According to research by Mercer, the majority of companies worldwide were expected to increase both long and short-term international assignments. The research also told us that men have typically fulfilled these assignments. Global HR consultants Caroline Kersten and Sapna Welsh, the authors of Worldly Women—The New Leadership Profile, affirmed that the need for women to fulfill international assignments still persists in a recent interview with the Society for Human Resource Management. In addition, they say that men are still the first ones put on the list to be considered for overseas work opportunities.
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As a smart, powerful woman, you’re used to negotiating. You’ve made your case for a higher salary equal to your peers, and gotten it. You’ve held your own against both male and female colleagues on projects, and won respect because of your fair, level-headed approach. All these reasons, and more, are why you’re on your way up the ladder.
But what about negotiating for other benefits, like vacation days? Assuming that benefits like paid time off are set in stone when you join a new company or are in a bargaining position during your yearly review is just that — an assumption.
You tend to forget about time off as a bargaining chip, but it’s a valuable asset to negotiate for. Next time the opportunity arises, think about how you can position yourself for more vacation time.
The Importance of Vacation
It’s no secret that America is way behind the rest of the world in vacation time when it comes to guaranteed, nation-wide benefits.
Although some firms have great benefits, legally, you aren’t entitled to any vacation days. Compare that to Brazil, where they’re entitled to 30 vacation days a year.
Work burnout is serious and can cause a lot of issues that can be detrimental to your health. Additionally, studies show that burnout subjects have issues managing their emotions, which could make them more vulnerable to depression. You don’t need something like that getting you down after how hard you’ve worked to make it this far.
In the long run, more paid time off could be even more valuable than a pay raise. Here’s how to get more than those guaranteed 10 days of vacation:
1. Negotiate Right Away
If you’re just starting a job, try to negotiate during the interview process. You can tell if the company really wants you and your skill set is in high demand. Use that as a bargaining chip. The more the company wants you, the more likely they’re going to give you that extra vacation —perhaps even more than you were expecting.
2. Know What You Want
Know the number you’re looking for before you go into the meeting. If you’re negotiating for more PTO instead of some sort of raise, figure out how much vacation time would equal the raise you would be getting. If you know what you want, you know you won’t stop until you get it.
3. Do Your Research
Here’s where your networking skills come in. Find out what other people in your industry have done to successfully negotiate – whether it’s a business deal or a PTO negotiation. See what other requests have been granted or denied to employees in your company. How much were they getting on average? This helps you come up with a number and also gives you insider info on how to get what you want.
It also helps to know the boss you’ll be asking for it from. If you have some trusted colleagues, start asking through the grapevine and see if there’s any timing in particular that works best or if there are certain ways to propose it. Knowing more about the boss lets you mold your presentation to be as attractive as possible.
4. Propose the Benefits of Vacation Time
In addition to the various health benefits it offers, vacation can improve your productivity. A study found that for each additional 10 hours of vacation an employee took, their performance ratings improved eight percent. If you show what a good refueling session can really do for your productivity, it’ll give incentive for both you and other employees to get the amount of vacation they need — and for your boss to grant it.
5. Make a Plan
How can your boss say no when you adequately demonstrate that no work will be left undone in your absence? Explain how you plan to work ahead and cover your work. You can even suggest a cross training program.
Cross training makes it easier for people to take vacations because other people are trained on how to do their job. Basically, as a powerful, smart woman, you get your work done before you leave, and anything that pops up while you’re gone will be covered by people you’ve trained to kick butt in your absence.
With jobs covered at any time, it’s easier for you — and other employees — to take the vacations you want. That’s just one of the benefits.
Tell them how it could lead to higher efficiency and productivity, as well as letting employees learn new skills and possibly discovering new talents in their job capabilities. Research stats to back up the benefits of cross training and create a whole presentation so it’s not just about your vacation time. Implementing this program could be beneficial to your career as well.
6. Be Prepared for a “No”
There’s a good chance your boss has a reason to say no, so don’t let it catch you off guard. You know how to prepare for this, so make sure you keep your cool when it happens. Ask if there are any circumstances that would allow more PTO to happen. Try and work together to find some sort of compromise, if there’s one to be made. Find a way to make it happen.
