The Magic of Allowing Employees to Do What They Love

What would you do if you heard from your boss that you could do anything you wanted for two hours every week? The catch: as long as it was related to work?

Would you hug her?

That could mean designing a new logo, creating a company year book, writing a company theme song, or creating a customer appreciation program. Whatever would make you happy, you get to do it for two hours every week. I know that I would love to do something completely different to help my company.

I’ve had good ideas that I was afraid to pursue, but this would take some of the pressure off because it wouldn’t be under your job description. It would allow you to be creative and probably come up with something valuable.

Company benefits:

-        Boosts employee morale

-        Improves employee retention

-        Co-workers collaborate

-        Shows the employees strengths to the employer, so the manager will be encouraged to change the employee’s job description if an idea is successful

Bla, bla, bla. All of you know that doing extra work for the good of the company helps them, but how does it help you?

Employee benefits:

-        Looks good on the resume (In this high turnover age we have to expect that employees want jobs that benefit their careers.)

-        Allows for complete creativity

-        Employee will enjoy work more

-        No pressure to be perfect

For any company worried about wasted hours, I’ve read several articles indicating that most employees only work between 4 - 6 hours a day. They are just putting in their time until they get home, but if a company would empower them to create something new then they would work harder than they had ever worked before. Both the company and employee wins. Workers become happier and the company becomes more successful.

So my question to you is, why don’t more companies utilize this type of program? Would you like this or would it only add to your workload?

Articles that are cool like that:

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Image courtesy of John Calnan

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Connecting Our Work Happiness – 25 Words

Your work happiness

is my work bliss.

 

Because

without you

there is no me.

 

Your joy is mine and it is why I go on.

 

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Idea courtesy of Liz Strauss

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Your 3 Careers - Are You Ready?

You will probably have 3 distinct career phases by the time you are done (it starts with your first job and ends when you kick the bucket). Many people are living into their 80’s and 90’s. The children born today may live to an average of 100 years old. Our medicine is getting scary good.

That may mean that we could have 70 or more working years before we feel like stopping. That’s a lot of time to be prosperous. I don’t know about you, but I can’t see myself sitting in a rocking chair, sipping lemonade and waiting for death. I want to be productive for as long as my mind and body will allow.

A professor emeritus of biochemistry and biophysics, Britton Chance says, “Most of the people who work on cognitive deficits realize that it’s better to use it than to lose it.” - Emily Brandon of U.S. News

Understanding your career time-frame will allow you to pick and choose the skills that are needed now to make the rest of your life successful. Paul Newman (1925 - 2008) is my favorite example. He started out in the Navy, wanting to be a pilot. His physical revealed that he was colorblind. He went on to be a radioman and a gunner for the Navy. He finished his tour in WWII and went on to study acting. His second career was acting and directing and he starred in films such as Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Color of Money (1986). For his third career he decided to give back by creating a non-profit organic line of food, Newman’s Own. He has donated over $250 million to charity as of February 2008. It’s this activity, I believe, that gave him the strength to fight cancer as long as he did and continue his great work. Without a cause to there is no reason to live. I wish him all the best in his next life.

When you are at the beginning of each career you must ask yourself “Why?” before you do anything. If you are going to school for art, then why are you doing it? If you are doing it for fun then so be it, but you must always be aware of how it fits into the “present you” and “future you.” You must appreciate the choices that you make now so it builds on the foundation you have already established. You may think you want to be a famous sculptor, but if all you do is ride your mountain bike every weekend then you must take a hard look at what you think you want compared to what really interests you.

Every choice becomes a part of who you are. From your friends to your hobbies, they all influence your decisions.

1st Career Phase - Discovery

The 1st job is usually in the late teens, which is about getting your feet wet. There will probably be plenty of jobs between the first and the one that actually allow you to optimize your talents.

