -12.9 points). And his net approval rating has dropped significantly from one month ago, when he had an approval rating of 42.2 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.4 percent, for a net approval rating of -10.2 points.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Janie Velencia

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nicholerestrada · 5 years

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MM scoop: Progress on China

Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Money is published weekdays at 8 a.m. POLITICO Pro Financial Services subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 5:15 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.

MM Scoop: Progress on China — MM hears that Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, the nation’s top trade negotiator, is scheduled to return to Washington for talks at the end of this month. That’s a signal that the most recent round of talks at the deputies level in Beijing went well enough to elevate discussions to the senior level in Washington.

Story Continued Below

Washington and China have until March 1 to make a deal on trade that would cover intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer, ownership rights, the trade deficit and other issues or President Trump has pledged to increase tariffs and potentially apply them to everything China exports to the U.S.

Or the two sides have to agree that enough progress has been made to warrant an extension of the deadline. This continues to be the most likely outcome as both Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping are feeling economic heat from the trade war and neither really wants it to escalate. Things could still fall apart but the direction seems to be positive.

Presidential Primary Preview — Want a preview of the Democratic presidential primary? Tune in for today’s start of confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee William Bar before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel includes at least three Democrats would could be in the field: Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California.

All three will want to display their chops defending the Mueller investigation and probing Barr over his memo questioning the entire basis of the investigation. The needle they all have to thread is to appear both aggressive enough to appeal to rabidly anti-Trump Democrats while sober enough to seem presidential to the broader electorate.

Shutdown grinds on — No real movement to be found as Washington Dulles joined the list of airports to close access lanes due to absent, unpaid TSA agents. The White House and Hill Democrats are now trying to pick off defectors in the other party. Neither side is likely to succeed with their gambits right away.

Why would Democrats trust Trump to abide by any deal he makes? And Trump continues to flatly refuse to agree to anything that doesn’t immediately fund the wall. Sort of feels like it’s going to take some kind of catastrophe to move things along.

GOOD TUESDAY MORNING — Catch my latest “U.S. Politics in 60 Seconds” video for GZero Media here. Email me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @AubreeEWeaver..

SPOTTED — Via Daniel Lippman: Treasury chief of staff Eli Miller having dinner with U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Ron Gidwitz at Fiola Mare on Monday night

** A message from the American Bankers Association: America’s Banks drive the small business economy. Banks of all sizes fuel America’s small businesses, providing more than $347 billion in small business loans to 38.1 million entrepreneurs. How are banks driving economic growth in your state? Click here to find out. **

Barr’s AG hearing begins before Senate Judiciary at 9:30 a.m. … Producer prices at 8:30 a.m. expected to decline 0.1 percent headline and rise 0.2 percent core …

NUMBER DU JOUR: 2 PERCENT — The CW here and elsewhere after Trump’s Oval Office address on the wall was that it would change nothing. That CW was correct, according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll, which shows 89 percent of respondents said the speech did not change their minds while 2 percent said it did. Two percent. Not a typo.

SCOTUS DECLINES CFPB CASE — Our Katy O’Donnell: “The Supreme Court … declined to hear a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the CFPB brought by a Texas-based bank and two advocacy groups. The petitioners argued that the single-director leadership structure and the fact that the CFPB is not funded through Congress violate the separation of powers principle.

“Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with them as an appeals court judge and would have had to recuse himself had the Supreme Court taken up the case. … At least two other pending appeals court cases challenge the single-director structure of either the CFPB or the Federal Housing Finance Agency” More for Pros.

NO, IVANKA WON’T LEAD THE WORLD BANK — Sounded nuts at the time, and turns out it was, via our Andrew Restuccia: “President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is overseeing the internal search for a nominee to lead the World Bank — but is not herself a candidate for the job, according to the White House.

“The World Bank’s current president, Jim Yong Kim, announced last week that he will step down next month, touching off speculation about his replacement. The Financial Times reported that Ivanka Trump’s name was ‘floating around Washington’ as one possibility. But White House spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said … ‘reports that she is under consideration are false.’” Read more.

AOC PROPOSAL WOULDN’T RAISE MUCH CASH — Our Brian Faler: “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent would generate at most $292 billion, according to the Tax Foundation. That’s if the proposal is applied only to ordinary income above $10 million” Read more.

ZINKE LANDS A GIG — Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has landed a job as managing director at an investment firm, Pro’s Ben Lefebvre reports. Zinke will be based in Montana and California but have “extensive travel” overseas for the fund, Artillery One, which lists its address as a post office box in North Carolina. “Secretary Zinke brings a wealth of experience and understanding of the workings of business and government,” said Daniel Cannon, Artillery One CEO, in a press release first reported by the website Swissinfo.ch.

“His expertise in the energy and technology sectors will help Artillery One to continue to expand its consulting and finance business in the core areas of cybersecurity, energy, fintech and digital assets.” Read more.

CHINA WEIGHS ON U.S. STOCKS — AP’s Marley Jay: “Stocks took small losses Monday after China reported a drop in exports in December, but the market didn’t come close to matching the plunges it took in the last few months. Indexes in Europe and Asia headed slightly lower after the latest report added more evidence that China’s economy is weakening. Major U.S. indexes fell about 1 percent at the start of trading, but soon recovered much of what they’d lost. Technology companies slumped.” Read more.

Apple rattled markets — WSJ’s Inti Pacheco and Theo Francis: “When Apple Inc. said China’s slowing economy contributed to its late-year sales slump, the news rattled the stocks of other major U.S. companies with big operations in the world’s second-largest economy.

“Now, as U.S. companies prepare to report their quarterly earnings, China’s impact will be revealed. The amount of damage is likely to depend on such factors as who the company’s customers are and how much competition it faces in China.” Read more.

DOING A BUFFETT? — Reuters’ Saqib Iqbal Ahmed: “An anonymous trader caused a stir in the U.S. equity option market on Monday with a massive bet that recalled Warren Buffett’s famous wager on global stocks more than a decade ago. The trader sold 19,000 put options on the S&P 500 Index obligating him or her to buy the market benchmark at 2,1000 on Dec. 18, 2020, data from New York-based options analytics firm Trade alert showed.” Read more.

