Whether you are currently unemployed, completing your degree, or considering other career opportunities, volunteering is a great way to:

• Develop new skills and competencies
• Apply your existing skills in new ways and in new environments
• Keep your skills sharp
• Explore new career paths: For example, if you are an accountant by trade, try volunteering in a role where you are recruiting volunteers or writing press releases.
• Expand your personal and professional networks: get to know the important people, board members, committee members and fellow volunteers.  Each one is a valuable addition to your network and may put you in touch with your next career opportunity.   To improve your odds, volunteer at places where your potential clients or co-workers volunteer.
• Get on the radar of hiring professionals and be seen as a doer, a giver, a contributor
• Give back while assessing or actively pursuing your next role
• Keep a work-based routine: getting up every day and having somewhere to go and duties to perform, keeps you in the game!
• Stay involved in the community
• Help fill in the gaps of a resume when you have got been out of work: be sure to list you volunteer experience on your resume!
• Build up references: Get letters of recommendation from the directors of organizations where you volunteer or board members, who are often business leaders.

In addition to building up your network and helping to gain new skills, volunteering is the right thing to do to keep our communities strong.  We practice what we preach!

Some of the organizations we support and lend our time to:

• Camp Ketcha Scarborough Maine   www.campketcha.org
• The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital   www.mmc.org
• Crossroads for Women    www.crossroadsforwomen.org
• Portland Trails             www.trails.org
• Lion’s Club                 www.epping.nhlions.org
• Rotary Club                 www.portlandrotary.org

We have the world at our fingertips and we have no patience to read about it. It’s true. Today, you can Google anything and find any information you were seeking.

That said, how long did you look at the result? 10, 15, 30 seconds till you move on to the next thought and search?

The Internet has made us a nation of scanners, not readers. So how you write your resume and what you put in it to capture the reader’s (HR, Owner, VP, etc) attention is critical. The average resume is looked at for less then 30 seconds!

Will your resume standout?

Here are some quick tips:

• The top ½ of the resume is critical. Why? When the reader opens your resume they only see the top half and they have to do “work” to scroll down to see the rest! You know its true. How many times have you not taken the time to read further when you have to scroll?

• Bullet points.
  • CRITICAL – Make sure that you put the most important points first and second.
  • Also keep them short (2-3 lines is best)

• Use Bold but use it sparingly. Key points or key titles. This is a case where less is more.

• Use italics to break up the sea of print. Again less is more and keep the theme of what you are using this for consistent throughout the document.

• Numbers. Using 1200, instead of the words twelve hundred, breaks up the page of words and is more likely catch someone’s eye. Remember use 123′s to show quantifiable results.

• Caps means you are SHOUTING!!! Do not get cap crazy!

Keep the resume to one or two pages and 1)Please 2)Please 3)Please NO TYPOS!

David Ciullo is President of Career Management Associates an HR consulting firm that specializes in Professional and Executive Search, HR Consulting and Outsourcing Services, Outplacement / Career Transition, Executive Coaching, and Contract Staffing. Please contact him at cmacareer.com, dciullo@cmacareer.com or 207.780.1125.

Today’s segment is about the fact that “Great talent will get found”, some interview tips, and yes we have some fun!

In my last blog, I described a number of ways to manage safety-related tasks to be sure that problems got resolved. These types of systems can significantly increase the ability of your organization to continuously improve in this area. In this post, I want to describe some other systems that can help you to improve your organization’s safety performance.

Rather than haphazardly hope that your safety program is not missing anything important, establishing the right systems can assure you and your team that all of the critical safety areas are covered and being managed appropriately. I’ve found these systems to be helpful:

1) Identify safety requirements: Use a formal system to determine what OSHA requirements apply to your organization’s operations. Do you have the proper PPE for your employees? Do you inspect your ladders as required? Are you storing flammables like spray paint and lubricants in flammable storage cabinets? To make this a system, document each of these requirements and periodically review the list to be sure that changes are made when necessitated by changes in your operations.

2) Develop an audit system: Once you have a list of the requirements that your organization must follow, another important process to develop is an audit system. By conducting routine audits of your organization, you ensure ongoing compliance with OSHA requirements while helping to prevent injuries. These audits will generate findings – areas where compliance does not meet requirements. These findings should be documented and they should be addressed as soon as possible.

3) Keep score: “What gets measured, gets improved.” To keep your safety programs on track, determine what key metrics will ensure that they are working as designed. Some of the standard measures are: Total Recordable Injuries, Total First Aid Cases, and the number of Lost Time Accidents. These metrics are lagging indicators. To focus on leading indicators – so that action can be take before an injury is likely to happen – measure such things as the number of overdue Safety Work Orders, the number of open Safety Audit Findings, or the percentage of employees with required safety training overdue. Without keeping score, you can’t know how well you are doing – or predict how well you will be doing in the future.

