30 Dec 2008 @ 6:52 AM 

An associate in the office yesterday mentioned that this was the Month That Won’t End. Boy was she right! For many of us who’s work calendars are tied to corporate 5-4-4 calendars, you know what I mean. For us, the year end was effectively last Friday, the 26th. This means that during one of the busiest family times of the year, we were all scrambling around to wrap up our month end and year end reports, and laying out the new table cloth as we set the table for 2009. Not the best week for the increased focus necessary to hit all our deadlines and make sure all i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. But, as we do, we did it.

And somehow, we all managed to enjoy the holidays with friends and/or family. Success! And a weekend to relax and soak in the spirit of the season. Then, for those of who returned to work yesterday, we found the month wasn’t ACTUALLY over yet! There was talk of New Year’s Eve celebrations, more PTO, which managers were on duty, and when, whether or not the office will be open all day…. Hadn’t we crossed the threshold? Were n0t the holidays behind us?

Not yet. Though, we do just have this one more stretch of New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and the unproductive Friday between the holiday and the weekend. Then back to business as usual… right? Isn’t that the hope? Or is that just a fool’s goal? Up here in the northeast snow blizzards and ice storms are coming, RI is leading the country with the highest unemployment rate, the ski mountains in ME, NH, and VT are all projecting smaller workforces and already offering discounted packages to attract recreational tourists. Huge employers, from developers of circuitboards to paper mills, are closing down operations for weeks or even a month, non-profit public television and radio stations are laying off AND giving pay cuts to the survivors.

I sure hope this isn’t “business as usual”, at least not for long anyway. As a thirty something, I have to admit my mild shock at the widespread effects of the recession. I hadn’t thought about the hotels which are selling fewer conference packages, the job fairs that are having fewer real employment opportunities forcing the organizers to cancel them, the hospitals that are freezing hiring as fewer people have health insurance which means fewer are going in for healthcare, the independent delivery drivers that subcontract for cabinet manufacturers that have nothing to deliver as fewer people remodel their kitchens. It’s been quite eye opening for me to see how fragile the system is.

And yet, we all maintain hope and faith. Hope that we truly are smart enough, as a country, to find a way out of this recession, and faith that we’ll be able to keep the heads of our citizens above water until we do.

I was at a bookstore yesterday, and found a book of WWII posters. It was amazing how much responsibility the government was putting on the people back then- how willing we were to ask our citizens to change their behavior to save our way of life. Walk instead of drive, carpool to save gas, use less resources as the military needed them, turn in your recyclable metals… amazing.

I hope our government is ready, and mature enough, to reach out and provide this type of direction to the American people once more. And if they do, I have faith that we will answer the call.

Keep your spirits up, keep one eye open for those who need your help, and keep one hand free to lend to those who need it.

Jason

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Posted By: Jason
Last Edit: 29 Aug 2009 @ 01:04 PM

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 29 Dec 2008 @ 8:29 AM 

Check out my guest post on Punk Rock HR: CLICK HERE TO VIEW

If you haven’t been there before, Punk Rock HR is a tremendous blog, hosted by Laurie Ruettimann, the creator of Human Resource Management Today at HRMToday.com, another terrific place for HR professionals to network, learn, and share!

Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year!

-Jason C. Blais

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Posted By: Jason
Last Edit: 29 Aug 2009 @ 01:04 PM

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 17 Dec 2008 @ 7:23 AM 

As I was entering the title for this blog, it occurred to me that this will likely be the first in an ongoing posting stream on this matter. As I deepen my research into social media and its value to employers, I will continue to share what I learn, dispell myths, and promote best practices. There is a great deal of time, money, and energy being applied to marketing these services, and a scarcity of reputable research, data, or objective oversight to be found.

Source: http://www.fredcavazza.net/2008/06/09/social-media-landscape/

I had originally posted the following comments as a reply to a LinkedIn question about this topic. If you are LinkedIn, you can see that question here, and comment for yourself. Though I’d also prefer comments to this post, here.

It’s clear that the number of advertisers paying to post jobs online is declining, that trend is directly related to the number of jobs open, meaning that the social media and other outlets will also be declining in the world of recruitment.

