The best employees have lives outside their work.

Just this week, one of my assistants admitted that she found her true calling, and it did not involve working long hours in a PR firm. What she really wanted was to go back to school and become a teacher in her Catholic mission. “I’ll have to quit.” she stated emphatically, and in one fell swoop I was faced with the prospect of losing an amazing employee. Naturally, I made a counter offer. “Are your classes in the afternoon or morning?” I asked. They were in the former and Laura and I worked out a compromise where she could still be employed at my consulting practice 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. before heading off to her classes.

The story ended well, but not all stories do. There are many entrepreneurs who hijack their employee’s other interests by encouraging a culture of overwork and stress. Employees are encouraged to put in 60 plus hours on the job per week and wear that as a badge of honour. One entrepreneur even sheepishly told me that she resented her employee taking vacation because she never did. In fact, she encouraged her staff to put in late nights and long weekends. She never quite saw that what she gained in exchange were not just workaholics but tired, depressed, mistake prone, resentful and burnt out members of staff.

The smarter way I’ve learned –albeit the hard way- is to make your firm adaptable enough to accommodate each employee’s situation, especially, the terrific ones. It is that realisation that allowed me to come up with a flexi-plan that would accommodate Laura and her dreams and hold on, at least for one more year, to an exceptional employee.
Don’t get me wrong though. When it is time to put one’s elbow to the grease and work overtime in order to meet a client’s deadline, I am the first to lead the charge but as a business owner I also know that it is important to place your employee’s contributions into context. The urge to equate long hours with commitment should not be a one size fits all employee template. At best, you should consider your employee’s relationship with work in the same terms as any other relationship and a candid conversation with them about work life balance and how they can recharge their batteries once it becomes depleted is necessary.

The best employees I have found do not find work to be their only source of self esteem, they set boundaries, have lives outside work and are connetced to their families and friends. They are the ones I am interested in as employees. They are the ones who often step up to the plate when needed.

Wikify your workpalce

I love all the new future communication tools that have quickly changed the way we communicate, but while it's easy to jump on the Facebook, Twitter or Blogspot bandwagon, it's much harder to pick a path of your own – one that forces you to look past the rhetoric and hype and consider these tools as what they ultimately are.
Six months ago I challenged one ..... (Read more)

http://www.nationnews.com/story/326180192798933.php

Social Media and IABC T&T

IABC T&T is on facebook. Search facebook (www.facebook.com) and log in IABC Trinidad and Tobago Chapter or type in http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4861671796. Thank you Maria, IABC T&T's VP of Social Media.

Important dates for IABC T&T board leaders to note

Fellow Board Leaders:

Please note the following dates as was discussed or emailed over the past few weeks. Those meetings not scheduled have already taken place.



Monday 13th. August 2007, 5:30 p.m.

Who: VPs' Meeting: PD, Branding& Visual Communication & Sponsorship& Advertising

Where: Brainstorm Room, Mango Media Caribbean, Hotel Normandie, St. Ann's

Why: Preparation of our board retreat, how do teams intersect, IABC T&T communication summit

What: Please bring your information packages

---------

Tuesday 14th. August 2007, 8:30 a.m.

Who: VP Membership

Where: Brainstorm Room, Mango Media Caribbean, Hotel Normandie, St. Ann's

Why: To how to add value to members. Membership Months and increasing membership from the oil & gas sector, the intersection between Membership and Communication

What: Please bring your information packages

------


Tuesday 14th. August 2007, Noon

Who: VP Social Media

Where: Boardroom, Mango Media Caribbean, Hotel Normandie, St. Ann's

Why: To discuss our first podcast in September,logo, as well as the year ahead

What: Please bring your information
---------

Tuesday 21st. August 2007. 1 p.m.

Who: VP Communication

Where: Boardroom, Mango Media Caribbean, Hotel Normandie, St. Ann's

Why: the year ahead, increasing media coverage, how the VP roles of membership, visual communication intersect with the portfolio
retreat
What: Please bring your information packages

IABC T&T leaders, please note that even as I meet with individual members and teams, executive Vice President Maria Mc McMillan will be planning our first board . VP of Professional Development, Wynell Gregorio is also busy. She is gearing up for our first professional programme in September for this 2007-2008 term.

Thanks very much for your commitment. Please call me if there are any concerns.


Best
Judette

Judette Coward-Puglisi
President IABC T&T

Schmooze or Lose?

Schmoozing works. And I can prove it. When my friend Sue, a communication student, was just about to leave university she sent out applications to just about every media house, twenty-five in all. She did everything right, her impressive credentials, recommendation letters were laid out on some very expensive paper. Plus her CV was chock-a-block with student activities demonstrating her star qualities. Yet for nine months after graduation, she heard nothing.


Then an opportunity arose. The local communication association was hosting an event on campus. She volunteered her time to help organise the event and this put her in contact with several senior communicators. She was assigned to one in particular just to make sure their booth was set up and that the representatives from the company were comfortable. At the fair she chatted with the VP of Communication and later kept in contact via email and phone. Two( 2) months after the VP sent her an email. Her company had an opening for an intern. She wanted to know if Sue would join the firm. Sue never had to send her a CV until months after she started her job. Sue landed her job without a formal interview.



Fast forward to Sue's career in TV. She once wrote several letters to a producer showing ways a lifestyle programme could be improved. Sue also sent the producer complimentary emails when she noted that it had. She was hired by the firm six months later. Sue also applied the same technique to acquiring her first home. She sent the developers flowers as a thank-you for taking the time to show her around the area. The result? Sue's name moved to the top of the list, ahead of 300 others.



You would have guessed by now that my friend is well-networked. She has the personality of a schmoozer. A good one at that. She is lively and fun, great with communication and always ready to be at the centre of the action.



Does that win her more business now that she is an entrepreneur? Sure it does, but I often wonder what happens if you're the opposite of Sue? Would it have been easy for her to forge ahead if she wasn't so fun or popular and clued in to other people.



As a contrast, I look at my friend Jenny. Not one for small talk or light conversation, Jenny was not known as a "people person" and even though she was brilliant she often got passed over for promotion in her recruitment based job. Later she started her own business. Again schmoozing wasn't her thing and even though her ideas were fantastic, none of her would-be clients bought into them. She closed business eighteen months after she started.



The cases of my two friends illustrate a challenging mindset. Too much time is spent overlooking the deep thinkers. We are persuaded in interviews and meetings to listen the ones who are the great communicators, who have the gift of gab, but the folks with deep insight and analysis, who perhaps take longer than the rest to say what's on their mind are often looked over.



I see cases of this all the time. You perhaps see it too, there are many schmoozers employed in inappropriate positions in corporations and they stick out like square pegs in ill fitting round holes. They don't add much value with the depth of their thinking.



I think that to be successful, really successful in your career requires you to be a bit of both even if it takes you outside of your comfort zone. I encourage my project assistant La Toya to stop being so reclusive (she prefers the computer to people, although she has a wonderful way with other staff members and clients) I tell her to use all opportunities to form relationships, whether they are deep and meaningful or superficial. All will serve her well in life, no matter how long or short. Ultimately though, a successful business should find a place for both the thinker and the schmoozer. In my PR and communications firm I find that it is the schmoozers who often provide the energy and the referrals, the deep thinkers create the ideas and come up with creative of solutions to some of our more pressing problems. Your best bet is to embrace them both.