Rogala & Orr, Inc.

Obsolesence of Jobs

JohnOrr — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:51:46 +0000

An article by Douglas Rushkoff for CNN late last year makes the point that employment is less about jobs now than about productivity. Technology allows us to separate the two, often to the determent of workers. Our work ends up becoming either service-based or taking care of the technology that replaced us (watch the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for a nice example.) What caught my attention was his comparison of some jobs now to jobs before the Renaissance. In that time, most people worked for themselves and traded with others for what they needed. Sounds a lot like web-based or creative work that people are doing on their own. As 3-D printers become more accessible, there are garage-based businesses set up so that you or I can design something (a machine part, a new toothbrush, a Bill Nye bobble-head), send off the design file, have it made and shipped right back. Pretty 1-to-1. There are still plenty of people working traditional jobs, but there are also plenty of people who used to work those jobs who are no longer needed even though we still make the same products. I was recently in a propeller factory where slabs of metal are turned into precision products. They employ a good number of people and are highly sought after as an employer. Great jobs if you can get them. They also continually add technology to improve their own quality and productivity. The people they need increasingly need greater skill. I think the overall point is that what constitutes a “job” is increasingly fragmented. In some places workers are seen as expendable and replaceable. In others, jobs are seen as equally expendable and replaceable.

Tinker, Tailor, Spearman, Spy?

JohnOrr — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:59:34 +0000

All occupations during the Medieval era. From something known as the Crystal Obelisk Project, an in-progress list of occupations from yore. Apparently trying to answer the question “If you passed someone on the street during Medieval times, what would their occupation be?” The list is nicely organized and interesting to peruse. Their are fun words like “eggler” and “cordwainer”. Not surprisingly the list of crafts and service occupations is quite long with specific jobs for just about everything. The list of scholarly occupations is likewise unsurprisingly short. I regret that we don’t currently have much call for an occupation formally titled “fool.” Expect, perhaps, for THIS GUY. I’m just glad I never had to be a pissprophet, potboy or dung carter.

Humility as a Business Tool

JohnOrr — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:05:17 +0000

From theAcademy of Management Journal comes research looking at the value of humility in leaders. It’s no surprise that leaders who display a higher level of personal humility are better liked. What is a bit more of a surprise is that there organizations tend to be more successful in the marketplace as well. If you don’t subscribe to the journal you can’t read the article online. A solid but susinct description can be found in an article at the Atlantic. This is encouraging. From a human perspective it’s nice to see that positive traits can lead to success in the business world. It’s mildly discouraging to note that this trait has the biggest positive benefit for white male leaders largely because others expect humility less from them.

Explaining Away a Lack of Success

JohnOrr — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:49:49 +0000

It’s been a rough couple of years. It looks like were not completely out of the woods yet either. In the companies that we work with here at ROI, we see lots of people who are grateful to have jobs, but feel run down, exhausted and wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Given this, it’s easy to let them off the hook by pointing to all the things that have prevented them from being successful or from meeting targets. The article linked below from Manufactures Tech calls this “failing elegantly.” It’s a great phrase. It reminds me of Nixon’s “ withdrawal with dignity.” It has been a couple of years that have kicked us hard. But explaining away our inability to meet goals, even when some of it is true, just sets us up to miss again. Allowing us to look around and point out all the reasons we didn’t make goals makes it easier to try a little less. A more productive approach is to treat each poor period as a “game tape” to be reviewed and see if we missed anything. It takes a strong leader and a smooth facilitator to get people engaged in this kind of conversation, but it worth the effort to create a culture where0 workers go into each new situation eagle-eyed for hidden opportunties and not-yet-seen barriers.

Link

Gainful Employment Rules and Financial Aid

JohnOrr — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:21:24 +0000

The US Dept of Education has finalized their “gainful employment” rule for institutions providing training and education. The rule is set to go into effect July 1, 2012. In brief, the rule is designed to prevent educational institutions from setting students up with enormous debt loads and little opportunity to pay them back. The rule does this by monitoring the payback rate of students from individual institutions. The idea is to prevent “diploma mills” from encouraging students to enter programs, pay for them with government sponsored financial aid, and then providing either inferior education or misleading information about employment opportunities post-graduation. Institutions that fail the test limits will lose access to government sponsored financial aid. Given the reliance of some for-profit education institutions, it will be very interesting to watch the effect that it has on the business of secondary education. There have been numerous, highly visible articles recently on student debt, so it’s unlikely to be come an unpopular bill.

A fuller explanation can be found in this Wall Street Journal article here.

Shaping Tomorrow’s Workforce

JohnOrr — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:18:05 +0000

Whether we like it or not, current economic conditions are shaping the way that workers of the future will think about their careers, relate to their employers and commit to work itself. It’s clear that our views of work, career and employment are strongly affected by what we see through our parents as we grow up. The struggles that every generation of workers endure, the decisions they make and the excesses they exhibit all make an impression on their children. If your parents grew up during the depression, you were more likely to lock down one job and hold on to it no matter what. Even if you didn’t like what you did you didn’t complain or put your livelihood at risk (the Silent Generation.) If you watched your parents follow the rules and wait for their turn to advance, you were more likely to rebel and push for your own advancement and benefit (Boomers.) And…. If you watched your parents over-commit to their careers and personal benefit, you were more likely to find something that let you get along with less personal investment so you could pursue personal interests (Gen X.)

