You’ve Asked for Feedback on Your Performance, Now What?

BY FC Expert Blogger Shawn Graham
Mon Oct 19, 2009 at 10:48 AM
This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert’s views alone.

As a manager, there’s an invisible and unspoken wall between you and your staff. It would be great if it didn’t exist, but it does. And even though there are times when you feel like part of the gang, at the end of the day, you’ll still be the boss…and that creates a barrier.

You have a sense that group cohesion isn’t where it needs to be and that a few people are frustrated with your management style but you feel the “boss barrier” is keeping them from sharing their feedback. So you decide to create a brief anonymous survey. And that’s no small task because the questions you ask (or don’t ask) will obviously send signals to your team.

In hopes of opening the lines of communication, you come up with three to four questions designed to get at what you believe are the underlying issues and you elicit their response. But that was the easy part. Once you get their feedback, you have to decide what to do with it. And that is particularly difficult because the feedback you receive wasn’t constructive, but more of a personal attack.

Do you confront the group? Meet with each member of your team individually? Do nothing? Do you respond to their feedback in general without mentioning specifics? That would keep you from repeating some of the negative comments from some that might not be shared by all. Or, do you read each response to the group and talk through what you’re going to do to address their concerns while making sure not to come off as defensive or angry?

How you handle their feedback, from the moment you receive their responses, is more important than the questions you asked or the feedback itself. You can’t sit on it, waiting for the right time. The more time that passes, the less likely it will be that you can get to the underlying frustrations that led to their negative comments. Plus, waiting gives the impression that responding to their feedback isn’t a priority.

Whether to respond to their comments in general (without mentioning specific comments), or to go over each comment is a judgment call. If you’re worried that voicing some of the negative comments could poison those on your team who might not feel that way, keep in mind there’s a good chance that they’ve already heard the comments from their peers because there’s a good chance they’re talking to each other about it. If anything, it could provide an opportunity for those on your team who are in your corner to stand up and speak out about some of the negative comments they might not agree with.

Regardless of your approach, you’ll want to drive the discussion, keeping comments from others to a minimum. The last thing you want is for the meeting to turn into a heated discussion or argument. No matter how calm you are (or think you are), it’s likely that others will be pretty tense. It’s okay to have a little group discussion, but for the most part, you’re the one steering the ship.

And don’t forget about tone. If you don’t think you can talk about their feedback without appearing defensive or angry, don’t do it. If you do, you could accidentally make things worse than they already are—especially if some of the feedback you received was that you get defensive when you get negative feedback.

As a manager, it’s hard to open yourself up to potential criticism by asking for feedback on your performance. But it’s even harder to put it all out there and process the feedback with your team. Even though it’s uncomfortable, asking for and addressing feedback from your team will make you a better manager.

Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).

Blog post: What you say online IS your personal brand!

http://www.recruiterdaily.com.au/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&nav=1&selkey=40906

23 October 2009 6:42am

In his blog post on 19 October, Greg Savage wrote:

I have been reading quite a bit lately about creating a personal brand online. The subject fascinates me, not least because I see so many people making a total hash of it by the inane things they post on Facebook, Twitter, blog replies, and to a lesser extent, LinkedIn.

But recently I had such a powerful personal example happen to me, that I feel compelled to share it with you. This small Twitter exchange taught me a huge lesson in how quickly “Brand You” can be harmed by inappropriate online behaviour.

You see last week I was shocked to read a Tweet which, frankly, made a very disparaging remark, directed at me!

TweetDeck advised me I had several “mentions” overnight, and I glanced through them, smiling at some banter with followers, until I struck the Tweet that, for reasons still unknown to me, took a personal shot at me, by name. Look, it wasn’t a vicious remark. But it was personal, it was negative, it was totally unprovoked and of course, it was very public.

Now if this has not happened to you, I can confirm it is an unpleasant experience. The comment was untrue, and I hope it is not how anyone views me. So it rankled! I obviously clicked on the perpetrators’ Twitter page and found that I had never even heard of the guy! Never had anything to do with him in the real world or the online world, although I did work out he is a Twitter follower of mine (or was!). Nor was his comment in response to any Tweet of mine. It was not even directed to me, but to a third party, about me.