4) Keep Management involved: The organization’s Management Team should periodically review the status of the Safety Management System. Safety programs do not run themselves. Energy and effort is required of the Management Team to ensure that the programs receive the required attention and priority in the organization. A good place to start periodic Management Review sessions is to review the results of items 1 – 3. Review the safety requirements of the organization with the Management Team. Then review the results of Safety Management System audits – as well as the status of findings. Finally, review all of the metrics so that the Management Team can know the score of the organization’s safety program and identify where more focus is needed.

By implementing the four systems listed above, an organization can begin to systematize its safety programs. Continuous improvement relies upon a robust Safety Management System.

Next time, I will provide some additional motivation for improving your organization’s safety programs by discussing some of the recent fines assessed by OSHA to companies of all types and sizes.

Rob Bartlett is a Senior Safety Consultant with Career Management Associates – an HR consulting firm that specializes in Professional and Executive Search, HR Consulting and Services, Outplacement and Career Transition, Executive Coaching, and Contract Employment. To discuss how Rob can help your organization reduce injuries, contact him at rbartlett@cmacareer.com or 207.780.1125. You can also follow him as @SaferWorkplace on Twitter

This fun and informative recorded segment was about the new buzz around workplace bulling and harassment issues.

Did you help or hinder the progress of your employees today?

In my “reading pile”, I recently came across an article entitled “What Really Motivates Workers –
Understanding the Power of Progress” by Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, Harvard Business
Review, Jan- Feb 2010 edition. Believing that employee engagement has the potential to influence the
bottom line so significantly, the title caught my attention. The gist of the article is that, while recognition
is important (no news, as many surveys support that finding), the survey participants in one multi-year
study, referenced in the article, indicated that the top motivator for performance was PROGRESS! On
the days when employees felt that they made headway in their jobs, or when they received support to
overcome obstacles, their emotions, and drive to succeed, were the highest. On the days when they felt
as though they were spinning their wheels, or encountering roadblocks, their moods and motivation
level were the lowest.

I can certainly relate to that survey group. The days when I feel “pumped” at work are the days that I
have taken significant strides forward in a recruiting or HR project, in the resolution of an employee
relations issue, or in the coaching of an individual.

The article goes on to explain how this data is particularly good news for managers! Following their
logic, the key to motivating employees is largely within the control of the manager. And it does not
depend on elaborate incentive systems. Managers have significant influence over events which help or
hinder progress. In my experience, one factor that can most hinder progress is management indecision
or changing direction, mid-stream. The other is not providing the adequate resources (e.g. timely,
accurate information, or support from others), needed to complete the task.

The last point of the article is that managers can further affect motivation by celebrating even
incremental progress. This is where progress circles back to recognition, as a motivator. It behooves
managers to ask themselves, daily, “did I help or hinder the progress of my employees today”?

Valerie Mercer is a Senior Consultant at Career Management Associates an HR consulting firm
that specializes in Professional and Executive Search, HR Consulting and Services, Outplacement
and Career Transition, Executive Coaching, and Contract Employment. Please contact her
at vmercer@cmacareer.com or 207.780.1125.

After my recent blog “Stressed at Work? Helpful tips for managers.” http://bit.ly/mpnNQe I received some great ideas from a Colleague Nancy who is an AP Manger and deals with this topic daily. She made some great suggestions to support the last point of my blog, which was to “Have Fun”.

Here is her zero dollar or close to it suggestions:

1. Is your local sports team in the play-offs? Allow workspaces or attire to reflect fan support during the event.

2. It’s difficult to be in a bad mood while wearing a Hawaiian shirt; the louder the better. During the summer months designate Friday’s to Wacky Wardrobe day or something similar.

3. Ice Cream Socials. This one may cost some money as it relates to an extended lunch break. Assign an item to each person… i.e a pint of ice cream, whip cream, Jimmies and Nuts, etc. for one particular day (pair it up with loud shirt day to double the fun) and have an Ice Cream buffet. Or personalize it by having management serving.

4. Food contests. For example, find a few folks to volunteer to make a batch of chili (not everyone in the office). Assign other items to the rest of the crew…. grated cheese, sour cream, Tostitos, soda. Then maybe have contests… where everyone rates the Chili’: hottest or most unique. Or just enjoy the chili.

5. Guess that baby!!! Have employees bring in pictures of themselves as babies. Post them on a board in a common room (kitchen, break room)… Number them, then have employees throughout the week fill out their guesses as to who’s who and submit them to the organizer. Then gather everyone during a lunch (maybe pair it with the ice cream social) and announce the winners (the ones with the most right answers) and give out the prizes. Don’t forget to put the right answers under each picture and leave it there for another day or two because folks will want to know who’s who after that.