I know this is over-simplified and does not describe everyone, but there is a clear pattern. Each generation of workers tries to:

Fix some behavior/value/view that they saw as a mistake of their parents
Lessen some excess or over-focus
Add something that they felt the previous generation missed or ignored.

So what does this mean for the future? An entire generation is watching their parents deal with rates of unemployment that are consistently higher than the past. Those just entering the workforce anticipated a high rate of retirement for older workers, and consequently more opportunity for their own chance to take on high levels of responsibility. Unfortunately, as people are now working longer out of need, these opportunities lessen.

A recent article in the Economist described this in some detail, primarily in countries with situations more dire than the US. The article examines the effect of high youth unemployment in areas such as:

Welfare cost of sustained unemployment
Crime
Likelihood of future employment
“Wage scars”
Social/family/living arrangements

Rather than go into it here, the full article is worth the read. What to do? Keep encouraging your kids to work, or volunteer if work is not available. Keep making the link between education and future quality of life. Find ways to help youth find the value of their own efforts through small businesses (remember lawn cutting?) or updating by teaching them how to apply their technical knowledge to help others. Never fall back on “why…. When I was your age.” Persistence trumps talent much of the time, so encourage and provide opportunities for them to get results through their efforts. Despite any struggles of our own, teaching that there is inherent value and satisfaction in work is important both for our youth and for their future employers.

The Ebb and Flow of Technology in Hiring

JohnOrr — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:26:13 +0000

“Reach Out and Touch Someone”. Are you old enough to remember the Ma Bell tagline that helped make phone service part of everyday life? Most of us aren’t, the line itself seems to hang on. In researching this piece, I found that the tagline itself is credited to the communications guru Marshall McLuhan.

As the internet became part of how we do things, job posting boards became a primary tool of corporate recruiting. Lots of breadth (maybe not so much depth sometimes) and a way to be visibility for your jobs. A recent article in the WSJ pointed out the decline use of job boards by recruiters. Apparently for all of their reach, they end up not being all that efficient. Having to screen so many unqualified applicants doesn’t improve how quickly good, solid candidates get hired. In addition, theirs an inviting element to more personal approaches as well as the opportunity to get to candidates early. Once someone has posted their resume online, you are already in strong competition for them with everyone else.

By getting to them earlier and more personally, you have the chance to engage them in a more thoughtful look at your business.
So perhaps that phone call still works after all.

Leadership Assessment Rebounding

JohnOrr — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 12:38:33 +0000

According to a survey at the Wall Street Journal the use of external assessments for leadership roles is up again after a very weak 2010. The numbers state that 72% of surveyed companies use some sort of executive assessment as part of their process for hiring and promoting executives. They note that this number is double what it was last year. They don’t mention that the number has historically hovered right around 70%. So rather than rapid growth, we’re seeing a return to normal levels after a not-unexpected dip.

Their are two changes that appear to be riding along with the rebound here at Rogala & Orr. First- many of our clients are looking to more tightly integrate our executive assessments with internal HR processes. Rather than a “bolt-on” activity, there is a desire to more tightly link communication, measured characteristics and output flow with better defined internal HR processes. Second- we are seeing more requests for follow-through coaching of successful candidates. Part of our process has always been to provide feedback to those hired. In many instances we’ve provided on-going coaching, but it’s been on an as-requested basis. We continue to have clients ask us to integrate a 3, 6 or 12 month coaching relationship as an expected part of the assessment/feedback process. It makes sense and is showing solid results in terms of ease of entry and how quickly important issues are addressed.

Assessment has always been a useful tool for bringing on new executive talent. It’s encouraging to see that many companies also seek to apply what’s learned in the assessment process to key outcomes tied to the individual.

“Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe on skilled labor

JohnOrr — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:33:57 +0000

An eloquent description of the need for more focus on supporting skilled labor training and apprenticeships by Mike Rowe (link below). In a talk before the U.S. Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, he lays out a personal description of where we are with the skills gap in skilled trades. We have high unemployment, but a shortage of 450,000 skilled trade workers. Most skilled tradesmen currently are over 50 years of age. My favorite line, “In a few years an hour of plumber’s time will cost more than that of a psychiatrist.” Nicely put.

Link to video

Yeah, But What’s the Job Really Like?

JohnOrr — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:47:33 +0000

We read job descriptions all the time here at Rogala & Orr. Any time we assess a candidate we like to know what our client thinks the job will be. It’s good practice. At the same time, many job descriptions are dry, bullet-pointed lists that don’t sound like much fun. The job ad post for a reporter role at the Sarasota Herald Tribune (link below) is classic. I wish I could write like this.

Link to Ad Post.