The Career Encouragement Blog

Children, Daycare, and Working Mothers

Since 1991, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has invested over 200 million dollars to examine the effects of day care on children.  They have followed over 1,300 children from infancy through various child-care settings (home with mother, home with another relative, home with nanny, or at day care) and into elementary school.  The results have been released and the mainstream media has grabbed on to sound bites such as "poor behavior is linked to time in daycare" and "daycare kids have problems in later life."  Just what every working mother wants to hear, right?

Newspaper and magazine articles like this frustrate me for a number of reasons including:

• They rarely report on the entire study - instead they pump out sensationalized sound bites designed to attract and shock readers.  Critical details about study methodology, the development of variables and measures, and the full context of any outcomes/findings are not readily available for public consumption.
• The target audience is usually middle class families with a wealth of choice in their lives.  They ignore the many families in poverty that don't have an option to think about whether one adult should stay home.
• Why is it always the mother's fault that the child is in daycare?  The concept of complete maternal responsibility for child wellbeing is integrated so smoothly into most of these articles that we neglect to ask, "Where is daddy while this child was developing all these negative traits?"

Thankfully, Emily Bazelon took some time to set the record straight in The Kids are Alright: What the Latest Day Care Study Really Found.  She does a nice job of providing some history of the study and gives a basic critique of the methodology.  She took the time to contact the author of the study, Margaret Burchinal, PhD who stated:

"I'm not sure we communicated this, but the kids who had one to two years of daycare by age 4½—which was typical for our sample—had exactly the level of problem behavior you'd expect for kids of their age. Most people use center care for one or two years, and for those kids we're not seeing anything problematic."

There does seem to be a modest negative effect for children who go into daycare right at infancy.  But before we jump to the conclusion that parents who use daycare are bad parents, there are other, more important questions we should examine.   At a minimum we should ask what is the family situation that requires the child to go into daycare so quickly?  Most parents I know would LOVE to be able to stay home with their newborn children for a year, but it simply isn't possible.  For example, research has repeatedly shown that children whose families own a home vs. renting perform better on most measures of wellbeing.  Does the family require both incomes just to own a home?  So we really need to ask what are the possible negative effects of the child being at home that aren't being considered?  A corollary question we need to be asking is why does one of the richest nations in the world not provide a federal parental leave program for families? 

Check out Bazelon's article here and let us know what you think!

The Relationship Between Health and Work

It's official - there is a link between our health and our work.  Healthier people tend to perform better and work...and people with good jobs tend to be healthier.  The Good Health/Good Economy website of the US Department of Health and Human Services notes (among other things) that:

• Inadequate employment is associated with poor health outcomes.
• The degree of control that employees exercise over their work influences health.
• At least one study indicates that every step up the occupational ladder has positive health consequences.
• Work influences the health of families and children.
• Health conditions affect work status.
• Income inequality affects health.

If this inspires you to spend a little effort improving your health, you may be interested in the My Pyramid website.  It lets you adjust the recommended food pyramid based on your body type and exercise preferences.  From there, the site will quickly customize a tracking sheet for you (see link on the left) so that you can track your progress against the plan.  Very cool!

To your good health and good success in your career!

Business Casual for Warmer Weather

I just love it when spring comes to Minnesota!  The sunshine and warmer temperatures seem to put everyone in a good mood.  People are no longer huddled up against the cold and rushing for their bus or car - they have time to stroll at a slower pace, give eye contact, and smile more.  The parkas and sweaters go into storage for a few months and out come the summer clothes.  And this my dear colleagues is the time of year when we need to take an honest inventory of what we are wearing to work.

Intelligent Career Management says that the preferred style of dress across industries and positions tends to be conservative in nature.  Alas, in summer, many folks forget this and drift to an ultra-casual style that is at best unprofessional, and at worst distracting and/or even unattractive.  And, while I try as hard as possible to avoid sweeping gender generalizations in my work, it pains me to admit that women are more likely than men to err in this area.  If you happen to be searching for a job and going on interviews during summer, this is something to be especially careful of because how you dress says a lot about your sense of judgment.