CLARIDA SAYS FED MAY NOT RAISE RATES THAT MUCH — Bloomberg’s Christopher Condon and Chibuike Oguh: “Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida left open the possibility the U.S. central bank will raise interest rates in 2019 fewer than the two times projected by policy makers at their last meeting. ‘A lot has really happened since the first week of December,’ Clarida said Monday in an interview on Fox Business Network. ‘Some of the global growth data have been softening.’” Read more.

MARKET TURMOIL HURT CITI IN 2018 — NYT’s Emily Flitter: “Citi said it had almost a half-billion dollars less in revenue in [2018]’s fourth quarter than analysts had expected. The cause of the drop, the bank said, was an unexpectedly sharp decline in revenue from trading in government bonds, foreign currencies and other fixed income products as falling stock prices spooked investors.” Read more.

MALAYSIA BLAMES GOLDMAN FOR STOLEN BILLIONS — NYT’s Alexandra Stevenson: “Accused of helping to carry out an international multibillion-dollar fraud, Goldman Sachs has tried to pin the blame on a few rogue bankers. It is an argument that the government of Malaysia, where the fraud was carried out, is not buying. …

“Malaysia is gearing up for a fight with an institution that was once synonymous with power and influence around the world. The government is seeking $7.5 billion in compensation from Goldman Sachs, adding to a mounting pile of penalties against the bank and deepening one of the most serious crises in its 149-year history.” Read more.

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michaeljtraylor · 5 years

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MM scoop: Progress on China

Story Continued Below

SPOTTED — Via Daniel Lippman: Treasury chief of staff Eli Miller having dinner with U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Ron Gidwitz at Fiola Mare on Monday night

Barr’s AG hearing begins before Senate Judiciary at 9:30 a.m. … Producer prices at 8:30 a.m. expected to decline 0.1 percent headline and rise 0.2 percent core …

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garkomedia1 · 5 years

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MM scoop: Progress on China

Story Continued Below

SPOTTED — Via Daniel Lippman: Treasury chief of staff Eli Miller having dinner with U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Ron Gidwitz at Fiola Mare on Monday night

Barr’s AG hearing begins before Senate Judiciary at 9:30 a.m. … Producer prices at 8:30 a.m. expected to decline 0.1 percent headline and rise 0.2 percent core …

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todaynewsstories · 6 years

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SEC sues Musk for fraud, seek to remove him from Tesla

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The top U.S. securities regulator on Thursday accused Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk of fraud and sought to remove him from his role in charge of the electric car company, saying he made a series of “false and misleading” tweets about potentially taking Tesla private last month.

Musk, 47, is one of the highest-profile tech executives to be accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Losing its public face and guiding force would be a big blow for money-losing Tesla, which has a market value of more than $50 billion, chiefly because of investors’ belief in Musk’s leadership.

The Department of Justice, which has the authority to press criminal charges, has also questioned the company about Musk’s tweets, the company said this month.

Tesla shares tumbled 12 percent in after-hours trading.

“Elon is Tesla and Tesla is Elon and that’s great when Elon is scoring touchdowns and grand slams but not so great when there are negative things tied to him,” said Karl Brauer, executive publisher at car research firm Kelley Blue Book.

“I don’t know how you spin an SEC lawsuit that seeks to remove you from leadership of your own company.”

Musk said he had done nothing wrong. “This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed,” he said in a statement. “I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors. Integrity is the most important value in my life and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way.”

The SEC’s lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, caps a tumultuous two months set in motion on Aug. 7 when Musk told his more than 22 million Twitter followers that he might take Tesla private at $420 per share, with “funding secured.”

On Aug. 24, after news of the SEC probe had become known, Musk blogged here that Tesla would remain public, citing investor resistance.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the SEC filed the lawsuit after a proposed settlement with Musk fell apart. The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Thursday.

In its lawsuit, the SEC said Musk calculated the $420 price per share based on a 20 percent premium over that day’s closing share price and because of the number’s slang reference to marijuana. The lawsuit, which cites emails and text messages between Musk and Tesla executives, quoted Musk as saying he thought his girlfriend “would find it funny.”

Musk had not discussed the $420 figure with any potential funding source before he broached the subject to Tesla’s board in an Aug. 2 email, the SEC said.

Slideshow (2 Images)

In comments provided to CNBC, Tesla said Musk did not approach the deal as a typical take-private transaction.

The move to bar Musk as an officer of any public company was a rare move for the SEC against the CEO of such a well-known firm.

“The lesson for CEOs is that the rules apply to everyone including highly successful visionaries,” said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

Teresa Goody, CEO of law firm Goody Counsel and a former SEC attorney, said the SEC had acted quickly but that most such SEC lawsuits are usually settled without going to a jury trial. Settlements can take some time to reach if the defendant is unwilling to budge on the SEC’s key demands.

“The SEC seeking an officer and director bar magnifies the consequences for Musk and strengthens the SEC’s position in potential future settlement negotiations,” said Goody.

RECKLESSNESS?

The SEC lawsuit comes as Tesla has been struggling to deliver its new Model 3 sedan into the hands of customers, after a long series of production issues and delays. The new vehicle is key to the company’s future profitability.

The possibility of Musk being ousted as CEO also increases uncertainty about access to capital for Tesla, which has never posted an annual profit but has vowed to be profitable in the third and fourth quarters.

Musk has long used Twitter to criticize short-sellers betting against his company, and already faced several investor lawsuits over the Aug. 7 tweets, which caused Tesla’s share price to gyrate.

According to the SEC, Musk “knew or was reckless in not knowing” that his tweets about taking Tesla private at $420 a share were false and misleading, given that he had never discussed such a transaction with any funding source.

The SEC said Musk met for less than an hour with three representatives of Public Investment Fund, at the company’s Fremont, California, plant on July 31 during which the lead representative for the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund expressed interest in taking Tesla private if the terms were “reasonable,” according to the lawsuit.

Musk acknowledged the meeting lacked discussion of “even the most fundamental terms” of the deal and nothing was set in writing, according to the lawsuit. He did not communicate with the fund representatives again until three days after his tweets.

Besides creating “significant confusion and disruption in the market for Tesla’s stock and resulting harm to investors,” the SEC said that Musk did not consult with Tesla’s board, other employees or outside advisors about the tweets before sending them.

Even the company’s head of investor relations was blindsided by the tweets, whom the SEC said had to text Musk’s chief of staff to ask whether they were “legit.”

