February 28, 2007 9:00
One Manager's Approach to Flextime
Reader Duri writes in with a compelling (and detailed) comment to an earlier posting about productivity during March Madness. Duri, you're right: I did find your description of your working conditions "utopic." But toward the end you make a few key points (bolds mine)--that not only did you value your workers for the quality of the work they put in, not the minutes, you made sure your bosses comprehended and appreciated that value, too.
Managers, send me more fresh ideas like these; employees, tell me what you think. Here's Duri's comment:
I've been a software industry manager for most of the last 12 years. The software industry (as you note) is notorious for grinding work schedules and exhausted employees with a high burnout rate. But not in my labs.My policy, wherever I could get away with it, was (paraphrased) "Get your work done on time, tell me when you're overloaded or light loaded, and if you get done with everything early get out of my sight (but make sure I can reach you if I need you)." I didn't tolerate "presenteeism", didn't expect them to consistently work OT, and didn't monitor their email, web browser or game use. Basically I didn't care what they did with every minute of their day, or even (*gasp!*) if they didn't put in -quite- 40 hours that week. What I cared about was that they got the job done. That was after all why I employed them.
I never gave busy-work, so when I had significant downtime (which happens anywhere unless you’re so understaffed you can’t really function anyway) I would put them through training exercises, cross-training, and various admin and prep work for the next project(s). But if there wasn't anything useful for them to do, I didn't chain them to their desks.
Sounds utopic, but there was a very real benefit to me and my employers. I made sure that my staff knew two things; 1) They must get their assigned work done to the highest quality, and 2) There would be a time when I would need them to throw themselves into their work and push until they dropped. I -would- lean on them. Just not arbitrarily, and not every week.
The benefit to my employers was that my staff was very loyal, very dedicated, and very good. They were self-confident and felt good about what they did, they didn't begrudge the OT when I did ask for it, and they were fresh when an emergency came down.
In one example my department was tasked with setting up a near-shore lab that was essentially a bootstrap operation. I asked for volunteers to go with me to this location (a 13 hour trip on average) for an indefinite period of at least two weeks and work to get this thing off the ground. I told them that this was that time when we had to come back with our shields or on them. I had to turn down most of the volunteers.
And we all died gloriously in battle. The people who came averaged 115 hours a week for the first week and about 100 hours a week for most of the next month. I had to threaten to put them physically on a plane and send them home to get them to take a day off (because they had gotten so tired they were useless). And they did a fantastic job. The project would have failed outright without that effort.
They didn't do it for pay, as they weren't paid that well (an artifact of that particular branch of the industry). They did it because I treated them well and only asked them to work like that when it really, legitimately needed to be done, and did everything I could to avoid creating those conditions unnecessarily.
To do this successfully required me to be a smart enough and strong-willed enough manager to know what my team was capable of, and to make sure I took on a level of work we could actually do (otherwise that message would have translated into "Work until your done or die"). I also had to be politically savvy enough to convince upper management that just because they didn't see my people there at midnight didn't mean they weren't working. This wasn't too hard, since the quality of work they output was top-notch and when I –did- need them there at midnight, they would show.
I believe that most managers who over-focus on hours (minutes, seconds, picoseconds) worked and absolute 'efficiency' are basically lazy or incompetent. It's easy to measure hours and work units as 'success', but those are meaningless values by themselves. It takes a much better understanding of the work in question and the people doing it to really judge effort and impact. Companies don't hire people to "Do Something" for 40 (50, 90) hours a week. They hire them to do something specific that will contribute to the company. As long as they get that job done, why should I care if they play solitaire or surf the web when they need a break?
February 27, 2007 9:00
And the Video Resume Oscar Goes to...
In a story about video résumés I wrote in this week's TIME (paper version), I mentioned online job board Vault.com's video res contest. It appears they've picked a winner. Or five. (Watch them here.)
When I talked to Vault.com CEO Mark Oldman ("spelled like old man," he says, the card), he had some clear ideas about how the video résumé ought to look and sound. All five of the winners followed his specifications to a T.
And that makes for some pretty boring viewing. Sorry, old man. American Idol it ain't.
Here are some of Vault.com's video résumé guidelines, spelled out on its web site (click here for the complete guidelines):
• Your video resume should be between 90 seconds and 2 minutes.• You can either look straight into the camera or have someone interview you.
• Highlight your skills and experience that correspond with your resume headers (ie, education, experience/background in the field, computer knowledge, languages).
• Wear a suit. Dress and groom yourself as if you were going to an interview.
• Be sure there is no background noise. Also check to make sure the video is clear and audible.
• Think news anchor: the camera should be focused on your head, shoulders and upper torso.
All of the submissions follow Vault's blueprint:
• State your first and last name. ("Hello, my name is Jane Smith.")• State your educational background, including university and major. If you graduated with honors or a high GPA, you should say so.
• If you are applying for a specific position, state why you are interested in the position and the company in particular.
• Now discuss your top three qualifications for the position. If you are not applying for a specific position, state your qualifications for a position in your career path. Your qualifications should correspond to items from your written resume. Make sure to give dates, the names of your previous employers and any specific accomplishments. You can discuss more than three, but pay attention to time.
• If you have any other special abilities that relate to your job (advanced computer programs, language, honors, membership in professional organizations) state them.
• Thank the watcher for their time and reiterate your interest in the position.
What it amounts to is you reading your résumé--on camera. Zzzzz.
The liveliest one is by Khadija Ali of Mount Holyoke College. She uses the Q&A format, with an unseen buddy reading softball interview questions to her off-camera. She dresses conservatively in a suit jacket and blouse, and her answers are pretty much what you'd expect of a college student seeking an investment banking job. But she speaks naturally and confidently and has a nice smile. Also she manages to toss in, "A fun fact about me is that I speak Swahili!"
I suppose these videos would serve as an initial interview for the employer, giving a recruiter an idea of a candidate's poise and personality. I might not mind Ali in the cubicle next to mine, while a couple of her competitors would annoy me intensely. Also she could teach me to curse in Swahili.
And I suppose this kind of video serves a useful purpose in giving the job candidate an idea of how he/she comes across in an interview situation. Ken's delivery is decent, if a little monotonous. Rahul needs to speak up, and maybe rethink the moustache.
But here's the thing. To me, the whole point of a video résumé--if you're going to go to the considerable trouble of making one--would be to showcase something about you that the interviewer won't necessarily see sitting across from you during an interview. Like Benjamin Hampton's piano playing in this video, or the project he created during a previous internship. Otherwise it's just a talking cover letter.
