There’s a saying, “Summertime in DC – the oppressive heat, influx of tourists, and swarms of summer interns are enough to make you want to stay home.” Maybe I’ve mangled that a bit, but I think you get my drift. Washington, DC, like other large cities, certainly gets its share of interns each summer. The question I’ve been throwing around lately is – how can we make the most of the time we have them.

Energy is contagious, but an intern’s energy level can start to take a nose dive after a few weeks on the job without interesting projects to work on. This is why it’s essential to brainstorm project ideas before interns show up for their first day of work. With a bag of ideas to pull from, once you get to know an intern’s interests and strengths you can decide on assignments that most benefit both parties. After all, you never know what type of student you’ll get – you could have the overachiever that turns projects around more quickly than you expected, and the last thing you want is to be caught empty handed.

Managers may find that interns require a unique set of management skills. In general, today’s interns like to understand everything. Try to level with interns and explain why a particular task is important to the work you’re trying to accomplish and how it will help prepare the intern for the future (and yes, it is possible to draw parallels between the importance of photocopying and an intern’s long-term goals – think “attention to detail”). One great resource to recommend interns check out is Brazen Careerist, a Web site dedicated to providing career advice specific to Generation Y. As far as what you can do, there are three main areas that require managers to be flexible when working with interns that I’d like to hit upon briefly – teamwork, writing and time management skills.

There’s no “i” in teamwork. College typically fails to adequately prepare students for the type of teamwork they’ll encounter in the workplace. This is a challenging obstacle for interns who are with you for a short period of time because learning how to successfully work with others comes from experience. One suggestion for speeding up this process is to involve interns in team meetings so they can see the process first hand. Another approach is to break down an old project as an example and go through it step-by-step with the intern. Show how each team member was instrumentally involved, what the expectations were and how deadlines were met. This might take a little prep work upfront, but it will pay off, especially when interns genuinely understand the consequences of not meeting a deadline.

College papers vs. business writing. Interns are accustomed to writing for college assignments and the transition to business writing is not always smooth sailing. College writing often focuses on personal experiences and beliefs, and term papers can go on forever (or so it seemed at the time), whereas solid research translated as concisely and concretely as possible is more common in the workplace. A suggestion from one of our summer interns was to create mini writing assignments and go through them piece-by-piece with each intern to explain how and why each edit is necessary and discuss alternative ways to reach the same goal. It will likely take more than one run before interns feel comfortable writing his way, but managers can help this transition by giving consistent feedback that includes the reasoning behind edits. If your interns need a little extra help with the basics, you might suggest they read or re-read Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. And lastly, in the words of one wise intern – don’t let a project drag out with endless edits. If it’s not working, cut the project loose and start anew.

Juggling Priorities. Time management is a skill, and oftentimes one that interns don’t possess at the same level we come to expect from our regular employees. Managing a full-time college schedule, part-time work and extracurricular activities might seem like “practice” for the real world, but it’s not. The lack of syllabi and constant re-prioritizing are reality in the workplace. This is all new to most interns and your job is to help facilitate that change in expectations. Try a good ol’ In-Basket Exercise with your interns. Make it fun, and don’t be surprised if you find you’re helping them through the entire thought process at first. Encourage your interns to ask questions, but to try and work it out themselves before they ask. The goal should be to guide them to a point where they can say, “Now that I have been assigned Task A, which you have identified as a priority for today, I just want to make sure I’m clear that I’ll be shifting yesterday’s project to next week, is my understanding correct?” Right on! 

Wrap-up. What wisdom have your interns imparted to you this summer? If you haven’t already done so, carve out a time to sit down with your interns and ask them to share their experiences and any suggestions they may have. Interns’ feedback can be invaluable, but you’ll never know unless you ask. Make sure you also follow up by telling them how their work contributes to your department’s goals and objectives, and how the skills they learned over the summer will help them in years to come.

Employee engagement is one of those recently hot topics in organizations. It is such a hot topic that the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology recently published its journal with a central focus on engagement. Though there was no real consensus on the topic, there were definitely five key points that the reader could come away with.