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Alexandria Sage in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder in Washington, Ben Klayman in Detroit, Noel Randewich in San Francisco and Jennifer Ablan in New York; Editing by Bill Rigby and Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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amberdscott2 · 7 years

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Govt. Cybersecurity Contractor Hit in W-2 Phishing Scam

Just a friendly reminder that phishing scams which spoof the boss and request W-2 tax data on employees are intensifying as tax time nears. The latest victim shows that even cybersecurity experts can fall prey to these increasingly sophisticated attacks.

On Thursday, March 16, the CEO of Defense Point Security, LLC — a Virginia company that bills itself as “the choice provider of cyber security services to the federal government” — told all employees that their W-2 tax data was handed directly to fraudsters after someone inside the company got caught in a phisher’s net.

Alexandria, Va.-based Defense Point Security (recently acquired by management consulting giant Accenture) informed current and former employees this week via email that all of the data from their annual W-2 tax forms — including name, Social Security Number, address, compensation, tax withholding amounts — were snared by a targeted spear phishing email.

“I want to alert you that a Defense Point Security (DPS) team member was the victim of a targeted spear phishing email that resulted in the external release of IRS W-2 Forms for individuals who DPS employed in 2016,” Defense Point CEO George McKenzie wrote in the email alert to employees. “Unfortunately, your W-2 was among those released outside of DPS.”

W-2 scams start with spear phishing emails usually directed at finance and HR personnel. The scam emails will spoof a request from the organization’s CEO (or someone similarly high up in the organization) and request all employee W-2 forms.

Defense Point did not return calls or emails seeking comment. An Accenture spokesperson issued the following brief statement: “Data protection and our employees are top priorities. Our leadership and security team are providing support to all impacted employees.”

The email that went out to Defense Point employees Thursday does not detail when this incident occurred, to whom the information was sent, or how many employees were impacted. But a review of information about the company on LinkedIn suggests the breach letter likely was sent to around 200 to 300 employees nationwide (if we count past employees also).

Among Defense Point’s more sensitive projects is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Security Operations Center (SOC) based out of Phoenix, Ariz. That SOC handles cyber incident response, vulnerability mitigation, incident handling and cybersecurity policy enforcement for the agency.

Fraudsters who perpetrate tax refund fraud prize W-2 information because it contains virtually all of the data one would need to fraudulently file someone’s taxes and request a large refund in their name. Scammers in tax years past also have massively phished online payroll management account credentials used by corporate HR professionals. This year, they are going after people who run tax preparation firms, and W-2’s are now being openly sold in underground cybercrime stores.

Tax refund fraud affects hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of U.S. citizens annually. Victims usually first learn of the crime after having their returns rejected because scammers beat them to it. Even those who are not required to file a return can be victims of refund fraud, as can those who are not actually due a refund from the IRS.

ANALYSIS

I find it interesting that a company which obviously handles extremely sensitive data on a regular basis and one that manages a highly politicized government agency would not anticipate such attacks and deploy some kind of data-loss prevention (DLP) technology to stop sensitive information from leaving their networks.

Thanks to their mandate as an agency, ICE is likely a high risk target for hacktivists and nation-state hackers. This was not a breach in which data was exfiltrated through stealthy means; the tax data was sent by an employee openly through email. This suggests that either there were no DLP technical controls active in their email environment, or they were inadequately configured to prevent information in SSN format from leaving the network.

This incident also suggests that perhaps Defense Point does not train their employees adequately in information security, and yet they are trusted to maintain the security environment for a major government agency. This from a company that sells cybersecurity education and training as a service to others.

DON’T BE THE NEXT VICTIM

While there isn’t a great deal you can do to stop someone at your employer from falling for one of these W-2 phishing scams, here are some steps you can take to make it less likely that you will be the next victim of tax refund fraud:

-File before the fraudsters do it for you – Your primary defense against becoming the next victim is to file your taxes at the state and federal level as quickly as possible. Remember, it doesn’t matter whether or not the IRS owes you money: Thieves can still try to impersonate you and claim that they do, leaving you to sort out the mess with the IRS later.

-Get on a schedule to request a free copy of your credit report. By law, consumers are entitled to a free copy of their report from each of the major bureaus once a year. Put it on your calendar to request a copy of your file every three to four months, each time from a different credit bureau. Dispute any unauthorized or suspicious activity. This is where credit monitoring services are useful: Part of their service is to help you sort this out with the credit bureaus, so if you’re signed up for credit monitoring make them do the hard work for you.

-File form 14039 and request an IP PIN from the government. This form requires consumers to state they believe they’re likely to be victims of identity fraud. Even if thieves haven’t tried to file your taxes for you yet, virtually all Americans have been touched by incidents that could lead to ID theft — even if we just look at breaches announced in the past year alone.

–Consider placing a “security freeze” on one’s credit files with the major credit bureaus. See this tutorial about why a security freeze — also known as a “credit freeze,” may be more effective than credit monitoring in blocking ID thieves from assuming your identity to open up new lines of credit. While it’s true that having a security freeze on your credit file won’t stop thieves from committing tax refund fraud in your name, it would stop them from fraudulently obtaining your IP PIN.

–Monitor, then freeze. Take advantage of any free credit monitoring available to you, and then freeze your credit file with the four major bureaus. Instructions for doing that are here.

from Amber Scott Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/03/govt-cybersecurity-contractor-hit-in-w-2-phishing-scam/

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centerforhci · 4 years

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Four Resources to Help Employees Manage Change

I recently had the honor and privilege to be interviewed by different publications about changing work dynamics, managing difficult employees and the future of our workforce. The new era of workforce management is here; I hope our interview discussions help you plan for the future in these times of change.

When I spoke to Bindu Nair, editor at The Smart Manager, we discussed various ways to manage unmanageable people and situations.

Supported by my years of experience as a front-line coach and consultant, we outlined how to help those unmanageable employees who torment other employees. The methodology we recommend consists of five steps: Commit or quit; Communicate; Clarify goals and roles; Coach; and Create accountability. How can you use this methodology? First, the manager needs to decide to retain this unmanageable employee or not. Ultimately, it’s not only about making that employee accountable; it’s also about the manager’s commitment to the employee’s success. Next, the employee should be clear on what goals she is expected to achieve. You can read more about the steps here.

Successful organizations not only manage employees; they also create and manage successful teams. During another discussion with The Uncommon League, we mused about preparing individuals and teams for employee training. What tips did we discuss? First, explain the training context to increase the chances of employees attending that training. Second, build organizational interest in what they will learn, to attract other employees who want to learn these skills as well. You can learn more tips here.