I searched for his LinkedIn page and found he holds a nothing-job in a widely unrespected company. I was not sure if this made me feel better or worse! I racked my brain as to why this stranger would attack me, publicly. I won’t lie to you. It stung. However after about 10 minutes I started to lose interest and decided not to respond in any public way. I resolved to forget about it.

But that’s when it got really interesting. Over the next few hours my Twitter DM inbox (Direct Message) began to fill up with fellow Tweeters who took great umbrage at the remark this guy had made. I had at least 10 in a single day, and the theme was “who is this guy?” and “Who does he think he is” and more specifically “What a rude jerk”, and interestingly “I will never use him or his company again.”

One follower –who I do not know personally at all, and only vaguely remember as an online friend, had done his research on the “offender” and Direct Messaged me to say that he was amazed this guy was in the advertising industry “because he has no idea of how to manage his personal brand”.

And it was that remark that struck me hard. In a flash, I realised that it was not MY reputation that had suffered as a result of this online rudeness. It was the reputation and brand of the person who made the remark that had taken a huge hit. Just one Tweet and provoked such an active response from my followers, all echoing disapproval. The question is, how many people read that Tweet and thought “idiot”?

And so the lesson was learned. By me, if not by the person who chose to hurl cyber-insults. Online, we are what we write. In real life we can make a risqué joke to close friends because they “know” us and take the joke in context. In real interpersonal situations we can pass the odd sarcastic comment, accompanied by a smile, and the receiver feels no hurt because there is context and history, which makes it ok and appropriate. Dropping in the odd swear word while chatting with like-minded buddies does not raise an eyebrow because it conforms with the group culture.

Online we have no such protection.

All this got me thinking about my own online “brand”. I have 500 plus Twitter followers and get thousands of visitors to my blog each month, but I estimate less than 1% of those people are known to me personally. Yet many of the rest I have what I consider to be a great relationship with. We reply to each other’s Tweets, we DM, we offer advice, and we share good-humoured banter as well as seriously useful data. We pass on knowledge freely, and even do business together.

I thought about how I viewed these people. I have an image of them, they have a “brand” with me based on their tweets, their humour, the quality of their information and their online generosity. And that ‘brand’ or ‘reputation’ is as real as if I had met them. And I will make decisions to trust them and buy their services based on the brand they have built up with me online, over time.

So the lesson is this. Consider “Brand You” before you Tweet how many beers you sank on Saturday night. Consider “Brand You” before you use gratuitous profanities online. Consider “Brand You” before you post that heavily politicised or semi-pornographic video on your blog spot, after months of building up credibility as a professional recruiter.

And of course, consider “Brand You” before you hurl insults at people who might actually have a stronger online brand than your own.

Unions welcome plan to skill up apprentices for the clean energy revolution

23 October, 2009 | Media Release

The ACTU has welcomed the Rudd Government’s draft National Green Skills Agreement announced today which will equip thousands of apprentices in emerging and existing industries with the skills to help tackle climate change.

Mandatory green skills will be included in all apprentice training from the end of 2010.

“The skills of our plumbers, construction workers, electricians and other specialist trades workers will be fundamental in ensuring that Australia is able to move quickly and flexibly in creating a sustainable, low carbon economy,” said ACTU President Sharan Burrow at today’s Green Skills Forum in Melbourne.

“It is estimated that we are going to need to re-train and upskill about 3 million workers in the next 20 years to meet the challenge.

“Unions are already working hard in this area.

“The Plumbers’ Union (CEPU) in Victoria has already set up a “Plumbing Industry Climate Change Action Centre” which is aims to up-skill the state’s 21,000 plumbers and set up similar centres nationally.

“Water management is one area where we are creating new jobs and expertise and an area in which Australia can lead the world.

“However, the creation of hundreds of thousands more jobs and apprenticeships in other clean energy and clean tech industries are on hold because Australia’s climate change laws are being blocked in the Parliament.

“We urgently need national policies in place to drive investment and a fast but fair transition to a low carbon economy.

