A Breath of Fresh Air

It's easy for people to be down in the dumps about the current state of the economy and the gloomy jobs front. From my perspective as someone who works in Human Resources its frustrating to see so much talent in the workforce not being put to good use. I can only imagine how frustrating it is from the job-seeker's point of view. I'm of that certain age where I sometimes catch myself looking at the younger generations wondering what they have to look forward to if things don't change. Then along comes someone to shake me up with a completely different perspective.

Penelope Trunk is a commentator on CNN, 20/20 and FOX News, and also hosts her own career advice website which sees more than half a million hits a month. Recently she wrote a piece on why young people don't fear the lousy job market. Among her observations:

• As the country moves to a knowledge-based economy, most Americans can no longer expect to earn more than the generation before them.
• When the economy rebounds it will likely not be a recovery where the traditional skills of older people come back into demand; the jobs that emerge will be in new sectors, will require different skill sets, and the financial expectations of employees will permanently shift because of the new realities.
• Young people know these things. They are not waiting around for things to change, to get back to how they used to be because that will never happen. Young people accept the realities of today and jump right in. According to Trunk this is why young people on a whole are optimistic about their ability to get a job and find their place in the world.

Though she acknowledges that the emerging generation is in horrible financial shape due to a combination of outrageous student loans and low wage entry jobs, she sees the future as bright. She's banking on the changing demographics of America favoring the younger generations in the years to come, and she may have a point. Even though their departure may be delayed, the Baby Boomers will eventually leave the job market, and when they do the younger generation will capitalize on the anticipated labor shortage.

Anyone who's been around the workforce for a while knows they've been forecasting a labor shortage for a long time now, but if it ever materializes as Trunk foresees, its certainly the Gen-Y group that will likely most benefit. According to Trunk they'll get higher paying jobs faster, move up the corporate ladder more quickly, and they'll be able to remake the workplace in their own image without much resistance. When you look at it from that perspective, why not be optimistic? She even quotes a finding from Pyschology Today that people who are optimistic are more likely to create their own luck. And she makes a point that I think most of us would agree with - a successful career is a combination of hard work and good luck.

Perhaps this optimism is in part born of the fact that the younger generation isn't yet fully invested, either financially or emotionally, in their own status quo and has less to lose when the status quo of another generation crumbles. Still, reading Ms. Trunk's piece almost makes me wish I was younger and just starting out. Almost...

Is Schmoozing a Good or Bad Thing?

I read an interesting blog by Steve Tobak, one of my favorite bloggers, on BNET this afternoon that talked about the fine art of schmoozing. To me this word usually brings with it some negative connotations but after reading the blog I changed my impression. As the article points out, business success is all about relationships, and schmoozing enables these relationships. Merriam Webster defines schmoozing as : to converse informally : chat; also : to chat in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business, or connections. In this context I can see where the ability to schmooze appropriately might be an invaluable skillset.

The blog offers some tips on how to schmooze in an appropriate manner:

• Be credible.
• Focus on the other person, not on you. Connecting with others means finding things you have in common, not so much about what you think.
• People like to be schmoozed. Some folks go way overboard in their attempts to schmooze, but in general people like to be noticed, to connect and engage.
• Be open and genuine - in other words, be yourself. People see right through you when you're not.
• Don't overdo it. I suspect this is where most of my negative connotations with schmoozing come in. A little goes a long way, too much is not appropriate!
• Be respectful of people's time and boundaries.
• Don't talk at people. People like to be engaged, which means you're doing as much listening as talking. As the article points out, give a little, get a little.
• Let yourself be schmoozed. Its not just you who wants to develop relationships, others want to develop them with you. Give them the chance.

What I like most about the article is the emphasis on relationship building. At Pinnacol we all operate in a team environment where relationships are key to our success. And its not just internal relationships. Developing effective relationships with our customers and other stakeholders is what keeps Pinnacol a leader in our industry. So the next time someone tries to "schmooze" me, maybe I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and avoid automatically jumping to negative conclusions about what they are doing.

In a similar vein I came across the following video from the folks at AARP who have been nice enough to recognize our company as one of the best places to work for people over 50. For some of you web wizards it may be simplistic, but for the rest of us its a good synopsis of the value of networking and how do it.

Pinnacol Carnival

As part of our annual Employee Giving Campaign we host a number of fun activities and functions. This year's theme was "Carnival". Employees enjoyed everything from pie-eating and pie-throwing contests, to Dancing with The Stars (thanks to a Wii system), to getting their caricatures drawn by a local artist. All proceeds went to benefit United Way and the Pinnacol Foundation. Our management staff were as always great sports, taking pie after pie in the face to support these great charities. Here's a quick glimpse at some of the fun!

33 Good Reasons to Celebrate Life

See more at Denver Post Photo Blog

Like many of you, I watched the amazing rescue of the miners in Chile - 33 miners plucked from certain death by the hard work of the rescuers more than 2,000 feet above. It seems the entire world was watching, waiting, and hoping for a successful outcome after months of effort. This morning the news is reporting that most of the miners are in 'remarkably good health' considering what they have had to endure. I'm not surprised. I know a molybdenum miner in the Colorado mountains, and if the miners in Chile are anything like him, they are an exceptionally hardy lot.

The reality is that this amazing rescue will too soon fade from the media's attention. We'll remember it as a feel-good event in our collective consciousness. 69 days these miners spent trapped underground. During those 69 days I'll admit that I only gave fleeting thought to the plight of these miners, paying attention only as the occasional news story flashed by.

There are many other mines in the area of the San Jose mine where these miners were trapped. News reports indicate nearly 10,000 miners work in this area of northern Chile. And for each of the 69 days their peers were trapped, these 10,000 miners continued to go to work, deep underground, facing the same risks and uncertainty that caught their fellow miners in the San Jose. A somewhat eerie fact is that since 2000,  34 people, about the same number as those who were trapped, have died every year on average in mining accidents in Chile — with a high of 43 in 2008. Though I'm sure they were covered by the press, I can't recall a single news story about those accidents. In doing a little research I found that another miner at the San Jose had lost a leg in a rockfall just a month before the 33 rescued miners were trapped.

Henderson Mine
(Click on image to enlarge)

To me, being 2,700 feet underground, let alone trapped, is mind-boggling. Yet the Chilean mine is not particularly deep compared to others. Right here in Colorado the Henderson Mine near the western base of Berthoud Pass is 2 to 3 times deeper, and in South Africa the TauTona gold mine reaches more than 12,600 feet (2.4 miles) underground. The 'commute' to work in a lift cage that transports the workers from the surface to the bottom dropping at speeds up to 16 meters per second (36 miles an hour) can take up to an hour. My commute from the west side of Denver to our Lowry location takes about that long and the only thing I have to deal with are my fellow Denver drivers.

While we celebrate the incredible rescue that's taken place this week in the desert of Chile, as a workers' compensation company we realize that every single day, 365 days a year, workers are engaged in all sorts of risky, and sometimes dangerous jobs. Our attention is on preventing the types of accidents that trapped the Chilean miners, as well as mitigating the risks that Colorado workers face every day. While perhaps not quite as exciting to read about as a mine rescue, we think those efforts are invaluable to the nearly 1.5 million employees working for our insured policyholders.

 

Word of the Day...

I was at a meeting today that touched on how Pinnacol can better help employees develop their skills so that they are continually ready for whatever changes their career might bring. From promotion within their current job family, to being able to step out of their current role and tackle something completely different, Pinnacol, as I suspect is true of most employers, expects people to have the foundation of basic skills that make them mobile in terms of growth. If they don't have the basic skills, career mobility is limited. In the 'olden days', they referred to this as the Peter Principle - where people were promoted to the level where their incompetence would suddenly manifest itself and curtail further advancement.

We do all sorts of assessments at Pinnacol. Some are done to determine if employees are ready for a move into another position that is currently open. Others are done to help the employee become ready for a future move. This second type of assessment is developmental in purpose. Given the debate about educating our children and the quality of education in America it should come as little surprise that we find many employees who struggle at some level with even the most basic math and verbal skills. Most companies seem somewhat weak at helping employees develop these skills deficits once they have been identified.

Thus the purpose of the meeting I was attending. Our Learning and Development team has a Development Page on our company Intranet, and the outcome from today's meeting is that we believe we can do even more to help our employees as they aspire to bigger and greater things.

You'll notice that I've added a new widget to the right side of the blog called Word of the Day. I believe that great things start small and that something as simple as helping employees increase their vocabulary is one small step in that journey. The first word that came up is nepenthe - a word I candidly had never heard before. Yet before ten minutes had gone by I had a fellow employee tell me a story about this great little restaurant in Big Sur, California named Nepenthe. Its really a clever name for a restaurant (see the definition under comments below if you don't already know it!) and if I'm ever out that way, I plan on visiting.

Until then, we'll continue to add additional resources, big and small, to help our employees develop their skills. And so that you don't fall too far behind, we'll continue to share the Word of the Day with you as well. Now if I can just figure out how to use the word 'nepenthe' in a sentence...

Sports Jersey Friday

We are in the midst of our annual Employee Giving Campaign to help support the Mile High United Way and the Pinnacol Foundation. There will be all sorts of fun events surrounding the campaign. One of the more popular events is Sports Jersey Friday where employees can, for a $5 donation, wear their favorite team's jersey to work.

Pictured here is Doretha, one of my co-workers in Human Resources. Doretha DOES NOT like to have her picture taken, but this morning she was a good sport and allowed me to take her snapshot. Doretha is a die-hard Bronco fan. I don't know if the picture does her full justice - from her jacket to her jersey, to her earrings and her jewelry, she lives and breathes Broncomania from September to whenever the season ends for her favorite ponies. Doretha has actually attended a Super Bowl, alas, not when the Broncos actually won, and in her heart she believes its just a matter of time before she sees Mr. McDaniels and crew hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy in the air.