Successful organizations are also nimble and adapt to change, which is important because the way people are choosing to work has changed. Discussing the trends that are shaping the future workforce with Brown Wallace on The Bridge Revisited, we shared our thoughts about the personality traits and key differences of each generation in the workforce. The discussion also included the impact of women starting their own businesses, the importance of workplace diversity and the increasing trend of freelancing. If leaders develop a strategy without knowing about these workforce trends, they will be shooting into the dark.

Finally, at the Women’s Food service Forum we exchanged views on how freelancers and contract workers can provide fresh perspectives and help organizations move toward success. To effectively leverage their talents and capabilities, leaders must integrate freelancers in the workplace culture, articulate clear expectations, touch base regularly, and recognize results.

I’d love to hear how you are managing workforce challenges. What works for you and what doesn’t? What results have you seen?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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jennifersnyderca90 · 7 years

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Govt. Cybersecurity Contractor Hit in W-2 Phishing Scam

ANALYSIS

DON’T BE THE NEXT VICTIM

–Monitor, then freeze. Take advantage of any free credit monitoring available to you, and then freeze your credit file with the four major bureaus. Instructions for doing that are here.

from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/03/govt-cybersecurity-contractor-hit-in-w-2-phishing-scam/

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centerforhci · 4 years

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Listening: The Do’s and Don’ts and How To Master It

The human mouth plods along at 125 words per minute, while a neuron in the brain can fire about 200 times a second. No wonder our mind wanders when there’s so much time in between the words of a conversation. This is part of the reason we remember only 25 to 50% of what we hear.

Yet listening is an incredibly important skill for everyone—including leaders. Why? If you’re not listening at work, it’s easy to misinterpret a discussion as a decision. You may underestimate the importance of objections and ambivalence. And not listening is a quick way to dissolve trust between leaders and their teams.

From my experience, leaders could use some listening practice. Why don’t they listen? Though Richard Branson once joked that leaders love to hear their own voices, there are two main reasons. For one, in general, people are not taught how to carefully listen. And secondly, society expects leaders and entrepreneurs to have all the answers.

Truly listening to someone is more difficult than it seems and requires practice. Yet practicing takes more than just “keeping it in mind” throughout your day. Let’s look at five levels of listening, the do’s and don’ts of listening, and steps you can take to improve your listening skills.

There are several levels of listening, but here are five I find most important.

Highlight: Five Levels of Listening

Ignoring is something we have all done. Someone is talking to us, but we are exploring things on the Internet, checking text messages, or thinking “what’s for dinner”. We are not actually hearing much of anything.

Pretend listening occurs when a person acts as if they are listening, but is not following the full story of what is being said. They nod and smile but do not actually take in the message. This is a skill that can be finely honed by people who do a lot of inconsequential listening, such as politicians and royalty. We all do pretend listening at times; be careful because it can damage relationships when you get caught.

Selective listening involves listening for particular things and ignoring other things. We hear what we want to hear and sometimes block out details that we are not interested in, or simply don’t want to hear. We listen for what we agree with, and then only remember that. Or we listen only for ways we don’t agree (this is usually as a result of a conflict), which can be quite frustrating when trying to come to an agreement.

Attentive listening is what many of us do most of the time. This is when we listen to the other person with the best intention, yet become distracted by our thoughts of how we will respond. In attentive listening, we dip inside our own heads for a short while, try to determine what the person really means, and formulate questions for the person before we start listening again. If you find that you’re doing this, ‘fess up! Let the other person know that your mind wandered and say, “Could you please repeat that?”

Empathic listening happens when the listener pays very close attention to what is being said, how it is being said, the message that is being portrayed, and what is not being said. Empathic listening takes much more effort than attentive listening, as it requires close concentration. It also requires empathy and understanding. You’re listening for the emotions, watching the body language and listening for needs, goals, preferences, biases, beliefs, values and so on. In other words, you’re listening in surround sound.

How to Be a Better Listener

Listening is actually a little painful. When we talk, we get a rush of chemicals sent to our reward and pleasure centers, so it is a selfish brain activity. There is no reward like that for listening. When you listen, you are halting your natural ways of thinking; it’s like holding your breath. Yet listening is a skill that can be learned, like a fitness test of the brain.

The first step to better listening is to choose to be a better listener and decide that it’s an important skill to you. It takes effort and a strategy and much like any sport, you will want to learn the steps, and then practice, practice, practice.

A Listening Acronym to Keep In Mind

Here is an acronym to help you become a better listener: NALE it.

N Note what is being said.

A Ask questions to clarify the story, and refine ambiguous words.

L Look at what the other person is doing. Are they relaxed, tense, looking away? This is all part of the communication they are sharing with you.

E Evaluate what you think is really going on with the person. You are not a psychologist yet, with a little empathy, you might pick up on some messages that are not being said. This gives you an opportunity to ask more questions. Stay in a curious state and you will learn so much more in less time.

Listening Do’s and Don’ts To improve your listening, DO:

Be 100% present. This means turning off all electronics, and keeping your eyes on the person.

Be content to listen and to stay in the conversation until they feel like they are fully heard.

Ask questions and take notes, including clarifying meanings of words. Many words in the English language have more than one meaning, or can vary drastically (such as the word “soon”).

Show courtesy in your posture and your tone of voice by leaning into the conversation, and keeping your voice level.

Allow emotions to flow freely, and acknowledge the emotions with your words.

Pretend that you will be tested on what you heard and understood, if you are finding it difficult to concentrate.

To improve your listening, DON’T:

React emotionally. Stay calm and focused on the other person.

Offer suggestions or advice. This is a hard one! Yet if you are truly listening, all you’re doing is pulling information out. As soon as you start suggesting solutions, you are no longer listening.

Talk about yourself. Even if you have had the same experience, don’t tell your story. It takes the attention off the person and back onto you. A simple “I have been there” can do the trick.

Look at anything but the person. Stay focused on the person’s eyes, facial expressions, and body language.

Are you good at fully listening to others? Is listening a challenge for you? We’d love to hear your ideas about why listening may be difficult for leaders. Also, if you have experience working on your listening skills, let us know what steps you have taken.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send us an email, or find us on Twitter.