Show that you can get all of your work done before your vacation would even happen. You’re a powerful woman that can get everything done before you leave. If something were to come up while you’re gone, direct the boss towards the couple people you’ve trained to kick butt in your absence. Prepare ahead and make it hard for them to say no.
Time is something you can never get back. While the hassle of negotiations is never fun, this is something you want to take charge and make sure you get it.
By Sarah Landrum
“Self-learning is a key path to growth,” says Voya’s Barbara Reinhard, “whether you’re learning something big that will change your career or something small that will make your day-to-day life easier.”
For example, Reinhard taught herself time-saving Excel tricks such as using shortcuts to manage big data sets. “You can participate in an Excel class, but until you’re playing around with it yourself, you won’t know what you need to. It’s the difference between reading about a vacation and actually taking one,” she says. “If you can teach yourself, you can learn anything.”
That skill came in handy when she first started out as a fixed income analyst. When Reinhard saw challenging bond markets on the horizon, she looked beyond fixed income and learned what she could about equities to expand her skill set and opportunities. “It’s easy to become very specialized, but your intellectual curiosity trumps all.”
A Career In Asset Allocation
During her 20 years at Morgan Stanley, Reinhard worked in the Fixed Income, Institutional Investment Management areas and eventually became deputy Chief Investment Strategist. Advancing from an analyst to a managing director was an unusual path, she acknowledges, but one that beckoned because of the ongoing opportunities she sought.
In 2011 she joined Credit Suisse as Chief Investment Officer for private banking in the Americas, running discretionary asset allocation portfolios. Five years later, in April 2016, Reinhard joined Voya.
Of her professional achievements, she’s most proud of becoming a managing director, earning her Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and being hired by Voya: she set her sights on the position as soon as she met the Multi- Asset team.
Not only does Reinhard appreciate the challenging work at Voya, she finds it particularly rewarding because of the firm’s mission to be “America’s Retirement Company.”
“Every individual in America at all wealth levels — from a Rockefeller to a Reinhard — will face retirement,” she says. “At Voya, we can touch every American’s life, and it’s a powerful investment mission when you realize that the decisions we make will help someone realize their lifelong goals.”
To help make smart decisions, Voya completes an annual exercise in October where they develop 10-year asset class forecasts and anticipate the peaks and troughs that markets might see over the next decade. This becomes the foundation for their future asset class strategic investment recommendations.
Reinhard worries that the finance and analytical elements of a career similar to hers might be off-putting to women, especially those who specialized in liberal arts and think that they need to be more mathematically and quantitatively inclined. But the truth, Reinhard says, is that statistics and quantitative theories are actually relatively easy to learn, as they are very finite. “Once you’ve done it once, you can do it 100 times. Don’t be put off by the quantitative aspects of the industry,” she says.
Urging a Savings Mentality From a Young Age
Reinhard sees one of the industry’s biggest struggles as trying to help Americans think about retirement. “It’s difficult when you’re 25 to save for that long-term goal; you can’t even intellectuality conceptualize it,” she notes. But she has seen the importance of starting early. The youngest of five children and raised by parents who were products of the Great Depression, she started saving for retirement with her first paycheck.
“The most important contributor to my retirement account hasn’t been an investment decision I made, but rather letting my asset base compound year in and year out. Compounding interest is one of the best mathematical advantages you can give yourself,” she says, stressing that the one thing young adults should do is put money toward their retirement as early as possible.
The Career-Changing Influence of Mentors and Sponsors
Reinhard credits some of her success with two sponsors who paved the road for her based on her goals, helping her acquire the skills she needed to earn subsequent promotions.
She advises that whether your mentors and sponsors are formal or informal, neither of these people should be your boss. A sponsor is typically far more senior in the organization, someone who sees your value add and will champion you. By cultivating these relationships, and making sure that the leadership team in the organization knows you, opportunities and connections will happen that can change your career path.
