Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Building Culture in a Digital World

Quick quiz: true or false?

1. You don’t know anyone who works at your company.
2. You try not to involve yourself with your company’s digital networks.
3. When it comes to certain office protocols, you have no idea what is and isn’t acceptable.

If you answered ‘True’ to these statements, you’re part of the 20 percent of global employees who work on virtual teams, and your organization’s culture is a total mystery to you.

This is a problem, because even as we strive to enhance our cultures so our employees will stick around, our strategies mostly shut out employees who don’t come into our offices. If we want to encourage collaboration and track productivity, we have dozens of effective digital tools from which to choose. But when it comes to tools meant to inform and reinforce culture, there’s not much.

In a recent article for Fast Company, Austin Carr reported on a few new technologies that are a step in the right direction. Yammer, which is an enterprise social network that Microsoft acquired for $1.2 billion, acts like a Facebook for internal business use. It enables employees to exchange messages, media and status updates—integrating the option to “Like” a coworker’s post or give him or her “Praise” badges.

Taking it a step further is emotional intelligence company Kanjoya, which has a product called Crane that taps into an organization’s Yammer network and analyzes data to measure how employees are feeling at any given moment or on any given topic. Crane can tell, for instance if your employees are irritated by a new policy or don’t like the way management is handling a current issue. Although it’s not always clear what leaders should do with Crane’s data from a big picture perspective, the program at least allows them to address small details that might otherwise go unnoticed and fester.

For tips on how to effectively build culture in a digital world, check out my full post on the AMEX Open Forum.

Map Your Office Design to Your Culture

The 712,000-square-foot Deloitte University (DU) facility in Westlake, Texas, was once a controversial project. 

Some didn’t believe that the forward-thinking accounting company should invest significant resources in a non-virtual campus. But Deloitte executives were committed to growing the world’s best leaders through collaboration, and having a place where people could meet in person still seemed like the best path.

The cornerstone of the DU facility is a multi-touch, multi-user 20-foot media wall, which allows visitors to track others who are onsite in real-time. Attendees are encouraged to meet up in themed hang-out rooms on each floor, socialize in the facility’s many restaurants and lounges, and attend sessions in classrooms equipped with videoconferencing and wifi.

Working Together, Not Apart

Deloitte is a culture where people talk to and brainstorm with each other–a lot–so the new facility was designed to make that as easy as possible. New employees often start their Deloitte careers with training that takes place at DU, and by the time they leave they are accustomed to working in a highly interactive fashion and are likely to continue this approach in their home offices.

Deloitte’s perspective is illustrated in a recent article for Forbes, in which Steelcase CEO Jim Hackett explained that today’s organizations are shifting from the “I” space to the “we” space.  As the command-and-control leadership style fades, c-suite executives no longer wish to be isolated from their employees. This means that in the realm of physical space, the literal c-suite is becoming a thing of the past. 

Steelcase, which is a workspace design company, does not have traditional offices. Its “we” spaces are conference rooms focused around particular issues or initiatives, and there reside the relevant executives and employees. Like Deloitte, Steelcase’s goal is to promote non-stop collaboration. This environment, as Mr. Hackett told Forbes, aims to encourage eye contact, provide everyone with equal access to information and allow people to move around and participate freely.

Learn more about how to map office design to culture at the AMEX Open Forum.

Could You Work From Anywhere?

Many of us are growing increasingly accustomed to doing our work from anywhere, anytime.  It’s a skill we will certainly need in the years to come.  But since I am working in London as we speak, I’ve been researching what it means to be truly location independent.  To that end, blogger Sean Ogle has provided some excellent suggestions for being as safe and productive as you can while working overseas.

Suggestion 1: Reliable VPN

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, and the primary purpose is to allow you to allow you to securely connect to a network remotely.  A VPN can allow you to hide your actual identity or location.  Many countries block certain sites completely, so the only way to access them is when connected to a VPN.  A VPN can also make you look like you’re in the country, which can come in handy if you need location-specific search results, for instance.  Sean recommends Express VPN.

For more recommendations, check out the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Is a Career Coach For You?

From humankind’s earliest days, mentors and coaches have been a significant ingredient in the careers of many accomplished individuals.

As they reported in Fast Company in 2006, Jim Bolt and Brian Underhill conducted a study that found that 56 percent of surveyed companies emphasized coaching as a major learning method, and two years later, 51 percent of the same organizations said that the use of coaching had increased.

The investigators also discovered that coaching was no longer a “fix it tool” for leaders with problems and was instead being used to help high-potential leaders get even better. In fact, at the time of the second study, 43 percent of CEOs and 71 percent of senior team members in the surveyed organizations has worked with a coach. Sixty-three percent of the companies said they planned to increase their use of coaching over the following five years, and an incredible 92 percent of coached leaders said they planned to engage a coach again.