I’m very wary of those who try to scare HR professionals into thinking that the value of internet job boards has vanished. In fact, the value continues to grow, which is whey every year, including this year, a the ratio of jobs posted on internet job boards to jobs posted in print grows. I do agree that aggregator sites have muddied the waters, and we’ll see how long it takes with copyright laws to catch up to the internet. It would be silly to allow magazines to copy the entire content from other magazines, and then put their own brand on it and sell advertising. It would be a clear violation of infringement, if there was no permission granted. This will become a very hot issue as the economy weakens, and those on top (monster, CB, HJ, Dice,etc) must take steps to protect there assets- which in any publishing platform, is content.

I’ve been a zealous social media supporter, and am working to bring a better understanding of this ecosystem to HR professionals. The truth is that while there may be some very good candidates found through social media, most organizations don’t currently have the resources to wade through the enormous volumes of those disinterested in job opportunities and those who have created completely bogus profiles. Ultimately, it comes down to a question of return on investment.

If an employer can find 20 candidates with 85% of the profile they’re looking for within a week of posting a job online (which only takes a small amount of time), is that activity more or less valuable than spending dozens if not more than a hundred hours filtering through social media and finding 2 candidates that have 95% of the profile you’re looking for?

I believe that all three types of social media- Social Networking, Professional Networking, and Information Sharing- have tremendous value to HR professionals, and should be researched and utilized to build stronger employment brands and increased employee engagement. But these benefits must be presented with realistic expectations. Building employee networks, feedback loop venues, professional research interchanges, and customer engagement can all be taken to a new level with social media. When working with HR folks, I do my best to provide a very thorough analysis of the functionality of the various social media outlets, including benefits and drawbacks, and present them with scenarios in which they can leverage these services to their benefit.

That being said, specialization continues to offer significant advantages in the business to business community. I fear that by pushing businesspeople onto the social media to aggressively is akin to the superstore approach to consumer goods. Soon, people forget the quality of the goods they used to get at specialty stores, and replace the desire for quality with the convenience of cheap prices and one stop shopping- the dumbing of the consumer market. The same goes with trying to do too much through social media platforms that aren’t truly designed to deliver the results businesses need.

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Posted By: Jason
Last Edit: 29 Aug 2009 @ 01:05 PM

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 16 Dec 2008 @ 3:27 PM 

Steve Porter, who is an Outreach Consultant with JobsInRI, has been working closely with the Workforce Development Specialist, Amy Driscoll, at the RI Hospitality Association (RIHA) to help connect employers and job seekers in that industry. Amy’s role is part of the RI Hospitality Education Foundation. Together, they’ve developed and delivered presentations at netWORKri offices across the state to job seekers focused on Transferring Skills to new careers.

The reports I’m getting back have been eye opening, and provide tremendous insight into the struggles of both job seekers and employers. As you may already be aware, RI is now tied for the highest unemployment rate in the US. The presentation has been very helpful in showing candidates how to do their own skills inventory, and identify the soft skills they have that can transfer into new jobs. The target is really the recently unemployed, and those who have been out of the market for so long, they’re out of the loop in the new job hunting world.

Great work and congratulations goes to the folks at the RI Hospitality Education Foundation (RIHEF) who have spearheaded this charge, and are out there making a difference!

In addition, the RIHEF lead a seminar to analyze how to find and train soft skills for the next generation workforce- high school students and teens. The idea here is to help develop the real world skills that are necessary to fill positions in the hospitality industry. (I have to say, focusing on this younger group is both forward thinking and creatively strategic. If more business leaders, association leaders, and community organizations were similarly focused, we could see a significant rise in apprenticeship style education, which I’m all for)

Any way, here are some bullets of the issues facing this one industry in this one state, as reported by the JobsInRI Outreach Consultant:

– Many of the RIHA member restaurants and hotels have openings, but can’t find good people.

– In the business of hospitality, budgets will be cut and expenses reduced, but layoffs are usually the last option.

– The RIHA doesn’t feel the recession has affected the RI industry too deeply. Business at most restaurants and hotels are still down slightly, though.

– The Newport business climate has not been hit badly at all, which is where the center of the tourism universe resides in RI.

– The universal belief is that next year’s tourist season will be excellent. Optimism is high.

– The RIHA specialist maintains a folder of job openings from hotels and restaurants that she is personally trying to fill. Following the seminars, she speaks one-on-one with candidates searching for the right kind of people.

– Many are frustrated with employment advertising options. The paper is expensive and online job boards result in too many desperate, inexperienced candidates.