Vault.com's Oldman laughed when I suggested this. He's an amiable guy. "I think there is room to add more flair," he agreed, "if, say, you're performing a job that is more visual--such as showing a clip of you leading a seminar. Or adding charts and graphs to indicate your accomplishment. If you have that ability." For his taste, though, "I prefer to keep it simple. My attention starts to wander after about a minute."
Wise words. Three minutes of me typing on camera probably won't win me my next job. Even if I type really, really fast.
February 26, 2007 9:00
Why Recruiters Hate the Video Resume
...or vidumé, as my pal Gerry would coin it. (I would have thought of that, if I were good with words.) During my research for this article on the rise of vidumés (okay, Ger, it's mine now), I came across some fiery blog postings on the subject. Mostly they argued against 'em. Here's one on MagicPotofJobs, a blog written by Tiffany Bridge, an IT recruiter in Washington, D.C. It's titled "The video resume ISN’T HAPPENING, people":
Please tell me that I’m not the only person who understands that the “video resume” isn’t going to take off anytime soon. There are several important reasons for this:1. Most people read faster than people can talk. So while it might take me a minute to give your two page resume a good once-over, it will take me at least 5-10 to listen to you drone on about your qualifications. (This is also why I don’t listen to podcasts or watch video blogs.)
2. You know how most people aren’t that great at public speaking? Being good in front of the camera is even harder. The idea of having to sit through even 10 video resumes to fill a job fills me with enough dread to give up the idea of being a recruiter if they ever become that commonplace.
3. Um, hi, discrimination laws? Companies aren’t allowed to ask for photographs of applicants (except in the performing arts), and conscientious HR departments are really careful about avoiding anything that could be perceived as discriminatory. I think a lot of those HR departments don’t want to see what you look like until you’ve walked in the door for your interview. Video resumes represent a lot of hassle that HR people don’t want to deal with.
For all its shortcomings and faults, there’s a reason we’ve had the paper resume for as long as we have. It’s fast, it’s generally not filled with a bunch of dorky “ums” and “ahs”, and it’s hard to discriminate against text on a page.
When I called Bridge, she remained negative on the whole vidumé concept, but even she concedes it's probably an inevitable jobhunting trend. "Video is going to have a role in a lot of job processes," she says. "But nobody is really talking about how to do it well, or under what circumstances you ought to attempt one." Her tips:
* DON'T PRESUME YOU NEED ONE: People in sales, say, or public speakers, trainers--those with specific skills best displayed visually--might sensibly forward a link to a potential hiring agent.
* DON'T PRESUME VIDEO CAN REPLACE PAPER: "Dear God, I can't imagine wanting to sit through a pile of them," groans Bridge. "I can read faster than you can talk. I receive 10 to 20 résumés a day, and I'll evaluate every one." But videos? "I might watch it just for the novelty value. But if everybody was doing it, it would become tiresome pretty quickly."
* DON'T PRESUME VIDEO IS BETTER THAN PAPER: "I can tell in the first 15 seconds of glancing at a paper résumé if the candidate is right," says Bridge. But after five minutes of sitting through a video, she might still be scratching her head.
February 23, 2007 9:00
Here's a Great Video Resume (Not Mine)
I interview well. On paper I may not look like your tippy-top candidate, what with my unpronounceable name and gutter grades and long list of short jobs. But get me in the room with you, and (in most cases) I'll have you from hello.
That's why a video résumé is for me. Or so I thought.
As research for this article I just wrote on the rise of the video résumé, I set out to create my own. When I started reporting, I had assumed there must be a whole cottage industry of videographers, makeup artists and editors making big bucks off this surging new trend. Sure enough, when I Googled it, I came up with dozens of companies offering their services.
But when I started calling, I found most were out of business.
One videographer who advertised video résumé-making services on his website picked up the phone. Eric Wolfram started to laugh as soon as I explained my mission. He put his website up in 2004, he says. Since then, he's had exactly no calls--that is, except for the five in the past few months, all from journalists wanting to do stories on video résumés.
That was my a-ha moment. A cottage industry had indeed sprung up, some businesses as early as the mid-'90s, eager to exploit this trend. But they'd totally missed the point, just as I had. Video résumés never took off while they were still on VHS. It was only when they found their way online that jobseekers began to try them out and recruiters began to pay attention.
Here's the upshot: why pay $99 for a membership to some video résumé website when you can upload your three-minute ditty for free on YouTube? For that matter, why pay a pro like Wolfram $500 when your brother can hold your camcorder for the price of a pizza? (For the record, Wolfram gets plenty of work as a professional videographer filming things other than nervous interviewees, thank you very much. And there are many instances in which you ought to consider hiring a pro like him--say, if you're a public speaker needing an expert-quality reel to promote your business.)
Of the hundreds of online video résumés I came across on YouTube and Jobster, almost all were created by amateur auteurs, most likely the job candidates themselves. Some were awful. As I wrote in the article:
The thing is, not all people are cut out for their three minutes of online-video fame. A Vault.com post features a blue-shirted manager with a knee jiggle and a boring spiel. A job-seeking techie on YouTube admits charmingly that he has no experience editing videos--and then packs his with gimmicky cutaways. One software engineer scores his with gangsta rap. And did I just fast-forward through that video on HireVue because of the guy's bad teeth?
One in particular, I thought, was terrific. I describe it in the article:
Benjamin Hampton, a recent graduate of Washington State University in Pullman, posted a 5 1/2-min. video on YouTube last fall, thinking it would be something different to send to employers. With his brother at the camera, the résumé "took me 45 minutes to film and 30 minutes to edit," says Hampton, 23. But that was enough to impress Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. The public relations firm interviewed him--in person--a short time ago.
See for yourself:
After watching Ben's video, I backed off of making my own. For one thing, his breezy comment--"it took me 45 minutes to film and 30 minutes to edit"--I knew wouldn't be true for me. I've never edited film on my computer (because I'm, like, 80), and between my pileup of deadlines and meetings I knew I couldn't do justice to my job. Here's how it would have gone:
OPENING SCENE: LISA sits in cruddy, tea-stained office chair surrounded by teetering mountains of unopened mail. The phone rings. LISA sits, right shoulder awkwardly mashing the phone against her ear, yapping like a chihuahua at some unseen source while typing 12,567 words per minute.