Time will tell how the Broncos do this year, but I do know that our employees enjoy Sports Jersey Friday and being able to have fun while supporting a worthy cause.

Stupid?

Pinnacol supports a lot of local non-profits in the local community. One of them is the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver. The video below highlights one of the many success stories coming out of that organization. Since 1961 the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver has been fullfilling its mission of  inspiring and enabling young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens.

Pinnacol also started the Pinnacol Foundation which awards college scholarships to the children of workers who have been injured on the job. It seems to be the way of the world that it is children who are hit the hardest when adversity strikes. Pinnacol and its employees are pleased to be able to make an effort to help those who are often facing the most difficult challenges of their lives - be it an injured worker unsure of how they will feed their family while off work, to Kristen, the young girl highlighted in the video, who has faced eviction 19 times over the course of her young life.

There is discussion at the macro-economic level where folks in ivory towers debate whether companies should donate back to society, or if their sole purpose should be to generate economic gain for their shareholders. Pinnacol doesn't technically have shareholders as a quasi-public authority, but if we did I would think we might argue that good companies can, and should, do both.  We are in good company in Colorado. Many businesses feel the way we do and are making an active difference in their communities. As a Colorado-based company, our sole focus is on protecting the people of this great state, and we look forward to continuing to do that as long as we are needed.

I Didn't Know That...

One of my fellow employees, Karla, will be presenting at a NAMIC (the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies) conference in Florida next week. Her topic? Social media. Her audience? HR professionals and other insurance folks. NAMIC was originally founded in 1895 so they've seen a ton of change over the last 115 years. But if they think they've seen a lot in the last century, they'd better fasten their seat belts for what's coming. I had interviewed  Karla about what it was like when she joined Pinnacol. She shared with me a preview of what she'll be presenting and the folks at the conference are in for a treat!

Back in March I had blogged about the rapid shifts in technology. Part of that blog related to a short video called Did You Know which was created several years ago by a local Denver-area High School teacher trying to educate his fellow teachers about the changes being brought about by the dramatic shifts in technology.

Since the original there have been several updates so I thought I'd share one of the newer versions. This one - Did you Know 4.0 - tackles some of the implications being rendered not just by technology but by how people are using it - in other words, social media. I've always thought that if I ever had a genie in a bottle to grant me three wishes my number one wish would be for a crystal ball so that I could see what was coming in the future. That's why I share these types of videos with you. It's a glimpse, albeit a small one, into what that future might have in store.

What not to wear to an interview...

I've read a couple of articles recently about the changes in fashion and how they impact on how candidates should, and should not, present themselves in an interview. One of the articles talked about a lady in England who was told by a career counselor that she'd have a better chance of getting a job with a bag over her head than to show up displaying all of the tattoos she had. The lady's response was that her tattoos were reflective of her lifestyle and who she was as a person and she shouldn't have to change. Who's right?

The article, by Suzanne Lucas (AKA "Evil HR Lady"), argued that lifestyle choices come with consequences and that many traditional companies would not hire someone who doesn't look the part for the position they are seeking to fill. The article pointed out that "By and large, sales people are better looking than other folk because — surprise! — they take better care of themselves and understand that appearances are important." I had never thought of that, but I think they may be on to something. I know our marketing representatives on any given day dress far better than the rest of us at Pinnacol because they are directly meeting with our customers and need to portray  a very professional image. They are the face of Pinnacol to many of our customers.  For them appearance really matters because it makes a difference in the impression our customers have of us.

Some of you are scratching your heads and wondering why I am wasting words on such an 'obvious' topic. Well, like common sense which is unfortunately not all that common, what may be obvious to some is clearly not obvious to others. We get thousands of expressions of interest from candidates each year and I'm fortunate to be able to interview several hundred of them. Over the years I've seen almost everything in candidate attire, from blue-jeaned candidates meeting with suit and tie interview panels, tennis shoes with professional dress, to assorted piercings, tattoos, and other body art.

From a recruiter's perspective anything out of the ordinary is a distraction and from a candidate's perspective its probably not a good idea to distract from what you really want to present about yourself - that you can do the job.

I had a candidate many years ago that I'll never forget. This was a young lady that came in with a tattoo of Calvin and Hobbes (a wonderful  comic strip, alas,  no longer available, about a young boy - Calvin - and his imaginary tiger - Hobbes) on a part of her anatomy that as a recruiter I don't usually spend too much time staring at. To say it was a distraction is an understatement, and to this day I think to myself that Calvin and Hobbes never looked so good. Distraction aside, this young lady proved to be a good candidate and actually got the job we had open. And yes, she was smart enough (or someone pulled her aside and told her) to cover up C&H while at work.

At Pinnacol we work in a business casual environment every day with dress down days (casual days) on Fridays. That said, you won't see a lot of tattoos, body piercings, etc. during the work day. Every company has its own culture. As a candidate I'll finish with a last bit of excellent advice from the article mentioned above: before you go for a job interview, make an effort to find out what's appropriate for the company you are applying with.