Tag: employee

#Minimum #Wage @Greta –> Follow the link….

Minimum Wage
This is a much more complex situation than merely a governing body dictating more laws to the folks.

Minimum wage jobs were starting points in ones career, never meant to be a career, just a paid internship if you will. These jobs are for kids in school, jobs that require that you be at an appointed place at an appointed time; learn a work ethic, and possibly some future skill set that you currently lack. As an example, I learned how to “really mop a floor” 40 odd years ago.

Some mom and pop shops may only be able to afford some laborer like this. They might be for menial tasks that also keep teens busy and out of trouble while teaching them some work ethic.

The bottom line is, few companies are started with the concept of creating jobs. Businesses are about creating a product or service, and employees are a “necessary evil” in most cases; as there are so many regulations and laws that companies must adhere to when one has employees. It has not become easier over the years, quite the opposite!

On top of existing regulations, Obamacare has changed the paradigm of the fabric of business vs. employee / minimum wage.

Full-time jobs have been modified to part-time, to avoid healthcare all together. Along with the part-time designation came more employees and less pay. Retail giants were one of the first on the bandwagon and many industries have followed suite to make certain that the full-time employee count was for folks that were indispensable.

The new immigration law that was enacted by Obama has once again changed the way that business work. I recently visited a McDonalds where there was not one English-speaking employee in the place, at least, which English was their native language.

If trends continue, I perceive that more Americans will be surviving on the government tit, as the part-time-minimum-wage-jobs of today will go to more of these types of folks who will be happy to have them, as they do not qualify for “free stuff,” yet.

To your question: why not pay your employees more than minimum wage if you can? I have a client that does. He pays his people much higher than scale, and is learning that you cannot buy good employees. A very small percentage of the people that you hire have a work ethic that you the business owner has. They possess the Fred Flintstone work ethic of when the whistle blows, Yabba Dabba Doo!

-Best

http://www.timedok.com

<img src="https://thetimedok.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/img_7951.jpg"

Telecommuting: Good or Bad?

While I am certain that in some cases allowing an employee to work from home would work, I believe that we may be taking it too far.

Recently I was doing business with my bank and had to be transferred to a specialist. “Due to the overwhelming response all agents are busy, please hang on.”

After about five minutes of being on hold the phone is finally answered. The girl that handled the call was somewhat disorganized and I know this as she ask me for the same information several times as she most likely was stalling while she got to the right screen or possibly off of Facebook.

Between the pauses I could hear a baby crying in the background. I am not sure that allowing people to work at home with many distractions is a good idea however; commercial offices are sold or rented by the square foot. The amount each department is charged is allocated by the square footage that they occupy. Electricity used is divided up the same way. I.e. if sales uses X square footage and accounting uses X and IT uses X that is all split up so the bean counters can accurately assess the cost for each department or cost center.

Many companies are trying to cut cost by having people share a desk, meaning that they work from home so many days, then the other person works from home. Personally I think this idea is really poor as your phone, keyboard and lets face it; every surface is a harbor for germs. The phone especially as it is close to your nose and mouth. In this day of bacteria and viruses that are mutating and becoming resistant to the antibiotics that we have, I don’t think it a good idea to provide yet another way to transfer them.

So what kinds of folks could work from home? I think people who are self starters. There are folks out there who look forward to Monday. I know this as I am one of them. While most can’t wait for Friday to roll around I am one that looks at the clock not to see how much more time that I must endure but, how little time I have left to complete what I wanted to get done that day.

That is a self starter. That person could work out of their car or where ever. My office was the airplane and airport for years.

I mention this as I doubt that the bank had an excessive surge of calls today and I doubt that the cable company does every time that I call etc. While some of this may be to understaffing I suspect some of this is people being distracted at a home office.

Customer service is part of your brand much like the poor customer service at HP is iconic of what not to do and has been immortalized in shows like Big Bang and of course the ever famous YouTube video where the Marine shoots his printer with an automatic weapon, as his HP support was so bad.

Whether your company is public or private you must protect your brand. Think carefully about where your employees do their job and what kinds of employees are able to work from home.

Think really hard about outsourcing your customer service to “Peggy!”

-Best to you and those that you care about!

Certifications a good idea or bad?

Is the person with the most certifications the best hire? Maybe yes, maybe no.

