Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

How to Enact Change in a Bureaucracy

Have you ever tried to drive in Los Angeles?

For those of us who have, changes to the notoriously frustrating transportation infrastructure have been a long time coming, but how do you enact change in a government entity that seems like the very definition of bureaucracy?

Gayla Kraetsch Hartsough and her firm, KH Consulting Group, recently worked with Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel to review the city’s transportation structures and recommend reforms. The ultimate goal was to reduce congestion by building highways, promoting alternative transportation, implementing traffic management technology and facilitating the use of bicycles.

For all of the details on how Gayla's team navigated the bureaucratic waters of LADOT and how you can enact change in your own bureaucracy, check out my Culture Beat column at the AMEX OPEN Forum.

How to Spot and Fight Age Discrimination

Jack Gross’ case set a precedent. The insurance manager sued—and won—for age discrimination in Iowa after he was demoted in 2003. But later, the Supreme Court reversed the decision, stating that Gross now had to cite substantial evidence that his age was the decisive factor in his demotion. The Court’s ruling made it much harder for Gross, and everyone else, to prove a case of age discrimination in the workplace.

That’s too bad, because if you talk to any employee over the age of 55, you will hear that discrimination is alive and well.  For tips on how to spot and fight it in your workplace, head over to my column at the AMEX OPEN Forum.

How to Save Your Culture from a Merger

I recently attended a networking meeting in downtown Chicago, and a mergers & acquisitions attorney told me that his business was booming.  It seems that in 2012, consolidation is king. Given that I write this column, however, I immediately thought about the impact of all of these mergers on organizational cultures.

A merger usually goes through because it looks great on paper.  All of the numbers line up, and it makes sense from a business perspective.  Unfortunately, many M&A teams fail to take into account how well or poorly two companies with legitimate cultural differences will integrate.

How can you save your culture from an impending merger or acquisition?  Check out my advice over at the AMEX OPEN Forum.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Virtual Teams

A virtual team is a group of people who work toward a common goal and are connected by technology though physically separated. Virtual teams scare a lot of people, who have visions of spending their time on all-night conference calls and not being able to trust team members they can’t see.

Nevertheless, the trend is coming at us like a full-speed train. A Google search of “virtual teams” revealed some interesting 2011 research published in Hypergrid Business, a magazine devoted to virtual teaming.

The study, “Virtual Work Environments in a Post-Recession Era,” conducted on behalf of Brandman University by Forrester Consulting, revealed strong adoption of virtual teams. Forty percent of survey respondents said that 40 percent or more of their company’s employees work in virtual teams today, and more than half expect virtual teaming to increase in the next one to three years.

Managerial concerns associated with virtual teaming are many. 57 percent cited earning trust, 49 percent cited communicating effectively, 43 percent cited managing projects and deadlines successfully and 43 percent cited creating consensus during decision making as among the top concerns.

Considering that virtual teams are so pervasive and so many managers are losing sleep over them, my Culture Beat column over at the AMEX OPEN Forum includes some virtual teaming best practices.  Hope you'll check them out!

4 Steps for Success Working Overseas

Whether you’re a small business owner or an employee in a cast of thousands, you may find yourself working overseas at some point.

According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a  major uptick will occur in the number of cross-national business assignments in the next 10 years. This is an exciting development for some people, and intimidating for others.

But working in a foreign culture is not so different than simply taking on a new role in your country of origin. You have to hone your general business acumen and your communication, language and problem-solving skills.

Check out my post at the AMEX OPEN Forum for four steps to help ensure that you can assimilate effectively.

4 Reasons Why Social Media Use = Great Customer Service

If you’ve bought anything in the last few years, you’ve no doubt noticed that customer service is not what it used to be.  Most of us don’t dare pick up the phone because we fear hearing that dreaded phrase:

“To hear a menu of options, please press 1.”

Now, however, some companies are finally getting it right, and their training ground has been none other than the prolific world of social media.  On her Perspectives blog, Mila Araujo provides these four reasons why companies that invest in social media achieve better customer service:

Social Media Requires High Engagement

Companies that have committed themselves to social media listen to what their customers are saying and the buzz around the web that’s related to the company, and they respond in real time.  Because they are routinely engaging their audience one-on-one already, they are more likely to provide excellent service.

Social Media Requires Adaptation

In order to do well in social media, you have to be dynamic, motivated, and nimble.  You have to be able to change quickly in order to use social media channels to deliver products and services more effectively.  Companies who live in this mindset require employees who do as well.

Social Media Tools Use Public Conversation Forums

The fact that everyone can see what you are doing and how you are responding to an issue creates a higher standard overall.  Companies that use social media are confident in their approaches and are trained to respond so they can offer a high level of consistent performance. On the other hand, the nature of social media allows for quick identification of less desirable behaviors that must be corrected quickly.