LISA (turning toward camera with one hand over mouthpiece): What's up? (Silence.) Seriously, what's up? I'm on the phone.
LISA, IN VOICEOVER: Hi. I'm Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. I'm a writer at TIME Magazine. This is where I work. (B-ROLL of LISA shuffling down endlessly long, gray-carpeted corridor, stepping around Lev's discarded books, edging past annoyingly cheerful interns, taking a detour to avoid passing boss's office because he is waiting for copy she has yet to deliver.)
...you see where this is going. Booorrrring. As I said, some people just aren't cut out for their three minutes of online video fame--and it appears that includes me. Once my job description includes jamming Mentos into bottles of Diet Coke, you'll see me make my debut on YouTube.
But I did collect a bunch of advice on how to create a good video résumé. Some of it I thought was a bunch of advice on how to create a bad video résumé. I'll post it in my next at-bat.
February 21, 2007 4:21
My Gym Is Like the Office: It's a Jungle
My company has this program that pays 50% of our gym memberships. Sometimes I think it's the only reason I joined--because I'm cheap and I can't resist a bargain. Also because my really fit friend at the office goes, and I delusionally thought I too could someday have a waist.
We're starting to hear a lot about corporate wellness programs, and how employers are realizing that a healthy workforce is a more productive one--not to mention a far less expensive one down the road. Gym allowances also make for good retention tools (fit workers are happy workers). Companies cited by lists like Fortune's Best Companies to Work For avail workers of walking paths and on-site yoga. Google tosses around exercise balls for workers to sit on during meetings; somehow I don't see those techies using them for ab curls, but maybe I'm wrong and their 24-hour work days are making them totally buff.
These days I try to hit the gym twice or three times a week, and because I lack self motivation, my preferred mode of exercise is taking classes. I can't do it alone; I need to be surrounded by other people going through the same idiotic moves.
I like to watch people exercise. My classmates invariably remind me of people at work, and I speed the time by pigeonholing them into office stereotypes. The thing about classes is that they're populated almost entirely by women, which is a shame, anthropologically speaking--it's an imperfect sample. But who cares? It's still fun. Below, my highly scientific categories:
* THE HARD-WORKER. She wears no makeup, no-nonsense gym clothes, and bears a look of fierce determination (is there any other kind? ...sorry--I'm such a hack; it's been a hell of a week). She pounds away on her step, doubles up her weights and winds up the hour dripping with sweat. She's the one who stays at the office till 2 a.m. to whip the project into shape and fully expects to make it on merit. She'll be passed over for...
* THE BROWN-NOSER. She sets up the instructor's mat and equipment before he even arrives. She chitchats with him about his last class ("I seriously had nightmares you weren't coming today"--REAL QUOTE). She's the one who sidles up to the boss during the holiday party and who thinks she can charm her way to the top. Her competition is...
* THE SHOW-OFF. She parks her mat at the front of the room right behind the instructor (but off to the side a bit so he won't obstruct her view of the mirror). She wears tankinis with short shorts and never takes her eyes off her reflection. She kicks the highest, lunges the deepest and always finishes with an extra pushup. She's the one who dazzles the clients with her confident presentation and her brilliant strategy. If the hard-worker and the brown-noser ever make friends, they'll plot a way to kill her.
February 20, 2007 9:00
Working Women, Don't Rely on the Chinese Zodiac
Happy new year. It's the start of the Chinese new year, or, as they say, the year of the pig (we Japanese prefer to call it the year of the boar). I consulted a few Chinese astrology web sites to see what the year held for us on the workplace front. Here's one forecast:
A year of goodwill to all. An excellent climate for business, and industry in general will prevail. People will be more free and easy on the whole and the complaisant attitude of the Boar will generate a feeling of abundance.
An excellent climate for business! Industry will prevail! A feeling of abundance! Oh...there's a "but."
But in spite of the favorable auspices here, like the Boar we will hesitate, waver and undermine our own abilities when opportunity calls.
Dang. I hate when I do that.
I was born in the year of the boar. That makes me nice to a fault and possessing of impeccable manners and taste but also of a tiny little inclination toward laziness and snobbery (according to this web site).
What that also means is that, being born in the boar year of 1971, I am of prime child-bearing age (at least around these here parts). You may have heard the year of the boar is a particularly fortuitous one in which to give birth. In 2007, the stars align somehow to make this an incredibly lucky year for kids. I learned this from the Korean guy at the gym, but you can read more about it here.
Unluckily for Americans, this is also the year that Congress is taking another look at the Family and Medical Leave Act. Under the act, passed in 1993, workers are allowed to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off to tend to a birth, adopted child or ill family member without fear of losing their jobs. Here, from the Miami Herald:
Human resources groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups want the Labor Department to tighten the definitions of "serious health condition" and ''intermittent leave.'' Women's and labor groups fear the Bush administration intends to make it more difficult for workers to take extended leaves for serious illnesses or family needs. About 2.4 million Americans took FMLA leave in 2005.
Click here to read more about the FMLA's comment process.
It gets worse. You'll also remember the recently published study from Canada's McGill University and Harvard that found the United States in the pleasant company of Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea as the only countries out of 173 that didn't guarantee any paid leave for mothers. Of the 168 countries that do, 98 offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave.
Horoscopes are fun. But we working women have more to consider than a zodiac when planning our families. After all, piglets need to eat.
February 19, 2007 9:00
Don't Measure My Productivity By Looking Over My Shoulder
Your boss is obsessed about how you spend your time.
We workers squander hour after work hour gabbing on the phone to mates, surfing the web for hot new outfits, playing Sudoku on our Crackberries--that is, according to HR surveys, books and product promos meant to teach employers how to crack the whip. Time-wasting is apparently at an all-time high in March, when college basketball season hits its peak. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas even places a dollar figure on the expected productivity loss: a staggering $3.8 billion. Here's the report:
The decision by CBS Sports to offer free online viewing of men's college basketball games during the annual NCAA championship tournament (better known as March Madness) is great news for hoops fans but it could be disastrous for the nation's employers, who will undoubtedly see a significant drop-off in worker productivity.The cost of this productivity drain could prove to be substantial over the three weeks of the tournament. In fact, for every 13.5 minutes workers spend on the Internet watching March Madness games, which begin on March 16, the cost to employers in lost wages alone exceeds $237 million. Over the 16 days of the tournament that could reach as high as $3.8 billion.