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centerforhci · 2 years

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How Great Leaders Approach Diversity

By Allan Schweyer, Senior Executive Consultant

Over the past 30+ years, I’ve observed that great leaders help each employee, manager, and colleague identify known and hidden biases that might lead to acts of discrimination, microaggression, or exclusion. The best leaders exhibit honesty and courage by going beyond rote training modules to educate everyone in the historic fact of systemic racism; not to shame the majority but to build perspective and empathy.

This remains rare, however. So how do leaders and organizations do it?

You’ve probably seen it firsthand: leadership sets the climate of transparency and vulnerability in the organization (or lack thereof). Diversity flows naturally from proactive and non-discriminatory hiring practices driven by leadership that understands the business advantages of a representative workforce. Inclusion follows where CEOs, chief people officers (CPOs), and other executives lead through courage, truth, and example.

At its core, this has everything to do with prioritizing mental health. No company can claim a commitment to employee wellness until people can deal with their stresses or worries openly and find help. Of course, wellness extends to inclusion and belonging. Until historically excluded minorities, whether based on race and ethnicity or sexual and gender preference, can express themselves, dress, and share their ideas and perspectives openly – within social and business norms – creativity and innovation will suffer. More importantly, workplace belonging and wellness cannot emerge until everyone enjoys psychological safety and can bring all of their constructive thoughts, ideas, humor, and perspectives to work.

When it comes to execution, effective leaders and organizations first make their commitment known and set strategic goals around diversity (as above, this should include implications for the culture and employee engagement). Then, as an organization matures and progresses, it integrates consideration of diversity factors into every important decision and every aspect of the business – from eliminating biases in hiring, celebrating ethnic holidays, offering training where appropriate, to checking the culture itself for systemic biases. Ultimately, leaders make a public commitment to change, including openness in sharing data around hiring, pay, promotions, and minority representation in senior positions.

Diversity and Inclusion Confer Competitive Advantage

In the digital era we inhabit, literally everything organizations achieve depends on people. Everyone competes for the same talent, every successful leader understands they must compensate competitively, invest in employees’ learning and development, and provide the resources workers need to do their jobs effectively. Most know and believe in the overwhelming evidence that employee engagement drives higher productivity, better business outcomes, and lower attrition. Thus, failure to engage, include, and leverage the full talents of the workplace represents not only a moral lapse – it invites disaster. It exposes unfitness for executive office.

Great leaders know they won’t always get it right, but they work with other experts, listen to their employees, keep learning, and set the intention to create a vibrant, healthy workplace and culture that embraces diversity. This requires tremendous courage and empathy but results in stronger, more innovative, and resilient organizations more capable of attracting and keeping top talent.

If we can help you on your journey, visit DEI360.org.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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centerforhci · 3 years

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These People Who Followed Their Passions Share How And Why They Did It

Want to build a life and career around something you’re passionate about? Great! Now how do you feel about intense struggle, repeated failure, and constant change?

To be sure, those are things pretty much all of us are bound to face in our careers, but it’s far more likely you’ll have a tougher go of it if you’re dead set on following your passion. That’s why so many advise different approaches to finding work, suggest ways to turn your ho-hum gig into your “dream job”, or counsel giving up an a passion career altogether.

But the fact is that some people do follow their passions and find it actually works out. One reason they’re a small minority, though, is because we live in a world that glorifies words like “passion” and “purpose” when it comes to life and career choices, but almost completely ignores the pain, failure, and even chaos that tends to precede achieving that. That’s a recipe for widespread disappointment.

So we asked five professionals across a range of fields to share the raw, unfiltered truth about struggles they experienced as they set out to follow their passions and, ultimately, pulled it off.

Read my and Danielle Harlan’s article in Fast Company to find out what they said.

Special thank you to Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of the New York Times bestseller How to Raise an Adult; Elizabeth Meyer, funeral director and author of the upcoming book Good Mourning; Casey Gerald, founder and CEO of MBAsXAmerica and TED speaker; Adam Braun, founder of Pencils of Promise; and Aspen Institute fellow Cathy Casserly for sharing their stories.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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centerforhci · 3 years

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Human Capital Trends: Diversity Takes the Spotlight

69% of executives rate diversity and inclusion as an important issue (up from 59% in 2014).

In 2017, the proportion of executives who consider inclusion as a top priority has risen 32% from 2014.

These statistics are just a few from Deloitte’s global research, which included 10,400 business and HR leaders across 140 countries. The global surveys were split between large companies (more than 10,000 employees), medium-sized companies (1,000-10,000) and smaller companies (less than 1,000 employees). The resulting 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report provides an informed view into the future of work—and what some consider to be the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

One of the nine trends identified is the reality gap between diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts and results. Today we’ll take a look at that trend, discuss why things need to change and why diversity and inclusion are taking center stage, review the old ways versus the new ways of approaching diversity and inclusion, and lay out steps you can take to shorten the gap.

Snapshot: Diversity and Inclusion Today

Research shows that diverse teams are more innovative, engaged and profitable. But today’s diversity and inclusion needs are more than just profits and productivity. In today’s world, D&I impacts brand, corporate purpose, and performance.

We’ve seen scrutiny of lack of diversity on the news, and now that scrutiny is coming from within the companies themselves. More people are champions of diversity and inclusion, and the Millennials see it as an essential part of corporate culture. This moves beyond building diverse teams, to insuring that everyone has a voice and is heard. The next generation, Gen Z, will be the most diverse to date, and companies will need to make way.

Despite the increased scrutiny, and increased awareness of unconscious and explicit bias, results are appearing too slow. The most popular way to address these issues is training, and while helpful, it appears that making people aware of diversity and inclusion issues is not enough. Organizations must take a larger stroke, by implementing data-driven solutions and increasing transparency. They also need to immerse executives in the world of discrimination and bias so that they can truly understand how they affect decision-making, talent decisions, and business outcomes. As Deloitte says, “A set of ‘new rules’ is being written that will demand a new focus on experiential learning, process change, data-driven tools, transparency, and accountability.”

The era of HR filling a quota to meet diversity goals is over. Ownership of diversity and inclusion efforts now fall into the laps of leadership, with senior leaders holding leaders at all levels accountable to make concrete, measurable progress with diversity and inclusion efforts. Why the shift?

Five Reasons Diversity and Inclusion Are Taking Center Stage1. The Global Political Environment

Employee sensitivity is up due to immigration challenges, nationalism, and fear of terrorism appearing frequently in the press. Employees are personally concerned with these issues and want their employers to offer perspective. In this way, D&I now touches issues of employee engagement, human rights and social justice.

