|
Under
The Iceberg
Most
companies spend a lot of time in the hiring process focused on job
skills even the job descriptions don’t focus on the life skills of a
person. So what we hire
people on is there job skill and what most people get fired on is their
life skills. If everyone in
your office were in a good mood and positive, working on self
improvement what would your office be like? If you think about it most or our problems with supervisors or staff are because of what we call attitude. Not knowing how to deal effectively with others, not managing their emotions, not knowing how to communicate with others and not listening to others. These are the real problems in the office. A good number of people can learn most of our jobs. It is important that we have competent people but they are mostly defined in terms of job skills. How often have you heard “They know their job but they are a pain to get along with.” With a statement like that I don’t think that the person whose reputation is like that should be allowed to continue in the job. I believe that we need to define what are acceptable life skills and what are not acceptable. (Yelling or speaking harshly to a fellow employee) Most job reviews do not emphasize the life skills or plays well in the play ground. Life skills should be equal to job skills. What are your thoughts on this and what kinds of training does your organization give to help improve your life skills? Also are life skills defined and evaluated in your organization? Is there much emphasis on life skills in clients training?
Responses:
In
our organization we place lots of emphasis on life skills or what some
call "soft skills." We teach honesty and the importance of
telling the truth on applications. If you have left a job for less than
favorable reasons, we instruct our customers to be able to tell an
employer the circumstances that led to you leaving the job, that you
accept responsibility for what happened and are ready to move on to the
next opportunity in your career. We
teach the importance of making a good impression. This is accomplished
by dressing properly, maintaining good posture, smiling, good eye
contact, a firm, full-grip handshake, remembering names and by showing
enthusiasm and confidence. I
teach my students that communication is mostly (one study found 95%) how
we say something rather than what we say. That is, we should pay more
attention to how we communicate because our body language (posture,
facial expressions, hand gestures, eye contact or lack thereof) says
more of what we mean than the actual words we say. This is reflective of
what we call attitude. It is a generally known fact that attitude
determines outcome. The
overall tenor of our workshops is learning about one's self. This
includes deciding on a job objective, learning ones likes and dislikes,
discovering your gifts and talents, and determining how hobbies, past
times, and leisure activities might influence your career. This also
includes becoming aware of one's achievements, awards, and
accomplishments. There
is also emphasis placed on sending thank you notes after interviews,
thanking employers after interviews, networking and getting used to
talking to others about yourself. These
are most of the services we offer as well as coaching and offering
encouragement on an individual basis. I feel the acquisition of these
types of skills helps our clients get jobs and equally as important:
it helps them keep jobs! DLM
Stockton Our program
focuses on many life skills with our students. During the student's
orientation period they complete training in understanding their
learning style, setting goals, and learning professional etiquette. On
Friday afternoons we present workshops on various subjects; most of
which are other life skills. Also, we have outside speakers from both on
and off campus come in to present workshops. The topics we have covered
include self-esteem, parenting skills, nutrition, communication skills,
resume writing and interviewing skills, conflict resolution, stress
reduction, money management, dressing professionally, and dealing with
change. I reviewed the info on life skills and find that there is a bigger need for the training across the board. Although there are trainings on this in the agency (i.e. office procedures, client relationships and staff development) it still remains an issue. Professionalism is emphasized both in and out of the office; however, sometimes people take it for granted. For instance, a simple act of common courtesy toward a fellow employee can take an act of Congress. I know that that is being facetious but that's the way it seems. Simple respect for self and others is an issue I often see within clients and coworkers also. As for the evaluation - there are some basic questions related to the how we treat one another on the job and work with clients, hence, the standard categorical responses which may or may not reflect the true character of the person. Periodic awareness reviews for those noted to not use life skills effectively may be the answer to improving them. Ricky G My mission in life
is to help people live up to their highest potential, seeing and
empowering that still, small spark in people most others have given up
on. Due to budget
cuts, the County of Ventura laid off 85 people from the Human
Services Agency alone and June 30 is my last day in my
position with the Veterans Workforce Investment Program, where for
almost three years I've served as an Account Executive/Employment.