One company even invented some sort of software that locks down sports web sites during March Madness (you reading this, my friends at ESPN.com?). Here's the pitch:
With all the excitement of March Madness and office bracket pools around the corner, many employees will spend a considerate amount of time at work checking scores, standings, stats and all the latest news on the NCAA tournament. Norlight Telecommunications has been using their Managed Security Gateway services for a content filtering solution to help companies with this problem. Norlight can put an end to the non-productive web surfing by not allowing employees to view sites like CBSsportsline.com, ESPN.com and NCAA.org.
What kind of jerky employer would do that? Moreover, wouldn't that inspire employees to try more creative--and time-consuming--avenues, such as sneaking out to the corner bar to check out the scores? Or taking their cell phones outside to tap into ESPN.com's mobile web casts? Or making their poor girlfriends sit by the TV and call in every 5 minutes with updates?
But do workers waste nearly as much time at work as their bosses think? Administrative staffing company OfficeTeam commissioned a survey that highlighted a discrepancy:
• Workers were asked, "How much time each day do you think you spend attending to personal tasks during work hours?" Their mean response: 36 minutes.
• Executives were asked, "How much time each day do you think the average employee spends attending to personal tasks during work hours?" Their mean response: 43 minutes.
Me, I probably spend a lot more than 36 minutes on a given work day visiting doctors, researching my dad's stock transfer, going to the gym and e-mailing pictures of my sister's fourth baby (not all at once--I'm not that efficient). But here I am on a Sunday afternoon filing a blog post, researching a story assignment, sorting my notes on another assignment and plugging potential sources into a spreadsheet (yes, all at once--I guess I am kind of efficient).
All I'm saying is, measure my work by its quality, not quantity. But hey, sure, if you're going to measure quantity, embrace the fact that we 21st century workers simply don't do the 9-to-5 that well. Let us decide where to place those 40 hours. Remember when Mayor Bloomberg fired that New York City employee a year ago for having Solitaire up on his computer screen as he happened past? Maybe that worker was just taking a breather because he'd plugged away at his deadline project well into the a.m. the night before.
We live as we work, we work as we live. Let the people have their March Madness, and they may just give you a record-breaking April.
February 15, 2007 9:29
I Wasn't Laid Off (Yet). So Why Am I Depressed?
It's been one of those weeks. It started out crazy, then got insane, and finally spun out of control. The work load is driving us mad, and when I walk the corridors I see my colleagues look pooped.
That is, except for the ones who are leaving. They look refreshed, rejuvenated and positively sparkly. Like someone spiked their decafs with Vicodin.
Earlier this year, my company announced layoffs. They came in waves. First, a bunch of jobs were outright eliminated. Then they asked for big chunks of volunteers. Finally a few more jobs were cut. We're not totally sure the tsunami's over, but we think we see the waters receding.
Among the folks who are leaving, the ones who volunteered are, unsurprisingly, the ones who seem happiest. They chose to go. They've got other plans. They're looking ahead.
Call me addled or naive, but even the ones whose jobs were taken away seem a little lighter in the step.
Some people say getting canned is a new start. I always thought they're the glass-half-full people, the ones who tell you things happen for a reason, that some higher power must have a plan. Oh, yeah? That's garbage talk. Just ask the 13,000 at Chrysler or 700 at Nokia or 250 at MTV whose layoffs were announced this week. Ask the 133,818 the Bureau of Labor Statistics says lost their jobs in layoffs in December.
If management hadn't launched that stupid product no one wants or blown billions on that useless acquisition or paid a staggering severance to that fraudulent bomb of a CEO, we'd all be bustling away at our desks until Social Security kicks in. The higher powers can't balance the books, and now it's our problem.
But I've been reading the press materials for Fired!, a new movie by Annabelle Gurwitch, an actress whose career-defining moment came when she was canned by Woody Allen. She really did make lemonade, seems like: she took a lousy situation, yanked at her bootstraps and made a film. Talk about clever career management, too: she talked to all sorts of names in her industry--Tim Allen, Sarah Silverman, Robert Reich (Robert Reich?)--about their own experiences getting booted. She's casting boldface names and networking too.
In my office, those of us who got to keep our jobs (at least for now) seem leaden at the moment. I have my theories.
1. We're depressed by the departure of longtime, beloved work friends.
2. Layoffs take a psychological toll on the "survivors."
3. With the staff count lightened, our own work loads are suddenly heavier.
Tomorrow is the final day at work for many of my colleagues, and the send-off will likely turn boozy and teary. I'm too depressed to go. That, and I've got too much work.
February 13, 2007 4:45
Help--My Interviewer Is an Idiot
We read books and take workshops and practice in front of mirrors to look smart in a job interview. But what if the person conducting the interview is a dolt?
This occurred to me as I read a listserv discussion today among my fellow Asian American Journalists Association members. One member had recounted her cousin's encounter with an alumnus of an elite university. The interviewer had asked this young Korean-American man why he wasn't on the math team. When a mention of the young man's youth in Europe led to a discussion of the food there, the interviewer asked, "What about your own people's food?"
The retarded utterings of a racist interviewer is harmful enough in the college-application setting. (The young cousin apparently laughed off the incident, but its tale inspired a storm of similar memories among my colleagues.) The point that stayed with me was one made by several of the listserv members, some of whom had volunteered themselves as alumni interviewers: colleges for the most part offered them no training. No boundaries were set, no talking points outlined.
This is all too much like the real world, isn't it? HR pros get trained (I imagine--I hope) in the nuances of interviewing. But managers often don't, and often, they're the ones who have the final say.
Everybody's got their interviewing horror stories, right? I'm just saying we all too often blame ourselves--for lack of preparation, lack of sparkle, lack of ESP. Maybe we're blaming the wrong person in the room.
Here's one from my early-career archives. I was working at a ragtag group of free weekly newspapers held together by chewing gum and by the 24-hour labor of me and a spindly staff. The company was run by three fast-talking 20-something boys--everyone actually called them The Boys--though to this day I'm convinced the whole thing was a tax front for their cigar-chomping dad.
The Boys had just fired my boss and installed me in his place. At 23 I was completely unqualified to manage, and I was desperate to get out of there. One day I came across a classified ad that I circled three times: a newspaper in New Jersey was looking for someone to edit a new section dedicated to young readers. I was young! I loved New Jersey! This job was mine.