My first job was with my father as an electrician’s helper. I ran wire, wired in fans and did what I was told. Next, I moved on to K-mart as a cashier. Then back with my father and mushroom mongering (picking wild mushrooms and selling them to local restaurants). Then I took a job in media buying. Next, I tried telemarketing miniature leather saddles to a list of old buyers. (Yep, it was as bad as it sounds.) After that I was a marketing coordinator for “high pressure” valve company. Then I worked as a teacher and in the summers I managed a cyber-café. My next job was a front desk receptionist at a Yoga Studio. Then a part-time handyman. Finally, a marketing coordinator for a credit union. Now…

2nd Career Phase - Optimization

The 2nd career is about hitting your stride. It’s when you know you’ve found that job that you are good at, pays well, or feels exciting. Of course we want the second career to provide all three of these, but that’s not always the case if we get lazy about making our career fit our needs.

My 2nd career is just beginning. I’m trying to leverage myself into the career development industry, making myself an expert in the field. At 32 I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how I can accomplish this. As you can see this website has already helped me declare my commitment to career development for people who love their lives.

3rd Career Phase - Giving Back

The 3rd career is about giving back to the things and people you love. That may mean giving your grandchildren the love and attention that they deserve. It may mean counseling businesses to optimize their talent. Whatever it is, it’s all about giving back to show appreciation for the life that we’ve enjoyed.

My 3rd career is still foggy. I know that I want to retire in my late fifties and hopefully live a simple life with a nice little plot of land. I’m going to give back by helping people with their careers. I hope that they can be as happy and successful as I feel right now and expect to be in the future.

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Your career success depends on leverage. It’s the most important aspect to building your foundation. Without leverage you’ll most likely receive terrible pay and work awful hours. That’s why a lot of college students are stuck working at Pizza Hut. They haven’t mastered the skills to leverage their work and enhance their career.

A college degree isn’t always a necessity and you can leverage your career in many ways. Some of you will be creative and others will take advantage of the family business already in place. Others will learn how to build a network to help get a job out of college that fits your needs.

Use Leverages to Build Your Career Foundation

Family Name

Your family members may have already built a network that you can feed off of if they let you. My brother went into business with my father - electrical contracting. They work hard, but make a good living. My brother will eventually take over the business and he’ll have all the client relationships that have been built up for the past 40 years.

Build a Network

You’ll need patience and persistence to build your network, but if your passion is strong enough this won’t feel like work. I’m working on building my network by trying to help as many people on-line and off-line as I can. I’ve created a brand for myself and every day it helps me bring more awareness to my site and my potential business.

Love

Emotions are what transforms a product that is “just useful” into a breakaway success. Look at your favorite artists - you probably love them more than most of your friends. For example (let’s have a little fun) if your favorite musician was drowning out in the middle of the sea along with your 7th favorite friend (the one that you sometimes enjoy being around, but a lot of times they get really annoying). All you have is a little kayak. You can only save one; who would it be? You don’t have to tell me in the comments, but I think that we all know who you would pick. When you can create a product or service that people love, then you can even mess up a customer’s order and still come out smelling like a new iPhone. Although I don’t think you’ll make mistakes on purpose to prove my point, but if you do and they truly love you, they’ll just keep coming back for more.

Education

If you graduate from Yale compared to West Chester University you’ll have a lot more doors open to you. It’s up to the individual to work hard and make a difference, but it’s a lot easier to succeed when the company knows that you are smart enough to graduate from such a prestigious university.

How You Look (Sex Appeal)

We are a society based around sex. Taller men often get the CEO positions. Prettier women may get pushed up the ladder because we want to be around beautiful people. If they don’t have what it takes, it will eventually come out and they’ll crash and burn, but if they can leverage themselves to the top and learn the skills necessary to be successful then they’ll probably able to build a pretty solid career.

Talent

Having talent is the least important factor on this list. You may have all the talent in the world, but if you can’t finish projects then it doesn’t matter. In the end what matters is producing the results. I’ve seen talented young kids come into an organization and they just don’t have what it takes to make a sale. They talk a big game and can make some pretty cool PowerPoint presentations, but that’s it. Talent is the weakest leverage, but one we still need. When you can use your network to build your rapport and your passion to push toward your goals then your talent will allow you to shine when you need to “wow” the customer.