“Australia is already being left behind, with the rest of the world moving quickly to take advantage of a $6 trillion global market in clean tech products, services, expertise and technology,” the ACTU President told the forum.

More information
The Hon Julia Gillard MP: Address to the Green Skills Forum

Teens face work limits

DAMIEN BROWN

July 23, 2009 08:17am

A NEW proposal will see Tasmanian teenagers face restrictions on the number of hours they can work.

The plan will be debated at the Labor State Conference in Hobart this weekend.

Labor will consider capping the number of hours teenagers can be employed to avoid conflict with their schooling.

If the proposal is successful, it will be one of the policies Labor will take to the state election in March.

The conference, at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, will attract more than 200 party members on Saturday and Sunday.

The highlight will be a keynote address by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who will greet the rank and file on Saturday morning. Premier David Bartlett will address the conference on Sunday.

State secretary John Dowling said the hot topic would be the election and how Labor would fund its campaign.

“This will see the finalisation of Labor’s platforms before the March election next year, so it is really important,” Mr Dowling said yesterday.

“Interestingly, since David Bartlett became Premier we have had a large number of young people getting involved and participating in the conference, which is great. This is what we are seeing with this year’s conference as well.”

Branches from throughout the state and some unions have tabled a series of motions on issues they want Labor to endorse.

The New Town branch is behind the proposed law to limit the number of hours young Tasmanians attending school can work.

The branch says the laws should also set minimum ages for the types of work youngsters can perform, ensure employers provide appropriate supervision and also protect young workers from unfair dismissal.

The branch’s motion says: “Tasmania has the lowest level of legal protection for children in the workforce.”

ON THE PARTY’S STATE CONFERENCE AGENDA

• Calls for the State Government to outlaw the publication of school leagues tables from information made available by the Education Department.

• The introduction of laws that would give Tasmanian workers and contractors the first option to carry out work funded in the Federal Government’s $3 billion infrastructure stimulus package.

• A call to lobby the Federal Government to begin the process of becoming a republic.

• A move for all funds generated by electronic gaming machines to be directed into harm-minimisation programs.

• A review of the animal-cruelty laws and penalties, which have been described as too weak.

• The construction of a North-West Coast cycleway.

• The banning of nuclear-armed warships from Tasmanian waters and harbours.

• The reversal of Premier David Bartlett’s controversial decision to axe the Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/07/23/86211_tasmania-news.html

Surveys launched to gauge jobseeker experience

13 July 2009 6:46am

A lobbyist for better standards in the recruitment industry has launched research to quantify the extent to which its bad reputation is deserved, and highlight areas of the recruitment process that need better regulation.

The two surveys – one to measure the experience of jobseekers who apply directly to employers and the other for jobseekers that go through agencies – will hopefully provide some much-needed hard data on the Australian recruitment experience, says Diane Lee, the director of Even It Up!.

“There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there saying that both direct employers and recruitment companies treat jobseekers in a less than satisfactory way,” she says, so the survey aims to ascertain whether in fact this is true.

“If it is, we then have hard evidence to take to recruitment companies and direct employers – and government – to lobby for a better jobseeker experience.”

The data will also be used as a benchmark against which to measure the industry’s progress towards better recruitment, selection and interview practices in future years, she says. Lee says that while legislation protects jobseekers from overt discrimination during the recruitment process, “anecdotal evidence suggests that discrimination has now gone underground” and is much more difficult to prove.

Calling for regulation
Lee says she is aiming for change “at a macro level, to create awareness amongst organisations and recruiters” and ideally wants recruitment to be regulated in a similar way to the real estate industry.

“If [government] can regulate the real estate industry then they should be able to do something with recruitment. It’s such a high-stakes environment and generally, from feedback, the experience is not pleasant.”

Although the vast majority of content on the Even It Up! site doesn’t reflect well on the recruitment industry (about nine in 10 reviews are negative) Lee believes this is a fairly accurate reflection of jobseekers’ experience.

“I’d love to promote people who do it fabulously,” she says. “I want to get some balance but unfortunately it doesn’t seem I’m able to do that at this particular time.”

She points out that she makes no money from the initiative and views it purely as a community service.