The best way to gain that visibility is to be ready for unexpected opportunities that might present themselves, the quintessential “elevator experience.” Reinhard is always ready with a two-minute anecdote in her back pocket about a recent significant business win or something material to the investment strategy she is working on. For example, when the S&P finally broke new highs, she ran into Voya’s CEO and was able to give him a quick analysis and recommend he use the information when he met with important shareholders over the next couple weeks as a proof point for why active management still works.
The key, she says, is to adapt your ideas over the years as your career expands so you always have something ready for your two-minute speech.
And for women who are more senior, she urges them to sponsor a younger professional. For her part, she’s always found someone to watch out for, maybe someone who volunteered to help with an unpopular or time-consuming project, which she says is a smart strategy to gain a champion. “I’ve gotten the most bang for my buck by fixing things that were broken when others said it couldn’t be done.”
Family, Running and Volunteer Work Balance Her Work Life
A former marathon runner, Reinhard says that physical fitness tops her priority list as a calming influence that can help control how she reacts to markets. While she devotes most of her non-work hours to her husband and young son — “they are the most important people in my life” — she makes time for non-profit work as well, serving on the finance committee for the Jerome Green Foundation, a group involved in activities related to education advancement, social justice, arts, health and human services.
You’ve heard about the power of positive thinking and the perils of negative thinking, but when it comes to your ability to reach goals or make dreams happen, the polarities of positive and negative thinking may matter less than getting the friction right between them.
In her HBR article, Gabrielle Oettingen, professor of psychology at NYU and University of Hamburg who has studied human motivation for twenty years, suggests that while negative thinking will never deliver you at the doorstep to your next goal, positive thinking – especially in the form of fantasizing about outcomes – hides some dangerous pitfalls that could keep you from the stairs.
Positive Outcome versus Pursuit
Achieving a goal takes some muster in walking the steps to get there. Even if they are small steps, it’s important to energize yourself towards taking them.
In their research paper, Kappes & Oettingen discuss that “positive fantasies do not lead people to anticipate having to exert cumbersome effort. Instead, positive fantasies allow people to embellish idealized paths to idealized future outcomes.”
Imagining yourself having already coasted without obstacle to your goal can be counterproductive. You mentally feel as though you’ve already arrived at your goal in the present moment, so you relax rather than energize. This can “obscure the need to invest effort in tasks that demand effort.”
Kappes & Oettingen found that fantasizing about a positive outcome can inhibit generating the energy you need to pursue it. They observed that positive fantasies about outcomes created lower physiological (systolic blood pressure) and behavioral energization than negative or neutral fantasies. The research showed “a causal relationship between positive fantasies about desired futures and low energy devoted to their realization.”
As Oettingen writes in HBR, “You’re less motivated to buck up and make the strong, persistent effort that is usually required to realize challenging but feasible wishes.”
They found, “Instead of promoting achievement, positive fantasies will sap job-seekers of the energy to pound the pavement, and drain the lovelorn of the energy to approach the one they like. Fantasies that are less positive – that question whether an ideal future can be achieved, and that depict obstacles, problems, and setbacks – should be more beneficial for mustering the energy needed to attain actual success.”
Easy versus Hard Steps
In further research, Kappes, Sharma & Oettingen found that when potential donors to charitable causes were encouraged to fantasize an ideal resolution to a current problem, they were less willing to put bigger and meaningful resources into actually helping address the problem.
When the demands for time or money were easy, or required relatively few resources, the positive thinkers were in step with the control group. But when the problem asked for more commitment from them – more time, more money, more effort – they folded. Since they’d already fantasized the ideal future as true, the effort to get there seems “overly demanding” now.
Fantasizing about the ideal outcome can mean not only failing to build up the energy to move towards it but also at some level rejecting that it should require significant energy and resources. That’s no recipe for being the agent of your dreams, wishes, or goals.
Positivity Gone Sour
As Oettingen writes in the European Review of Social Psychology, fantasies about attaining a positive future predict low effort and little success. What happens when you fantasize that a future outcome is highly accessible to you and yet your reality fails to meet it – possibly because you never harnessed the necessary drive and resolve to get there?