The history of the certification for IT really started with Novell. Novell used to charge computer manufacturers to “certify” that their equipment was compatible with their software. This was no inexpensive proposition. Somewhere around the release of V2.15 there was the invention of the CNE or Certified Netware Administrator.

Back at this time this was no easy certification to obtain. Proficiency in hardware, DOS, NetWare, Networking equipment and topologies, datagram’s, IPX XPS, NetBIOS and the list went on.

As the certification idea took off, adaptive test were created. If the test found a weakness, it would give you more questions around that weakness which may very well be your doom. These tests were not inexpensive. The study material was not cheap and when you boiled it all down, unless you are really good at taking test; you had to have the experience and knowledge the back it up.

So in theory this was a good idea and should have given employers an excellent way to gauge someone’s level of expertise.

What changed?

It is human nature to cheat. I am beginning to think that making ones way through college was in part, how good you were at gaming the system.

This is true of the certifications today for the most part. There are too many websites and groups dedicated to giving out information to the applicant, that we really have no idea how much the person knows. That is why it is paramount that you, the hiring manager know the technology and not just look at his or her pedigree.

We don’t like to take test and I appreciate that. As a professional I want to know that I know the material. Would you want your doctor or Pilot to “game the system?” Why would we hold them to a higher standard; other than the obvious of the life and death thing?

Do we not put the company at risk if we are not qualified? The people that you hire absolutely can make bad decisions and as one who sells disaster recovery, that is one of the things to consider, “an oops.” I have seen this happen more times than I would like to say and it is never pretty. (No, it never happened on my watch.)

After my company hired a person on their credentials alone, I soon learned that you had better know more or at least as much about the subject as that person who you are looking to hire. The person was a paper certified pro meaning he could take test, not actually do it.

I look for someone with a good track record in the field that they want to pursue, a solid work history and lastly I consider their certifications. I need to know if they can do the job and not just take a test. I also check their references and backgrounds if they make it past the first few hurdles.

Technology is an extremely liquid entity. The books and materials that you buy today may not be salient tomorrow. Spending thousands of dollars on classes, books and test is only good for such a short time, before you have to hit the books again.

Your “technologist” the CIO in most cases should understand technology better than anyone else in the company. He or She should have a very in depth background and not only understand the nuts and bolts of things but, should possess enough business acumen to know what products or services are relevant for their company; and those that would have a poor ROI or high TCO not to mention poor application.

All purchases and changes to the architecture should make sense. Anyone that you hire to administer that equipment should not only grasp the equipment or technology, but also the company’s vision.

In short, I am not given to looking solely at certifications. Can they do the job and how did they do it before? Were they successful? Are they willing to go to classes if the job requires it?

The trick to committing to obtaining a certification is to determine the viability of the company or product, and if that product will take off or die on the vine? That is the rub in that I have seen technology come and go. Xerox had the best of the best, 30 years ago and had their marketing been better, and they not try to recover their total development cost with the first few sales, Bill gates might still be working out of his garage.

Xerox had the GUI and the Mouse before Steve and Bill. That is another story.

If you are looking to the information technology field as a career I can tell you from experience that the length of your job at that company will only take you until you have maxed out on the salary that they want to pay; or they find a way to outsource what you do. There are fewer and fewer indispensible employees any more as most CEO’s or owners have figured out that everyone should be replaceable. If you are one of the people who have stayed in one place for a long time you are either underpaid, or the company does not have the guts to replace you with a less expensive alternative. Keep doing what you are doing as it is working for you and for the boss, get real; nobody is indispensable.

It is therefore paramount for you the job seeker to keep your resume up and current, analyze trends in the market to see what company is doing what, and who is using them. Most of us will get into the rhythm of our jobs and get comfortable. This can no longer be the case, as very few companies have any loyalty to their employee’s . Employee should empower themselves to become even more marketable. Accomplishments are a great thing to put on your CV especially projects with dollar figures or some other quantifiable metric. “saved the company $13 million dollars a year by changing the way that they did business.”

It is up to you the worker to maintain your marketability through skills, career choices, education and even personal appearance plays a role. I cringe when I see these young people today with piercings and tattoos. I personally see this as not a real bright decision and a possible impediment to getting a good job as I know that most serious business people feel the same way. You now will have to go with some young company that is really out there like Google or Microsoft or, find a way to cover up your decisions… I don’t mean to sound critical but, it is a shame that youth is wasted on the young.

These are pearls from me to you…

-Best to you and those that you care about!