New Role? Plan your own induction

newjobBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Starting a new job is always daunting. There’s so much to take in – settling in to your new desk, working out how to use different software to your old company, finding out how the coffee machine works. But on top of all that ‘new girl’ stuff you also have to make a fabulous impression on your new colleagues by quickly getting to grips with your new responsibilities.

Many companies offer induction or on-boarding programmes for staff that include pre-booked meetings with key employees, a buddy and general corporate orientation. However, as senior employee, you might not have the opportunity to join these programmes – or there might be nothing planned for you at all. What do you do if you turn up on your first day and are told to get on with it?

“New hires should strategize their entry with a strong awareness of setting the stage for their success,” says Stephanie Smith, who leads Stratex, an executive consulting and coaching firm based in New York City. She recommends finalising a written job description including your strategic purpose, performance criteria and reporting structure.

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Ask-A-Career-Coach: Career Success Requires Quantity, As Well As Quality

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart™

Recently, I heard from someone who was frustrated that, despite following all of the recommended career advancement strategies (networking, following up, working on her pitch), she was not moving forward. As an example, she referenced a few leads that had grown cold. What is the problem?

Now it could very well be that she is not networking, following up, or positioning herself as well as she says. But even if she is doing all of the steps right, and the quality of activity is there, a handful of leads not working out is not surprising. You also need quantity of activity in your job search and career plans.

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Showing Support for Equal Pay Day

equal payBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

A few weeks ago, The Glass Hammer shed some light on the Paycheck Fairness Act by speaking to the AAUW‘s passionate Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, Lisa Maatz, as well as labor and employment law attorney, Counsel Dena Calo of Genova, Burns & Vernoia. The Paycheck Fairness Act would essentially act as a much-needed update to the nearly 47-year-old Equal Pay Act and would create stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay, and strengthen federal outreach, education, and enforcement efforts. If passed, the legislation would also deter wage discrimination by strengthening penalties for equal pay violations and by prohibiting retaliation against workers who ask about employers’ wage practices or disclose their own wages.

On March 11, 2010 the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on the Paycheck Fairness Act. According to Maatz, who attended the hearing, some who testified on the Republican side deemed the act unnecessary because of the already-existing Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which now enables employees to challenge any discriminatory paycheck they receive. Maatz says that President Barack Obama’s signing of this important Act is a step in the right direction for women in the workforce. But recent statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau perfectly illustrate the real problem and the reason why organizations like AAUW are fighting to get the Paycheck Fairness Act passed: The wage gap. In 2010, the average woman continues to make just 77 cents for every dollar made by her male counterpart.

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How Much for a Personal Serving of Work-Life Balance?

work/life balanceBy Gigi DeVault (Munich)

I was doing fine until I released the whale bath toy into the bubbles from the Jacuzzi jets. I was fulfilling a working mother’s recurring dream. It goes like this: I slide into the frothing water—my shoulders are the tip of a languorous berg. I pour edelweiss nectar from the two delicate bottles of St. Germaine nabbed from the mini-bar; the faux cut-glass catches the glow of flickering tea lights lining the tub. Over the rim of my glass, I can see the rainbow-colored lights of the Santa Monica pier framed by the window of my upgraded suite. My colleagues are tucked away in a utilitarian hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This is my alone time, when for one brief interlude before the phone next rings, life can be perfect. Except that, the floating rubber bath toy brought an image of my daughter’s sweet face into my inner sanctum. “Mine, Mommy,” she would say, scooping up the bath toy in her dimpled three-year old hand.* Then there is a knock on the door. “Housekeeping.” Even here, hiding on the beach, I am found.

And what about the person with the disembodied voice that calls out to me on the other side of the door? If her life is as busy as mine, will she find a way to retreat and claim some blissful time alone? I want it to be so.

Is work-life balance just another one of those luxuries we covet – like the items in the Desire & Acquire exclusive shopping service accessed through the American Express Departures magazine? “In many ways, yes,” wrote Lisa Belkin in her New York Times column, Motherlode. “Only those with both financial security and some control over their work lives”—Belkin’s readers insist on this distinction— “have the freedom to recalibrate it.” Just what is required to recalibrate one’s work life?

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Roundup

Beth 005The Glass Hammer is pleased to bring back the Monday Business News Roundup, contributed by Beth Collinge of CTG – a division of ILX Group plc.

US Fed Chairman Bernanke predicted a “moderate economic recovery” would unfold in the US during the next several quarters. For Britain, the Ernst & Young Item Club forecast weak 1% growth this year, giving way to 2.7% next year and 3.4% in 2012. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took action against Goldman Sachs, claiming the company misstated and omitted key facts about a collateralized debt obligation.

Economic Backdrop

  • After a buoyant start to the week, stocks fell sharply on Friday when the US securities regulator charged Goldman Sachs with fraud relating to its dealing in subprime related products. The S&P 500 dropped 2 per cent. The Vix index, a measure of market volatility, jumped 21 per cent to nearly 20, a sharp return from the recent near-record lows of 15.
  • In the currency markets, the euro lost earlier gains to fall back to $1.3508, following a warning from Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central bank president, that conditions for Greek banks could deteriorate. Sterling also lost ground on Friday after the first ever televised leaders’ debate in the UK highlighted the possibility that no party would win overall control in the coming general election. Some analysts believe no clear majority for one party would hamper the future government’s ability to tackle the budget deficit.