Since residing
in California, I've acted mostly as a consultant and
fundraiser to homeless and mental health organizations and for
three years was an Employment Specialist/Sales Manager at a
vocational services agency for people with developmental, physical and
mental disabilities. I have lots
of experience in the area of homelessness you are making a difference in
the Keys. I organized town meetings on hunger and homelessness,
coordinated and designed life skills courses, worked at and started
homeless shelters doing intake, services provision, case management, job
development and referral in Fort Collins, Colorado back in the late
'80's - early '90's. I helped found a
Comprehensive Homeless Assistance Team (CHAT) with the Larimer County
Human Development Department and area agencies and organized a
200-person Wyoming-Colorado Housing Conference with the public and
private sector. I helped found and managed a day shelter funded by
the McKinney Act for the Homeless. Just prior to
moving to California in 1994, I wrote the first homeless literacy grant
funded through the McKinney Act and the Colorado Department of
Education, and got it. I also performed strategic
planning-in-action. I created and facilitated a
visioning and organizational planning session with homeless
agencies. I also started a weekly seminar series evenings that
provided personal growth and employment training to that population at
a homeless men's shelter, which got lots of community involvement
and support, including mentoring by area retirees/senior citizens.
We also started a
client-run job bank that matched employers' needs with
potential employees' skills, interests and abilities.
This may sound "normal" to you, however, another agency I had
worked with previously was using a lottery system that truly didn't
serve anyone's highest good. If the client picked number
"1", no matter what job came in, whether he was qualified for,
interested in, experienced or fit to do it, they had to take
the work. That obviously often made for extremely
mismatched, frustrated, dissatisfied employers and workers, with high
turnover and low retention of both. After several conversations
with the director of the agency who refused to change the process, I
left my position and moved on. Of course, that other agency
finally changed their lottery process when they saw how successful our
new program was and the transformation taking place in the homeless
population and community! When I leave this
job next week, I've decided to be self-employed. I am
starting my own consulting company, Business & Organization Support
Services (B.O.S.S.) that encourages and ongoing training of
individuals in business practices, self reliance and entrepreneurship to
build a sustainable economy. Surprisingly, it is already
turning into a much bigger national and global venture. One of my old
employers, a cosmetic manufacturer who I helped develop a product line
with and doubled his sales annually four consecutive years as his
Sales Manager, has already contracted my services. I am already
helping train people in sales and marketing locally, and am writing the
copy for another new product line. He is also an investor in a
Thai incubator company I will also be assisting in various
development phases. Other work I
already have acquired: *An artist who
needs a distributor for her art *An
environmental firm specializing in growing and distributing insects as
an alternative to pesticides * An expanding
three-county magazine who needs local advertising sales, distribution
and a local reporter. Well, I have some
ideas on how I might help you and your organization as well. I own
some land in northeast Florida, southwest of Jacksonville, and am
planning to come see it within the next few months. While there, I am
also doing several sales deals with our products in the southern Florida
area and would love to come to Key West and help build the economy
there. From seeing your newsletter, it looks as though we
have much in common and may benefit one another. RS CA
Under the Iceberg is great. Very true w/ clients. Will also show to my two teenaged sons. Frustration control and anger management are hard to do but really the ticket to success in life.
Pat On the surface, yes, my agency supports life skills improvement by encouraging us to attend seminars. However, I think the problem is that, because we're a govt. agency, the Management sees us in terms of performance statistics at all times, since our annual Congressional funding depends upon it. They don't care how ill-tempered you are as long as you produce results that don't interfere with our funding. So, I want to think about your question a bit longer before answering it. Josette Paul, your article on life skills and their importance in the work place really struck home. I just recently let a person go from our agency because of both job skills and life skills. It was my opinion that we could have over come the job skills problems but it was the life skills part that really over shadowed the problems that this person caused in the work place. We did try working with this person one-on-one to correct the problems but they kept going back to their old habits and problems. So I believe that the biggest problem here is getting the employee to want to improve their life skills not teaching them. They have to want to change or any amount of training becomes useless. Life skills is a very important part of what people do in a social agency such as ours. This also important for our clients along with their ability to make choices, but the ability to make good choices is also a life skill.
Thanks for the article. David I have had the pleasure of working for a company where all the employees were working on life skills and the company was directed by life skills. During the mid 70's I worked for a sole proprietor with 25 employees who was introduced to Life Spring. While there are negative cases to be made for the principals of Life Spring and Warner Earhart Training, the process of getting in touch with and evaluating life skills has enriched my life. The closest I get to introducing life skills to my clients is through the subject of "Transferable Skills." This subject gets some unemployed individuals thinking about aspects of their lives that they have never considered. The CalWorks Program, welfare to work, does stress life skills because many of the participants lack them both in a work environment and a life environment. High School and College is where I firmly believe the topic of life skills should be taught. Many college graduates lack understanding of these skills and wonder why it is so hard for them to find work. Anyway, these are my thoughts about Life Skills.
