Scott D Jones - Staffing Consultant - Toledo, Ohio

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Yesterday I attended the Season Opener for the Mud Hens despite the cold weather.  It is always interesting how every professional in Toledo makes their way up to the suites.  This makes it very interesting to try and navigate the hallways elbow to elbow with people.  As soon as we went up the elevator we ran into someone we knew and somehow ended up in the same exact spot for two hours.  It seemed like everytime we would end one conversation someone new would show up to talk to.  I am definetely not complaining because after that two hour time span we tried to navigate the hallways and that was exhausting.  Every year I say that I am going to watch the game and I fail.  I caught the score once on the TV's that are littered in the hall.

It is one of the greatest networking events to ever attend.  On that same note it is probably one of the funest with everyone in good spirits about spring even though last night was freezing.  Even though it was a loss for the Hens it was a huge success with over 12 thousand in attendance.  It was a delight to see the city spark with every business and restaurant in the area hustling and bustling.  We went to Pizza Papolis afterwards and as always had an amazing pizza there even after a short wait it was worth it the place was packed.  While walking in front of other local bars it was not the only place packed full of people.

From my understanding this is a huge weekend for Toledo as it is season opening weekend and there is also the Mini-Plane Convention at Seagate.  Toledo is supposed to attract over 40,000 people this weekend alone.  Not to mention the Brad Paisley tickets went on sale this morning!  I got my set of tickets that should be a great show.

A whole lot of things happening for Toledo right now lets get out and support that get out to a game or event this weekend.  Make the best out of each event so that we continue to have great attendance and support our local venues with drinks or food pick your poison!  I am looking forward to a great summer with a lot of events coming up to keep the flow moving downtown. 

Glad to see everyone last night and I am sure I will be seeing everyone again at the many games to come!

I know it has been a couple months with no posts.  My new position has been demanding and I apologize for neglecting my readers. 

Today I will discuss priorities and I will ask how it is you manage multiple tasks in the real world and also online.

When you start your day do you have a routine?  What do you start with and how do you determine if something is of more importance than another?  Myself I determine what to start with depending on how long I have to complete the task.  Although this I will openly say is not the most efficient or effective way to work.  Sometimes things that you want to get to will take a back seat to things that you have to complete.  My goal in writing this is to open communication about how you complete tasks daily.

I am a bit of a procrastinator I will admit it.  If I have something that is due I will wait until the last minute possible to turn it in.  This is also not the most efficient but I have found it to work best for me because I work best under pressure.  If a deadline is pushing down on me it seems like my best work comes out of that.  I am not sure if my brain functions differently and if brainstorming last minute jump starts my ideas I am unclear of how it works.  For some reason though it does work I lose focus if there is a deadline a month away.  I can try to put forth my best efforts but the results are never the same.  What is your best practice?  Do you work well under pressure?  Or do you work best when you know you have completed an assignment months in advance?

Right now I am working on a way to allow myself to write at least two articles a week for this blog.  This article will help me hold myself accountable to writing.  What system do you have in place to make sure that you are held accountable for personal and professional goals?  Are you the type of person that has to have the boss tell you to do something or do you work well under your own supervision? 

In a perfect world you would have all of your priorities straight and you could work efficiently towards the end result.  The problem is that we all have different work styles and we have to find what works best for ourselves.  We must develop this process and continue to strive for the best quality for our work in whatever way we feel comfortable.

Today I read an article from CareerBuilder about employers sharing their top staffing challenges.  This has inspired me to write an article similar, but completely talking about Gen-Y.  I have no specific percentages as this is just my professional opinion on what I have been hearing about Gen-Y employees.  I will list the challenges below and then explain them following the rest of the bullets.

 

1. Professional Development – Developing employees into future leaders of their company.
2. Empty Promises – Telling an employee they will be doing something that they want to do when in all reality the position requires less then 10% of that specific duty.
3. Low Salary – Lower salary than other positions that are similar.
4. Not Offering Flexible Schedule – Not allowing employees to determine the hours that they will work.
5. Offering No Incentives – No drive to excel at your job.

 

Professional Development is extremely important in every organization it is molding the future leaders of your organization.  All Gen-Y’s have the “I want it now” perspective (myself included as I am also a Gen-Y).  This means that we want to exceed and work hard to make it to the top as soon as we can.  Although some may get frustrated if your company is Baby Boomer dominate as many of the Baby Boomers feel you must earn it and put in your time before your opinion matters.  This attitude you cannot have or else you will no be able to retain Gen-Y employees.  Or possibly worse you will retain the employees that you do not want that have no ambitions or they are comfortable where they are.  Allow them to get involved in the community with local chambers and other networking opportunities to help them grow there network.  As Gen-Y we like to be challenged and we love success as when we were younger we were always told we could do anything and be anything when we grow up. 

 

Empty Promises is something that too many employers are beginning to offer to the younger workforce in order to keep them in a job or hire them.  The thing about empty promises they tend to work themselves out.  If you were promised something in an interview and you have been in the job for a couple of months now.  The promise dissipates more and more as time goes on more than likely it was an empty promise.  I believe most companies have an issue with this because they have not re-evaluated many of their job descriptions when they post them.  We are living in a different age now and most positions have changed in the past 2-5 years.  A recently vacated position ad will sometimes be run as the company ran it last time that position was empty.  Only thing is now things have changed.  The way we run and operate on a day to day basis does not promise the same job description it once did.  Always update your job description because more than likely something has changed or you may want to add certain job duties as well.  This is very important as if we get into a position and things were promised and they are not being met then more than likely they will be looking elsewhere.