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Voice of Experience: Elaine Sarsynski, Executive Vice President, MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, MassMutual International LLC

Sarsynski_Elaine MassMutualBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Technically, Massachusetts is in very close proximity to the bright lights and big city that is New York, but the small town of Hadley, where Elaine Sarsynski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MassMutual International and Executive Vice President and head of MassMutual’s Retirement Services business, called her home couldn’t have felt farther away. Sarsynski is currently the top ranked female executive at the company and was recently named one of the Top 15 Women in Business by PINK Magazine. But her attraction to business and her early understanding of its most basic concepts actually came as a result of working on her parent’s 60-acre vegetable farm.

“Working on the farm exposed me to the business side of things very early on,” Sarsynski said. “I can remember being a little kid and listening to my parents discuss things like venture capital, wholesale, and investment strategies at the dinner table and I soaked it all up. My mother was actually an astute business woman and was always thinking of clever ways to grow the business and make it profitable. I decided early on that I wanted to be a business woman, too, but I didn’t know it would ever actually take me off the farm.”

Sarsynski’s big chance came when she was just a junior at Smith College majoring in economics. One day, MassMutual came to her campus offering “a Day at MassMutual” to young women interested in the financial services industry. The young college student was eventually chosen to participate in the visit to corporate headquarters and upon making her entrance to MassMutual’s beautiful building, Sarsynski immediately knew she wanted to work at the company someday.

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Taking a Holistic Approach: Diversity Advice from Accenture

diversity teamBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I would first start off by saying we are very comprehensive,” explained LaMae Allen deJongh, managing director of U.S. Human Capital & Diversity at Accenture. “We emphasize inclusiveness, not only of diversity you can see, but also diversity that is invisible. Different interests and backgrounds are what make it special for us.”

She continued, “Regardless of the type of diversity we are talking about, at Accenture we work to integrate and embed it into the fabric of our organization – it’s part of our DNA.”

Accenture, recently named one of DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity for the fourth consecutive year, has, for many years, focused on building gender diversity. Now, as deJongh explained, the organization is moving into a new phase of diversity – from a programatic focus toward a more holistic approach.

She explained, “We continue to evolve. From my optics, achieving embedding is the next stage of maturity.” How can the holistic approach work for your firm? DeJongh has offered several tips based on her own experience at Accenture that may work for your company.

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It Pays to Negotiate: 5 Tactics That Work

selena_authorpic01Contributed by Selena Rezvani, author of “The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School”

If you think about it, we’re engaging in negotiations at work all the time. Whether we’re asking for the big promotion, the funding to attend a training or conference, for a vendor to come down on their prices, or to take a vacation during “busy” season, we’re in more bargaining situations than we realize.

With the pay disparity still a reality for most women, we need as many negotiation tools as possible at our disposal. What better time to revisit negotiation than now–as we approach April 20–the fifteenth annual Equal Pay Day? Consider the following strategies the next time you enter a negotiation at work, and remember, real-life practice is the very best preparation for negotiating.
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Accounting: Why Women Leave – and How to Keep Them

iStock_000007832712XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

In September of last year, The Glass Hammer informed readers of the first ever Accounting MOVE Project, which was spearheaded by the American Society of Women Accountants (ASWA) along with Joanne Cleaver, president and founder of the research firm Wilson-Taylor Associates. The project and its accompanying report aimed to find out exactly where the glass ceiling is – and it succeeded admirably. It was revealed that a large percentage of female accountants abandon public accounting firms at the senior manager level.

The 2010 Accounting MOVE Project, released today, documents why women leave the profession. Cleaver and her team conducted hundreds of interviews with women at different stages in their career, as well as with academics, firm employees, and recruiters (among many others) in order to provide a 360 point of view of the industry and find out why its failing to retain its female talent. The study indicates that while that women account for more than half of all firm employees (51.4 percent), only 40 percent of them hold senior manager positions and only 17.4 percent become partners. What’s keeping women out of the top ranks?

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Don’t Get Dooced! Staying Employable Online

hands computerBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Heard the one about the girl sacked via Facebook? Or the woman fired for blogging about her sex life? The internet is a dangerous place. “While fewer than 2% of employers have terminated employees for violations committed on business or personal blogs, that number is certain to grow as workplace blogging becomes more prevalent,” says Nancy Flynn, in her book The e-Policy Handbook. There are millions of blogs online, and if you write one you could be at risk of being marched out of your office with your stuff in a cardboard box. There’s even a word for it: dooced.

In 2002, Heather Armstrong, a web designer from Los Angeles, lost her job after her employers decided they didn’t appreciate what she had written on her website, Dooce. And a new word passed into the lexicon. Armstrong now makes a living from blogging and her website supports her family. However, she’s pragmatic about how she ended up writing as a career. “In February 2001, I launched dooce.com as a place to write about pop culture, music, and my life as a single woman,” she writes on her blog. “I never expected more than a couple of dozen people to read it. A year later I was fired from my job for this website because I had written stories that included people in my workplace. My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID.”

Here are our six tips to keep yourself employable online, and avoid the stupid stuff.
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