I have my own pet peeves about summer business attire and I have polled a few of my clients about their's.  Interestingly enough, what I found was that many of them will never tell a candidate or an employee that they think their clothing is getting in the way of their career, but they will remember and factor it into hiring/promotion decisions.  So here, in a nutshell, is what your boss won't tell you about your summer attire:

For Women

• Flip-flops are absolutely unacceptable under any circumstance.  They scream "I am at work under protest - I would rather be on vacation."
• Dressy sandals can sometimes be okay if you have nice looking feet and a professional pedicure. If you do not have time to get a pedicure or re-fresh the one you got 3 weeks ago, then cover your feet up.
• Bare legs are acceptable if they are tan.  If they are bruised and veiny, keep them covered.
• Spaghetti straps are a no-no as are most tank tops.  Generally, the shoulders should be covered.
• Once the turtlenecks are put away for summer, lower necklines can be okay, but showing any cleavage (any at all - even a hint of it) is not okay. 
• White trousers, skirts and tops are cool and refreshing in the summer - but ask a trusted colleague to tell you honestly if your undergarments are showing through.
• Suntan lotion is not appropriate perfume for the office.
• Shorts typically do not belong in the office.  Not even knee-length Bermuda shorts.

For Men

• Golf shirts should have collars and plackets that lay flat.
• Shorts - never
• Sandals - never
• Mandals - never
• Don't be too quick to skip the short-sleeve undershirt in favor of a "beater" or nothing just because it's warmer out.  Many men find they are actually cooler with a tee-shirt under their shirt, and they can help casual clothes look a little more professional by minimizing the appearance of perspiration.

You may not like these tips.  You may feel that they are discriminatory, or that people should accept you for the work you do and not for what you look like.  You may think that I am old fashioned and that Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers have established a new protocol in the workplace.  You may be right - I may just work for old fashioned clients.  My intention here is not to discuss the philosophy of dress and appearance in the workplace. I am just telling you the truth about what I hear managers say, so if you are thinking about moving up in your career, these are tips might be helpful for you. 

What do you think? Do you have any tips for successful summer dressing that you would like to add?  Please leave us a comment and share what's on your mind!

Blue Collar Kids in a White Collar World

As a blue-collar kid who now lives and works in a primarily white collar world, I occasionally have moments of feeling like an outsider and/or an impostor.  Many thanks to Annette Lareau for recommending a great book to me that explores and explains this phenomenon: Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Lubrano grew up in a trades family.  As a college student and later as a journalist, he became aware that his upbringing had not prepared him to navigate the white collar world comfortably.  He noticed that his friends and colleagues from white collar backgrounds did not deal with the same culture shock he seemed to be experiencing.  He eventually coined the term "straddlers" for blue collar kids who were working to make it in a white collar world.  If you are a straddler yourself, you will find Lubrano's book very encouraging.

David Siegfried's review for the American Library Association sums up the book neatly:

"This country always celebrates the idea that there is enormous opportunity here to move up from one's station in life, to achieve greatness from the most humble of roots. But for those who are the first from a traditionally blue-collar family to enter college and move into the white-collar workplace, there is a darker side to success when they find themselves alienated from both their own family and their strange new middle-class world."

Sometimes when I am sitting in a meeting dressed in a business suit, I wonder how a kid that used to roam the neighborhood barefoot selling green beans from our garden out of a little red wagon ever ended up in a corporate conference room.  Early on in my career I once commented that I felt out of place in the business world and that I was "just a tube top away from the trailer park."  Most of my colleagues stared blankly at me, unable to comprehend what I was saying.  The two straddlers in the room shared a knowing chuckle with me and it became an inside joke with a life of its own.

I wouldn't trade my background for anything.  As I grow in my career, I can see how my upbringing enables me to bring an important perspective to my work in HR, and has given me the gifts of compassion and pragmatism.  As I gain experience and mature, I feel less insecure about my background, and more confident in the contribution I can make as a result of it. I also take myself less seriously and have a better sense of humor. 

What about you?  Are you a blue collar kid in the white collar world and reading blogs about  how to improve your career?  Are you a white collar kid doing the work you were raised to do?  Please encourage our readers with your reactions and stories!

"You need to learn to work with difficult people!"

My blogging goal is to provide daily encouragement for your career journey.  Therefore, I try to avoid the temptation to post humor that is sarcastic or link to articles that are written from an angry and/or anarchist perspective.  However, I don't think you can be truly encouraging if you don't acknowledge the truth - and the truth of the matter is that sometimes we have to work really difficult people.  That's why I occasionally report on true tales of bad bosses.   My hope is that these stories help you realize that you are not alone in your struggle to get along at work, and that you will share your own tales in order to encourage others that they too can survive and thrive despite poor management.   

My colleague Lisa is a great example of how to survive a bad boss.  Lisa is a Customer Service Rep. who routinely takes on extra work for co-workers, and does projects that are outside of her job description.  She is a positive, upbeat person, and her co-workers enjoy working with her.  But for the past 2 years she has worked for a man who is bullying and demeaning.  Despite the fact that Lisa has a track record of outstanding performance he has taken it on himself to monitor her every coming and going, her phone calls, and her conversations with co-workers.  If she returns from lunch a few minutes late, he asks her if she plans to stay late to make up the time. 