 

Low Salary is another thing that too many employers are offering to good quality employees.  Just because you are hiring someone straight out of college does not mean that they should be paid lower because they have no experience.  They have bills just as the rest of the world and more than likely more with student tuition continuing to rise.  Have you ever heard the saying “you get what you pay for”?  This is relevant in employee salary as well.  Gen-Y employees will be less motivated to work hard and finish tasks early if they are struggling to make it financially.  If you want a productive and happy Gen-Yer pay them a reasonable wage or it will reflect on their performance.

 

Many employers have started to offer flexible scheduling this is the Gen-Yer’s dream they can work on their time.  This is important as they sometimes struggle with certain shift changes compared to what they are used to.  If they work better and they are more productive at 7PM then why not offer that because overall you will be saving money.  They may not be able to get acquainted with the 9am-5pm shift as their schedule has been class Mon-Thurs generally 10am-7pm for the past 4 years.  I think it is extremely important to allow flex scheduling if the job description allows it.  On the same note as scheduling allow them some vacation time.  Many Gen-Y employees get burnt out after doing the same thing over a long period of time.  They will come back from a vacation refreshed and eager to come up with new ideas.  Compared to just putting in their time and looking forward to the weekend for some break in the normal routine.

 

Gen-Y employees generally like recognition and being rewarded for things.  If you offer incentives even if it is a monthly sales goal and if you meet it you get a $10 gift card to wherever it is important to keep people engaged.  You will be surprised the competition that will derive from something as small as a $10 gift card.  Good competition is healthy and keeps you on your toes and makes you strive to be your best.  Gen-Yer’s have developed an attitude that a paycheck is owed to them from their company and if that’s all they get there is no incentive there.  Get them motivated by offering something even if it is a small token to show your appreciation that they are working hard for you.  Small tokens of appreciation and “pats on the back” are very important to our generation it tells us that we are doing something right.  Then if we do more things that are good and similar we are on the right track.

 

In conclusion do not under estimate your Gen-Y employees even though they are young and may not have a plethora of experience they have great ideas.  Ideas that get people involved and it allows you to keep a thriving workforce.  Remember you will want to retire one day and you have to leave your legacy to the younger workforce.  So focus on the younger generations and teach them important tools to increase their knowledge.  Give them more responsibility so that they can learn what it means to fail and succeed in your business. 

 

-Scott

 

 

This is a very inspirational talk that David Blaine gives about his preparation for his World Record of holding his breath for 17 Minutes.  I do not know how he has done this I can barely hold my breath for a minute or two underwater.  The preparation he speaks about is amazing alone that he would put his body through such torment and hardship.  This feat truly shows that the sky is the limit and if you want something bad enough you are the only one that can make that happen!

-Scott

I am sure by now everyone has seen the Pants on the Ground guy from American Idol.  General Larry Platt performed for the Minnesota Vikings yesterday before there game with the Saints.  Unfortunately with 4 turnovers and numerous opportunities to win the game and play in the superbowl the Vikings must have felt this was going to be appropriate for their performance.  General Larry Platt is an amazing story of "Social Media" and videos going "Viral".  Regular everyday people that most of us would not give the time of day becoming celebrities overnight with some sort of performance via YouTube or some other form of Social Media.  I find it very ironic the Vikings chose to have him come sing this song as I think the Vikings can relate to having been caught with their pants on the ground.

Scott

Yesterday I realized how reliant I have become on a simple technology I take for granted everyday, the cell phone.  Apparently I am not sure if it was just Toledo or what the radius of the issue but I was without service for about 3 hours.  It started at 4:30PM and my normal routine was then disrupted because generally when I get off of work I start to call my girlfriend, family, and friends to see how the day went.  I also never realized that I have worked myself into a regular routine it just kind of happened.  When my phone continuously stated phone call failed that just kept raising the boiling point.  This leads me to a couple questions that I have for you the reader.

 

• Do you have any routines that have been interrupted that you did not know you had?
• Have we become so comfortable with technology that we sometimes take it for granted?
• Is this a bad thing to allow ourselves to habitually check our phones and send text messages regularly?
• How is it that we have our whole line of communication with others wrapped in one small little package that we usually abuse (sometimes not on purpose)?
• If we completely rely on the cell phones to deliver our information how do we know what is going on?

 

The last question I would like to focus on because this is probably the biggest problem I see with our reliance on cell phones to deliver our news.  When it is down how can we know if it is just our phones or if it is something on a larger scale?

 

My own opinion I think that it is all very bad as I was extremely frustrated last night by just a small break in communication.  I have become to reliant of the cell phone and I am going to try and slowly back off a little bit and not use it so often. 

 

Luckily I do have a Blackberry Storm and for once RIM was up and Verizon was not so I did still have access to emails and the internet.  I also found it useful to have GTalk to communicate with others through a different medium for once.  Also my Facebook and Twitter app worked so I saw that it was not only me fairly quickly.

 

I have decided to switch things up a bit and start with the Video of the week.  This video from Grab a Seat is hilarious and is following recent Cougar trends.  Such as Cougar Town and the Cruise line recently offering a "Cougar Only" cruise with their cubs (young men they are dating).  Overall I find that it is a very clever way to reach audiences and humor will always have my attention!

Scott

My video of the week is an unfortunate one.  It is video of the destruction the 7.0 earthquake brought down to Haiti.  The amazing thing out of all of this is the utilization of Social Networking in order to communicate with the outside world.  People in Haiti, a mere 10% of which have access to the internet, they have been posting updates to twitter as well as facebook.  They are posting messages stating who is ok in their families and also giving outside resources an idea of some kind of damage control.  Wyclef Jean a singer born in Haiti has utilized Social Networking to ask for relief for the country by asking for donations via cell phone text messages.  If you are interested please check out their website and also their twitter account.  To donate all you have to do is go to the site or text YELE to number 501 501 from your cell phone and a $5 charge will be put directly on your cell phone bill.