Tag Archives: California

Another Look at Employment Gaps, Responsibility, and Objectivity

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“They just think that you might have a problem with drugs or alcohol,” a friend explained, “They don’t want to hire someone with that sort of problem.” So, employment gaps carry a negative stigma even though people have a wide variety of reasons for taking a few years off here and there. Due to the recession, potential employers have become more understanding as more people have them now, so I hear. However, well-meaning friends and relatives will urge you to cover them up with some story if you don’t already have a conventionally acceptable excuse to take a break. You can also gauge how much of a concern employment gaps are to those that have them by conducting an Internet search on how to explain them.

One thing I’ve noticed about myself is that the older I become, the harder it is for others to (1) scare me about the consequences of diverging from the conventional life-path and (2) convince me that so-called “mistakes” are embarrassing. Yep, I’m not embarrassed about my own employment gaps and I’m going to explain why as well as make a case for changing how we think about this issue. Must the acquisition of skills and experience be observed by an employer in order to count?

Rethinking the View on Employment Gaps

Odds are, during an employment gap, you were doing more than just eating, sleeping, and eliminating. Why shouldn’t the experiences and skills acquired informally from classes, other people, self-employment, or learning on your own count? If you enjoy learning on your own as much as I do, you’ll find that it’s even pretty easy to learn the basics of using new software programs by tapping into the various tutorials available on the Internet. Search engines are your friends. Search, “how to use [name of program]” or “tutorials for [name of program]” and you’ll see.

Also, let’s face it. There are times when you learn more during an employment gap than you learn performing the same tasks and fulfilling the same duties over and over again in an employment situation (until someone finally notices and grants you additional responsibilities). That’s why some of us experience workplace boredom.

Furthermore, at least in my geographic region specifically (California), previous employers don’t give a lot of information about you in order to guard against lawsuits. I’ve received this human resources policy memo within organizations as an employee and as someone who has called employers for reference checks on job applicants. The prevailing policy is that employers stick to confirming (1) that you were an employee and (2) the dates and time you were employed there. So, at least over here, accessible information has become more superficial.

Rethinking the View on Choices and Responsibility

The adage, “With freedom comes great responsibility” is so true! Living without a steady paycheck greatly tests your ability to be financially responsible, and some people do just fine. When I look back on my life-path, I can see why it’s diverged with respect to those who either like or are compelled by circumstance (e.g., having dependents, a mortgage, or student loan, etc.) to buy things all the time. Our priorities are different. I have loved ones who love shopping, and I’m not passing judgment on them. We’re just “wired” differently and this extends to the differing need and value we place on continuous employment.

I’ve met women who’ve bought several hundred pairs of expensive shoes. When I see something like this, I always try to calculate how much free time this can buy. This has been my mentality ever since I was a young girl, and the reason why I almost always came home from the mall empty-handed. My iron-fisted saving habit carried over into adulthood and eventually earned some good-natured ribbing from peers during college for being so against carrying a credit card balance! I was no fun to shop with as I was always thinking about the free time that the money could buy.

However, the unspoken rule seems to be that you can spend your hard earned money on anything you want but funding your own “sabbaticals” will raise eyebrows (even if you spent that time developing yourself). By the way, I’m definitely not rich. I’m just a severe penny-pincher. Ultimately, when friends or family express concern with my choice, a couple of questions come to mind: Isn’t buying my own free time a legitimate purchase? Why do I have to make excuses for this?

A Call for Objectivity

In Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It, Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson made a case for competency-based education. This would allow students to earn credits by demonstrating mastery of skills and knowledge rather than forcing students to “do time” in a uniform manner. People vary according to the amount of time and repetition they need to master various skills. By focusing on results, students can learn at their own pace while not compelling other students to take the same amount of time. This takes the focus off how, when (including time duration), and where students acquired skills and knowledge.

This competency-based system can be extended to hiring for jobs where skills can similarly be demonstrated. Emphasis on testing for skills, abilities, and knowledge or requiring presentation of a portfolio would lend objectivity to assessing whether or not someone who appears short on number of years of work experience can perform the work or not. My call for objectivity isn’t intended to “ding” the people who have been continuously employed without a break. However, it makes sense to put some emphasis on comparing people’s performance regardless of differences in employment history timelines.

Thankfully, there are employers who will check out job applicants with employment gaps if everything else looks good. Ok, so they’ll want to confirm that I don’t have a drug or alcohol problem. There are others out there who still avoid candidates with gaps altogether however. I just tell myself that it would be hard to work for someone who’s not going to be open-minded anyway.

The End of Organizations as We Know Them

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My previous post, The Move Towards Self-Employment, touched upon the decline of organizations. This post will explain and expand upon this phenomenon. Just over a couple of weeks ago, I attended an educational forum on effective teleworking in Walnut Creek, California. James Hall,Vice President of Sales and Business Development at CoreLogic, was the guest presenter. He works virtually and mentioned that meeting face-to-face with employees about once a quarter worked for him. Thus, he extolled the strengths of the virtual organization in stating that organizations that don’t work this way will be left behind.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this message as several telework authors I’ve come across have presaged this as well. For instance, William A. Draves and Julie Coates, authors Nine Shift: Work, Life, and Education in the 21st Century, noted that the sign of a powerful organization will no longer be represented by a tall, beautiful building but by how geographically and/or temporally dispersed it is. (You may read more about Nine Shift here.)