Social Media Enables Viral Behavior

Anyone using social media knows that bad press can easily go viral, and it doesn’t have to be by way of a major news story.  All it takes is one person to make a negative comment and others may join the discussion. This kind of viral spread ensures that social media-minded companies pay special attention to operations so an online PR disaster doesn’t occur.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog. 

Good Culture Is In, Inflated Salaries Are Out

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I see it every day.  Employees at all levels—especially women—are stepping away from positions that will pay them the highest salary, and moving into ones that provide them a better quality of life.

A friend of mine, Lucy, was a talented fifth-year associate at a Top 5 law firm in Manhattan.  She made so much money that her husband didn’t have to work, ever. But just as her partner was getting ready to buy a new set of golf clubs, Lucy quit.  She went to work as internal legal counsel for a company that manufactures environmentally-friendly home products.  Lucy makes $100k less in this new position, but her office is sunny and collaborative and her colleagues respect her personal time. She loves it.

A caring culture is tops

Lucy’s story is in line with the findings of a recent Monster/Unum study of job seekers, which determined that, over everything else, 87 percent of employees want a company "that truly cares about the well-being of its employees."  By contrast, only 66 percent of respondents rated a high base salary as very important.

Another 2011 Unum survey with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services solicited human resource executives’ opinions on this issue, with similar results. This research found that corporate culture is critical to driving engagement, recruitment and retention of a quality workforce.

A company’s values and focus on employee fulfillment are apparently the most important factors in attracting and engaging quality employees, and being a company that cares about the well-being of its staff was twice as likely to be viewed as very important in attracting and retaining staff as providing a high base salary.

Money doesn’t buy satisfaction

You may be skeptical of these results. After all, with retirement funds still dwindling as a result of an economy that has been in the dumps for several years, why wouldn’t employees want all of the money they could get? Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert provides some clues in his book Stumbling on Happiness, suggesting that money increases happiness only when it lifts people out of objective poverty and into the middle class. Once you’re in the middle class and your basic needs are met, income increases don’t positively impact your level of happiness or quality of life.

This idea has been supported by global surveys that ask people how satisfied they are with their lives on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 being "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 being "completely satisfied with my life"). Among American multimillionaires, the average happiness score is 5.8. Want to know who else had a score of 5.8? The cattle-herding Masai tribe in Kenya, which has no electricity or running water. Interesting.

It will cost some money

Since readers of this column obviously care about creating and sustaining a great workplace culture, this is good news. It’s even better for those who are small business owners, as while your salaries may be lower, it’s also easier for you to develop the meaningful one-on-one employee relationships that lead to a positive culture.

What everyone should remember, though, is that great culture is about more than having donuts for breakfast and being nice to and supportive of one another. To be really competitive in the culture department, Unum says you have to pony up for things like health, lifestyle and retirement benefits. While this won’t always be 100 percent doable, hopefully research like Unum’s will prompt you to consider culture-boosting perks more seriously than before.

This post was originally published at the AMEX Open Forum. Have you checked out my Culture Beat column yet?

 

Life at the Googleplex

I’ve always been an admirer of Sergey Brin, a Russian Jew like myself who landed in Maryland.  Just a few years older than me, Sergey co-founded one of the largest technology companies in the world: Google.  But what started as a garage project is now a multi-billion dollar global organization employing nearly 20,000, and it has been interesting to see how Google’s culture has evolved.

Google corporate headquarters, known as the Googleplex, is the center of the Google universe.  It’s located on an enormous campus in Mountain View, Calif.—or Silicon Valley—to which employees from the San Francisco Bay area are bussed daily via a free, Wi-Fi enabled and environmentally-friendly shuttle.

Google Feeds Its Brains

The Googleplex takes employee benefits to a whole new level.  For one thing, there’s the food. Google provides its employees with three gourmet, all-you-can-eat meals a day, in various cafes around campus. At one, Pintxo 47, employees can select from tapas-style entrees including steak tartare, rabbit confit and Porcini mushrooms. Googlers sit at whatever table has an opening and enjoy lunch as a time to meet new people and discuss their projects with members of other teams.

Work Made Easy

After lunch, going back to the office is a pleasant experience. There are very few closed doors, as Google favors shared cube areas and huddle rooms. If your laptop is acting up, there’s a Tech Stop on every floor that will fix it on the spot.  Management has decreed that 20 percent of employee time can be spent on a personal project. You can bring your dog to work and ride a bicycle or scooter to a meeting in another campus building.