2. Organizations are Becoming Global Entities

As large organizations increasingly define themselves as global entities, religious, gender, generational and other types diversity issues become a greater reality.

3. Diverse and Inclusive Teams Outperform Their Peers

There are many studies showing the benefits of diverse teams and inclusive cultures. Deloitte reports, “Companies with inclusive talent practices in hiring, promotion, development, leadership, and team management generate up to 30% higher revenue per employee and greater profitability than their competitors.”

4. Gender Pay Equity in the Spotlight

Gender pay disparity is increasingly in the public eye. Companies and even government administrations are taking the necessary steps to make improvements. For example, Salesforce analyzed 17,000 employee salaries and identified a gender pay gap; they then spent roughly $3 million to even it out. On a governmental level, Canada’s Justin Trudeau appointed a gender equal-pay cabinet in 2015.

5. Baby Boomers Staying in the Workforce Longer

Career trajectories have changed due to Baby Boomers remaining in the workforce longer. That delay in retirement means a workforce with generational diversity like we’ve never seen before.

As you can see, the shift in how diversity and inclusion is approached needs to expand. It’s helpful to look at Deloitte’s following table which how D&I was approached in the past, versus how it needs to be approached now.

Four Ways to Start Amping Up Your Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

So if you’re an organization who is just getting ramped up for diversity and inclusion efforts that extend beyond training, where do you begin? Do you toss your training programs and start fresh? Here are the first four steps to take.

1. Share Research With Leadership

Providing data on the value of diversity and inclusion can get top leadership on board. But being on board is just the first step. Then they need to be held accountable through metrics and reports on diversity in promotion, hiring and compensation.

2. Use Analytics

Human Capital Analytics can identify patterns of racial bias, inequity in compensation, and bias in hiring and promotion much easier (and significantly faster) than any HR department can. After these patterns are identified, a more targeted plan can be implemented.

3. Extend Efforts Beyond HR

Diversity and inclusion should be on par with compliance, IT and security, practiced by everyone and owned by leadership. It is not just an HR responsibility—it’s a business responsibility.

4. Pay Attention to Global Differences

Remember that as organizations become more global, the diversity and inclusion needs will vary by region. The problematic areas you address and plans you put in place for the U.S. won’t necessarily be the same as the problems and plans in the Middle East. Listen to your employees’ interests and concerns, then decide what needs to be measured from there.

Expansion and Agility

As global networks expand and technology transforms the workplace, D&I models will continue to evolve. There isn’t a strategy organizations can develop today that will still apply in a decade. However, when diversity and inclusion is considered part of the corporate infrastructure, leaders can take the same agile approach to closing the gap that they take to surviving a world in constant flux.

Have you noticed an increase of buzz around diversity and inclusion in your workplace? We’d love to hear about any initiatives you’ve experienced.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send us an email, or find us on Twitter.

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centerforhci · 4 years

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Leaders: Learn the Neuroscience Behind Change Resistance to Master It

In the rapidly advancing world of technology, all business leaders must be agile in order to avoid fading into the background. They must be able to pivot, adjust their vision when presented with innovative strategies, and adapt to the major workforce trends headed their way. All of this requires one basic component: change.

Yet change is not so easy for humans and can breed anxiety and fear. But that’s not just because we are creatures of habit. Neurosciences and cognitive sciences show that change is difficult for humans for three core reasons.

Three Core Reasons for Resistance to Change

1. Habits are powerful and efficient

Your brain creates a mind map that sorts reality into a perceptual order and creates effective, quickly established habits. This means your brain limits what it sees and reality conforms to past perceptions.

Why is this a problem? Because it means all of your lessons in life and business keep you from seeing things in fresh ways. Counter-intuitive isn’t it? The more experience you have, the more limited you can become. We’ve all seen leaders “stuck in their ways,” and know how frustrating, and potentially damaging to the business, this can be.

2. Your brain hates change

When you’re learning something new, your prefrontal cortex has to work very hard. And your brain uses 25% of your total energy! It’s no wonder why we feel worn out and our head hurts from learning.

3. You have to “see and feel” new ways of doing things

To really make a change, you can’t just read about something; experiential learning is critical. Why? Because as you learn, your brain actually changes, reflecting new decisions, mind maps, and reality sorting. So when change presents itself and you haven’t experienced what that change will be like, your brain will hijack the new thought patterns and try to put your mindset back into the old way of thinking.

These three factors paint a surprising picture: the limitations to growth are really self-imposed by the mind maps of former successes. All of our past perceptions hold back what we are able to perceive in the present.

Besides this unconscious self-limiting behavior, the fear that change elicits is also limiting. This is called “fear conditioning.”

What is Fear Conditioning?

The brain stores all the details from a particular fear stimulus, such as time of day, images, sounds, smells, and weather, in your long-term memory. That makes the memory “very durable,” but also fragmented, triggering the full gamut of physical and emotional responses every single time a similar fear stimulus shows up.

As research from the University of Minnesota explains it, “Once the fear pathways are ramped up, the brain short-circuits more rational processing paths and reacts immediately to signals from the amygdala. When in this overactive state, the brain perceives events as negative and remembers them that way.”

So remember that initiative that totally bombed? Your brain may be using that experience to prevent you from other, more successful initiatives.

What Neuroscience Tells Us about Fear

Neuroscience has more to say on the topic of fear. The main thing to note is that when the fear system of the brain is active, exploratory activity and risk-taking are turned off. So when our brains anticipate loss, we tend to hold onto what we have. In simple terms, fear prompts retreat, which is the opposite of progress. And what do leaders need? Progress.

So how can leaders take all of these facts about change and fear in stride and make progress anyway? What do you do if your brain is constantly fighting change, yet you need to make changes in order to push your business to the next level? Here are three pre-emptive steps to take in order to initiate and become accustomed to change.

What Can You Do to Initiate Change?

1. Get out of the office

Stop going to your industry trade shows; see what other industries are doing instead. Don’t focus on current market segments – look at new ones.

2. Go exploring

Transform into an amateur anthropologist and spend a day in the life of your customer or non-customer. This helps you listen to real pain points and quickly come up with new solutions to persistent problems.

