Life Meets Work Blog

The federal government has become the new launch pad for entry-level job seekers.  According to estimates from the Partnership for Public Service, the federal government will fill more than 50,000 entry-level jobs in the next 12 months, along with about 60,000 paid internships.

This isn’t some manufactured stimulus effort. Entry-level hiring in the federal government has been steadily increasing over the past five years as baby boomers begin to retire. The government hired almost 20,000 more people for entry-level positions in 2009 than it did in 2005.

 ”The government has the oldest workforce of any sector and therefore will experience the baby boom retirement wave earlier and faster than any of the other sectors,” said Max Stier, head of the Partnership for Public Service, in an interview with NPR.

With more good news for government job seekers, the application process is about to get easier.  Following President Obama’s order issued in May, agencies are streamlining their application process.  The goal is to fill federal jobs faster.  Under the current system, jobs are taking as long as six months to fill.

By November, job seekers will no longer need to submit the time-consuming KSAs—essays on knowledge, skills, and abilities—with initial applications.  Although KSAs may be used later in the hiring process, the existing system requires someone applying for multiple jobs to write separate essays for each.

Other federal hiring changes include using plainer language in job announcements, updating applicants more frequently throughout the application process, and allowing hiring managers to choose from a wider pool of candidates.

The Partnership for Public Service, which holds an annual job fair in Washington D.C. each summer, just saw its highest attendance in history.  But federal jobs and internships are available year-round, in all 50 states and internationally.  You can search for federal jobs at usajobs.gov.

The White House got the ball rolling, and now momentum is building.

The Women’s Bureau will be hosting a series of “National Dialogue on Workplace Flexibility” forums around the country in 2010 and 2011, including Life Meets Work’s home city of Chicago.

The series will help the Women’s Bureau (part of the Department of Labor) gather information to promote best practices for workplace flexibility.

“Work-life balance, including flexible workplace polices, is not just a women’s issue, it’s a necessity for all working families,” said Women’s Bureau Director Sara Manzano-Diaz. “Ensuring that our nation’s workers are able to balance their home lives without fear of job security is critical to our economic success as a country.”

The initiative is a follow-up to the White House Flexibility Forum and is being organized in collaboration with the White House Council on Women and Girls.  Other definite host cities include Dallas, Los Angeles and New York.

The National Dialogue series is one of several new initiatives announced in late July during a White House Middle Class Task Force work and family event hosted by Vice President Joe Biden.

Other public education efforts include an Equal Pay Checklist, a revamped Equal Pay Employer Self-Audit tool, and an Equal Pay Research Summit.

The Women’s Bureau also intends to sponsor a supplement to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey in 2011.  This addition will gather more information on parental leave, child care, family leave insurance program usage, and other issues related to the intersection of work and family responsibilities.

Photo Credit: Flickr Jelle Vermeiren

As we reported in June, the Telework Improvement Act (H.R. 1722) that received unanimous passage in the Senate failed the House on its first try.  That act got a second chance on July 14 and won.

The act is devised to increase telecommuting in the federal government by requiring agencies to designate eligibility, enhance policies, assign a telework managing officer, and insure teleworkers aren’t discriminated against in performance appraisals. 

While numbers are still higher than in the private sector, only about five percent of the total federal workforce teleworks (at least one day a month) and less than nine percent of those eligible do so.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that implementing H.R. 1722 would increase the administrative costs by $30 million over a five year period.  That pales in comparison to the self-reported $71 million in lost productivity—per day—the federal government lost during last winter’s east coast snowstorms.

In addition to business continuity gains, additional savings are expected in productivity, reduced turnover, lower absenteeism, easier recruitment, and possibly reduced real estate costs.  Tangential benefits come from reduced worker stress, lower traffic congestion and environmental impact, and better work family balance.

(Don’t Just Talk the Talk)

I recently reached out to the head of human resources for a major company in the Midwest.  I was referred to her by a colleague and before emailing her to set up a meeting, I did my due diligence by looking up the work/life and diversity statements on their website. 

Theirs was more impressive than most, dedicating not one, but two pages of their site to demonstrating their commitment to both work/life and diversity in the workplace.  Their list of awards was impressive, as were the myriad of corporate initiatives on both fronts.

In my email, I referenced her company’s accomplishments, calling them a leader in both workplace flexibility and diversity.

Her response was short and to the point, “XYZ firms are typically not marketplace leaders and/or innovators in regards to workplace flexibility so I am not sure how much prospective and/or insight I can provide, but happy to meet with you.”

Sound familiar?  Does your organization talk the talk, but not walk the walk?  This is not the first time I’ve encountered the disconnect between the award-winning status of a company and the day-to-day practices that belie their commitment to flex. 

In fact, it’s rampant.  There are some major organizations beginning to recognize that flex policies, employment branding, and winning awards are no longer enough.  And they will be light years ahead of the rest in attracting and retaining top talent. 