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Plan of Attack

You must gain an understanding of who you are and what you want to accomplish to make your dreams come true. That’s why you should use your first career as a way to discover what you like and how you want to go about accomplishing your goals. I had a friend who planned his retirement at age 25. He went to a personal financial advisor, was open and honest about his finances and his potential earnings, and decided that with intense self-discipline that age 48 would be his retirement goal. A retirement lifestyle that would fulfill his needs was within his grasp if his plan was properly executed.

If you aren’t this anal then please don’t feel stressed that you don’t have every year of your career planned out. But you do need to have a plan of attack that will allow you succeed. Hitting certain age milestones can feel painful if a system was never put in place to ensure achievement that will meet your goals.

1st Career: Use this time to understand what you want out of life.

When starting your first career, don’t worry about sticking around to build that 401k. If your company has one please contribute in to this plan, but don’t force yourself to stay with the company for another year just so you can get 20% more invested in your return. Your knowledge and network is so much more important than a few thousand dollars. So try working in retail, an office, surf shop, and maybe even a small side business to see what owning your own business is like. Do whatever it takes to help you discover your hidden talents and passions.

I could have gone into business with my father and brother or stayed at the valve company and I probably would have been ready to retire by age 50 if I was careful with my money, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to explore new career horizons. There is such a wide range of careers to be discovered and enjoyed.

2nd Career: Use this time to optimize your talents and connect with as many people in your field as time and energy will allow.

When have had the opportunity to try many different jobs, hobbies, and possibilities then start to take note of what you enjoy and how you may fit it into a career. Maybe 10% of you will find that perfect job right out of school, but most of you will continue to explore and you’ll never stop discovering until your needs are fulfilled.

Many of you may want to take the conventional approach to finding a career, but I know a lot of you will want to carve your own niche out. I’m in the process of creating my network so I can use it to leverage my writing and speaking career. This may seem like too much of a hassle or just silly, but to me it makes sense. I don’t want to go back for my Master’s degree. I want to open doors with my persistence, talent, and network.

3rd Career: Use this time to slow down and give back to the community that has helped support you.

Eventually you will hit a point when you’ll feel tired of doing the same thing every day. Well most of you will. Some of you may work all the way to your grave, and that’s okay too. However, many of us will move on to that third career to take life a little slower, smell the roses if you want an overused expression to help make my point.

I’ve talked to dozens of people and they want their 2nd career to gradually come to a close. They don’t want to be working 50 hour weeks then suddenly one day just stop and piddle around in their garage. They want to ease out slowly and transition into retirement. If you are close to this position then you must be willing to talk to your employer about this (This is where owning your own business has it’s perk. It’s your choice to keep working if that’s what you would like). My friend’s grandfather, 85, still works with his son in the furniture business. He doesn’t just want to sit around all day and do nothing. He wants to help his son build the business even larger. He works four hours a day from 10 - 2 and still makes sales, contacts, and money that he doesn’t even need. The mornings and evenings are slow and lazy and that’s just the way he likes it.

I truly believe a happy 3rd career is about giving back to the community and people you love and respect. There is just too much knowledge and love in most of us to just give up and sit in front of the TV. It’s up to each of us to create this for ourselves. This won’t fall in our lap.

Your 3 Careers

If you can plant the seed now you can create a life that will fulfill you way into your 90’s. That’s my prayer to you for today. I actually have a personal prayer that I send out to all of my readers every day. Yesterday’s was, “I pray that you are having a more enjoyable day than me.”

Praying for future happiness is good, but planning it out and taking action to make it happen will make all three of your careers flourish.

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Image courtesy of Ferdi’s World

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A Cold, My Focus, Shout Out to My Wife and Lucy

I’ve had a cold all last week and I’m still struggling to keep my head above my work. Every time work tries to drown me I find this reserve of energy that pushes me back up. Looking back on the week I’ve gotten almost as much done as a normal week when I’m healthy and I can breathe without blowing my nose every five minutes.