1. Engagement is defined by the experience of being energized and focused at work. Employees are stimulated physically, mentally, and emotionally. 
2. Some people are predisposed to be engaged, some are predisposed to be disengaged, and the majority of them can be influenced at work. Therefore, an organization needs to focus its attention on this third group. According to Gallup, the best way to engage employees is to focus on the relationships that employees have with each other and with management.
3. Engaged employees tend to be more committed to the organization and demonstrate greater performance-enhancing behaviors than do disengaged workers. This can be observed in several published studies, which results in increased profits for the organization and for shareholders.
4. Be careful, though, because sometimes employees can be too engaged, leading to workaholism and burnout. In fact, an article by Shaufeli and colleagues found that burnout, engagement, and workaholism, though distinct, were related. So, organizations need to ensure that all employees, even the engaged employees, get a chance to recharge and refresh, or else they may be likely to suffer negative long-term effects of over-engagement.
5. And last, but not least, what it means to be engaged in a particular organization is something that has to be defined by that organization. Though there are general measures of engagement out there, what it means to be engaged in an IT firm may not be the same as what it means to be engaged in a social services agency. There may be key behaviors and attitudes that identify an engaged worker in one setting, but different behaviors and attitudes that identify an engaged worker in a different setting.

So, rather than focusing strictly on “published research” about engagement, organizational and departmental leaders need to give serious thought to what it means to be an engaged employee in their organization, and develop tailored strategies to improve that level of engagement.

How many times have you found yourself in a similar situation: You come across something that you know you’ve read before, but you can’t figure out where it came from. Or, it’s crunch time and you’re throwing together PowerPoint slides but need one little fact to fill in a blank somewhere, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out why Google won’t read your mind this one time you really need it! If only you had been one of those über organized people and saved (in categorized, flagged, and keyword marked electronic file folders of course) that important document, journal article, or magazine clipping, or at the very least knew where to look for it! Sound familiar?

Admit it, there are a lot of facts, stats, and figures out there and even those type-As would have a challenging time keeping track of them all. That’s why we pulled together a few helpful facts and put them into a Fact Sheet that you can view online or download and keep as a reference (no color coding required). The Psychologically Healthy Workplace Fact Sheet: By the Numbers covers topics such as workplace stress and demands, work-life balance and flexibility, employee health and healthcare costs, mental health issues, and employee and organizational outcomes. It’s also fully referenced so you can easily locate the original source – more than half of the references even have embedded Web links.

The plan is to update this document as time goes by and more research comes out. So if you’re ever snooping around for some good reading or are in search of an impressive stat to hit your boss up with to get (fill in the blank), check back and see if anything new catches your eye.

Happy stress-free reading!

How many of us work for an organization that offers gifts for employees that hit important milestones? Five years? Ten years? If you don’t, then you are in the minority. According to a recent World-At-Work report, 86% of all organizations use length-of-service awards, by far the most popular type of recognition program.

And it doesn’t stop there. Organizations offer employees incentives to participate in wellness programs, they offer employee-of-the-month programs, and on and on. These are all designed to motivate employees to perform or to stay with the company. But do they really work?

According to Bob Nelson, who recently appeared in an episode of the Good Company Podcast, the answer is a resounding “NO!” Organizations waste countless amounts of money each year on recognition programs that have almost no effect on employees. If these programs really don’t work, then why do they waste their money? Answer: because they think that’s what employees want.

Though it may sound logical, the problem is that they never asked. Instead of finding out what employees actually value, and what is likely to motivate them, organizations spend an inordinate amount of money on these programs without considering that there might be more unique and innovative ways to get the desired effects. One recent example of an innovative program appeared in Employee Benefit News. Some organizations have begun to recognize that a small bonus or increase in the 401k plan or chintzy coffee mug is not likely to produce the desired effects. So, instead, they are beginning to offer…concierge services. Employees can have the oil changed in their car, have their dry cleaning picked up, and have other errands run, with little or no cost to either them or the organization.
 
Best of all, concierge services offer benefits that employees can use regularly. They don’t just get some coffee mug they’ll never use or a free lunch, but instead they have access to needed services without having to take time off. They provide employees with an increased sense of work-life balance along with the feeling that the organization values them. And, because such a program comes at a lesser cost than expensive bonuses, plaques, and lunches, it is a win-win all the way around. In this age of cutting costs and improving the bottom line, more small- and medium-sized organizations would do well to identify more innovative ways of showing employees that they value their contributions. This can easily be done with the most innovative strategy of all: just ask them!

