Linked: Microsoft asked 31,000 people what’s changed about work. One result was startling

Linked: Microsoft asked 31,000 people what’s changed about work. One result was startling

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

There is more at the link that you may want to read and consider, but the big point is that what workers want is sort of all over the place. As we all stop and consider what role or work should play in our lives, we are making a number of different choices. Leaders who simply assume they can make everyone do the same thing are going to appear out of touch, and that is also exactly what we are seeing. Flexibility sells when it comes to hiring and retaining talent, lack of it just makes you look callous and distant.

Shared Links (weekly) March 20, 2022

Shared Links (weekly) March 20, 2022

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute
Why Training Matters for Retention

Why Training Matters for Retention

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

This brings me to that final point. Having a learning culture requires a plan for each employee and for different types of jobs. It requires coordination between the official training department, managers, HR, and the subject matter experts throughout the organization. It may look a bit messy. It may include some mix of internal training, external resources, job shadowing, self-study, and group learning. I’d argue that a true culture that promotes and encourages learning would leave open all of those possibilities. I’d also argue that your training staff isn’t just there to teach classes but to provide and coordinate all of those options. They are there to “provide opportunities to learn and grow”, whatever those look like for all of your employees who wish to do so. They are key to retention but they cannot do it alone. The culture must reward and encourage learning and growth in meaningful ways or all the training staff in the world won’t make a difference. 

Linked: Women in cybersecurity need more than inspiration
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Linked: Women in cybersecurity need more than inspiration

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

What Sherri talks about in regards to the security industry is something I’m seeing over and over again when reading about diversity. The child care question.

Let me share another resource on the topic with you. In December, there was an episode of People I Mostly Admire with Claudia Goldin, where she talked about the concept of “Greedy work”.

The topic she was chatting about was the gender pay gap and how much child care contributes to it, and one of the reasons we have a gender pay cap, aside from the percentage that is actually discrimination, is that greedy work doesn’t account for child care, but it pays more. So in many families, they have to make a choice between less pay and the flexibility to equally share the child care. The economics of that don’t usually make sense, so one parent takes on the greedy work to maximize the family income while the other steps back to a more flexible role in order to provide the majority of child care. With social norms being what they are, and the other issues that contribute to a gender pay gap, that most often means the man in a heterosexual couple, and here we are with women being vastly underrepresented in these types of positions.

Why Training Matters for Diversity

Why Training Matters for Diversity

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

Wouldn’t it be a better choice to locate candidates with some of the skills you’re going to need in a position and know that you have an environment that will help them grow and learn to become exactly what you need to be? Wouldn’t that practice become a way to attract really smart people who want to grow and learn by coming to work for you? Doesn’t that sound like a better option than simply leaving your open jobs unfilled and lamenting the fact that no one wants to work anymore? Unfortunately, there are too many organizations that simply won’t consider this. They aren’t interested in growing the people who work for them, they only want to hire people who can come in with no effort on the organization’s part and do the work starting on day one.

I think they are short-sighted.

Shared Links (weekly) March 13, 2022

Shared Links (weekly) March 13, 2022

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute