Tag Archive for: work-life balance

Six Reasons Why Women Execs Should Volunteer

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show-of-hands featuredBy Jennifer Davis

As a professional woman, you’ve probably dreamed of making an impact in the community, beyond your role as an industry leader or executive. “If I only I the time,” you might have told yourself, “I’d tackle world poverty. Or start a nonprofit foundation. Or work on a cure for cancer.”

Indeed, women are the nation’s most prevalent volunteers, with more than 28 percent giving their time, compared to 22 percent of men. Part of the reason may be that women intuitively understand that their responsibilities extend beyond payroll and profits. “Women are hard-wired to be engaged in their communities,” says Dr. Val Hannemann, a psychologist in Flagstaff, Ariz. “Volunteering connects women. They share, they compare, and they adopt new strategies to make a difference in the world.”And let’s not forget, most volunteers are recruited by volunteers and so women have a tendency to invite their female networks to engage in their projects.

Yet the reality is that many women who volunteer their time work part-time or not at all. In fact, women who are primarily care-givers or homemakers can become “professional volunteers.”On the other hand, time can be a major issue for professional women, who may have less flexibility in their schedules or priorities. If you’re like a lot of working women, you’re probably already juggling family, children, and your health —in addition to a demanding job. Yet if you haven’t carved out the time to volunteer, it may be time to reconsider. Yes, making the world a better place is important for its own sake. But it’s also a critical part of your professional development strategy. Here are six reasons why you should make the time:

  • You’ll build your experience base

    Volunteer work can play an important role in helping you get the experience you want in your career. These opportunities provide great opportunities to learn new skills, interact with mentors, and build your portfolio. And, of course, you can list volunteer opportunities on your resume and LinkedIn profile, alongside your paid work.

  • You’ll expand your network

    The old adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know” is true. Furthermore, it is really about who knows you. Volunteer opportunities allow you to build relationships outside your normal circle of friends and colleagues, helping you to broaden your network of folks who have had positive interactions with you and are inclined to think of you when opportunities arise.

  • You’ll broaden your perspective

    By working with a different set of people and challenges, you’ll inevitably widen your perspective. Volunteering can pull you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to tackle new problems from different angles. It can also give you profound new perspectives that can shape both your approach to life and the way you show up on the job.

  • You’ll hone your leadership skills

    As a volunteer, you can do things that an employee can’t. You can work outside the organization chart. You can seek out new opportunities for growth and involvement. And you can make connections between organizations. With the right volunteer opportunity, you’ll gain experience setting a vision, developing strategies, raising funds, motivating people, and reconciling conflicting perspectives—all essential leadership skills. And you’ll have the opportunity to practice those skills in a safe environment—and then apply them back at work to make yourself more visible and indispensable.

  • You’ll position yourself for promotion

    A volunteer opportunity outside of work is a great way to demonstrate your readiness for the C-suite. By sitting on the board of a local nonprofit, managing a community-based initiative, or organizing a volunteer program for your own corporation, you’ll be required to tackle many of the same issues faced by top executives within your company. Moreover, taking on a leadership volunteer role “send(s) the signal that you aspire to leadership potential,” says leadership coach Muriel Maignan Wilkins. Indeed, taking on the right volunteer opportunity can earn you recognition as a leader—helping you to get the promotion you desire.

  • You’ll do good for others—and for yourself

    Last, but not least, volunteering is vital to the health of our communities. You already bring so many skills to the table, and using them for the greater good makes the world a better place. At the same time, serving others gets you out of your own head and puts your own worries and problems in perspective. Research has shown that volunteering helps people feel more socially connected, wards off depression, and may even contribute to better physical health like lower blood pressure and improved memory. So, do yourself some good by doing good!

Jennifer Davis is Chief Marketing Officer of Leyard and Vice President, Marketing and Product Strategy for Planar Systems

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Working hard? How is the teamwork at home?

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arguing-couple featuredLike cars, relationships shift up and down through three gear-like phases. To move ahead together, you need to learn to recognize which gear is needed and how to change your thinking and actions in each one. When you fail to shift, at the right time, your relationship will stall or, worse, come to a painful screeching halt. Sad to say, all too often women rising in today’s competitive workplace experience relationship challenges. Why? We tend to wear more “relationship hats” than our male counterparts but more importantly, married to a man or a woman doesn’t really matter if both partners work in high-octane careers law, financial service or technology firms.

All relationships start in 1st Gear. Let’s take a romantic relationship for example. You begin slowly getting to know each other, spending leisurely hours talking about what you like and don’t like, want and don’t want so you can become good friends or even mates. Then you reach a shifting point-for weeks you’ve been so obsessed with your “startup relationship” that friends and family are leaving messages, “Where have you been?” No, you didn’t move out of town or leave the planet. You’ve been in the preoccupying, all-absorbing, time-consuming 1st Gear of Relationship!
Committed, you shift to 2nd Gear, de-focus on each other and re-focus on the rest of your lives such as projects, deadlines, appraisals, promotions and bonuses. Productive and competitive again, you work long and hard to plan your wedding and pay for it, find a home and furnish it, fund IRAs or 401Ks, buy stock, and build your client base.

Ah, it seems like you’re accomplishing so much together but actually you’re accomplishing more and more apart with taking care of your new home, starting your family, dropping off kids and picking them up, babysitting for each other so you can attend meetings and take clients to dinner. Now you’re doing more and more separately so you have less and less in common. Division of labor is what you call it but loneliness is what it feels like. And what about your plans and dreams, the unique contributions you want to make in your lives? There’s no time or energy for that now. Increasing pressures, longer hours, more disappointments, misunderstandings and arguments until you reach a choice point.

Do you choose to shift to 3rd Gear together and find solutions? “Honey, we love each other dearly. What can we do to re-create our relationship? To make time to talk for hours like ‘the good ole days’, to get to know each other again, to plan and dream our future. Can we find a regular sitter and set up a date night? Or take a class or start a project we can share and enjoy?”

A quick overview:

1st Gear is for starting and keywords include: new, basic rules, safe/dangerous, right/wrong, good/bad, should/shouldn’t, have to/must. You need to downshift to handle change, expected or unexpected… to slow down to hear about your child’s day or study for your CFA exam. Or handle accident, injury or illness… a sick child, spouse, parent or friend.

2nd Gear is for producing and competing and keywords include: more-better-faster, win/lose, longer/harder, deadline, profit, bonus. Today we spend most of our time accelerating in 2nd Gear.
3rd Gear is for creating and innovating, co-dreaming and cooperating and keywords include: Aha! realize, discover, recreate, innovate and renew.

Yes, from time to time you’ll be in the same gear at the same time and will be learning together, producing together, or creating together. But sometimes you won’t and there will be Mis-Gear-Matches so it’s essential for you to not only recognize which gear you are in, but also which gear your partner, child or client is in. What their gear-needs are and shift gears to meet them.
Now that you know more about the Three Gears and when each is needed, it is time to begin shifting up, and down, at the right time in all your relationships so you can have more fun and romance. And feel more fulfilled together at work and at home.

Guest Contributed By Susan Ford Collins

Susan Ford Collins has been called, “America’s Premier Success and Leadership Coach” by CNN. Collins is also the author of The Technology of Success book series which includes, The Joy of Success: 10 Essential Skills for Getting the Success You Want, (October 2015).

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Flexible Work Arrangements: Why Workplace Flexibility is Good for Business

iStock_000004026171XSmallBy Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

The desire for more flexible work arrangements is not limited to just one group of employees. Although workplace dynamics are changing as companies are experience more diversity within their halls than ever before, a common denominator among all employees, not just female employees, continues to be the interest in flexible work arrangements. As more in-depth research is conducted on the benefit of flexible schedules for both employees and companies, there is strong evidence that catering to employees’ needs through more flexible schedules can improve productivity, employee satisfaction, and have a positive impact on the talent pipeline.

A paper on flexible work arrangements published by PwC suggests that newer generations of workers –Gen X and Gen Y –are driving the trend of increasingly flexible work arrangements, but older generations, including Traditionals and Baby Boomers, support flexible schedules as well. This is well supported by the paper, When Work Works [PDF], which indicates that “80% of workers say they would like to have more flexible work options and would use them if there were no negative consequences at work.”

With more employees seeking flexible work arrangements and technology innovations allowing for increased mobile connectivity among employees, firm leaders should take note of the potential opportunities and positive impact flexible schedules can have on a workplace environment.

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Swine Flu (H1N1) and the Working Mother

istock_000009353072xsmall1by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

While health officials scramble to control an influx of questions, guidelines and cases related to swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, another demographic is impacted–working parents. Schools have been closing all over the country. In Boston, at least six schools closed. In New York City, 16 schools closed. Entire districts have been shut down in Texas. Even in areas where the schools have remained open, students showing any flu-like symptoms have been asked to stay home for seven days. How do working parents, and especially professional women, manage their careers and their family-life under extenuating circumstances such as these?

Katherine Chalmers, a software marketing manager, is also the mother of two toddlers. Chalmers and her attorney husband have what they describe as a “carefully choreographed schedule that goes completely to hell when one of the kids gets sick.”

When that does happen, Chalmers and her husband choose from a number of options. Sometimes, one of them chooses to work from home. But Chalmers is quick to point out that this can be difficult with little children underfoot. Chalmers’ children are 14 months and 2 years old. “Working at home is very difficult,” she says. “They are not at an age they can play by themselves.”

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