Archive for September, 2009

A new MetLife Mature Market Institute study, conducted in partnership with Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging & Work, indicates that the economic downturn has had a greater psychological effect on younger workers than it has on workers of the Baby Boomer and Traditionalist generations. The results of the study are summarized in the report, Engaging the 21st Century Multi-Generational Workforce.

The primary focus of the study was on whether generational differences matter when it comes to employee engagement. The study found this to be true. There is a distinctive difference in what impacts different employees. While the insight into engaging the different generations is reason enough to download the report, it is particularly interesting to read the findings related to how different groups of employees are weathering the economic storm. 

Employees from both Generation Y (age 26 and younger) and Generation X (age 27 to 42) reported a drop in engagement, while employees in the Baby Boomer and Traditionalist generations reported almost no change in engagement. This anomaly may be because younger employees have not been through similar tough times, while Baby Boomers and Traditionalists have. Through their past experiences, Boomers and Traditionalists have discovered that tough times will get better. Therefore, on a whole, older workers are better able to adjust. 

The study echoes a recent Business Week article about how the recession is impacting the country’s youth. The “Age of Anxiety” piece reported that the younger generation of our country are commencing their careers at a frightful time, and their initial employment choices may have financial ramifications for many years.

Both the MetLife study and the Business Week article indicate that managers need to do more to help younger workers cope with the anxiety of living and working in a recession. 

You may feel that you don’t have time to “coddle” younger workers, given all of the other demands you face. To the contrary, my experiences and those of Harvard professor Bob Sutton have shown that when workers become overwhelmed by stress, overall productivity in the work place will decline.

If you are a Baby Boomer or Traditionalist boss, find time to have conversations with your younger workers about how they are feeling and coping. Sharing personal stories from prior recessions and tips to pull through the stressful times in a positive manner will go a long way in improving younger employee’s work ethic, and ultimately the team’s results.

I recently worked with a vice president from a defense company to create a town hall meeting that allowed and encouraged her more tenured team members to connect with the newer folks. The experienced employees shared their suggestions for dealing with chaos, anxiety, and overwork. The immediate result was a palpable sense of relief in the room and a heightened level of energy across the team.

Good leaders recognize that when anxiety is running high, employee communication is not optional, it’s imperative. A little extra time and attention on youger employees just learning to cope with these troubling times will be an investment that pays off again and again.

Wendy Mack is a consultant, speaker, and author who specializes in leading and communicating change. Download her free e-book, “Transforming Anxiety into Energy”
at www.WendyMack.com. 

The topic of Project Management is very popular among professionals today, as project management skills can really help to advance your career.  Choosing the right project management course becomes the next challenge many professionals who want to build their project management skills.  This article outlines the top considerations for identifying the best project management course for you as an individual, as well as how to get the most out of it personally and for your career.

One way great way to begin to choose a project management course is to look at the problems you are facing today.  For example, perhaps you are having some special challenges dealing with stakeholders.  Maybe gathering requirements effectively is your current challenge.  Often times you can identify communications problems on your project and would like to learn more about tools and techniques for managing these problems.  Perhaps you would like to enhance your management skills.  Perhaps also, you simply would like to learn a broad project management framework or methodology and earn a project management certification to enhance your credentials.

Once you have this idea in mind, it is also helpful to consider the method of delivery that you prefer for the project management course.   The typical delivery methods include classroom training, audio training, and online project management training.  Classroom training has the advantage that you can give it your full attention as you are away from daily distractions.  There also is great value in being present with the instructor and students to discuss and absorb points on the spot as well as network.   On the other hand classroom training is expensive, might involve travel, requires trading off work time, and needs to be scheduled. 

An audio project management course can be very convenient, but lacks the visual learning aspect, so it often is a great supplement to other learning methods.  Some PDA-based audio programs are beginning to also offer the video, which is helpful, but it important to make sure that the audio delivery taken alone is effective for this medium when you cannot look.

Online project management training includes both instructor assisted training and pure online training.  With an instructor assisted online project management course, you take a live course over the internet, and the instructor is leading and facilitating the course.  In this case, you may have the ability to interact with the instructor and students during the class.  With pure online training, on the other hand, the course is self-contained and is available 24×7, and you can easily skip over topics of little interest and focus more on those of keen interest.  Often for the pure online training a mentor or online help is available for assistance.

Another decision is about the topic of the project management course.  For example, you might have a need to learn about a project management tool, so something like Microsoft Project training might be a good choice.  You might be in the information technology field, and perhaps you are transitioning from more technical functions to project management.  In yet another situation, perhaps an IT project management course would be a great choice. There are many other topics, especially in the soft skills areas like leadership, management, communication where you can select a sub-topic that will help take your current skills to the next level.

A final key is to choose and take that selected project management course right away!  Once the decision has been made, the desire is most likely at its peak, and you will get the most out of the project management course at that time.  If you wait even a few weeks, sometimes the issues you are facing may shift, and your ability to absorb like a sponge and immediately apply your new knowledge may diminish.  You want to be able to realize the benefit rapidly, and also making that knowledge your own for the long haul.

In summary, the way to get the most out of any project management course.  is to choose a topic related to something of very current interest.  Select a project management course about a topic of current interest to you, something for which you have a current burning desire or need and that you will be able to apply right away.  Pick the method of delivery of the course that best suits you, whether classroom, online, audio, self-paced, or other, and schedule yourself as soon as possible.  When the time comes, take the project management course at your own pace, but make sure you can give it full focus when you do.  Most importantly, apply what you have learned in the project management course right away!

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John Reiling, PMP, PE, MBA is an experienced Project Manager and certified Project Management Professional. John’s web site, project management  course provides online project management training for beginning managers and for PMP exam prep and PDUs. John also writes regularly in his blog, PMcrunch.com.