Three of the editors I met seemed to agree. They scribbled all over my résumé. They crowed over recent issues of the weeklies I'd edited. They laughed at my jokes, and they nodded like bobblehead dolls at my talk of nightlife coverage and college columns and MTV.
Then came The Worst Interview I've Ever Had. She hurried, late, into the meeting room, a stack of papers and a cup of coffee in her hands. Her hair was a mess. She spent a while in the doorway talking to a colleague. When she finally sat down, she scanned my portfolio with her lips pressed together. She narrowed her eyes when I spoke. There were long periods of silence. Though she would have been my direct superior, she was vague about the job itself.
Finally, she yawned. Interview over.
I went back to my job, certain I had blown it. I was right in one sense: the job offer never came. But I believed for years that it was my fault, that I had totally bombed in that last, crucial interview, screwing up my chance at a job I really wanted. It never occurred to me she might have been a lousy interviewer, and that she probably would have made for an equally lousy boss.
In the year that followed, I conducted some pretty horrible interviews myself. I didn't know how to discern if the candidate would make a good fit; I didn't describe the job or the work conditions honestly; my hair was probably a mess on more than one occasion (we pulled all-nighters a lot). But I was 23.
I sure could have used some guidelines, a training session, some coaching from a superior--anything. Instead I'm sure I made some big fat interviewing gaffes, some of which led to some big fat hiring disasters. One guy stayed two weeks before he skedaddled.
If you're a manager in a position to interview job candidates, take a hard look at your skills and habits. Don't assume it's up the job seeker to sink or swim in your little shark pool. Take a mo to practice. Brush up on your tactics (this web site is helpful). The recommendation you make based on your interview is going to cost your employer, and it could change the course of the job candidate's life.
And it wouldn't hurt to brush your hair.
February 12, 2007 5:18
Please, No Sex in the Cubicles
My workplace is pretty unsexy. The glass-doored offices and the gray decor and buttoned-up coworkers just don't do it for me.
Most offices are downright sterile, aren't they? Yet workers around the world apparently manage to get something on amid their furry walled cubicles. Excuse me, but I find this totally ew. (Unless it happens on TV, like on Ugly Betty, when this guy from accounting develops a crush on our heroine. Then I find it utterly adorable.)
Anyway, I am so alone in my disinterest in workplace romance, according to a recent study by staffing company Randstad USA. Some "key findings":
• 37% of working adults have flirted with a colleague;
• 8% currently have a secret crush at work;
• 17% of working adults have secretly dated someone from work;
• 45% of working adults residing in the Western U.S. said they have flirted with a colleague;
• two-thirds (66%) of working adults enjoy socializing with co-workers outside of the workplace;
• Midwesterners are more than twice as likely to say they have played matchmaker to a co-worker.
Apparently, the American West is a hotbed for office shenanigans:
• 45% of working adults residing in the Western U.S. said they have flirted with a colleague, compared with respondents in the Midwest (32%), Northeast (34%) and South (37%).
• Nationwide, 41% of working men admitted that they have flirted with a co-worker, compared to 32% of women.
• Men are also twice as likely as women to be set up on a date by a colleague (12% of men indicated a colleague has played matchmaker for them) and three times as likely to have a secret crush at work (12% of men, compared to 4% of women).
To some, the workplace is like a 9-to-5 singles party, with meetings:
• Two-thirds (66%) of working adults enjoy socializing with co-workers outside of the workplace.
• Those in the South (41%) and Midwest (35%) like socializing with co-workers at company parties and Northeasterners favor dinner (37%) or happy hour (28%).
But in social life as in work life, it's the women who want commitment:
• Of the women surveyed, 53% have had an “office spouse” or someone at work with whom they confide about personal matters and relationship issues, compared to 42% of men.
Why can't you just be my office buddy? Why is everything about sex in this country? Why can't we all just get along--as colleagues?
February 11, 2007 4:38
Romance in the Workplace Is Totally Ick
Valentine's Day is coming up. I know because my daughter--along with recruiters, temp agencies, employment lawyers and even my employer--keep telling me so.
My kid, I forgive; she's just aping her teachers, who are possibly brainwashing her so that I'll remember to supply the cupcakes. In the spirit of Cupid, I also forgive the PR folks: they figure I'm going to write something pegged to V-Day and are providing me with an angle. In other words, they're just doing their jobs.
So if you're a friendly publicist type planning to follow up on your V-day pitch, I'll make it clear. Here's my stand on this: I think romance in the workplace is creepy. The thought of people I work with finding love amid the cubicles makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Don't put up hearts around your office or involve me in a Secret Valentine. I love a lot of my colleagues. Just not in that way.
Recent news events support my anti-work-love position. Look at poor Lisa Nowak. How is she supposed to face the people at work, now that she's driven halfway across the country in diapers to pepper-spray a colleague over her unrequited love for their hunky superior? Of course, she's probably a little more worried about the intended murder charge. But still, it would have made for a really uncomfortable few weeks around the NASA watercoolers.
The whole astronaut love triangle thing brought to the fore some interesting workplace facts, though. Like, did you know one-third of employers lack an employee dating policy? That's according to a survey by my friends at outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. CEO John Challenger writes:
"Admittedly, a formal policy on workplace romance would have done little for NASA, where it appears that the unrequited affections of one astronaut for another drove her to make some pretty poor decisions. No policy can prevent this type of irrational behavior. However, most companies would benefit by spelling out the rules of workplace romance. It would be foolhardy to completely outlaw all romantic associations between co-workers, but companies can prohibit such relationships between supervisors and their subordinates."
More findings:
• 45% of companies forbid supervisor-subordinate romance;
• 14% have no policy, but discourage intra-office romance;
• 3% simply turn a blind eye.
It's not that I'd advocate forbidding workplace romance. I get the argument; with our 24/7 workstyles, how else are we supposed to find a mate if not at the office? I just don't want to know about it, is all. Until you get married or you both quit.
Here's the workplace romance policy I'd advocate: don't ask, don't tell, and for the love of Pete don't practice PDA among your colleagues.
February 8, 2007 3:35
Fraternizing With Colleagues Boosts Productivity
I had lunch today with a blogger friend of mine. We met last spring when we both spoke on a panel of workplace reporters arranged by the Publicity Club of New York. She's one of those people I instantly clicked with, due in part to our apparently parallel lives: we write for a living; we were both about to publish our first books; we covered the same beat; we have small children; and we're essentially married to the same person.