The opposite of positivity. The more we fail to reach the outcomes we believe should be accessible to us, the more it grinds us down. Oettingen notes, “Low effort and little success translate into more depressive symptoms over time.” This is whether it comes to an external goal (writing that book) or a personal desire (creating more healthy boundaries).
Unrealistic optimism has a habit of ending in hurt, when success doesn’t walk on over and take you by the hand to skip away into tomorrow, the way it did (kind of) in your mind.
“Mental Contrasting” – Put the Positivity into the Process
Rather than solely “indulging” in thoughts of a positive future or solely “dwelling” in the obstacles of a present reality, Oettingen has put forth both in papers and in her book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation that the power is in “mentally contrasting” the two.
Oettingen developed the process “W-O-O-P”: “Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan.” Her book applies this process to three areas: health, personal and professional relationships, and performing at work.
Step #1 Wish
First, you bring the wish you have for the future to mind, a goal or change that is challenging but possible to achieve in a certain time frame. Maybe it’s getting the lead role on a project team.
Steo #2 Outcome
Second, you let your mind run with fantasizing about the future if your wish came true – what does the best possible outcome feel like? Maybe you imagine yourself in the position and handling it brilliantly, feeling confident and strong.
Step #3 Obstacle
Then, you mentally elaborate on the current reality that stands in the way of realizing this future – what obstacles exist? Bringing up obstacles isn’t negativity – it’s taking a glance at the map so you plan your route strategically. Oettingen advises to ask yourself, “”What is it in me that stands in the way?” simply because you can’t control others. Maybe you realize you have a tendency to undermine the critical role you play in the team’s success because you focus on enabling them.
Step #4 Plan
Make a plan for how you can overcome the obstacle. When it comes to overcoming ingrained behaviors or dealing with specific obstacle scenarios, Oettingen suggests using an implementation intervention such as an “if/then” statement. For example, “If I talk about the team’s success, I’ll play up my personal approach to getting the best results from a team.”
Through Mental Contrasting, Oettingen and Schwörer argue that you are now linking the future to the reality: “It creates determined goal pursuit, reveals the critical situation (obstacle of reality), and links the reality with the instrumental action to overcome the reality (goal-directed action).”
If you have high expectations on being able to overcome the reality, this leads to increased effort, more engagement, and hence more success. The positivity comes in being able to envision yourself taking agency in overcoming the obstacles to make your wish attainable.
On the other hand, if the “WOOP” practice reveals low expectations in being able to overcome obstacles, you may want to discern to put your resources and attention elsewhere.
When we hone our positive thinking power towards our ability to take each necessary step towards our wishes – even the challenging ones that ask for our strength, humility, or perseverance- then positivity can stop being only a beacon in the distance, or a warm feeling for something we’ve yet to do, and become a guiding light that keeps us moving on the path to what we most want.
By Aimee Hansen
Most people only think about their resume when they’re looking for a new job. While often that means moving to a new employer, sometimes opportunity appears in your own back yard. Someone at a higher level leaves or is promoted leaving an opening perfect for you.
If you think a resume is overkill when applying for an internal promotion, you would be wrong. A winning resume can dramatically increase your odds of securing that new role, particularly when you’re competing with outside candidates with brand-new achievement–based resumes.
Although, external candidates widen the pool, you have one big thing going for you. You’re a known quantity. This means they don’t have to worry whether or not you’re a good fit for the company culture.
Hopefully, you also know some, if not all, of the players that might include the hiring manager, the HR team, and anyone else with influence.
That said, you still need to sell yourself to get the job.
Many people assume that if they’ve been with an employer for several years that their reputation precedes them. They mistakenly think that if they’ve generated X amount of dollars by landing an important client or saved time by streamlining the end-of-month close process that the right people will know.
Unfortunately, they may not. The only way to be sure is to tell them, on your resume.
Whether you’ve been with your employer for 10 months or even 10 years, you can’t expect those in decision-making roles to be aware of how much you have accomplished. You need to sell yourself with an achievement-based resume geared towards your target role. Here are five ways to make a positive impression with your resume.