For advice on whether or not hiring a career coach would help you, check out this post on the Fast Track blog.

Many Small Businesses Are Not Sustainable

As Kelly Spors wrote in a March article for Small Business Trends, environmental sustainability isn’t nearly as prevalent in small businesses as it is in the corporate world. “Sure, some small businesses have jumped on board and are leagues ahead when it comes to energy efficiency and conservation,” she says. “But plenty of them have done practically nothing to go green and continue to operate the same way they’ve operated for 10, 20 or 50 years.”

A recent survey by the Boston Consulting Group and MIT supported this point of view, finding that only nine percent of small companies (fewer than 1,000 employees) fully embrace sustainability. The reasons vary, but most have to do with the time and money small-business owners feel is required to make the necessary adaptations.

In my Culture Beat column at the AMEX Open Forum, I explore three ways small businesses can become better public citizens without losing their shirts.

How to Be Happier at Home (and Work)

Gretchen Rubin has been a friend of mine since the early days of our blogs.  Her first book, The Happiness Project, became an international bestseller, and I was excited to read her latest effort, Happier at Home.  The new book focuses on ways we can make our homes places of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.

Since I specialize in careers and work, I naturally zeroed in on the part of the book that focuses on work/life balance.  Managing your time well is critical, because, as Gretchen points out, it only passes faster as we get older.  She cites poet Robert Southy, who explained:

“Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.  They appear so while they are passing, they seem to have been so when we look back on them, and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.”

Since we don’t “notice” life as much once we’re in our twenties, thirties, and beyond, it’s especially important that we make an effort to be mentally present in each moment.  Happier at Home has dozens of recommendations to this effect, but here are a few that directly apply to the subject of work:

• Do you have kids?  Even though taking care of them can sometimes be boring, resist the urge to check your phone in their presence.  In fact, put the phone away, as it’s admittedly hard to resist.

 

• Don’t check e-mail at bedtime.  The stimulation of reading certain messages will energize you and you’ll have trouble falling asleep.

 

• Don’t type away on your smartphone when traveling from one place to another.  Instead of forcing yourself to use this time productively, leave yourself open to new thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

 

• Do understand when you are most efficient at doing different tasks, and work around that.  I, for example, get better quality writing done if I respect that my mental focus is sharpest in the late afternoon.

 

Find a Job in Two Hours

I recently had the opportunity to meet a talented career consultant, Steve Dalton, at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.  Steve has written a new book called The 2-Hour Job Search.  I know what you’re thinking: is he trying to become Tim Ferriss 2.0?  Well, there are certainly worse goals.

I mention Steve because he has a refreshing view of the job search that applies to most if not all of us fully employed folks.  Steve says that because we are so busy, we need a job search plan that allows us to move our goals forward without devoting 40 hours a week.  For Steve’s top tips for cutting the time you spend on your job search way down, have a read of my post over at the Fast Track blog.

 

How to Give a Negative Review

It’s the part of being a manager that everyone dreads.  A less than stellar employee’s review is coming up, and you have to be the bearer of bad news.

Ideally, the feedback you are about to deliver shouldn’t be a surprise.  Good managers address negative performance as specific examples come up and immediately work with the employee to improve. 

But in the real-world, this may not always happen, and even if it has, the annual or semi-annual review is the time to re-address past issues.  For a few suggestions to help you through what may be an uncomfortable task, head over to my post on the Fast Track blog.

How to Get from College to Career: Advice from Lindsey Pollak

My good friend Lindsey Pollak recently released a terrific new edition of her well-loved book, Getting from College to Career.  In the midst of the craziness of having a new book and baby, she generously shared some thoughts about what college grads can do to improve their careers in 2012:

What made you decide to do a new edition at this time?  

We’re living in a time of such rapid change in the world of business and careers that five years ago, when the first edition of Getting from College to Career was published, feels like “the old days.” At that time the economy was good and we were at the very, very beginning of social media and smartphone usage. I decided to write a revised edition of the book to make sure that readers would have the most up-to-date, relevant and forward-thinking advice for their job searches and careers.

 What's the most important piece of advice readers should take away from the new edition?

The most important piece of advice in the new edition is the same as the original edition: take action every single day to find a job and build your career. More now than ever, the people who succeed are the people who take consistent action. Momentum matters.

The good news is that today’s job seekers have so many more tools they can use to take action – LinkedIn and Twitter have both grown tremendously over the past five years, more organizations are providing job postings by social media and text messaging and Meetup.com and other technologies make networking opportunities more plentiful.

 How has job hunting changed in the five years since you launched the original edition of Getting from College to Career? What new tips have you added?

The two biggest changes since Getting from College to Career was published five years ago relate to the economy and technology.

