Archive for Work
Flexible Work Arrangements
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been preaching about the benefits of working from home – happier employees, more productivity, less commuting stress, cheaper leasing costs, better for the environment – just to name a few.
Looks like I’m getting some agreement on flexible work arrangments.
Living the Dream
Posted by: | CommentsWell, my first month of being on-call is over and it went very well. As I mentioned previously, I had a minimum 20 hour per month clause in the contract and the rate was about 50% higher than normal due to being on-call. They didn’t call me that much and so it was a good idea to have the 20 hours in there! Things were pretty stable after I left and any major development is on hold so there wasn’t that much happening. I was on vacation for 2 weeks so it was nice not to have to answer too many calls. But I was prepared to do what I had to – once or twice I was swimming or lying in the sun when they called, but answering questions on the phone isn’t that taxing!
I’ve decided to only work remotely and there’s a possibility I can get some remote work in a couple months or so when the same client will start ramping up. So for the next couple months I am going to work on another business idea I recently started (online interactive guitar lessons). Not only that but I’m planning to move to the east coast where I have another house which we recenlty bought. I plan to get it set up with furniture and services and do my work from there.
The key point for you to take out of this is to know what you want and figure out a way to get there. It takes some thought to gain clarity on what it is you really want. Do you really want a large business with lots of employees and travelling around the country, or would you like to work from your country home or a tropical resort on a one-man internet business? Would you like to work with one client for months or would you like to have multiple clients for short-term jobs? Do you want/need to work full-time or would you prefer to work part-time on multiple interests? I realized that there are certain things I don’t like about the IT work, but I kept doing the same things expecting a different result (the definition of insanity). So I’m committed to living the dream. I hope you are too.
Nobody Owes You a Job
Posted by: | CommentsI read today that General Motors plans to close one of their truck plants, because people are moving toward more energy efficient vehicles due to high gas prices. However, the workers who belong to a union want the plant to remain open and have blocked other workers from going to the plant to work.
If there’s one thing I’ve been emphasizing throughout my blog is that you need to take control of your career and empower yourself. Relying on unions or governments to support you is the wrong approach. No business should stay open in order to provide you with a job. It needs to stay open to make a profit and when it makes business sense.
If you’re working in an SUV plant you might have had a clue that your job is at risk. If you’re in IT you’re aware of the trends of outsourcing and new growth areas such as SOA. The bottom line is no one person or company owes you a job.
Do You Take Responsibility for Your Actions?
Posted by: | CommentsAs I sat here today working remotely, I happened to be looking out my dining room window when I saw someone back out of her driveway and hit a parked car. After a few second pause, the driver went on her merry way. 15 minutes later she came back, pulled into her garage and closed the door behind her. So I left a note on the victim’s door informing them as to what happened.
My question to you is, ‘Do you take responsibility for your actions’ at work or at home? The first instinct after making a mistake might be to try and hide the error, or run away from blame but we need to face up to our mistakes and be honest and ethical. I find that people are very understanding when you admit a mistake, rather than when they find out what really happened eventually.
Are You an Abused Employee?
Posted by: | CommentsI have a perfect example of what I have been talking about in this blog (as far as what NOT to do as an employee). A colleague of mine who is an employee of an IT consulting firm just told me that he’s been working 65+ hours for the past month so far including long days and weekends. I asked him if he was getting paid overtime. He said no, because it was a fixed price project that his employer had won. I asked if he was at least able to bank the time (and take it as days off later), he also said no to that too. ‘They’ weren’t accepting banked time for this project. Understand that if an employer pays you overtime on a fixed price that it will chew into their profits on the project. While IT projects are sometimes difficult to make money on (especially fixed price projects), they should build in a contingency for this uncertainty.
He also mentioned his utilization rate. This rate is calculated as the number of hours billed / number of hours worked. If this number get low then you can imagine the employer won’t be happy. This might put a bullseye on your back if it stays low for a while. My colleague’s rate has been fairly low because he’s been ‘on the bench’ for a while. (‘On the bench’ means he hasn’t been on a project – being charged to the client by his employer). So by working overtime he’s increasing his utilization rate.
On one of his previous projects he was only being charged out at 50% (about 20 hours per week) since the position was for a part-time consultant. But because this was a support role for an application in production, he ended up working almost full-time. Because this extra time was not being charged his utilization rate was also not 100%, but closer to 50%.
While we’re at it, another colleague of mine was on a consulting project where the employer would only pay overtime after the employee worked more than 8 hours above the regular work week (ie. above and beyond 40 hours/wk). This sometimes happens when there is a difference between the work week of the client and the work week of the employer.
No, no, no, no, NO!!!!!
- Whether you are on a fixed price contract or time and materials through your employer is NOT YOUR PROBLEM. You need to bank your hours or get paid overtime for these hours
- If you are on the bench, or have been on the bench in the past this is not your fault – the fact that your employer hasn’t found you continuous work is NOT YOUR PROBLEM
- If your utilization rate is less than ideal, this is NOT YOUR PROBLEM. It is the employer’s job to find your work and keep you 100% chargeable. If you’re on part-time projects this is because they put you there.
- If you’re an employee you should get paid overtime for any hours above the work week of your employer. And you better believe that in most cases they are charging the client for your hours!
I consider this to be employee abuse. If I were to state my main goal as a blogger about employee empowerment, it would be to stop employer abuse of employees.
Employees tend to blame themselves for not being chargeable. “I must not have enough experience”, or “If I had more relevant skills, I would be more chargeable”. Don’t fall into the same trap. They hired you based on your known skills at the time. It’s their job to keep you busy. Of course you will be taking courses and learning new skills when you can. You will work overtime when required to get the job done successfully.
If you can’t get your employer to agree on this, you might want to consider contracting.
What will happen to Bear Stearns Employees?
Posted by: | CommentsNo one knows for sure at this point, but these types of events are why I’ve been advocating that you take control of your career. With the latest ‘Bear Stearns’ debacle it shows you are not even necessarily safe and secure at a huge investment bank. That’s why it always pays to keep your network alive and to never be caught off-guard by these types of events. Things you can do in good times and in bad are:
- live within your means
- have a nest egg saved for these types of events
- build a network of people in your industry
The first company I worked for got bought out and I was laid off a few months later. The next company had some rough patches and at that point I vowed never to be ‘out of control’ again. I wanted to be in control of my career. This is all about being proactive rather than reactive.