Based on common complaints to the site, Lee recently posted on YouTube a video titled “10 things we hate about recruitment companies”. She says she’s received a positive response from some recruiters who say they want “open conversations about where we can all improve so we can weed out the cowboys and make sure that the good people are represented”.

“[Recruiters] say ‘we actually need to take this on board. Yes, it’s negative but if we want to improve what we actually deliver for our clients and our jobseekers then we need to sit up and take notice’.”

(Among the top 10 criticisms are “baiting” – the video warns jobseekers to beware of comments such as “we had a position come in yesterday that you would have been perfect for”, which it says is a “psychological technique that consultants use to build your hopes and leave you hanging” – and using jobseekers’ references for business development purposes, which Lee says annoys referees and harms candidates’ job prospects.)

Jobseeker charter
Lee has also developed a charter that she hopes to trial with employers and recruitment companies that would make specific promises to jobseekers about recruitment processes and communication.

While still in draft form and open to change pending the results of the surveys, the charter would bind recruiters to:
include as much information as possible in job ads;

keep selection criteria questions to a minimum;

require that applications contain only a CV and/or cover letter ;

exclude from the selection process any tasks that could be verified via a portfolio, track record and/or qualifications;

include on interview panels at least one person with expertise relevant to the job being filled;

reimburse a candidate at an agreed rate for time they spend on a presentation or task during the recruitment process;

not ask any “trick” or irrelevant questions during interviews;

conduct interviews in as informal a manner as possible;

not check references until the employer has made a decision to hire the person; and

always advise by telephone a candidate who has attended an interview and not been selected for the role.

http://www.recruiterdaily.com.au/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&nav=1&selkey=39996

French workers threaten to blow up factory

July 13, 2009 – 8:29AM

Workers at a bankrupt French car parts supplier are threatening to blow up their factory unless carmakers Renault and PSA-Peugeot pay them compensation, a union official says.

The 366 employees of New Fabris in central-eastern Chatellerault, are occupying the plant to demand that the auto giants – who accounted for 90 per cent of their business – pay 30,000 euros ($53,600) to each worker.

“The gas bottles are in the factory. Everything has been planned for it to blow up,” unless there is an accord by July 31, Guy Eyermann, CGT union official and secretary of the company works council, told AFP on Sunday.

The Chatellerault factory is thought to house car parts worth about 2 million euros ($3.6 million), as well as a new Renault machine estimated at a further 2 million euros, the union leader said.

“We are not going to let PSA and Renault wait until August or September to recover the spare parts and machines still in the factory,” he warned.

“If we get nothing, they get nothing at all.”

Eyermann said two coachloads of workers had visited Peugeot headquarters last week, and a similar delegation would visit Renault bosses and the French employment ministry on Thursday to try to negotiate a settlement.

They hope to force the state to put pressure on the carmakers, which both received public funds to help them through the global downturn.

The New Fabris workers, whose employer was declared bankrupt on June 16, claim Renault and PSA paid about 30,000 euros to 200 workers laid off from another supplier, the aluminium specialist Rencast.

New Fabris, founded in 1947 by brothers Eugene and Quentin Fabris, started out making sewing machine parts, before branching out into the auto sector, employing up to 800 workers in the 1990s.

http://business.smh.com.au/business/french-workers-threaten-to-blow-up-factory-20090713-dhq4.html

This recession isn’t looking as bad as we feared

Ross Gittins
July 13, 2009

Another week, another round of not-so-terrible indicators about the state of the economy. It’s getting easier to believe and harder to doubt this recession will be a lot milder than we’re used to.

If the recession does prove to be less severe than advertised, both sides of politics will need to review their plans.

Last week brought the remarkable news that the Westpac-Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment rose by 23 per cent over the past two months to its highest level since December 2007, with optimists now well outnumbering pessimists.

The number of new housing loans in May was at a 16-month high. And the labour force figures for June showed unemployment continuing to rise quite slowly.

Put that together with recent increases in retail sales, car sales and home prices and you’ve got a picture of an economy travelling quite a bit more strongly than envisaged as recently as the budget in May. The global recession is every bit as severe as we were led to expect, but it seems it hasn’t dragged our economy down nearly as much we feared.

