Cube Farmer

Employers are trying to put a permanent collar on IT professionals who want to stay free and easy so they can pull in the big bucks and top working conditions.

According to a new report, IT talent know the market has turned in their favour with the “average IT professional (believing) they can earn $175,000 a year” by staying a contractor.

Employers taking part the Chandler Macleod Technology Employment Report admit they are paying their contractors up to 40 per cent more than their permanent hires in similar roles. Newly released Department of Immigration & Citizenship research shows IT roles are at the top of the list of skill sets employers are importing.

The Chandler Macleod research was carried out between December 2010 and January 2011. Highlights include:

Employers are trying ‘permanent poaching’ to lock in top IT talent but appear to be failing.

IT contractors want to keep on the move to rake in the bucks and ensure they work with the newest/best technology to have fun and further boost their expertise and price tag.

IT contractors claim to have been paid up to 42 per cent more in some roles than permanent staff doing the same work. Employers admit to paying up to 40 per cent more.

Continue reading 'IT stars earn 40pc more and won’t be put on a leash'

Some easy viewing - under two mins.  Look past the soppy music to Kevin Spacey’s message that applies to men and women in pretty much any sector. He says success is what you say it is - it is not an external measure but you have to really know what you want and understand why you want it. “To ...be ambitious and to want to be successful is just desire”. It is not enough. 

Thanks to Hot tips for Career Chicks author Karen Adamedes for passing on the link.

Firing someone for gossiping is a missed opportunity. Employee gossip is usually a symptom of something else - some other problem management should face up to and do something about.

In a hearing before Fair Work Australia, a Melbourne childcare centre was ordered to compensate an employee found to have been unfairly sacked for breaching a ‘’no backbiting’’ policy. The employee claimed what she said about a colleague being lazy and another being incompetent was true. Fair Work commissioner John Ryan took into account a range of evidence including that a more formal complaint about one of the workers had been made but was not acted upon. Read the news.com.au report on the case.

Wow, it wouldn’t be the first time that an employee acted out of frustration when a blind eye was turned to a co-worker’s poor performance. What interests me is that any employer would believe that removing an employee who gossiped was solving the issue that led to the remarks in the first place. That head in the sand approach can lead to a much more serious problem such as an unsafe workplace or a high churn rate as employees make a run for the exit.

Employees talk amongst themselves for a number of reasons and all of them are useful for employers to understand.

Continue reading 'Firing someone for gossiping is ridiculous'

A survey out today states 83 per cent of people plan to claw back time from their employer this year to put into life outside of work.

The last couple of years have been about hanging on to their job and working longer hours to cover fewer bodies in the office but no more. Recruitment firm Randstand claims Aussies want their lives back and employers not willing to look at work-life balance options will suffer as the employment market continues to favour job hunters.

In the many years I have spent reporting on employment, work-life balance has been a hot topic if not the holy grail for pretty much everyone. The reality for most of us is we have to work so working fewer days or part time hours is impossible. Sometimes just getting to and from work is a work-life balance issue all by itself. 

So have you found any work-life balance solutions?  Do you even believe work-life balance is possible? 

Continue reading 'What is your idea of work-life balance?'

Work harder? Work less hours? Stop gossiping? Find a new job? Learn to say ‘no’?

In the recruitment world the unofficial work year starts around the third week of January so now is a good time to think about how you plan to get ahead in 2011. Here are a few suggestions but please tell me yours.

Know what “success” means to you
Climbing the career ladder usually involves extra study or training and changing jobs every three or so years. However, ambition is not for everyone. Some people want to do a job well but work fewer days or just do their job and clear their mind when they go home so they focus on some other pursuit. Success is whatever you say it is. By defining success for you, you can find a job that fits in with what you want to get out of life.

Shut up
Over sharing personal information is dangerous. People might smile sympathetically when you describe your latest domestic drama but then avoid you like the plague in future. Besides, all that personal info could be repeated as gossip when you’re not around to put things in context. Other behaviours that will stymie your efforts to get ahead include giving your opinion on every topic and talking at meetings just to be heard, or worse, talking over others. Also, if you are that person who never puts forward an idea but always critiques the ideas of others then please, please shut up. 

Continue reading 'Change your work game in 2011'

It’s amazing how something so harmless as exchanging pressies with workmates can turn so sour without a little forethought.

Amber Sharp, a partner with Marque Lawyers, says public gift giving ceremonies at work and CEO Santas have the potential to give rise to complaints on grounds such as discrimination or sexual harassment.

“During a Kris Kringle [also known as a Secret Santa] everyone is assembled and it is quite a public affair so there is a real danger of embarrassing a coworker in front of colleagues,” Ms Sharp says.
“How disappointing that our society has come to the point that something like a Kris Kringle gift has to be laden with rules. However, notwithstanding all the rules there are still people who do crazy things so err on the side of common sense.”

Continue reading 'Art of gift giving at work'

The social network for workers, Linked In, reckons it has come up with the top 10 words you should never use in a résumé.

They are:

Extensive experience
Innovative
Motivated
Dynamic
Proven track record
Team player
Proactive
Skill set
Highly skilled
Entrepreneurial

Continue reading 'Words most “over used” in résumés'

Imagine going up more than 520 metres to go to work? These guys maintain transmission lines and atennas on top of massive towers used to broadcast signals. They can see for more than 80 kilometres from their workspace and they have to climb about 100 metres by ladder carrying a bag weighing more than 13 kilos on a rope. The video has a short intro and then be prepared to find out if you have fear of heights.

I doubt any of these have been used for real but they offer a bit of vicarious living for those struggling to get through these final weeks until the holidays. What would your ideal out of office reply say?

Read this lot for inspiration. I love 4 and 7 best.

1 I am currently out of the office at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Please be prepared for my mood.

2. I am on holidays until x date. I will allow each sender one email. If you send me multiple emails, I will randomly delete your emails until it is pared down to one. Choose wisely. Please note that you already sent me one email.

3. Sorry to have missed you, but I’m at the doctor’s having my brain and heart removed so I can be promoted to our management team.

Continue reading 'Out of office email replies we would like to use'

The second Young Entrepreneurs Unconvention will kick off at 9am tomorrow at a venue on the campus of the University of Melbourne. Created for budding biz adventurers aged 18-35, the ticket price is your age – so if you are 19 you pay $19, 32 then $32 and so on.

The day includes a number of speakers and the opportunity to pitch business ideas. Those who already have a business can compete for the chance to present their idea to an expert panel and win a “business acceleration” prize of $10,000 as well as access to a network of experts and advice.

The first ever Young Entrepreneurs Unconvention was held in Sydney on September 18. Of the 350 people who attended, 60 per cent were guys and 40 per cent female. Jack Delosa is one of the organisers of the Unconvention. He says young people do not want to emulate their parent’s lives as wage slaves and instead want to go into business for themselves.

Continue reading 'Wage slaves versus entrepreneurs'

It’s Go Home on Time Day. Yes, there is a special day set aside to remind people to keep to their paid work hours even if it is only once a year.

According to the organisers of this special day - The Australia Institute - people in this country donate more than 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime to their employer. The Institute calculates that 2 billion hours is worth an equivalent of $72 billion. 

I am not sure I have ever stuck to assigned hours. In Hong Kong where I was employed by the Sunday edition of the South China Morning Post I worked a five day week but extraordinary hours - up to 16 hours on a Saturday. However, most people in Hongkers worked a six-day week every other week. Back in Australia it depends on what I have on so I do try to go on time if there are no deadlines btu a 10 hour day is not unusual and I have worked a 12-hour day on occasion. The thing I have noticed most of all is the speed desk-bound luncher. Hardly anyone I know stops to have a full lunch break but they do leave the office on time. Also, “lieu time” appears informal in most non-government offices. From what people tell me, clawing back some time from an employer comes down to the attitude of an individual manager. Over the years I have found that the manager most likely to fritter away time is the one most likely to suspect others of doing the same and resent providing lieu time to employees. 

In The Australia Institute report, Long time no see - The impact of time poverty on Australian workers , researchers Josh Fear, Serena Rogers and Richard Denniss compared time poverty in this country to other types of disadvantage in society. They argue that each individual needs a certain amount of free time to look after their physical and mental health and nuture family relationships and friendships.

Continue reading 'Go home on time today'

A story in The Sunday Telegraph claims employers and recruiters are trying to view your social networking pages as a matter of course now when considering you for a job.
I have a real issue with this. Generations of people have had work personas and play personas but they were able to keep these two apart. Unless the play involves something illegal, surely people are entitled to their non-work self without it being used to deny them something as important as a career opportunity or a job to pay the rent/mortgage?

In her story for The Sunday Telegraph, Helen Pow quotes three recruiting firms about the use of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linked In and other social media to gather information about candidates.

I just wrote a piece about employees using the Net to misbehave but that is not what I am talking about here. While on the surface employers might be looking for “inappropriate” bechaviour, anything could be used to screen you out of the recruiting process. You membership is in a quilting group could be judged too daggy or an extreme sports enthusiast could be seen as too much of a rebel – it doesn’t have to be racy photos or slagging off the boss that gets your CV binned. This is what is known as “not a cultural fit” and it does happen.

Continue reading 'Get out of my Face (book)'

The internet is a wonderful thing but email, Facebook, Twitter – it can all get you into lots of trouble at work.

In London a bunch of accountants at Price Waterhouse Coopers are in hot water after doing a Mark Zuckerberg from his Harvard student days and rating females by their attractiveness.

Apparently Price WaterhouseCoopers UK is investigating reports that new female recruits were “welcomed” to the company via a crude email chain from up to 17 guys. The email included their photos and a rating based on their looks. The guys created a “top 10” list based on attractiveness.

Continue reading 'Employees behaving badly'

To all those fun and crazy people who are good with figures I say Happy International Accountant’s Day.

I realise there are some burning work issues around this week - research that we are either working too little or too much, employers pushing to cut penalty rates for workers doing the hard yards at Christmas and job ads on the rise but I want to stop and give thanks to all those wonderful people from the various accounting departments I have worked with over the years because its your day.

Here are a few facts about the noble accountant that you might not know. 

Famous accountants include novelist John Grisham (also a lawyer), much maligned elevator music sax player Kenny G (accounting grad who finished in the top 2 per cent of his university year), comedian Bob Newhart (credited by Ellen DeGeneres as her early inspiration), outrageous lead singer of The Butthole Surfers Gibby Haynes, famous bank founder J. P. Morgan and equally famous potter Josiah Wedgewood as well as the actual “father of accounting” Luca Pacioli. 

Continue reading 'Happy International Accountant’s Day'

Gavan Podbury has been told that he liberates people.

Based in Melbourne, Podbury tours the country presenting seminars on how to cope with difficult people at work, home – anywhere.

He says success comes down to the three “As” - Accept, Alter, Avoid. Accept the behavior, alter the way you interact with the difficult person or avoid them all together.

“You don’t have to change at all as long as you are happy getting the response you’re getting,” says Podbury. “If you’re not then you might have to do something you don’t want to do to choose a better outcome for yourself.”

Continue reading 'Three “As” of dealing with difficult people'