However, when Mr. Hall put the eventual wipe-out of traditional, brick-and-mortar organizations in terms of a “dinosaur-level extinction,” I’ve wondered whether this was meant for dramatic effect ever since. Of course, it’s not difficult to understand why an organization with a decentralized, virtual workforce working at different times (i.e., business can run 24 hours a day with virtual teams working as if in a relay race) would annihilate an organization that limits itself to operating from 9 to 5, all else being equal. Notice that an organization is not even required to have employees at every point around the world to pull this off. Just allow employees to work when they want. Those of us with night-owl tendencies will happily take on the graveyard shift.

In contrast to Mr. Hall’s opinion, I’ve come across a few individuals of the Industrial Age mindset who assert that the outcome of this competition might actually be the reverse. However, this opinion seemed to be hastily expressed out of fear and anxiety that everything can change so profoundly in our lifetimes. In other words, they want to know that their current understanding of how everything is will carry forth into the future so that they can feel safe and secure in their knowledge and understanding of how to succeed in the working world. This very unwillingness to adapt one’s understanding to new circumstances is the issue that will lead to the downfall of organizations that don’t adapt.

So, I agree with the opinion of the many telework authors I’ve come across in speculating that few will adapt. Thus, a great majority of organizations will not relinquish their centralized, commercial real estate space, thereby freeing up capital, and opt for the more competitive, decentralized model. The only chance that brick-and-mortar organizations will see the light is, of course, by facing the difficulties of continuing operations through calamitous events (e.g., major pandemics, natural disasters, terrorist attacks). Moreover, making this transition to working virtually is no easy task for those that are interested in doing so. You may read about all that is involved in the following publications: The Reality of Virtual Work: Is Your Organization Ready? by Aon Consulting and Managing a Remote Workforce: Proven Practices from Successful Leaders by Future of Work.

I can’t guess when this eventual mass culling will take place. However, change is definitely coming and, in this competition, I’d put my money on the organization that works virtually for sure. What are your thoughts on this?

When Email is Better than Skype and Face-to-Face Communication

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As mentioned in a previous post, I’m going to share my own personal experience with a cross-cultural communication problem that only reared its ugly head when visual cues were available. Thus, this post may substantially depart from my usual writing style.

I hired a career coach and began working with him in September 2012.  Note that this fellow has close to 20 years of experience as a career coach and has been a longtime resident of California’s Bay Area, an area renown for its racial and cultural diversity. Also note that he’s a Caucasian-American dealing with me, an Asian-American (though something like this can happen even when there is a shared cultural or racial heritage given enough difference in personality). In my situation, this meant that there are body language dynamics that are vastly different in meaning (e.g., maintaining eye contact with your conversation partner). By the way, I live in California also, but we agreed to handle my case using technology to save me from having to make long drives.

He and I seemed to be communicating well and getting along swimmingly as we emailed back and forth. Trouble began when we started conversing on Skype. I began discussing my interest in workplace boredom and employee engagement consulting, and I tried to share some information with him. He did not believe that a workplace boredom phenomenon exists. He could see people being stressed, but not bored. This phenomenon is really quite easy to understand however. Here you go:

Satisfaction From Work

He also kept reiterating that consulting businesses that serve employers needs do not exist. He also believed that telework is a theoretical concept as no one in his social network was working this way. Words began to fail me as I saw that he was just hellbent on keeping information to the contrary away.

Noticing that I could barely form words at this point, he leaned a little forward into the webcam as he inspected my body language and said, “You’re nervous!” and then continued, “You’re intimidated by me!” Actually, I was exasperated and now so stunned at his  confidence in his body language reading skills that I didn’t know what to say. He continued making other body language reading mistakes. This was going off about as well as a dog trying to read a cat’s behavior. I corrected him on his westernized assumptions about how friendships are formed when we discussed why I neither love nor engage in social chatter about various topics that tend to happen in the office scene. To that, he replied, “So you think you’re more Thai then?” “Well, geez,” I should’ve replied, “Do I look white to you???” I wish I was able to correct him at every instance in which he made mistakes but there were just too many. Also, as introverted as I am, my mind tends to be processing things so deeply that I remain a step behind during fast-paced conversations. Don’t you hate it when the clever retorts come to you after the situation has passed? I could have played this little game right along with him, leaned into my webcam and said, “You’re presumptuous!” “You jump to conclusions!” “You’re an obnoxious fool!”

The moral of the story: Ask, don’t assume. If you want to know how I feel then ask, don’t assume. If you want to know what my state of mind is then ask, don’t assume.

Had this guy been dealing with people overseas, he would have lost so many clients and offended so many people. I’m bringing this subject to attention because I’ve come across so many of these instances where someone assumed more similarity than there really is. This doesn’t just happen with people who have been “living under a rock” but with people who really should know better as well. People can still make assumptions about others based on the way they write. Also note that I am NOT discounting the conditions under which being able to read body language is beneficial. However, I have to laud communication methods without visuals for this one reason: It inhibits deeply ingrained assumptions that people often make because of the way someone looks or behaves.

He and I never interacted face-to-face but, somehow, I don’t think doing so would have prevented him from depending so much on his body language reading skills and cultural knowledge that only pertains to people similar to himself. Even worse, I would have had to resist recurring thoughts telling me to reach over and strangle him.