Whereas in early May the Reserve Bank was forecasting that real gross domestic product would contract by 1 per cent over calendar 2009, when we see its revised forecast next month it’s likely to be for growth of about 0.5 per cent, maybe more.

If our prospects really are that much brighter, two main factors account for it. First, continued demand from China has limited the expected decline in our export income. The volume of exports actually rose over the six months to March and seems to have held up since then.

Much rides on the success with which the Chinese authorities can switch from export-led to domestic-led growth, whether from consumption or infrastructure investment. The beauty from our perspective is that wherever they get their growth from, they’ll need lots of steel and energy – the very commodities we supply.

The second factor is the continued strength of consumption spending, explained not just by the cash splash and the huge cut in mortgage interest rates, but by the way this has affected people’s sentiment about the state of their own finances and the outlook for the economy.

It’s always possible, of course, that all we’re experiencing is an Indian summer. The global financial crisis may have more shocks to deliver, or it could be that consumer and business confidence will wilt under the inexorable rise in unemployment yet to come.

But that fear is starting to wear thin. Whereas the budget forecast was for the unemployment rate to reach a peak of 8.5 per cent sometime in 2010-11, the new expectation is that it may not quite reach 7.5 per cent, and will reach its peak a fair bit earlier.

If that expectation comes to pass then, with the rate now at 5.8 per cent, we’ve already come a little more than half the distance from the trough of 3.9 per cent in February last year.

If further evidence confirms the emerging picture of a relatively mild recession, this has wide ramifications.

For a start, it reduces the likelihood of any further cuts in the official interest rate – barring any seriously damaging developments – and brings forward the day when the Reserve will want to start reeling in its monetary stimulus.

Something that’s starting to worry it is the untimely recovery in the housing market. Although it would be desirable to see house prices gently falling back from the excessive levels they have reached, nationwide they’ve actually risen by 4 per cent in four months. House prices are rising in all capital cities bar Perth, auction clearance rates are up to about 80 per cent in Melbourne and, nationwide, prices are rising at the bottom, the middle and the top of the range.

The thought that the lowest mortgage interest rates in 31 years might be starting a new house price bubble is one that central bankers find unsettling. Should these signs continue, it will make them anxious to start the process of getting rates back to more normal levels.

Australia’s interest rates are already high in comparison with those in the major economies. This, combined with our brighter prospects relative to the others, probably explains why our dollar is back up to around (an uncomfortable) US 80c.

If our economy enters recovery while the majors continue to wallow, the gap between our rates and theirs will widen further, probably putting further upward pressure on the dollar. Another consequence of a milder-than forecast recession and earlier-than-expected return to growth is smaller budget deficits than forecast. Already it’s clear the deficit for the financial year just ended will fall short of the $32 billion expected at budget-time.

And if deficits prove smaller than expected, then government borrowing and debt levels will be lower than expected.

If so, this could prove embarrassing for Malcolm Turnbull, whose Debt Truck asserts that Labor’s “debt bombshell” is $315 billion.

Though Turnbull wants the punters to believe this is an accomplished fact, it’s actually what the gross federal public debt (naughty, naughty) was projected to be in five years time.

But if this recession does prove a lot milder than feared, this could also create political problems for Kevin Rudd. Because the punters never think of the “counter-factual” (what would have happened had you not done what you did), a mild recession could leave some people wondering – and an opportunist Opposition questioning – why you ever thought it necessary to spend all the money you did. Rudd’s reply, presumably, would be to claim it was only the Government’s actions that protected us from the global conflagration.

And there’s another downside Rudd needs to ponder. The earlier the economy begins recovering, the sooner the pressure will begin for him to start cutting spending to reel in the budgetary stimulus.

In theory, this shouldn’t be much of a problem: first, because what the budget’s “automatic stabilisers” caused they should eventually take away and, second, because all the discretionary additions to government spending officially labelled as “stimulus” are strictly temporary rather than ongoing.

In practice, however, with every month Rudd stays in office he’s solving this problem or that by making permanent additions to government spending. It’s facing up to the budgetary bottom-line implications of this largesse that will make his life uncomfortable.