Recreation Abounds

When you’re not working, there’s no real reason to leave. At the Googleplex, you can work out, swim, play pool and volleyball, get a massage, go to the doctor or get your hair cut.  You can drop your children at daycare or get assistance with financial planning, adoption or nonprofit initiatives. There are employee interest groups for everything, including meditation and salsa dancing, and—to peak your intellectual curiosity—Google sponsors lectures from visiting authors, professors, scientists and politicians.

A Startup Vibe?

On its website, Google says that it maintains a small company feel.  Every employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats. No one hesitates to pose questions directly to Larry or Sergey in weekly all-hands meetings. Google claims to be aggressively inclusive in its hiring, and it publicly favors ability over experience.

As Chief Culture Officer Stacy Savides Sullivan told CNET a few years back:  “Google-y is defined as somebody who is fairly flexible, adaptable and not focusing on titles and hierarchy, and just gets stuff done.”

It’s easy to see how the Google culture might be ideal for a twenty-something employee, because the environment is very similar to a college campus. So concurs an ex-Googler who now works at Microsoft:  “These kids don’t have a life yet so they spend all of their time at work. Google provides everything they need, even clothes (clean tee-shirts are placed in bins for people to grab)!”

The downside of Google is its lack of career development and progression. Like a startup, the organization is very flat, and it’s not common to be promoted from an individual contributor to a manager. A good review might result in a salary increase and a higher title, but responsibilities don’t necessarily change. However, as long as you know what you’re getting into, the Googleplex perks are hard to pass up.

This post was originally published at the AMEX Open Forum.  Have you checked out my Culture Beat column yet?

Nobody Cares About Titles - Or Do They?

Corporate hierarchies are out. Organizations are flatter than ever. Entrepreneurialism is the new best practice. The newest college grads are railing against the establishment, saying they don’t want to “pay their dues” in order to climb the corporate ladder rung by rung, and that they want to do meaningful work right away. And the business world is listening to them. It seems as if the entry-level grunt is a thing of the past.

Given these changes, the tendency is to think that titles, even when you’re working within the context of a large organization, don’t really matter so much anymore. I myself believed this, until a few years ago when I received a promotion to vice president. I had been doing the work associated with this role for quite a while, so when I started using the new title, it was really more of a formality.

But subtly, little things around the office began to change. I noticed that more people actually answered the phone when I called, instead of letting me go straight into voicemail. Executives would communicate with me themselves instead of sending their assistants to find me. I started getting to sit in on planning meetings no one had considered inviting me to before. And when I’d walk into my colleagues’ cube area, someone would jokingly say, “okay, everyone, back to work, the boss is here.”

It then occurred to me that a title like vice president still carries a great deal of weight. Despite what we might like to think, people have a certain perception of us, and treat us a certain way, based on our level. No matter how much we know and contribute, to some extent our value and importance will always be tied to our rank – a rank which is sometimes well-deserved, and sometimes not so well-deserved. In much of today’s business world, a higher title means not only more money and a bigger office, but the ability and influence to get your job done more efficiently, and with less agida.

So next time you’re thinking of blowing off your performance review because you can’t see the point in advancing to the next level, maybe try looking a bit harder. The point is there.

Extended Working Hours Are the Norm

According to a recent global survey conducted by Regus, a provider of flexible workspaces, one in two workers in the U.S. work well over eight hours a day and more than half regularly take work home with them.

Remote Work Does Not Mean Less Work

The study polled more than 12,000 business people in 85 countries and found extended working hours to be the new norm.  Regus attributes this to a tight job market with fewer resources at employees’ disposal, and employees’ desire to keep and excel in their jobs.  Some of the more interesting findings included:

• 35 percent of U.S. workers usually work between nine to eleven hours every day compared to 38 percent of global workers.
• 11 percent of workers in the U.S. and 10 percent globally regularly work more than eleven hours a day.
• 56 percent of U.S. workers take work home to finish at the end of the day more than three times a week compared to 43 percent globally.
• 14 percent of remoter workers globally are more likely to work eleven hour days than fixed office workers.
• 59 percent of remote workers globally are likely to take work home with them compared to fixed office workers.
• 13 percent of U.S. workers in small businesses were three times more likely to work eleven hour days than large business employees.

This study finds a clear blurring of the line between work and home,” claimed Regus.  “In the U.S., where the American Institute of Stress reports that coronary heart disease is much more frequent in individuals experiencing high levels of job related stress, the long-term effects of this over-working could be damaging both to workers’ health and to overall productivity as workers drive themselves too hard and become disaffected, depressed or even physically ill.”

But Don't Abandon Remote Work

Although the study found that remote employees worked longer hours, telework has been shown to produce higher job satisfaction, higher productivity, and lower stress levels.  Therefore, one might conclude that by allowing your team members to work from more convenient locations and operate more independently, you might mitigate the negative impact of a longer work day.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.