Anyway, soon after we met she moved to Madison, Wis. I kept up on her life and career success through her blog; and when I launched mine in the fall, she did the same.
Over sushi today we hashed over her publicity plan for the upcoming publication of her book. We talked about our families. We talked about our blogs. I gave her names of journalist friends to whom she could pitch her book; she gave me pages of advice on how to market and improve my blog (I took notes).
During the three months I spent working from home due to an illness, this kind of collegial contact is what I missed most. (It's also the reason I got so much work done, but I'll get back to that.) My friend leads a similar lifestyle as a freelance writer, her husband minding the baby as she scoots out to a nearby cafe to write. She says it's to get away from the kids but I think she likes being around people--even strangers. Me, I was pretty much confined to the house, but I tried to keep up with friends and colleagues over the phone and through e-mail.
I think workers need other workers. I've advocated in this space about the virtues of flex time, and I still feel strongly that workers ought to be given more control over where and when we work. But I also believe, now more than ever, that employers should keep some office space, mainly so employees can commune and cocreate and cowork.
Some employers are threatened by employee fraternization. That, at least, was what drove the case decided last week by the U.S. Appeals court. Here, from the L.A. Times:
A three-judge panel found that an anti-fraternization policy of the security-services firm Guardsmark intruded into federal labor law that gives workers the right to organize and to "engage in other concerted activities."
Aside from the threat of undercover unionization, employers might also worry about the drain on productivity when coworkers fraternize. Sure, you could argue the hour I spent over sushi with my friend was an hour I could have spent at my computer, racing toward the two deadlines I face next week. You could even argue we're more productive at home, as many recent studies have. You could argue I could have dug up the same advice she gave me in some books or a webinar.
But I've always absorbed information better presented live by other people. And I'm not alone. My friend pointed out that my suggestions to her were the same suggestions she makes every day on her job advice columns. "It's the hardest thing to take your own advice," she marveled.
In contrast, here's one thing I sure didn't miss about the office: these dang fire drills. Ours are announced by a high-pitched buzz and then the building safety director shouting on the speaker system. My smoke alarms at home are pretty loud, but at least I can smash them quiet with a broom handle. Being back in the office forces me to exhibit acceptable fire-safety behavior. Besides, I don't have a broom.
February 7, 2007 9:59
More Thoughts on Corporate Blogging
Last week I blogged about the perils of corporate blogging. I cited a study, the Corporate Blogging Survey of 2005 by Backbone Media. Its lead author, John Cass--who is also author of Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging (to be published in April by Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann)--writes in with some interesting points:
There can indeed be harmful consequences from starting a blog, the Mark Jen story comes to mind, he was a Google employee who wrote critical comments about Google's benefits packaged compared to his former employer, Microsoft, as well as writing about future Google projects, all of this during a sensitive time when the company was going public. Mark Jen lost his job at Google. There have been only a few such incidents, and I personally would suggest companies have less to fear from bloggers than the employees who are not blogging. The story of Jeremy Hermanns is a good illustration; Jeremy suffered from the decompression of his Alaska Airlines jet, he and the rest of the passengers and crew landed safely. Jeremy blogged about the incident and posted some pictures. He received a lot of support from people in comments on this blog, accept for one or two people who roundly criticized his posts. Jeremy investigated the posts and allegedly discovered that the comments came from someone with an Alaska Airlines IP address. That's a good lesson; if a company writes a blogging policy it should cover every one, bloggers and the non-blogging employees.
You cited the Corporate Blogging Survey 2005 in your post; I was the lead author on the study when I used to work at backbone. I think the two examples I gave above would give any company pause before proceeding with a corporate blog. Yet, blogs offer companies the ability to connect with their customers in ways that are not possible with other forms of marketing. You can converse and have a conversation, have the space to reveal more about you, and change the face of a company from faceless to one with personality. In fact personalization was a key success factor I found in another study on blogging success last year. Yes I agree proceed with caution by planning and being prepared but also understand the potential benefits you can gain from blogging that are not possible with other forms of communication.
I contacted the Google blogger Mark Jen, or tried to, for a story I co-wrote with Kristina Dell last summer about employers snooping on their workers. Alas, he was on holiday in Singapore. So I e-mailed him again today for his take on corporate blogging. Here's his story:
I started at Google in mid-January of 2005; I had left Microsoft and moved down to California to pursue this exciting career opportunity. The day I started my new job was the day I started my new blog. I started the blog for a variety of reasons: to keep in touch with friends and family across the country, to help provide feedback for the Blogger team (which is owned and operated by Google), and to keep a personal log of what I was doing. Although it was public, I didn't think very many people would be interested in my blog. After all, there are millions of them out there and they seemed to be mostly boring.
I started blogging about moving to San Francisco, working for Google, and various other things that came across my mind. The original blog is still available and can be found here. Looking back on things, here's what happened:1. There wasn't an explicit blogging policy that I could follow so I used my best judgment. I learned that "best judgment" is highly subjective.
2. I didn't know the power of blogging and how the landscape of news and information was changing. When people found my blog and everyone was talking about it on the blogosphere, I was the last to know. I quickly learned how blogging was changing the spread of information and about the dynamics of the blogosphere.
3. I didn't realize that Google had a closed, secretive culture. I was used to Microsoft's culture, where all employees are encouraged to blog and interact directly with the external community. I should have acclimated myself to the culture and understood the implicit guidelines before I started blogging.
Eleven days after I started at Google, I was fired--it was a "perfect storm" of different circumstances that came together at the speed of the Internet :)
Mark Jen is now product line manager at technology company Plaxo, and he still keeps a lively blog--with the knowledge of his employer. He adds: "In addition to authoring Plaxo's blogging policy, I also speak at conferences across the country."
So Jen landed on his feet. But as his story shows, blogging about your company can be dangerous. Here, a section from our article:
Bloggers, be careful. Workers at Google, Delta Airlines and Microsoft have claimed their blogs got them fired. But with more than 50 million blogs out there, employers like Microsoft train new hires on blog etiquette. Curt Hopkins of Ashland, Ore., says a public radio station cut short a job interview after the boss read his blog; he was later hired by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to "build buzz online." [Penelope] Trunk, who now blogs about workplace issues on Brazen Careerist, says telling young workers not to blog is like telling a baby boomer not to use the phone. "When major corporations try too hard to block the electronic community," she says, "Generation Y just leaves."
