Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
Job-hunting tips from the January 6, 2003 issue of
QuintZine.
Seems that women and workers under 35 particularly value the flexibility to balance life
and work issues. A recent survey by USATODAY.com and the Society of Human Resource Management addressed
the question of what workers value and found the answer varies depending on whom you ask. Employees
say "job security" is very important to their satisfaction levels. The top three aspects that were "very important"
to worker satisfaction:
Job Security (65 percent)
Benefits (64 percent)
Communication between employees and management (62 percent)
However, among women, flexibility to balance life and work issues (72 percent) and communication (71 percent)
ranked as their top concerns. Work/life balance was also a big concern of the under-35 generation, which rated communication
and work/life balance as equally important (66 percent), while workers ages 35 to 55 ranked job security first (71 percent).
Nancy Collamer of JobsAndMoms.com shared this information vie Career Master Institute. For a free subscription to
JobsAndMoms.com, send your name and email address to Nancy at ncollamer@aol.com.
Satisfied employees are not necessarily hard working or committed to a company's bottom line performance,
and a majority of U.S. workers admit to having a low level of commitment to the job they do and the company
they work for, according to a ground-breaking employee loyalty study released by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) Intersearch.
However, the same study finds significant room for improvement in that the best performing Fortune 500 companies are bucking
this trend with significantly higher levels of employee commitment. Workers at these companies give management
higher ratings on issues of business ethics, innovation and competitiveness. At the same time, they report receiving
higher performance evaluations, having increased their productivity, and taken fewer days off because of sickness
and personal reasons.
The TNS study surveyed 20,000 workers across 33 countries. Two thousand full-time employees were surveyed in the U.S.,
ranging from corporate executives to front line and administrative employees in all industry groups. The U.S.-based employees
worked for some of this country's, and the world's, largest organizations.
The study classified employees into four different groups:
Ambassadors (Global 44 percent/U.S. 41 percent): The most committed -- those who are fully committed
to the company and to their work.
Company Oriented (Global 8 percent/U.S. 8 percent): The next most committed group, which includes those
who are fully committed to their company -- more so than their work and career.
Career Oriented (Global 14 percent/U.S. 20 percent): Includes those who are more interested in furthering
their career and their needs over the needs of the company.
Disengaged (Global 35 percent/U.S. 31 percent): The employee segment that no company wants, but has in abundance.
They are neither committed to their company or to their career.
Business Week recently posed the question: Does having a great
career kill your chances of having a child? The magazine cites
a recent book, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest
for Children by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, which reiterates what many
women already know: that success in the job still too often
leads to childlessness. In fact, 49 percent of women who are
40 and making $100,000 or more in Corporate America are childless,
vs. only 19 percent of 40-year-old men in the same salary bracket.
For the first time in 25 years, a growing number of women at the peak
of their careers are dropping out to stay home with their families,
according to U.S. Census figures. One reason: Corporate life for a
mom can be hell. Even programs such as telecommuting and flextime
often fail. Taking advantage of such schemes is often tantamount
to asking not to be promoted. Moreover, these strategies don't do
enough to change career trajectories, still largely patterned after
men's life cycles -- with no allowances for breaks to raise kids.
Enlightened employers such as Merrill Lynch & Co. are finding that
their retention efforts work when they build accountability into
programs. Merrill Lynch makes a point of keeping tabs on telecommuting
employees to ensure they are being promoted as fast as their peers.
Other winners: job sharing and creating part-time work that offers
proportional pay, perks, and chances for advancement.
Read the full story.
Seems that women and workers under 35 particularly value the flexibility to balance life
and work issues. A recent survey by USATODAY.com and the Society of Human Resource Management addressed
the question of what workers value and found the answer varies depending on whom you ask. Employees
say "job security" is very important to their satisfaction levels. The top three aspects that were "very important"
to worker satisfaction:
