In 1500 words or less, each post will give you something you can use TODAY to build yourself, your people and your organization whether your organization is a "for-profit" or a "not-for-profit."
Have you ever considered how biased our hiring practices are toward people who do not experience barriers to employment. How difficult it is for people who are from outside the “colonial bubble” most of us never even notice?
When you start to see and think about those barriers you can see the intrinsic discrimination that happens every day.
I have been here. Painfully unaware that I was teetering on the precipice. I was lucky, I had good mentors, I had key people who took a chance and told me what I needed to do and gave me the space to change. It wasn’t always smooth but I listened, I learned, and I became better.
As managers and supervisors, we will all eventually find ourselves in this position; how we react determines if we can step back or if we will plunge into the abyss.
What follows is what I was taught, what I learned, and what I continue to use. I hope it helps you.
There is a special group of people who are making a difference to help people help themselves. I would like to dedicate this post to them, what they have taught me, to the people they help, and to the employers who work with them.
This past week I attended a meeting where some people were lamenting that their new hires didn’t have a good work ethic and they seemed not to know how to function. Their comments inspired this post because “work ethic” is a learned skill and knowing what and how “to work” is also something that organizations should teach rather than assume.
Twice each year I present a workshop on “How to Keep a Job” for high school cooperative education students. The one piece of advice that was shared with me before my first one was “Don’t be boring.” I keep getting asked back so I must have succeeded.
Each time I speak to students I feel invigorated by their attention and their questions. Last week I spoke to approximately 150 students and their questions inspired today’s post. I wrote this with them in mind, my own three children, and what I had wished I had learned when I was their age.
Please read this, share this, and add your own comments.
It is not too optimistic or too negative, I have tried to balance both so each reader can take some tools away they can use.
Wildfires, floods, tornados, hurricanes: Are you prepared? In the past twelve months in Canada, we have experienced extreme wildfires in British Columbia, Alberta, the Northern Territories, and Quebec. Nova Scotia and Ontario have experienced record-breaking […]
s a volunteer, I have presented workshops and seminars to people of all ages on “how to find a job” and “how to keep a job,” for more than twenty years.
Eight months ago I was fortunate enough to be hired by an Employment Agency that specializes in assisting job seekers who experience barriers to employment. The time has been a revelation, the people I work for and with have taught me so much that I did not know about resilience, perseverance, and the resources that are available to help, often with no cost. I invite you to read and to share this very brief introduction to things many of us do not know about employment agencies.
Are we just the sum of our good and bad decisions? Labels and simple equations do not begin to adequately describe us and how we became who we are. In a world that increasingly uses simple rhetoric to explain how to solve our problems; we need to understand the complex interplay of variables that shape all of us.
If we can understand and appreciate, then we can begin to tailor individual courses of action.
Do you have days where everything seems more difficult than it should be? Days where you feel overworked and underappreciated? I do.
What do you do? How do you find the strength to get up the next day when all you feel like is hitting snooze and going back to sleep? These are the things I do and they work for me, see what you think, try them, share them, and add to them.
Finding a job or reinventing yourself after leaving a job can be one of the most difficult situations we face in life. Help is available in virtually every region. There is also a focus, a series of steps, something similar to Abraham Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs, that can help achieve your goals.
This post is a little longer than normal, but it is worth the extra few minutes. Please use it, share it, and please add your suggestions to help people who are struggling.