The Facebook set may not like it, but courts are mostly giving the O.K. to corporate spying. "I haven't seen one case where an employee has won on a right-of-privacy claim," says Anthony Oncidi, head of the labor and employment department at law firm Proskauer Rose. Companies can ward off privacy claims if they have informed staff members they're being monitored, even if only in a single sentence in a rarely read handbook. Even when there is no advance notice, workplace-privacy claims have proved hard to win. Only two states (Connecticut and Delaware) require bosses to tell workers they're being monitored, but even in those places, there aren't restrictions on spying.Businesses argue that their snooping is justified. Not only are they trying to guard trade secrets and intellectual property, but they also must ensure that workers comply with government regulations, such as keeping medical records and credit-card numbers private. And companies are liable for allowing a hostile work environment--say, one filled with porn-filled computer screens--that may lead to lawsuits. "People write very loosely with their e-mails, but they can unintentionally reach thousands, like posters throughout a work site," says Charles Spearman of diversity-management consultants Tucker Spearman & Associates. "In an investigation, that e-mail can be one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence." In fact, a ruling in New Jersey last year found an employer had a duty to investigate an employee's viewing of child pornography and report it to the police.
You've been warned.
February 6, 2007 2:43
Do You Give at the Office?
So I was ambling down the hall on my way back from the kitchen with some decaf green tea when I saw my colleague Amy Goehner packing boxes. The sight filled me with dread. A lot of people at my company are volunteering for severance packages amid rolling layoffs, and lately it seems like all my favorite coworkers are taking the plunge.
Amy saw my face and said, "No, no, I'm not leaving." The piles of brand new children's books were leftover review copies from our year-end holiday book guide, she explained. She was packing them in boxes to send to a charity called First Book.
I complained recently in this space about the mountains of mail we get--not about reader mail, which obviously we cherish, but press materials sent to us by corporations eager to appear in the pages of the publication. It's not that I object to solicitations; after all, how would I know about your revolutionary new payroll-management software if you don't tell me about it? My issue is that mail--physical mail, the kind sent via the post office in large padded envelopes, or worse, expressly through some expensive brown-colored service--is a huge waste. Have we never heard of e-mail?
And don't get me started on the books sent to us for review or author interviews. Again, I don't have anything against books; having written one recently myself, many copies of which wound up in many reviewers' trash cans, I have every appreciation for the sweat and toil that went into each one. But I also have a growing appreciation for--or, rather, guilt about--the usage of pulp paper by the tonnage. Right now I have a crate of books by management gurus and career experts in my office, awaiting a fate that does not include my cracking their spines. I feel terrible about this, in equal parts for their hard-working authors, but also for the forest of trees they caused to be felled.
I was planning to dump these books at one of the many stations around the office where we leave goodies for other coworkers to sift through (there must be someone on staff who could use one of my three copies of What Color Is Your Parachute 2007). But clearly I lack the creativity and magnanimity of some of my colleagues, for here was one who had come up with not just a clever way to reduce the stuff in her office but also to bring joy to some deserving little person.
Few of us do enough to harness the enormous philanthropic power of our employers and fellow employees. Sure, we might pony up a twenty when a coworker appears at our office door, hat in hand, to gather pledges for the 15k he's running, in drag, to raise money for his sister's ailment. But the real money lies in our employers' coffers. Many corporations large and small offer matching funds for donations to various charities. Deep pockets aren't all; companies also offer ready pools of talented and eager volunteers.
If you think about it, the workplace is a natural resource for organizing and raising funds for charities. So why don't more of us tap it?
Often, it takes a personal connection to spur us to action. A few years ago, my longtime mentor Marlene Kahan--a woman I call "mom"--was diagnosed with Parkinson's. Once she got over the shock and horror, she threw herself into the cause. Marlene raised $60,000 for the Unity Walk, an annual walkathon that raises money for Parkinson's research, making her the top fundraiser. Let me repeat that: she raised $60,000 in her first year of fundraising for a disease she just learned she had. She did it by swallowing her pride and asking colleagues and business associates to participate; being that she's the head of the American Society of Magazine Editors, hers is not exactly a skimpy Rolodex. Last year, she went a step further by getting magazines to donate pages to run public service ads. She figures the free ad space in publications including Prevention and BusinessWeek is worth about $25 million. (Click here to donate to her Team Mag Queen on this year's Unity Walk.)
"There are so many ways for employees to get involved, if they choose to," says Beth Bingham. She's the spokesperson for First Book, and I called her to find out more about how workers might contribute to charities like hers. First Book is a Washington, D.C.-based group founded in 1992 "with one simple mission: for children from low-income families to read and own their first new books." The charity has so far donated 48 million books--about 7 million a year--to readers age 0 to 18. Most of the books are donated by publishers, but First Book also facilitates book purchases by groups serving low-income families through grants.
Publishers and booksellers like Borders are a natural fit for a literacy-focused charity like First Book. But employers as diverse as Cheerios and Build-a-Bear have contributed too. Workers at SunTrust Mortgage have formed an advisory committee to help First Book locate groups that serve poor children. Here's Baskin-Robbins' involvement, as cited on First Book's web site:
Baskin-Robbins stores across the country sponsored “Free Scoop Night” for five consecutive years to thank customers for their support and give them a chance to help Baskin-Robbins "lick illiteracy." As part of this campaign, Baskin-Robbins made a yearly donation to First Book. Nationwide, First Book Advisory Boards publicized local events and drove traffic to their local Baskin-Robbins stores. The 2004 national spokesperson for Free Scoop Night was Teri Polo, star of Meet the Parents and its sequel Meet the Fockers. In 2003, Brittany Snow, star of the NBC series American Dreams, served as national spokesperson for Free Scoop Night; Alexis Bledel, star of The Gilmore Girls, served as spokesperson in 2002; and Frankie Muniz, star of Malcolm in the Middle, was spokesperson in 2001.
Now this here is a win-win; not only does reading this make me crave a double scoop of Jamoca Almond Fudge, I now have warm thoughts about a brand that until recently I associated only with frozen dairy products. My own employer--and yours, no doubt--could use this kind of consumer huggability. Let's get on it, friends. Anyone know of a charity that takes brand new management self-help books?
February 5, 2007 10:14
Are Women "Baby-Making Machines"?
Yes, according to no less an expert than the health minister of Japan. Hakuo Yanagisawa made the comments recently as he addressed Japan's low birth rate. According to Reuters:
On January 27, Yanagisawa told his supporters in a speech touching on Japan's low birthrate: "Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head."