Some of the life/success skills training we assist with are: Problem-solving Anger management Conflict Resolution Communication skills Time management Healthy lifestyles Financial management Job seeking skills Job retention skills Other topics are addressed as needs are identified.
Bonnie WI Thru my job as a
case manager I have had case management training through UC Davis and
this was great. It taught that you have to be a good listener and
to repeat what you understand you hear from your client. This is
the way the client knows you are listening to their needs. Empathy goes a
long way. Clients don't want you to sympathize or pity them they want
you to be honest but not be cruel. Motivate them with positive
stories of clients that have situations similar that rose above and
beyond the challenge and succeed. They can succeed if they have a
role model that has gone before them. Our organization
has sent us to a poverty class which was given by Dr. Ruby Payne which
gave insight how people in poverty thing and their survival is total
different than middle class America and as most think in middle class
terms you have to rethink to poverty class to assist their needs.
This was another great tool to use. Life itself
teaches each person skills to cope with people around you so you can
manage each situation differently. Age and maturity can assist with
this, schooling and career opportunities can give us other tools to use
to assist our clients. I hope I have
assisted in giving some insight into how I handle my clients in case
management. I have a great client base. I have sometimes up to 300
clients and I usually can tell you something about each of them.
I now have a reduce load of 150 and this is even better so I even know
the children names of most of the clients. Have a great day! Dottie Pridmore CA Wow you hit the nail right on the head. It amazes me how people with really poor life skills keep their jobs and even get promoted. I really do agree that job sites could benefit from helping employees learn life skills. A really successful class (which I teach, by the way) is learning about the 4 personality types and how to communicate across those types. Also, culture, gender and family rules impact life skills. If you are a hot blooded Italian that grew up in a passionate family, you may come across too aggressive to co-workers. On the other hand they will never have to guess where you are coming from. Learning to understand and value different personalities is a big key to workplace harmony.
As far as teaching clients life skills. I believe modeling is a real key here. We like to place some hard to serve clients in Job Sampling positions within our agency. They learn work skills and are held accountable to change negative patterns that impact their employability. I think we are
looking at life skills as an important element for success, but we are a
long way from having a plan to implement improving those skills across
the board. I will share your thoughts with others and challenge
them to think about developing some internal and external life skills
training. Loretta Spalding
AK I
agree that life skills are often overlooked by employers yet it is the
number one reason people lose their jobs. In our program we teach
job search classes to help our participants learn how to look for work.
But we also include several classes on a regular basis that cover life
skill topics, such as attitude, self esteem, problem solving, and time
management. There are many other life skill topics that we
discuss. We hope that the information we provide will help our
participants with job retention. And although some of our
participants come to our program without the valuable life skills that
are required to maintain a job, some of the blame for low job retention
is on the employer. I think that employers assume that people come
to them already possessing life skills, since they are things
that most people are taught throughout there lives in all areas of their
lives. For example, it could be thought that time management is
learned from attending years of school before a person is 18. So
employers see an applicant and make the leap that they are a person with
life skills. As a result, their emphasis is placed on the
question, "Can they do the job?". Those are the skills
that are obtained later in life, may require experience to do well, and
that not every person possesses. I also think that employers would
have better job retention, not only if they looked for life skills in
the hiring process, but also helped to develop those skills on the job.
On-the-job-training should mean more than teaching an employee the
mechanics of certain tasks. For example, if timeliness is an
issue, supervisors and managers should take more of a mentoring role
with employees. They could discuss why being late affects the
company and include ways to manage time or ways to manage the small
crisis that seem to make a person late, rather than instantly
"writing them up". Employers want to hire a
"finished" person, someone who has developed and mastered all
skills. That person doesn't exist, yet they expect employees to be
that person. A little more understanding, flexibility and a view
that they are setting an example for their still learning employees to
follow would aid in job retention. I think that often employers
are too rigid with little acceptance of the human flaws we all possess.
So, although job seekers and employees need to be trained in life
skills, employers also need to be trained in developing good life skills
in their employees. Miriam
Dance ID Work
First Consultant What
a timely subject. I think
you are right on about the lack of life skills in the work place.
My agency does the "head in the sand" routine. Because of our unwillingness to confront wrong
behavior/attitudes there is never a forum or outlet for discussing
frustrations so they just continue to boil under the surface.