His request last month took the cake.  Her company pays for each employee to take a professional development class each year.  This year at her performance review, Lisa asked to take an introductory class in account management since that is becoming an increasingly important part of her job.  Instead her boss said, "No, I want you to take this class on dealing with difficult people."  Lisa pointed out to her boss that she has an outstanding track record of dealing with difficult customers and that another class on dealing with difficult people won't necessarily help her develop her career.  His response:

"You need to take a class on dealing with difficult people, because I am a hard boss to work for and I don't think you are doing a good enough job of dealing with me."

I would be angry at this man if he wasn't so laughable.  Luckily for Lisa, the seminar company putting on the class ended up canceling it because not enough people signed up.  I marvel at her ability to handle this situation, but she has goals beyond her current role and knows that within the next 12 months she will be in a position to take the next step she has planned.   Lisa is a great example of staying positive and focusing on how she can develop her talents and make a productive contribution to her company.

How about you - have you ever worked for a difficult boss?  How did you survive it?

Feeling stuck in your career?

I have been hearing from a lot of clients lately that they are feeling "stuck" in their careers.  To them I say: You are not alone!  It's very common to feel that way at this time of year. 

We often enter January on a bit of a high from the holiday break.  We have reviewed our accomplishments from the past year, and we are looking forward to our goals for the new year.  But by the time the end of the first quarter starts rolling around, we realize that we are still in the same job and things are feeling pretty routine.  We are working projects we have worked on before, and we are dealing with the same challenging co-worker relationships that have bugged us in the past.  It's easy to get a "cabin fever" of sorts while we wait for the slushy grey days of winter to end, and spring to arrive.

The worst part is that the longer we are stuck, the harder it is to get unstuck.  It's easy to lose our creativity, to start to get frustrated, and possibly even to panic and perhaps make an unwise decision.  Yet often times, it is simple things that can help us get moving forward again.

CareerBuilder had a nice article on Getting Unstuck in Your Career that offered some good sound bite son this topic.  Their first suggestion?  Reflect on successes you have had in the past.  Remembering these circumstances will trigger positive feelings and also ideas for things you want to do in the future.  Another suggestion they have is to expand your scope by taking on a challenging assignment.  When you sign up for challenges you are more likely to generate achievement and success in your career.  Before long, spring will arrive and you'll be moving forward again!

Business Maxims that Need to Go!

Back in January I shared some pessimistic phrases to avoid at work by Alexander Kjerulf.  He has another great posting on 5 business maxims that need to go.  He tackles phrases like "failure is not an option" and "the customer is always right" head-on in a witty and smart manner.

What I like about this posting is that even though Alexander suggests that the old (read: "Baby Boomer") way of thinking doesn't work anymore, he isn't sarcastic and dismissive as so many of us Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers can be sometimes.  Instead he is encouraging and thought provoking.  More importantly, he suggests a positive replacement for each of the 5 outdated maxims.  It's easy to criticize, but a true professional offers solutions. 

One maxim I think is outdated is the notion that "consensus is critical."  Sometimes teams get caught up in the expectation that everyone needs to be "on board" with a particular decision.  While you certainly can't have active dissenters who are sabotaging company efforts, I do think it is okay for people offer their concerns about a particular decision during the planning process so full and fair discussion can occur.  I was at a strategic planning meeting once where the Sales Director and the CFO indicated from the outset that they were in complete agreement on how to proceed.  I will never forget what the President said.  She looked at them in disbelief and stated:

"Then one of you is not doing your job.  Sales, it is up to you to push for the investments that will help us grow.  Finance, it is up to you to help us make prudent decisions about our money.  If we don't have some dynamic tension, I will not be convinced that we have explored all possible options here."

Note that she is not asking for rank disagreement, she is just expecting that her people be experts in their function and advocate for that position at the planning table so that full discussion can occur and the best option can be surfaced.  The best option is rarely the first one put out there, and the best option is rarely the product of one person's thinking.  It takes collaboration, and that starts with a little bit of tension.  So how about if we have a new maxim: "A little dynamic tension is a good thing because it means we are considering diverse perspectives on this topic." 

Check out Alexander's posting here and let us know what you think. Are there any business maxims that you would like to see removed from our everyday language? What would you replace them with?

Career Development Resources

Uncommon Professionals is a Twin Cities firm that places contract workers on temporary assignments.  They have a neat Career Resources Center on their website that has some helpful information for job seekers and people looking to grow in their career. 

I particularly like the article on How to Evaluate a Counter Offer.  It's honest and to the point.  The article on Interviewing Tips is also good.  They reinforce that you need to be prepared to ask good questions and to be clear about what you want.

Enjoy!