Opposition-party politicians and men-on-the-street all over Japan are professing outrage and calling for the guy's resignation. Me, I think it's all a hoot. It's hysterical that some crusty old geezers in my home country (Yanagisawa is 71) still think the way to get families to produce more kids is to guilt the women into bearing them.
The majority of Japanese women work, and 66% are or were married. And Japan has horrible maternity leave policies. Chizuko Ueno, a Tokyo University professor and well-known gender-rights advocate, spoke on the subject in a speech last spring (recounted here in the Japan Media Review):
Japanese women are being forced to choose between starting a family and pursuing their careers--and many plump for the latter. Although Japan has a law saying that firms are obliged to give one year of maternity leave, according to the Gender Equality Bureau, 70% of women are effectively forced to resign from work when they get pregnant. Barely 1 in 5 women take maternity leave, and despite being legally entitled to paternity leave, virtually no men (0.56%) take time off.
Many women report being told to quit or being bullied into leaving when they become pregnant. One young mother, "Miyako," took maternity leave from her job at a trading company shortly before her son was born, but she doesn’t know yet if she will go back to work or not. “My boss told me, ‘Your position might not still be available when you come back.’” Despite that, she says that her company is relatively considerate to female employees. She said she has heard of expectant mothers made ill by the stress at other companies.
Other developed nations are at least making a stab at change. Korea, another nation ruled by crusty old geezers, is one. Here, from the Korea Herald today:
Last year, the government issued new maternity measures to support working moms. Under the policy, wages paid to female employees at mid-tier companies during their three-month maternity leave are fully covered by the state employment insurance program and government budget. Starting March, the government also plans to increase the maternity leave wages to 500,000 won a month from the current 400,000 won. The paid leave will also apply to mothers of up to three-year-old infants from the current one-year-olds, meaning that mothers can use their three months of leave anytime up to the time the child is four years old.
The really super funny thing is that the U.S. is just as bad at accommodating women who give birth--if not worse. Read this laugh-till-it-hurts study from the folks at Harvard and Canada's McGill. It's titled, "The Work, Family, and Equity Index: How Does the United States Measure Up?" The answer is: we don't.
Here's my favorite factoid, as interpreted by the AP report (bolds mine):
The U.S. is one of only five countries out of 173 in the survey that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave; the others are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea.
See? Funny! We're worse than Liberia! Give me a sec to wipe my eyes.
More hilarious factoids:
• Fathers are granted paid paternity leave or paid parental leave in 65 countries, including 31 offering at least 14 weeks of paid leave. The U.S. guarantees fathers no such paid leaves.
• At least 107 countries protect working women's right to breast-feed; the breaks are paid in at least 73 of them. The U.S. does not have federal legislation guaranteeing the right to breast-feed at work.• At least 145 countries provide paid sick days, with 127 providing a week or more annually. The U.S. provides unpaid leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act, which does not cover all workers; there is no federal law providing for paid sick days.
• At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week. The U.S. does not have a maximum work week length or a limit on mandatory overtime per week.
In light of all this, this story, from WomensENews, about the National Chauvinistic Husbands Association, will sober you right up. It's about a gang of crusty old geezers in Japan who suddenly awoke to the realization that they were lousy husbands and fathers (typically as they were being served with the divorce papers). A quote from the founder:
"I realized I had only communicated three things to my wife: 'furo,' 'meshi' and 'neru,' which mean 'bath,' 'dinner' and 'sleep,'" he said. "It is the typical way for a strong husband to communicate with his family."
Now that's just sad. Well, change has to start somewhere, and home is as good a battleground as any.
February 2, 2007 3:19
Corporate Blogging: Proceed With Caution
My blog got me in trouble the other day.
I had just published a posting referring to a company event. It turns out the event is hush-hush. I had no idea. My supervisor came tearing down the hall, and--thanks to the magic of the Internet--I turned back the clock and took the posting down.
Corporate blogging can be tricky. Employers generally regard workers' blogs with a wary eye, even when the blogs are authorized, like mine--and not without reason. What if I leak a trade secret? Report mistaken information? Embarrass the boss by kvetching about the poor soda selection in the kitchen vending machine?
By allowing a worker to blog about the company, the employer is to some extent letting the world see how the sausage is made. For any sausage-maker, the picture is not always pretty. So what should employers do: censor the material? Set strict guidelines? Keep their fingers crossed?
Why would corporations launch blogs at all? According to a 2005 survey by Backbone Media, an Internet marketing consultancy in Waltham, Mass., the top three reasons are that blogs are "another way to publish content and ideas," a way to create "thought leadership," and and a way to "build a community."
The top concern for employers about blogs is "cost in terms of man hours," says the survey. "Legal liability" comes second. So it turns out your boss is more concerned with the hours you spend researching, interviewing and crafting the blog entries so that they won't get sued than they are about getting sued.
Still, blogs are worrisome enough to trigger a whole new wave of migraines for the general counsels of the corporate world. It's laid the groundwork for a new breed of consultancy; an outsourced legal firm called The General Counsel "offers company executives ways to use blogging as a means to improve company reputation without inviting a host of legal troubles."
Even workers who blog privately from home shouldn't think they're doing so with immunity. According to the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute's 2006 survey,
nearly 2% of employers have fired workers for offensive blog content--including posts on employees' personal home-based blogs.
Nancy Flynn's 2006 book, Blog Rules, lists potential areas of legal trouble posed by blogs:
copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, defamation, sexual harassment and other legal claims; trade secret theft, financial disclosures, and other security breaches; blog mob attacks and other PR nightmares; productivity drains; and mismanagement of electronic business records.
By far the best strategy is for employers to set forth some road rules--a step many have as of yet failed to take. According to the AMA/ePolicy Institute survey,
8% of organizations operate business blogs. In spite of the risks, only 9% have policy governing the operation of personal blogs on company time; 7% have policy governing employees’ business blog use and content; 7% have rules governing the content employees may post on their personal home-based blogs; 6% use policy to control personal postings on corporate blogs; 5% have strict anti blog policies banning blog use on company time; and merely 3% have blog record retention policies in place.
In-house lawyers and HR staff need only Google "corporate blogs" to come up with dozens of recommended guidelines for blogging. Click here for 12 blog rules excerpted from Flynn's book on the International Association of Online Communications web site. Here's a legal guide for bloggers on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's web site.