Think about it.  What does this disconnect convey to employees, stockholders and competitors?  A lack of authenticity and openness—two corporate traits that employees tell us are critical to retaining top talent as we move out of the recession.

Take a look at the talk you’re talking, and start walking the walk before it’s too late.

Photo Credit: Flickr Gustty

Fun post at The Juggle today about work spaces beyond the cubicle.  My favorite graphs:

For some people, physical environment makes a big difference to productivity. Different signals in the environment shape the way we think about and execute tasks, inhibiting certain parts of the brain and stimulating others, author Winifred Gallagher wrote in a book, “The Power of Place.”

I can usually shut out the outside world and work from almost anywhere. However, my physical environment matters a lot to me when I am tired. When I work long hours, I find myself moving around my work area a lot, trying to refresh my mind by changing locations.

AMEN to that! Sometimes my office gets just plain oppressive.  The walls start to close in on me and my brain shuts off.   

In the summer I can change things up by moving to the deck.  The rest of the year (and often in summer too) I move to my favorite coffee shop. 

Of course, the latter requires strategic timing (can’t take up a table during lunch rush), a purchase or two, and sometimes…earplugs. 

Soon my city (this is Jaime writing from Green Bay, btw) will have a coworking space with drop in hours.  So when the coffee shop is not an option, I can go cage a desk there. 

Read more from the Wall Street Journal about the work anywhere trend.

What’s your alternative work spot?

Just heard on the radio…a Wisconsin job shop looking to hire machinists. 

The employment ad did more than ask for applications–it tried to convince people that this company was a good place to work.  How? By including testimonials from actual employees. 

The guys made three points:

1. Job security
2. Bonuses are good
3. (direct quote) “When I need time off, I don’t have to worry.  My supervisor works with me.”

Did you catch that? They’re promoting flex time for hourly workers. As one of the top three reasons to work there.  In manufacturing.

The common wisdom, of course, is that manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin are disappearing. So why bother promoting ‘perks’ when workers should be just glad to have a job, right?

Wrong.  Indeed, this region has seen its fair share of layoffs in the recession.  But, manufacturers here are keenly aware that their talent is about to retire.  With the baby boomers retiring, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates the need for millions of new manufacturing workers in the next 10 years.  Yes, millions. Plural.

In northeast Wisconsin, manufacturing accounts for 24% of the employment.  That’s well above the state average of 18%, in the state that already has the highest rate of manufacturing employment in the nation. 

This is an area that has long understood the value of its industrial workforce.  This is a region of skilled machinists and welders, CNC programmers, and all manner of manufacturing technicians.  It is a region poised to lose if it cannot convince young people to pursue jobs in manufacturing.

It is a region that will be motivated–perhaps more than any other industrial area of the country–to rework traditional notions of shift schedules and seniority and ‘just be grateful you have a job’ laissez faire attitudes.  It is a region that will understand that flexibility is key to employee attraction and retention–even for hourly workers.

This job shop gets it.  If they’re spending money to promote flexiblity, hiring challenges must be real. 

When will hiring challenges get real for you?  Will you be ready?

From Seth Godin’s blog:  “I think in ten years the TV show ‘the Office’ will be seen as a quaint antique.”

His point–the office as we know it is dying.  We don’t always need to convene in one place to get our work done anymore. 

He says: “When you need to have a meeting, have a meeting. When you need to collaborate, collaborate. The rest of the time, do the work, wherever you like.”

Because yes, sometimes face-to-face is better.  Like today.  Two members of the Life Meets Work team are convening in Green Bay, Wis. prior to a speaking engagement. 

We’re going to spend a lot of time working and a lot of time chatting.  And our working relationship will be the stronger for it.

But…our working relationship wouldn’t exist at all if we didn’t spend most of our time working remotely. 

And that would be a loss.

Are you a ‘count your chickens’ or a ‘head in the sand’ kind of person?

Is the great resume tsunami finally about to start, or are we going to linger in years of high unemployment?

It’s hard to know what to think.

After all, more people are quitting than getting fired these days. And job openings just rose to the highest level in 16 months.  And some scholars even suggest the U.S. could be out of workers by 2018.

Still the pessimist in me can’t ignore the more dire reports.  The ones reminding us that there were 5 unemployed people, on average, for each job opening in April.  That private sector growth is slow and goverment jobs will soon decline below pre-census levels. 

To quote Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”  (And if you didn’t know there was a gal behind this blog, you do know.)

Still, even the cynic in me believes in being prepared…proactive…ahead of the game.  I won’t be putting my head in the sand and hoping for the best (or worst, depending on which side of the hiring coin you’re on.) 

But I’m not exactly counting my chickens either.  The turnaround will come.  Be it slow or fast, we’d all best be ready.