You Can't Skip Steps

Early in my career when I was frustrated with my entry-level status and wanted to move up, I had a boss tell me,

"You can't skip steps.  If you're smart, you can speed them along sometimes, but you can't skip steps." 

What that meant for me in HR was that I needed to learn to the "in the trenches" work of payroll entry, benefits administration, and training/recruiting coordination.  I had been complaining about these mundane tasks, saying that I wanted to do work that actually used my brain. I thought I was ready to jump into a management role where I could be the one developing the plans and processes.  To this day I am grateful for her advice.  With her support, I figured out the skills and experiences I needed to have in order to be ready for an HR Management role.  We also figured out which things I could "speed through" by taking a class or seminar, and which one's I needed to actually spend time doing myself.  The net result was that I spent 24-36 months working the plan, and it was a pivotal, impactful time in  my career!

Not everyone is so lucky to have a mentor like that.  Recently I became aware of an unfortunate situation at a client company.  Tori was hired into the organization as a Sales Coordinator about 4 years ago.  She had almost no professional work experience, but demonstrated that she had some raw talent.  She presented herself in a confident manner - she spoke quickly and assertively, jumped in to tackle tasks she'd never tried before, and dressed fabulously.  The reality behind the scenes was that her actual work output was a little sloppy and lacked attention to detail, but she always managed to bluff past that.  She often commented that she felt she she had abilities way beyond the Sales Coordinator role and she was bored with the details.

Eventually, it became apparent that her errors were impacting client agreements and causing frustration for the Sales Reps.  Tori wasn't as lucky as I was to have a boss willing to help and mentor me in a logical, thoughtful manner.  Instead of working on a development plan with her, the company decided to take advantage of her assertive communication style and promote her to an entry level account rep. In short order she completely bombed out in the new position.  Why?  Because she didn't understand the company product forwards and backwards, and she didn't know how it was implemented.  Therefore she never really understood the sales process.  It became apparent in customer meetings that although she looked great and spoke with confidence, Tori really had no clue what she was talking about.  Tori had skipped the step of learning her current role and performing it well.  The company skipped the step of teaching her how to perform her current role well.

This story has a sad ending.  Because Tori was underperforming and there was no where else to move her along to, her Manager made the decision to let her go. Sensing that termination was evident, she resigned.  Upon hearing about her resignation, one of the Sales Managers said:

"It's sad, really. She's got talent that she never developed.  She got as far as she good on her looks and personality, and just couldn't go any further."

In my mind, I hold both the company and Tori responsible for her failure in the new job.  Tori's boss is responsible because he never addressed Tori's performance issues while she was in the Sales Coordinator role and helped her develop.  Instead he promoted a problem on down the line.  He skipped steps.  Tori is responsible because she knew she was underperforming, and just kept talking and smiling to cover it up. When she was frustrated with the Sales Coordinator role, she never took the time to really reflect and do a logical assessment of her work output and her skills to determine where she needed to grow.  She relied on the company to move her along rather than having a personal career development plan. She skipped steps. The result was disaster for both Tori and the company.

Where are you at in your career?  Is there an area where you have been trying to skip steps?  Have you been relying on your personality to help you bluff your way through some of the aspects of your job that you don't like?  You may get away with it for a short time (remember, Tori got promoted and got a pay raise even though she was underperforming).  But eventually these things always catch up to you.  As Tori's case shows, you can't always count on your boss to help you figure out all the steps - you'll need to do some of that work yourself.  Career growth and development takes time and effort.  It requires an honest assessment of where you are now vs. where you want to go, and a a reality check on whether you have the skills you need.  If you are missing critical skills, you've got to do the hard work of learning them.  These are important steps you just can't skip.

5 Ways of Working

Ahhh spring!  Up here in Minnesota, the sun is shining, the snow is melting, and the gardening catalogs are filling up my mailbox.  The world is bright and it seems as if anything is possible.  At this time of year many folks feel a desire to do something "different" in their career.  College students approaching graduation are looking for their first big job.  Employees who have been at the same job for awhile yearn to grow and change in their career. 

If you've read even a little of this blog, you know that I think one of the first steps to making any sort of career change is to be clear about what you want.  This, of course, is easier said that done.  It takes effort and thought to figure out your next career move.  Sometimes you have to play around a bit and bump up against your next work option. 

If you are feeling a little bit of "spring fever" and want to do something new at work, take a look at this great posting from Work from Within on 5 Ways of Working.  If you scroll to the bottom, they have a nice chart comparing the pros and cons of the 5 ways.  Reflecting on these, and comparing them to your strengths and preferred work styles may help you come to some interesting insights about how you want to work in your next opportunity.

Happy Spring!