3. Build an innovative culture

It’s a big leap from thinking you are innovative to being innovative. Being innovative requires you to build a culture of innovation. How do you do that? By creating a methodology that encourages people to share ideas.

4. Experience the changes yourself that you’re asking your organization to understand

In “Neurosciences and Leadership,” David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz tell us: “When people solve a problem themselves, the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline.” This rush will inspire you to embrace and champion the change you are requesting of your teams.

Do you have any tips for instigating change in an organization? We’d love for my community to hear them.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send us an email, or find us on Twitter.

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centerforhci · 4 years

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Nine Unconventional Ways Freelancers Landed Gigs

According to a recent study by Upwork and the Freelancers Union, the most common places for freelancers to pick up work are friends and family (36%), professional contacts (35%), and online job platforms (29%) like Upwork, Freelancer.com, Guru, and even Craigslist.

This breakdown spells trouble for some. American workers looking for projects on online marketplaces, for instance, are often competing with workers who live in countries where the dollar is strong. That means many foreign workers can accept far lower rates. If you can hire someone to transcribe an interview for $3 an hour, you aren’t giving that contract to a freelancer charging $15.

So where else can freelancers find work? Just ask these ten people, who picked up gigs in some unexpected places.

1. TAP YOUR DATING LIFE

Joy Yap found freelance work by unintentionally mixing business with pleasure. She went on a Tinder date with an entrepreneur who was just about to launch a company.

They didn’t hit it off romantically, Yap recalls. But, remembering her line of work, the entrepreneur reached out a couple months later with an offer to do some freelance marketing for his startup. “I agreed!” she says. “I’ve been doing freelance work for him off and on for about a year now, and saw the company grow from inception into a million dollar company today.”

Anyone who’s used an app like Tinder knows that modern dating often involves a little harmless cyber-stalking to gather extra intel on the person you’ve just met or are planning to meet. “One funny way I got a client on Fiverr,” says Alex Genadinik, referring to the gig marketplace, “was from a girl I was dating about a year ago. Early on during our dating, she and her friends decided to Google my name, which is very unique, and my Fiverr profile was one of the things that came up in their search.”

The woman and her friends shared Genadinik’s Fiverr profile with someone they knew who was looking for his line of freelance work, and the two ended up striking a deal. “All along I thought he was just a regular client that randomly found me on the internet,” says Genadinik. It was only months later that the woman let him know she’d played professional matchmaker. “[It] was pretty embarrassing for me because everyone was clued in except me,” Genadinik says, but hey—he got the work.

2. ADVERTISE IN REAL TIME

If you’re a freelancer, chances are you’ve sat at coffee shops with your nose in your laptop. So why not let passersby know exactly what you’re doing and that you’re available for hire?

Shayla Price says she landed a gig by creating and placing a makeshift placard saying “freelance writer” in front of her computer while working at Starbucks and other public places. Price says she’s received a few inquiries every time she whips out the placard.

3. EMAIL THE CEO DIRECTLY

“I’ve been obsessed with a large, multinational hair care brand for many years now,” says Termeh Mazhari, “so when I became a freelancer, I decided to just email the CEO directly.”

Going straight to the source may sound like a waste of time—execs usually aren’t the ones hiring contractors. But in Mazhari’s case, it paid off. “I told her about myself and the value I could bring to the company, and to my great surprise her assistant wrote me back and arranged a meeting with the CEO at their posh Manhattan office!”

What’s more, Mazhari landed more than just a tiny one-off project this way. “I ended up getting a year-long consulting gig with the brand, even though they already had a large internal PR team as well as multiple external agencies working with them.”

4. HUSTLE FOR FACEBOOK SHOUT-OUTS

After Stephanie Moore got laid off, she decided freelance full time and turned to Facebook to market her services.

“It started with one client . . . that I met through Facebook. She was very popular with a national brand,” Moore recalls, so she decided to attend one of the client’s networking events. There, Moore told her she wanted to “shift my focus from marketing and design to PR,” and the client “agreed to be my guinea pig.”

Their bargain went like this: “After each big accomplishment,” Moore says, “she would shout me out on Facebook as her publicist. Every time she tagged me, there was a guaranteed client on the way. All of her friends and potential clients began to reach out and ask for press releases, designs, etc. The more work I did, the more tagging I would get.” By tapping into one happy client with the influence to amplify Moore’s work, offers began piling up. “People would post my designs tagging me in the post, almost bragging that Stephanie Moore did it.”

Like another “solopreneur” who recently shared her method with Fast Company, Moore never thought Facebook could drive so much of her business—95% of which she now estimates comes from the social network.

5. OWN YOUR OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING

If you want to freelance, you have to be willing to share your ideas, even if you’re not sure they will be well received. Don’t wait for the perfect, full-proof pitch to go out and get your gig.

Just look at Chris Post. He held steadfast to his out-of-the-box thinking when he was building his freelance business. He says,

“At the time, just about every local property management company was trying to hold onto and gain tenants by offering them one or more months of free rent.

I had previously worked as a commercial real estate agent, and made a pitch to a property management company I was friendly with from that time: Instead of offering free rent to tenants, offer marketing assistance in the form of a free website in exchange for signing a year lease. They would spend less paying me to build a website than they would lose by deducting a month’s worth of rent.”

Post’s freelance career has now become a full-blown web development and marketing company called Post Modern Marketing.

6. NETWORK ON INSTAGRAM

Mallory Musante is one of the co-founders of Bold & Pop, a collective of social media, branding and web design freelancers. While they mainly find new clients from referrals, they occasionally use freelancing sites to find work. In this case, they sent a proposal to a client, researched the company a little further, and decided to follow all of their social media accounts. Musante never heard back so assumed the company had gone with another freelancer.

But wait—Instagram to the rescue. She says, “we were surprised when we received an email through our website requesting more information on our social media marketing services. While they didn’t remember us submitting a proposal on the freelancing site, we were able to catch their eye on Instagram by occasionally networking with them.”

7. PARTICIPATE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Abandoning the traditional workplace can feel isolating, participating in your local community can be a remedy, as well as a fantastic place to drum up freelance work. Photographer Tammy Lamoureux shares a great example of community involvement leading to jobs.

“Wanting to get more product photography gigs, we started hitting up our local craft fairs and farmer’s markets. We get a room full of small businesses who will most likely need professional photos of their merchandise at some point or another. So, go around from booth to booth and chat with the vendors. Take some photos of their products and make sure to get their contact info so you can send them the shots later. They will appreciate the free photos, and you’ll be top of mind the next time they are in need of some product photos. We did this at one craft fair, and ended up with five new clients for about 2 hours worth of work.”