Very frustrating. Since
we don't admit there are difficulties there is little or no
"training" per se. The
agency also feels that since we have such tight budgets, that all work
hours should be devoted to serving clients and not in personal
development sessions. Another frustration. In
this "do more with less" environment we have all been forced
into, it becomes even more crucial everyone works well together. SM My organization teaches conflict classes. I believe is a good thing. We teach people what is expected of them in the job place and what you should do if you experience conflict in your workplace. The problem is, we are not practicing what we are preaching. We have some people in our office who treat co-workers with disrespect on a regular basis. There is no doubt that they know their jobs and do them well, but they are continually condescending and disrespectful, even after repeatedly being told that their behavior is inappropriate. I agree with you that people should be dismissed if they continually have an "attitude" and can't deal with co-workers/clients in a respectful, appropriate manner. There is just no excuse for some of the behavior I have witnessed.....no one is that good!! A. Life
skills, hadn't heard that term since I was a corporate trainer for IBM.
We had a 3 hr or so lecture on Life Skills in our advanced
marketing school. As I
recall it was always well received. Since
then nothing. Where I am at right now me and one other person know what the
techniques are. What is
management doing as far as training is concerned?
Nothing, even though the other person that knows what the concept
is runs the place. OH
MY GOODNESS! I would much rather work with the life skills people than
the job skills people! You can definitely teach job skills to someone already
proficient in life skills - but it rarely works in reverse.... The most challenging persons I have ever worked with don't
even realize that they have life skill deficiencies - because they are
so caught up in their job skill accomplishments that they believe that
is all that matters. Unfortunately
I work for a state agency - and it is nearly impossible to fire someone
for lack of life skills - for that matter - it is nearly impossible to
fire them even for lack of job skills!
I am not certain that our
agency spends enough (or any) time developing staff's life skills. We
tried that once - in a training program designed to improve our customer
interaction and satisfaction and our ability to move them through to
self sufficiency - and most staff didn't believe that they needed to
waste their time on that "touchy feely" stuff.
I wish staff had taken it to heart - because now with increased
job stress and increased workloads - it is the life skills that would
get them through the tough times - not the job skills. AB
- Illinois "The
quality of our expectations determines the quality of our actions."
Andre' Godin After having spent nearly two
decades as a human resource professional in educational and social
service organizations, I can testify to how often we discipline or
terminate employees because of their lack of life skills.
I’m currently with a state welfare office and many of our
discussions for preparing clients for work center around life skills.
We have many clients who can get a job, but they are unable to
keep it over time. Convincing
them that calling into to work when you’re going to be absent is
nearly as important as showing up, is one of those lessons rooted in
life skills training (responsibility).
We are currently negotiating with our partners to have our
clients attend a mandatory life skills training module before beginning
to search for jobs. Our employee evaluation
guidelines, policies and performance expectations do emphasize life
skills, but because it is more difficult for supervisors and managers to
qualify, quantify or explain, issues are usually addressed only when
they’ve become a huge problem. I
have always explained to applicants, employees looking for promotion and
especially my children and their friends (who are relatively new to the
workforce) that employers prefer to hire someone with less technical
skills and more life skills than someone who has excellent technical
skills but is impossible to work with. I believe that this needs to be made clear beginning with the
recruitment announcement, evaluated in the hiring process, and evaluated
along with technical skills throughout an employee’s work life. WA Life
skills are almost equal to the same importance as job competency.
We do need to be somewhat competent in what we are doing but I can
forgive someone far easier for not doing something correctly than for
being a jerk to work with. I think because we, by nature of what
we do, are compassionate to begin with, we tend to accept
that mistakes are made but cannot accept rude behavior because we
ourselves are not rude. I tried getting a workshop off the ground
called Job Etiquette, talking about what to do the first few weeks on
the job and how not to alienate your co-workers. I feel it is very
important, but it didn't go over well, then we haven't had much luck
with workshops in general here. In
our own offices, which are government agencies, people don't get fired
that easily. Some should that's for sure, but they are the ones at
the top for the most part that do the hiring and firing. They are
the ones that do not see their own bad behavior to begin with, and only
see it in others. It is kind of a Ying and yang isn't it?
Can't really teach something that your own office doesn't practice.
Charlene I totally agree that Life Skills is the missing link. It is beyond me, why employers don't include this type of training when they hire employees. One of the classes we taught at EAL and that I still do in my contract training is based on Dr. Tony Allesandra's "Platinum Rule" concept of the 4 Behavioral Styles. It is the best training I've ever used, to teach people "why we act the way we act, when we act the way we act." It not only teaches you what your own behavioral style is, but that of others, as well and how you can (and must) be able to "flex" to these other styles.