In 2007, there were plenty of available jobs for recent grads, so my advice focused on figuring out what you wanted to do and taking the steps to get hired into a full-time position. Since 2008, job openings are much more scarce so I added a lot more advice on alternatives to full-time employment, such as freelancing, post-college interning and taking on project work.

The recession has also meant that job seekers have had to become much better at marketing themselves to employers. I don’t think the phrase “personal branding” appeared once in the original edition and now it’s everywhere. Job seekers need to be able to tell a clear story of what makes them unique and how that uniqueness will benefit an employer. Generalists are out; specialists are in – even at the entry level.

In terms of technology, Twitter didn’t even exist when I wrote the first edition and now it’s a crucial tool for career research and networking. In this edition I also include recent grad-specific advice on using LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Apps, Skype and other tech-based tools for job seekers. Of course, technology is moving so fast (just look at the skyrocketing growth of Pinterest!) that job seekers need to keep an eye out for new tools that could help them stand out and get hired.

You interviewed a number of successful professionals and asked them to share what they wish they'd known before starting their careers. What answers most stood out to you?

I was really struck by the number of people who credited their success to two things – their relationships and their passion. Yes, a lot has changed over the past five years, but these are two elements of a successful career that are timeless: build and maintain authentic professional relationships and find a career where you’ll be doing work you love. I expect I’ll be giving that exact same advice five more years from now and fifty years from now.

In addition to being an author and speaker you serve as a global spokesperson for LinkedIn. Can you share your top LinkedIn tips for recent grads?

Absolutely! LinkedIn is a very important tool for recent grads and far too many of them are still not aware of how valuable professional online networking can be at the beginning of your career. Here are my top five LinkedIn tips for recent grads:

1. Write a profile headline that displays your desired career. Your headline does not have to be a job title. The best student headlines clearly promote who you are and what you want to do when you graduate. For example, "Honors Student & Aspiring Public Relations Associate." Or “Pre-MBA Finance Major Graduating in 2013.”
2. Include a ton of keywords in your profile. Recruiters search for candidates by keywords, so make sure your profile is full of them. Find relevant words and phrases in the job descriptions of the positions you want and then pepper them throughout your Summary, Specialties and Skills sections.
3. Connect with everyone you know. Build your network by sending personalized LinkedIn connection requests to everyone you know -- friends, family, neighbors, classmates, everyone. Next, send each personal a customized message (no mass emails!) to tell them you’re job hunting and to explain what position(s) you’re looking for. Request some advice or a phone call to talk further, or ask if they can refer you to anyone they know in your desired field.
4. Join your alumni group. Join the LinkedIn group of any college, university or graduate school you’ve attended. Once you’re a member, you’ll begin to receive updates on the activities taking place – discussions, job postings, event announcements and more. Jump in and start participating, just like you did in college!
5. Search the Student Jobs Portal. The Student Jobs Portal is a collection of all entry-level job postings on LinkedIn. Search by job function or check out postings from featured companies. When you apply for a job through this portal, the employer will be able to see your full LinkedIn profile along with your application.

How to Do a Great Phone Interview

The phone interview is typically overlooked because managers want to move straight to the in-person interview.  However, you can learn a lot from a 15 minute phone call, enough perhaps to save yourself the trouble of entertaining an unsuitable applicant for an hour or two at your office.

The Ins and Outs

The purpose of a phone screening is to determine if a candidate has the basic qualifications so that you can make an educated decision regarding an in-person interview.  Once you’ve set aside resumes that show potential, arrange for a quick call to meet each candidate.  You don’t necessarily have to make all of these calls yourself.  Employees on your staff can be trained to conduct phone screenings for applicants at their level or below.

Your first questions should address any critical questions you have as a result of reviewing the candidate’s resume.  If you’ve circled a potential deal breaker, you’ll want to get clarification on it before bringing that person into the office.   Here are a few additional conversation ideas from Martin Yate’s excellent book, Hiring the Best, for getting a top-line, well-rounded view of the candidate in a short period of time:

• Track Record: Of all of the work she has done, where has the applicant been the most successful?  Look for answers that demonstrate her ability to contribute in your most crucial areas.
• Current Job: How does his current job relate to the overall goals of his department or company?  This response should demonstrate that the candidate understands how her efforts fit into the big picture.  If the candidate is currently unemployed, his answer can reflect his last full-time position.
• Preferences: What aspects of her job or company does the candidate like best, or what would she change?  This answer will help you determine if she will enjoy and will be successful working within your culture.
• Future Direction: What is the applicant looking for in his next job?  Look for a match between the candidate’s needs and what your opening can genuinely provide.

When you’re satisfied with the answers you receive, then it’s time to bring the candidate into the office for a longer, more in-depth interview.

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