It’s beginning to look as though the start of the process of reeling in the budgetary and monetary stimulus may coincide with the election due in the second half of next year.

For the Reserve to be raising rates in two election campaigns in a row at least would demonstrate its political even-handedness. But perhaps Rudd will read the signs better than his predecessors.

Ross Gittins is the Herald’s Economics Editor.

http://business.smh.com.au/business/this-recession-isnt-looking-as-bad-as-we-feared-20090712-dhd2.html?page=-1

Fair Pay Commission’s last Minimum Wage decision…

Details here:

ACTU: Working Australians to suffer as WorkChoices-era pay commission saves its worst for last

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

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Today’s decision by the soon-to-be-scrapped ‘Fair Pay Commission’ is another kick in the guts for working Australians from the Liberals’ WorkChoices, say unions.

More than 1.3 million Australians that rely on minimum award wages, including many low paid young workers, women and migrant workers will suffer.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said the Fair Pay Commission had shown no respect for the contribution low paid workers are making to the economy during the downturn and had relied on discredited and flawed research.

“The Fair Pay Commission has saved its worst for last,” Mr Lawrence said.

“The decision means ordinary working Australians and their families are bearing the brunt of an economic downturn they did not cause.

“Many workers have already lost their jobs, had their hours cut and now more than a million families are facing a pay freeze despite rising living costs.

“Only a week after new IR laws came into operation, WorkChoices is back from the dead.

“Working families are again the victims of the unfair wage-setting system established by the previous Liberal Government.

“The real wages of low paid workers have gone backwards since the Commission was established, and today’s decision is another attack on their living standards.

“The costs of rent, food, medicines, education and utilities have all risen in the past year and families need a pay rise to keep up.”

Mr Lawrence said the decision was unwise in the current economic circumstances and rejected the argument that a pay freeze for the low paid is good for the economy.

“A pay freeze will sap consumer demand and undermine confidence. Any green shoots of economic recovery will be nipped in the bud by this unfair and unwise decision.

“It will be felt not only in the homes of Australia’s 1.3 million minimum wage workers, but in the shops and businesses in every main street of every Australian town and suburb.”

Mr Lawrence said the decision runs counter to the economic stimulus strategy, ignores the Federal Government’s submission in favour of maintaining real wages, and even ignores the views of some business groups who supported a modest wage rise.

“There is no credible evidence that modest rises in minimum wages have a negative effect on jobs. This is a furphy put about by the same free market fundamentalists that brought us deregulation and who contributed to the GFC.

“We look to Fair Work Australia’s new wage-setting body to provide a fairer and more rigorous approach.”

http://www.actu.asn.au/Media/Mediareleases/WorkingAustralianstosufferasWorkChoiceserapaycommissionsavesitsworstforlast.aspx

WA companies continue to surge

Chalpat Sonti
July 7, 2009 – 9:15AM

Spectacular gains by some of WA’s best and least well known companies have contributed to the value of the state’s publicly-listed companies surging $6.7 billion.

Research by Deloitte shows the value of WA’s top 100 ASX-listed companies rose 5.9 per cent in June, the fifth straight month of increases.

Those gains have meant the value of the companies has grown from a low of $72.4 billion, at the depth of the market in November last year, to $11.8.6 billion on June 30, representing a gain of 64 per cent.

Most of the gains for June were driven by the mining sector, Deloitte Perth managing director Keith Jones said.

There were substantial rises from Fortescue Metals Group (44.7 per cent), Red Fork Energy (76.2 per cent) and Mantra Resources (41.5 per cent).

While iron ore producer Fortescue is a household name, Red Fork and Mantra, a US-focused oil and gas explorer and African minerals explorer respectively, are not.

They rank 82nd and 36th respectively on the top 100 list, but their share prices have been buoyed by some promising announcements.

It was a mixed June for WA’s two largest public companies, Woodside and Wesfarmers. Woodside’s market capitalisation dropped $100 million, or 0.3 per cent, during the month while Wesfarmers’ value rose $1.3 billion, or 6.2 per cent.