I worked on the most important stuff first and everything else waited. We’ve all heard that we need to do our most important stuff first then bother with the knick-knack crap. It actually works.

My work isn’t as high quality, as you can see from my last post. I caved in. I wrote a quick piece, hoping to create reader interaction. It sputtered and tripped over itself. I forgave myself and hopefully you’ll forgive me too.

But besides that sub par post I got a lot done and only working at about 50% capacity. Yes, I know only 50% capacity! You’re wondering how I’ve found the strength.

Focused Mindset

I’ve been forced to focus as hard as I can without letting my ADD kick in and take over. Usually it takes me ten to fifteen minutes to get started on anything. I’m the work happy now guy, not the get it done fast guy. During my cold my start-up time has been reduced to ninety seconds. I created a little exercise to help me jump right in to my work. It really helped me avoid my procrastination. I’ll explain what I did in a little bit.

My cold has bottomed out and I’m on the mend, but my strength is only at 60% and I’m still working my full time job and pumping out some entertaining and informative posts. That was a little pat on the back from myself, but that’s what I needed and I gave it to myself. You should be patting yourself on the back too. Sometimes we just don’t get it from other people, so we need to fill in the gaps ourselves.

Making sure that you stay motivated helps keep your focus on task.

You can find this “focused” mindset too. Next time your energy is waning try this little technique:

Step 1: Take sixty seconds to feel everything that is going on within yourself. Do a body scan and check for weak spots and possible pockets of hidden energy.

Step 2: Gently pull on the bottom of both earlobes for five deep breaths. Remember to keep your eyes open, otherwise this might make you sleepy. This will have a calming effect and should help softly rise that energy back up.

Step 3: Then with that last deep breath decide what you want to get done and just do it for ten minutes. Promise yourself to work for ten straight minutes before you stop.

Once I got going I didn’t want to stop.

Shout Out to My Wife

My loving wife has taken care of me during this crisis. All right it wasn’t really a crisis, but I really appreciate her love and compassion. Even though she still made me wash the dishes after dinner. Our trade was that she would edit a few of my next posts. Believe me you wouldn’t want to read my writing without her help.

Lucy

I met Lucy at Blockbuster while renting “Iron Man.” Shh. Don’t tell me what happened I’m staying in tonight and watching it with my wife. A sick man needs his rest.

Lucy was working happy at it’s best. She asked me how my day was. Complimented my movie choice and tried to offer me an up sell, but not in a pushy way.

Great Article - Rock Your Day

I read this excellent article How To Get Through Damn Near Anything from Rock Your Day. Dave has such high energy. It’s a must read if you want to get your stuff done.

Wrap-up

Still enjoying my work while having a cold is a new experience. Usually I’m a big grump. It goes to show what passion (Work Happy Now) will do to find a little energy when you thought you were drained.

Sometimes we need to have a wrench thrown in the mix to mess everything up. It shows us that we can still be happy if everything isn’t perfect. This cold gives me another piece to my happiness puzzle. The next time I’m tired from a long day of work and I still need to post an article for all of you I’m going to do my “focused mindset” relaxation then jump right into my work, no hesitation, knocking it out for all of you.

How has your week been? Anything crazy? Any little pieces to the puzzle to help you see a more clear picture of your personal development?

An Uncle, Cousin or any other Related Family Member to Productivity is Right Below:

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Images courtesy of Pescod, Jiva, and Serrator

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Who Matters More at Your Company? - A Reader Question

In your opinion, who matters more to employee happiness

CEO or the HR Manager?

This is difficult pick in my book, but I believe that one is more important to an employee’s happiness, although not every one might see it this way.

My lovely, smart, and beautiful readers…What is your opinion?

Do any of you have any experience of one being really bad?

or

Any experiences of one being really good and making the company a more enjoyable place to work?

or

Do both go hand in hand?

Let’s discuss in the comments…see you there.

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Image courtesy of Saquan

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