As a commuter who relies on mass transit, the rise in gas prices has not had the same effect on me as it has employees who drive to work daily, or even worse, those who drive for work.

Unless you live in commuter-friendly areas like DC (lucky me!) or NYC, mass transit isn’t always an option. For example, most Floridians are stuck driving to work, which is why I found research conducted by a Florida State University (FSU) management professor interesting. How are high gas prices affecting employees and what is the resulting dip in productivity doing to businesses?

At the time of the FSU survey, respondents were paying an average of $2.83 for gas, which has increased considerably since then -- in most cases over a dollar more per gallon. The cost of gas not only impinges on personal finances, people everywhere are stressed out about it and distracted at work. This is a problem that spans occupations for the most part. In fact, according to the FSU research, one in three people would trade their job for one closer to home. Considering these findings, maybe if I had to drive my two-hour-plus roundtrip commute, I would feel the same way – but please don’t tell my boss.

In a business world that (generally speaking) is trying to be more sensitive towards everyday “green” practices, the continual rise in costs associated with getting employees to and from work only strengthens the need for flexible work alternatives and better public transportation.

Leave it to South Florida to come up with a well-received arrangement that encourages employees to use public transportation. The city of North Miami now offers its very appreciative employees the opportunity to purchase mass transit passes for $15 a month (down from $75). 

Another way to beat the gas prices is by working from home. If telecommuting is a possible solution that you’re considering for your employees, check out the HR Capitalist’s take on this, as well as points to consider before implementing a company-wide policy. On a smaller scale, employers can encourage employees to carpool – set up a section on your intranet for employees, or post signup flyers in break rooms, and offer incentives if possible. One idea is to reward employees who carpool with coveted parking spots (e.g., inside parking garages and out of the winter snow or summer rain).

Of course, being the loyal Sierra Club member that I am, I feel obligated to pass on this message from a recent Sierra e-newsletter…

Memorial Day Weekend is coming and -- in spite of gas prices -- more Americans than ever are planning to getaway by car http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-05-17-travel-aaa-forecast_N.htm. But that doesn't have to cost as much as you think.

There are lots of ways to save gas (checked your tires lately?) but the easiest and most effective way is to slow down (just a little bit). When you add up the savings, it's like getting paid to relax.

So before you get behind the wheel for the upcoming holiday, show us what you're made of. Pledge to Drive 55 (or whatever the speed limit is on the roads you're traveling) for Memorial Day Weekend. Poor Sammy Hagar can't do it, but we bet you can. After all, even jets are slowing down to save money http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-05-02-slow-fuel_N.htm!

The Union of Concerned Scientists tells us that dropping from 70 to 60 mph improves fuel efficiency by an average of 17.2 percent. Dropping from 75 to 55 improves fuel efficiency by 30.6 percent http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/04/28/MN9H10BFRS.DTL!

And lastly, it’s important to keep communication flowing in your organization to help employees deal with the frustrations they may be feeling about gas prices and other cost-of-living increases, which most likely are not being offset by any adjustment in pay (but this is one idea to keep in mind!). Let employees know that you understand, that it affects you too, and keep encouraging them to find alternative solutions. As always, the best way to get employees onboard is to serve as an example – your message will resonate more if employees can relate to you, and practicing what you preach will go much further than just the sermon. So the next time you run into one of your employees or co-workers on the train, say “Hi”.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go scope out the best route to the beach based on the gas stations with the lowest prices before leaving for my 3-day weekend…

After a rainy weekend with no sign of it letting up, I thought I'd start the week off with a little humor. Check out this segment from the Ellen DeGeneres Show that features the Hawaii Chair. I love the infomercial snippet that's included in the clip. The demonstration of the exercise machine's use in a "real" office setting adds a new twist to the term work flexibility.

Aloha.