8. GO WITH YOUR GUT

Kelly Boyer Sagert’s usually picks freelance work based on the right amount of income attached to it. But sometimes, she decides to go with a gut feeling to see what happens. She explains how one of those gut-driven exceptions landed her unexpectedly great work:

“A few years ago, a nonprofit agency asked me to take their research about the first woman to solo hike the Appalachian Trail and turn it into an ebook. I did — and then they asked for it to also be written as a first person storytelling performance, so I did. Concurrently, the agency was having some of their video footage turned into a mini-documentary and discovered that they couldn’t get the grant funding they wanted/needed unless a play was written on the subject. So, I wrote a play script and we talked to a theater that had produced some of my work in the past, and they put on the play. So, the funding was secured, the documentary was created and, since my play was used as the foundation, I got writing credits — and the documentary was picked up by PBS: Trail Magic: the Grandma Gatewood Story.”

9. TELL PROSPECTS WHAT THEIR COMPETITORS ARE UP TO

If one company is looking for services, then their competitors are probably looking, too—or will want to as soon as they learn of it.

“I had one company contact me for a strategic marketing plan for the upcoming year,” recalls freelancer Stephen Twomey. He saw that as not just one potential opportunity but several. “I knew they were looking at other consultants as well.”

“So, since I knew company A was looking for something, I contacted companies B, C, [and] D and mentioned that one of their main competitors was looking for strategic marketing consulting”—without mentioning which one. Twomey says “Company A ended up going with a different [contractor], but company C actually bought a consulting package.”

The services you offer may not belong in a creative field, but it still often takes ingenuity to land those gigs in the first place. For just about every freelancer, thinking outside the box can really pay off.

Have you landed freelance gigs in an unusual way? Share your story in the comments below, on Twitter, or send me an email.

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centerforhci · 4 years

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Diversity and Inclusion: A Simple Break Down

As someone who worked with different Kenyan tribes when running hotels and safaris, diversity and inclusion is a topic that is important to me.

And it should be important to you too. Why? Because employee diversity has measurable, positive effects on organizational success. Plus, on a macro level, due to the global political environment, employees are personally concerned with diversity and inclusion (D&I) issues (including gender pay equity) and want their employers to offer perspective on those issues. In this way, D&I now touches employee engagement, human rights and social justice.

Today I want to break down D&I simply, for those who see diversity and inclusion as an insurmountable challenge to tackle. We’ll start with outlining how D&I benefits company performance, including information which can be used to urge leaders to take D&I initiatives more seriously. Then, I’ll discuss how to foster inclusion at work—because what’s the point of a diverse workforce if employees don’t feel included in company culture, decision-making and upward mobility? Lastly, I’ll review some challenges that diversity brings to company culture and performance.

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Four Ways Diversity Benefits Company Performance

Here are four examples of the measurable, positive effects that employee diversity has on organizational success:

1. Women increase equity, sales and ROI

Catalyst took a look at Fortune 500 companies with women on their board of directors and found that these which co? those that focus on D&I? companies had a higher return on equity by at least 53%, were superior in sales by at least 42%, and had a higher ROI, to the tune of 66%. Those are not small numbers.

2. Diverse top teams = top financial performers

McKinsey quarterly reported that between 2008 and 2010, companies with more diverse top teams were also top financial performers.

3. Diversity and inclusion identified as key driver of innovation

When 321 executives at large global enterprises ($500 million plus in annual revenues) were surveyed for the Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce study, diversity and inclusion were identified as the key driver of not only internal innovation, but also business growth.

4. Diverse groups are superior problem solvers

Groups of diverse problem solvers outperformed groups of high-ability problem solvers, according to a study by Lu Hong and Scott E. Page.

Creating a diverse staff and culture is only the first step. It doesn’t do much good without inclusion, which takes effort. Because what’s the point of a room full of diverse thinkers when no one feels empowered to share their thoughts? Here are three tips to foster a sense of inclusion amongst a diverse workforce:

How Managers Foster A Sense Of Inclusion Among A Diverse Workforce

1. Coach People To Listen More and Interrupt Less

Listening is a key element of inclusion, and while it sounds simple, it actually requires practice and intention. Leaders and managers need to coach people to listen more and interrupt less. They need to listen with their whole selves—taking into account the words, body language and energy of the communicator.

2. Encourage Equal Stage Time in All Meetings

We’ve all been in meetings that were dominated by the person with the loudest voice. And unfortunately, the “squeaky wheel” strategy does sometimes garner results in the business world. This is the opposite of inclusion. Encourage meetings where all speak up equally. This will take some careful management at first, but with time the culture of the meetings will change, and more voices will be heard.

3. Work On Your Own Bias

Our own bias can greatly influence decision-making, often preventing inclusion unconsciously. Here are six quick tips for working on our own biases.

Start by taking the IAT test to identify biases you have that yet may be unaware of: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Watch your language. Biased language is ingrained in how we speak, but can exclude diverse employees. For example, “Okay you guys, let’s get down to work,” does not include female members of the team.

Identify particular elements in company processes that function as entry points for bias. For example, is your hiring committee all male? People tend to be drawn to others like themselves. If you identify your hiring committee as largely dominated by one gender or ethnicity, change it up.

Include positive images of diverse groups in the workplace such as posters, newsletters, videos, reports and podcasts. This helps our brains make positive associations with groups we may otherwise be unconsciously biased toward.

Visualize a positive interaction with toward with those you have a bias against. Visualization is powerful and can actually alter the brain.

Encourage workers to call out bias and hold each other accountable. Yes, that means calling out leaders too.

The Challenges Diversity Brings To Company Performance Or Company Culture

Diversity increases different ways of seeing the world and how people work. For example, how a person from the U.S. views time versus how a person from China views time may be drastically different. Learning the cultural differences between team members strengthens team understanding.

In addition, the complexity of ideas increases with more diverse teams. This is more difficult to manage than homogenous ideas, which require less debate to come to agreement and make decisions. While diversity breeds innovation, it can also present a challenge and requires careful communication skills.

Welcoming diversity and inclusion into your organization is critical. I urge all leaders to take an honest look at where diversity and inclusion stands in their organization and make it a strategic priority.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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