Emphasize Leadership – If your target position is a step up, it’s essential to identify instances that demonstrate your leadership abilities. Activities like training, supervising and mentoring staff; participating in company leadership or management development programs; any outside professional development or certifications can increase your leadership quotient.
Put the “I” in Team – Dealing with team projects can be tricky, but it doesn’t have to be. While acknowleging the team’s success is important, you need to consider the specific contributions you made. Maybe you contributed some particular knowledge or served as unofficial team leader. Perhaps you were the one who got buy-in from the boss to move forward.
Identify Initiative – Mention any cases whenyou stepped up to take on additional responsibilities, particularly if they had an impact on your department or the company. For example, maybe you managed a project for your current supervisor so he or she could focus on other things like business development. Even better if it ties to an important new client.
Underscore Relationships – Consider any instances where you excelled in relationship building. Maybe you were part of an interdepartmental or cross-company team. Perhaps you collaborated with the head of another department to solve a company-wide problem or negotated better terms with a vendor. Again, even better if your actions had a positive impact on the company.
Showcase Recognition – Think about any recognition you’ve earned during your career. Have you received any company or industry awards? Were you selected for a prestigious leadership program? Acknowledged by a happy client or two? It might even be something from an employment review.
Wherever you are in your career begin keeping track of your accomplishments today. Create a “brag book” with letters from clients, notes from colleagues, and performance reviews. Keep it at home not your office, just in case.
Spend some time looking back on your current and previous positions to identify any challenges you have faced. Maybe you took over a department with low morale or came onboard only to find outdated equipment and/or processes. Next look at the steps you took to solve the problem or at least mitigate it. Finish with the results. If you were part of a team remember to include your contributions.
Demonstrating how you overcame challenges will set you apart from other candidates, internal and external, applying for the same position. It will help to tell your career story. Update your resume every six months so you’ll be ready when the perfect opportunity arises.
Author Bio:
Annette Richmond, principal of career intelligence Resume Writing & Career Services, is a Certified Resume Writer, Certified LinkedIn Profile Writer, and former recruiter. Her career advice has been featured in notable media outlets including Monster, Vault, Business Insider, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. Annette’s work was selected for Resumes For Dummies (August 2015).
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
No matter what the job entails task-wise (competence assumed), it is the politics and the inter-personal dynamics that will make or break you.
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Personality, we all have one, but some people definitely make the workday easier or tougher due to their personality quirks.
The Fall 2016 edition of the HBR’s On Point magazine explores working with different types of people at work including stars who are narcissistic and detrimental to team performance, morale and culture. I think timing is everything and it is no coincidence that this season’s issue on this topic coincides with an election in the US as the articles included span 15 years of research. Other articles include a coaching the alpha male, toxic employees and sabotaging colleagues.
Teams with members who have a narcissistic personality in them often suffer the most individually and as a group, as the person in question often has no clue that the impact of their actions is hard on others.
Even if their have the best of intentions for themselves and if they think they are being benevolent, it is literally impossible for them to think out long term consequences due to the need to look good in the moment. Remind you of anyone?
These folks are often star performers, often male (although not limited to males) and therefore get away with bad behaviors due to their “numbers” or other specific skills. The trouble manifests when they are allowed to run meetings, chastise support staff and generally get an ounce of power or responsibility that they interpret as power to be use and abused.
How many times have you seen this person interrupt others or shut down team brainstorming ideas? How many staff members has he or she upset?
So, how do you deal with someone who is demeaning, demotivating and discrediting the work of others and causing a cultural issue by making bad behavior acceptable?
If you are the boss, manager or leader then you have an opportunity to ensure that the team structure focuses experts on their narrow role such as keeping narcissistic sales people selling. Role and task definition makes it easier for all people to know what they need to do and also need not to do. Conversations around behavior change absent of structural change are often wasted on this person and coaching is not impossible but not easy.
If you are not the boss, then work for companies that just do not tolerate bad behavior (rare, I know) or keeps these folks contained so that they are self-contained and do not become toxic employees or even worst, they become leaders.