I recently read an article on New Scientist. A new study found that parents who experience negative stress outcomes in the form of anxiety and depression also tend to have children that get sick more often. My first reaction was: Not surprising! In October 2007, the American Psychological Association conducted a poll and found that 48% of respondents reported that their stress level had increased over the past 5 years. Work was cited more than any other stressor, with 74% of respondents indicating that work was a source of stress for them. Money was #2 (73%). As more and more people are being asked to do more with less, demands increase, which subsequently increases stress levels. This can cause the negative consequences of stress (anxiety, depression, worry, irritability) to not only affect their work lives, but to spill over into their home life as well. Since children tend to model the behavior of their parents, “stressed out” parents can lead to “stresssed out” kids. This is problematic because research has consistently shown that high levels of stress have a negative impact on the immune system, which can then lead to increased experiences of illness.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because most households are dual-earner or single-parent households, parents are responsible for work demands and for getting their kids to where they need to be. Having one child may mean playing chauffeur, but it adds even more demands on parents’ time when they have two, three, or four children’s schedules to juggle. Subsequently, the more after-school and weekend activities that children participate in, the more demands on parents’ time outside of work. Though the culture has shifted from one of single-earner households to one of dual-earner households, the way we structure our family life, in terms of extra-curricular activities, hasn’t changed much. Parents are trying to be everything to everybody. The stress associated with this can increase if parents work non-traditional schedules, which has become more common. No longer is the typical schedule 9-5; down-time may only arise in the form of sleep, and sometimes there’s not even time for that.

So, parents are “stressed out” at work and “stressed out” with non-work demands as well. Because of all of these demands on their time, they tend to cut corners. They eat poorly, fail to get sufficient exercise and sleep, and engage in other unhealthy behaviors (which they model to their children).  Is it any wonder that parents are so stressed out, and that they have modeled this behavior for their children?

Societal shifts, changes in the nature of work, and technological advances have blurred the separation of work and life outside the office. Blackberries, text messaging, and remote connections give work free reign on our personal lives – so why shouldn’t the pendulum swing both ways. After all, the less stressed employees feel, the more productive they will be at work and home. Who doesn’t want happy, well-rounded employees?
 
By giving employees the latitude they need, employers may be surprised by the return on investment. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to schedule doctor’s appointments, get insurance quotes, coordinate childcare, and the like outside the 9-5 Monday through Friday hours. What choice are employees left with but to take care of personal business at the office? “Homing from work” is a phrase that describes the use of work time and resources to take care of personal matters. Another label is “reverse telecommuting,” which Dilbert creator Scott Adams describes as a time to pay bills online and make copies on your employer’s dime (The Joy of Work: Dilbert's Guide to Finding Happiness at the Expense of your Co-Workers). Although Dilbert’s “definition” is a little narrow, it illustrates how personal life can erode productivity at work – if you let it.

Most managers realize that some personal matters must be attended to at work (outside the lunch break). Acknowledging that small chunks of employees’ time will inevitably be spent scanning presidential election news or communicating with a spouse throughout the day saves employees the trouble of coming up with excuses and expending energy navigating away from Kayak or Flickr as quickly as possible every time you walk by. Instead, by working in a supportive environment, employees can channel that extra oomph into their work. A recent article in Self Magazine reviews the trials and tribulations of minimizing the distractions one’s personal life has on work. If employees abuse flexibility to the point that work is not getting done, then it’s time to take a deeper look at what’s going on and how the employee can better budget their time.

Granted, giving employees the freedom to squeeze in personal matters during work hours isn’t appropriate in every situation, but in most circumstances, empowered employees balance their responsibilities and appreciate their employer’s trust. In return, employees might not groan the next time you ask them to postpone their lunch plans for a last minute meeting and you may notice employees arriving refreshed on Monday mornings and already briefed on the week’s upcoming activities because they connected to their work email remotely on Sunday afternoon. Remember, the central idea is that flexibility done right can lead to increased productivity.

Flexibility is especially important with the influx of younger employees who seek it and more experienced employees who know they want independence and aren’t willing to work for a company that won’t provide it. If you’d like to give increased flexibility a try with your employees, keep in mind that your organizational culture must match the underlying premise of the flexibility you are trying to accomplish. For example – should employees be allowed Internet access for personal reasons? If you plan to give employees more freedom but your company has a "no personal email access" policy then you may have a problem. Full Internet access at work opens a different can of worms – visions of employees wasting their days away on Facebook, watching YouTube videos, and instant messaging back and forth with friends may come to mind. On the flip side, employees may be able to work more efficiently if they can scan through an email from their sibling during a break and then shift their complete focus back to work when they’re done.

However you decide to provide employees with increased autonomy, ensure it matches the culture of your organization, that you have full support from management, and the flexibility is clearly communicated to employees. Give a little to your employees and get a little more in return – isn’t that the way it should be? Now get back to work!