Great ideas Nancy! Everyone else, please keep them coming! Thanks.

David Ciullo is President of Career Management Associates an HR consulting firm that specializes in Professional and Executive Search, HR Consulting and Services, Outplacement and Career Transition, Executive Coaching, and Contract Employment. Please contact him at dciullo@cmacareer.com or 207.780.1125.

So you think you want to undertake an Employee Satisfaction/Engagement Survey ……..some important questions to consider:

Why do a survey?

There are many reasons why an organization might conduct a survey in order to measure satisfaction and the level of engagement of the employee population. They range from generating specific information targeted at increasing organizational performance to just “seeing how things are going”. Concerns and challenges related to high turnover, recent organizational changes, employee relations, internal communication and work/life balance can play a role in initiating a survey. In recent years, businesses have used positive employee survey results as marketing tools, especially in recruitment.

The staggering statistics, by Gallup (2008), on workforce engagement revealed that, in the average workforce, 29% were actively engaged, 54% were not engaged – doing the work but often the minimum, and 17% were actively not-engaged – unhappy and acting out their unhappiness). Actively disengaged employees erode an organization’s bottom line, while breaking the spirits of colleagues in the process. Within the U.S. workforce, Gallup estimates this cost to the bottom line to be more than $300 billion in

lost productivity alone. These stats may arouse curiosity for an organization to see how it ‘stacks up’.

It has been my experience that some company leaders, when asked, would say that the level of employee engagement is much higher than it really is, as evidenced by the post survey results. Take a step back and ask yourself how your employees would really respond to questions related to amount and frequency of recognition and communication, or advancement and learning opportunities.

What is the goal of the survey?

An employee survey can take the form of an employee satisfaction survey or engagement survey or a combination of the two. Satisfaction surveys typically measure elements that impact retention, such as pay and benefits, morale, security, and advancement opportunity. Engagement surveys concentrate on the feelings and behaviors of employees in the organization, which lead to ‘drivers’ such as trust and respect, work relationships, confidence in leadership and alignment between the employee’s work and organizational strategy. It can be argued that it is difficult to have employee engagement without satisfaction. Satisfaction, alone, however, has long ceased to provide a competitive advantage for an organization. An employee may be satisfied with the job (pay, advancement, etc.) but this does not guarantee that the employee exhibits commitment and loyalty, and manages discretionary effort such that his/her actions, time and effort, consistently further the interests, and competitive advantage, of the organization.

Choosing a vendor:

Many survey tools exist.  The choice of a vendor includes the following considerations:

• Do you wish to customize your survey or are you satisfied with a standard survey? – Most vendors have a standard format, and many allow further customization, i.e. adding or deleting questions.
• What level of analyses do you require?  – Some surveys provide detailed results by division, workgroup, manager, shift, etc., while other surveys cannot deliver this level of detail.
• What level of benchmarking are you seeking? – Some companies choose to benchmark only against themselves, focusing on year/year improvement. Others favor comparisons with other organizations in the same geographic area, or their specific industry, or Fortune 500 companies, etc.
• What is your budget? The cost will be dependent on the size of the organization, the level of customization required, the detail level of the results, the presentation quality, and the level of assistance provided with interpretation of results and development of action plans, in response to the results. For a 400 person organization, the cost can range from 3K to 20K.
• How will you deliver the survey? – Does the entire workforce have computer access, so that an on-line survey can be completed or will a paper version be needed as well?

What will the employees expect as a result of the survey?

Employees will expect change after taking the time to tell you what they think! Completing an employee survey creates expectations, on the part of your employees, that the organization will “fix” their issues. A great challenge faced by many organizations is the lack of resources allocated to post-survey action-planning and communication. Survey specialists caution employers from administering surveys in the absence of commitment to addressing low scoring items.  Ensure that you are prepared to assign the resources and time to communicate the findings to your employees and also carry out, at least some of, the recommended action plans. This means that managers, teams and individuals need to commit to playing a role in the communication of results and the development and implementation of action plans, as opposed to relying on the HR department to “fix” everything!

If you are considering using Employee Satisfaction/Engagement Surveys, CMA can assist you in working through the answers to these questions so that your survey will meet the needs and expectations of your organization.

Valerie Mercer is a Consultant at Career Management Associates an HR consulting firm that specializes in Professional and Executive Search, HR Consulting and Services, Outplacement and Career Transition, Executive Coaching, and Contract Employment. Please contact her at vmecer@cmacareer.com or 207.780.1125.