If the boss is a narcissist then you may have an inspiring personality at the helm with vision or an espoused vision and often have loyal followers. These leaders expect adulation and empathy and wont return the favor. As the article by Michael Maccoby exploring the pros and cons of narcissistic leaders in the HBR roundup by states, “ Narcissists have a vision –but that is not enough. People in mental hospitals have visions.”
My opinion on the matter is that life is short, get a different job with a mentally stable boss and given the choice don’t make them leaders of your team, company or country.
If you are interested in hiring an Executive Coach to help you navigate your career then please email Nicki@theglasshammer.com to discuss further
Three years ago, I found myself attending at a charity business development dinner with several partners and the chairman of my law firm. The event had been sponsored by one of the firm’s big sports clients and I was invited to attend, because a few months earlier, I was assigned to a big case representing Major League Baseball. The next thing I knew, I was seated across from Billie Jean King at dinner. To my right, Kareem Abdul Jabaar and Bill Walton were chatting at the next table.
I should have been utterly star-struck, but there was one big problem. I knew virtually nothing about sports. These were some of the most impressive athletes of our time, and yet the experience was somewhat lost on me. Like so many other occasions, I found myself making small talk throughout dinner, but falling uncomfortably silent whenever the conversation turned to sports.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in sports or consciously didn’t want to participate. Sports were just something that I had never grown up watching. By the time I got to law school at Michigan and football was such a huge part of the culture, I felt out of the loop and far behind many of my other classmates, who had grown up watching the game. I resigned myself to a lifetime of knowing nothing about sports.
But by a twist of fate, I was put on this baseball case at the law firm and I decided that I wanted to be proactive and do something about my sports obliviousness. I began following a couple teams and really getting to know a few players. Suddenly, with my additional knowledge, I felt empowered and it made watching the games fun and enjoyable. Sports were moving from something that had always left me feeling alienated to something that I genuinely enjoyed as a new pass-time.
Even though my case was a bit extreme, because sports-knowledge was nearly a requirement of my job, I found from speaking with friends and colleagues that this feeling of alienation is a common experience for many people who don’t follow sports, especially young professional women.
A 2015 Gallup Poll shows that there is a tangible gender gap in sports fandom with 76% of men earning over $75,000 describing themselves as sports fans, whereas only 56% of similarly high-income women would describe themselves as such. This difference, combined with the fact that only 14% of top executives are women, means that more often than not, ambitious young women are interfacing with men at the top of their companies. And not only that, they are competing with young male colleagues, who may be able to more easily form relationships with their bosses. While I do not think there is anything insidious going on, male associates may be able to more quickly able to form bonds with male bosses because of common interests, in part–sports. This scenario plays out in interactions with interviewers, clients, and colleagues as well.
I can speak from personal experience. Beyond working for MLB, I was frequently surrounded by colleagues chatting about sports. In my class of 20 litigation associates, only 3 were women. The gender breakdown amongst the partnership was similarly stark. At department lunches and firm events, it was often inevitable that the conversation would move beyond idle chitchat about the weather to the latest sports news.
This is not to suggest that women should have to feign interest in sports if they have none. But I think that there are many people, who like me, wanted to learn more but felt intimidated and didn’t know where to know where to start.
When I decided to try and learn more about sports, I found the experience frustrating because there were few resources for sports novices. There were plenty of media outlets for avid sports fans, but nothing that helped break things down and provide context for someone who was just getting started. I thought there was a gap in the marketplace for a product that could help someone develop more sports knowledge in a fun and accessible way.
This idea stuck with me, and just this year I decided to start Goalposte, a daily newsletter that summarizes the major stories in sports, while providing context and primers. In particular, Goalposte’s mission is to help level the playing field for young professional women, who are more likely to feel alienated in sports conversations with coworkers, bosses, interviewers, and clients. I hope that this simple daily newsletter will make it easier to cultivate a genuine interest in sports and that there will fewer women in the workplace who have to sit on the outside looking in when the conversation turns to sports.
About the Author:
Jane Wu Brower is the Founder and CEO of Goalposte, a daily newsletter that summarizes the major stories in sports in a fun and accessible way for casual sports fans and novices (www.goalposte.com). She was formerly a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group and a litigation associate at Proskauer Rose LLP.