The U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday that employment was down another 80,000 jobs in March, for a total decline of almost a quarter of a million jobs in the first three months of 2008. With an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent, almost eight million people are unemployed -- that's 1.1 million more than this time last year, and many analysts agree that there's more of the same to come. 

In a recent survey by Financial Executives International and the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, two-thirds of the CFOs surveyed identified layoffs and reduced hiring as areas for cutbacks. A Hay Group study, as cited by the Society for Human Resource Management found that along with freezing salaries and cutting staff, employers are making changes to healthcare and retirement benefits, as well as to training and development programs.

Here's where we get into dangerous territory. While there's no denying that the current economic downturn may necessitate some belt tightening, employers should be careful not to secure this quarter's financial results at the expense of the organization's long-term success.

Charles T. Scott, in Workforce Management, cautions employers not to overreact and advises them to keep both business and human capital goals in mind when coping with the "inevitable cycles" that occur in the economy. He points out that for more than half a century, downturns have lasted an average of only 11 to 18 months, and comments that when things heat back up again, the "ongoing war for talent" will still exist.

In today's business world, attracting and retaining the very best employees can provide a competitive advantage. Turnover is expensive, the costs associated with recruiting and training new employees are high and unanticipated side-effects of cutbacks may wind up hurting the organization in the long run. A Perth Leadership Institute white paper indicates that this type of cost cutting can lower employee morale, hamper innovation, create additional turnover, prevent potentially successful programs from being proposed and negatively affect the longer-term competitiveness of the organization. 

In the featured interview for our March podcast, Dr. Rebecca Kelly talked about organizational values and asked whether employers truly value their human capital. One comment she made really stuck with me. She said, "When you purchase a $2 million piece of equipment, you call that valuable. We have to take care of that," and then pointed out that we don't always take the same care with our employees.

When finances get tough, do you stop changing the oil in your car to save $39.99 every three months? Do you stop doing preventive maintenance on your high-tech manufacturing equipment? Do you cancel your subscription to the firewall and antivirus services on your PC or stop downloading critical software updates? Of course not - the costs of expensive repairs, fuel inefficiencies, shortened lifespans, performance decrements, security failures and hard drive crashes would far outweigh the short-term savings realized through these poorly conceived "solutions."

Organizational leaders give plenty of lip service to employees being their "most valuable assets," but actions speak louder than words. Whether in good economic times or bad, it would be ill-advised to cut the health and wellness benefits, stifle the opportunities for growth and development, eliminate the flexibility, reduce the level of employee involvement or give short shrift to the recognition programs that keep employees and organizations performing at their best.

Surely human beings deserve to be treated at least as well as machines.

We hear countless comments, suggestions, and complaints about work-life balance, and as of yet, I still don’t think we understand what it means. However, a recent special issue of the journal Employee Relations provides a very intriguing overview regarding the current state of work-life balance theory and practice. In the introductory article, Doris Ruth Eikhof, Chris Warhurst, and Axel Haunschild provide a scathing criticism of the assumptions and evidence on which the current work-life balance debate rests. Some of the assumptions they challenge are:

• Work-life imbalance results from over-work
• Work-life balance programs should be primarily directed toward those with childcare or eldercare duties
• Women provide all of the support for their families
• Employees don’t identify with their work roles and need a means of escape

Last year, Career Builder conducted its annual Father’s Day Survey and found that a staggering 37% of working dads would leave their jobs if their spouse or partner made enough money to support the family, while another 38% would take a pay cut to spend more time at home. It could be because they are over-worked, or it could be because they get little support for trying to manage a full-time career and being a good parent. It is clear, though, that the need for men to strike some sort of equitable relationship between work and non-work demands has not really caught on. Why might this be?

Well, a Monster survey  revealed that only 29% of human resource professionals viewed their company’s work-life balance programs favorably. So, maybe working dads want to leave or cut back because less than 3 out of 10 companies have a work-life balance program that actually meets their needs. Why is it so difficult to believe that fathers want to spend time with their spouses, partners, and children, too? We also want to be able to spend time with other members of our family, spend time with our friends, and participate in other activities. I recently came back from a 6-day trip to Washington DC. The next night my wife and I were sitting down talking, and she told me how hard it was being a parent to three children all by herself for 6 days. She commented “It made me realize just how much slack you pick up around here.” It would be nice if working fathers everywhere could get that same recognition…especially from their employers.