In my experience in working with clients on assistance, who were looking for jobs; most of whom had been fired from jobs because they couldn't get along with their supervisors/co-workers, this was the one element missing from everything we tried to teach them about getting a job.
Oh, well...I know I'm "preaching to the choir," but those are my thoughts on this subject.
Elly I
must concur with your life skills comments.
Because I work with high school and college students I have seen
numerous situations that produce less than positive outcomes based on
the client's attitude. I am
amazed at the number of clients that live with a sense of
"entitlement" and disregard the need for good work
ethics/habits. I am not
sure of the source of such attitudes.
Many
teens feel that employers will seek them out and pay them unrealistic
salaries. I have several
clients who have graduated from college who refuse to accept a job with
the salary being less than what they expected.
Trying to reason with them that they need to gain work experience
and know that the higher salary will come later is often a futile
conversation. But what I have often discovered in some of these cases is
that the parents are willing to continue to support the student so there
is no pressure on the client to find employment.
So much for delayed gratification! Sadly,
State Employees are treated poorly with rare positive feedback.
I would like to share, however, that I used your suggestion of
voicing my needs to my immediate supervisor.
While going over my annual review, I shared with him that while I
greatly enjoyed your training, I
felt that middle and upper management were the work group that most
needed the training. I find
that my clients energize me (for the most part), but the constant
negative stance of the agency is what propels me toward burnout.
I am often dismayed at the attitude of fellow counselors who have
adopted the mentality of doing "just enough" so
that they will not be fired. Coming
from a customer driven background I am surprised at the "lip
service" that the topic of customer service is given for state
employees. While the
private business learned years ago that the best way to have happy
customers was to start with happy employees; the government seems to
have missed that basic management class lesson.
I have however seen a slightly difference in my immediate
supervisor. After sharing
with him that the primary reason I would leave the agency was due to the
negativity, he seems to be making an effort to be more positive.
I think that he understands (at least for me) that the way to
motivate me is to give positive feedback. I am willing to work harder and longer for a manager that
appears to appreciate my efforts and successes.
Feeling unappreciated and having errors become the focus of all
conversations dampens my spirit - fear of losing my job is not a
motivator for me. Comments? Take
care and let me know if a counselors position is available in the Keys. KF
/NC How
right you are!! The life
skills of fellow workers really make the difference between a great
place to work and job you dread like the plague. I
will say that just as I said "all the nice in the world won't make
up for not knowing your job" when it comes to customer service from
the customer's point of view, great life skills fall short if you do not
also do your job adequately from the co-worker's point of view, but
don't we all know someone who knows the job and doesn't know a thing
about being a decent human being? Our
agency does little to nothing about training in life skills.
But the right attitude and priorities--treating people
(co-workers and customers)
with dignity and respect, etc.-- have always been the emphasis and have
obviously guided the hiring process around this local office.
We are fortunate. My
husband spent 15 miserable years at a job he would have found pleasant
enough except for the woeful life skills of one fellow worker. Our
job evaluations do contain an element called "dimensions"
which is actually life skills. "Key
behaviors which describe how work
is to be done". "Service
orientation, collaboration, adaptability, performance stability,
customer service". So
we are evaluated on these very importatant factors, however, since there
is no reward in the state's actual pay system
for doing a job well (everybody who isn't getting fired gets
exactly the same raise), whether we are talking about job skills or life
skills, there is no motivation for anyone to improve in this area unless
they just value this of themselves.
Once again, we are fortunate in this office that our manager is
attracted to candidates who exhibit a personal desire for self
improvement. Have
a great day! Mason In
working with older workers we often find that they have the Life Skills,
it's the job skills they lack. We
provide them with job skills and refer them to openings, but often find
that employers are not interested in hearing about Life Skills.
Sometimes even noting them sounds more like you are referring to
a pet rather than a person. I
would be interested in hearing how others effectively weave in the Life
Skills. Polly
Windels I think a lot of
people are getting burned out because the programs that used to be about
the people, especially the older people, are not about the people. It
was really good to help people that needed help, but now the money
situation has made it really hard to put the help where it needs to go. I know in our
program, we are just trying to do the best we can for our people and try
to not let it stress us out. That is about all we can do. I will be looking
forward to hearing from you again. M O As far as life skills go, our agency does not address life skills for employee's or customers. I truly agree that life skills should be a major focus for staff and clients alike. When you have so many different people, from different backgrounds coming together, it would help everyone to have a better understanding of where the others come from. Since our agency does not have anything in place, I can't wait to read the ways that other agencies deal with this issue. California Girl...... |