– In addition, while resume databases are exceptional for finding employees with specific hard skills (certifications, degrees, years of experience) they fail profoundly in finding candidates with strong soft skills (team player, customer service, friendliness, communication, etc.).

– They are desperate for candidates with exceptional soft skills which is what fuels their industry.

Great work Steve, thanks for those insights!

Well, that’s how it looks from the recruiting front lines at the intersection of Rhode Island and Hospitality!

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 16 Dec 2008 @ 2:21 PM 

There’s a tremendous blog out there hosted by J. William Tincup called www.jpie.com. During the month of December, he has been profiling recruiting bloggers of the world, and today was my lucky day to be featured. It’s a brief segment about why I started the blog, why I keep doing it, and what’s coming in the future.

Have a look at: THE JASON BLAIS BLOG STORY on JPIE

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Posted By: Jason
Last Edit: 29 Aug 2009 @ 01:04 PM

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 09 Dec 2008 @ 5:12 AM 

Disclaimer: For those that may be offended by scenes of gratuitous self promotion: please read no further as you may be exposed to content that you find offensive.

If you have a few minutes please help promote this blog by following these steps:

1. Please find an article/post in this blog that you really enjoyed.
2. Scroll to the end of the post.
3. Click on the Email this Post image (envelope w/arrow)
4. Send it to a friend or colleague that would be interested, and let them know they can subscribe either for email updates or RSS feeds.

Okay, so I’ve been writing a few posts monthly for the last 9 months or so. My goal is to average 2 posts a week, but sometimes time, energy, or inspiration get in my way. I’d be very open to hearing feedback from readers to hear what you think so far… the good, the bad, and the ugly- bring it on, i’ve got thick skin.

Have a great day all!

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Posted By: Jason
Last Edit: 29 Aug 2009 @ 01:11 PM

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Categories: JobsInTheUS
 09 Dec 2008 @ 5:02 AM 

I’ve been researching Skills Inventories and Skill Sets in relation to job functions for an upcoming seminar I’m developing. If you’d like to share your input on what I’m working on, please check out some more detail in this forum at HRM TODAY, the Social Network for Today’s HR Professional- free plug Laurie, no need to send money :) If you’re not familiar with this resource, take a look around, it’s a great place to peruse.

Anyway, in my research, I’ve come across numerous lists and processes for job seekers to itemize their on skills inventory. In the program I’m working on, HR professionals will use similar methodology to uncover latent skills within their current workforce. Once uncovered, the employer can provide opportunities to employees to work cross functionally, effectively increasing productivity, engagement, and retention. This is even more important during a recession (remember, like Hermione Grainger said in Harry Potter, “fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself”- IT IS IMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE REALITY OF OUR CURRENT ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT- sorry… I digress), when employers are forced to do more with less.

In my digging, I found the following worksheet to be of the most value, at least in my opinion, and thought I’d pass it along. This is a great Skills Inventory list from SunRaye Enterprises. You can find more great info like this at their website: http://www.sunraye.com/job_net/

I’ve been


A Free Internet Resource from SunRaye Enterprises

Worksheet #5 – Skills Inventory Worksheet

For each skill, rank your degree of competence as you would compare yourself with others — your classmates, friends etc. For those skills where your degree of competence is above average, describe briefly the experience(s) in which you gained the skill.


Skill Never
Done
Needs
Work
Average Above
Average
Experience(s) Where You Gained the Skill
Analyzing
Situations or Data
Assembling
Equipment or information
Calculating
Mathematical computations or risk assessment
Coaching
Guiding or tutoring
Competitiveness
Ability to compete with others and a willingness to be measured on performance
Compiling
Data or facts
Constancy
Persistent, faithful
Constructing
Objects or buildings
Coordinating
Activities or events
Corresponding
Answering or initiating
Counseling
Creating
Artistic creations, new ideas or inventions
Deciding
Finding alternatives, making best use of resources or materials
Delegating
Tasks or responsibilities
Designing
Products or systems
Direction
Ability to define personal goals and needs
Displaying
Ideas, products or equipment
Editing
Newspapers or magazines
Energy Level
Ability to demonstrate a forcefulness and capacity to make things move ahead
Estimating
Costs, income or physical space
Evaluating
Performance, programs, processes or events
Flexibility
Capable of change and receptive to new situations and ideas
Fund Raising
One-to-one or through media
Goal Achievement
Ability to identify, work toward and obtain specific objectives
Group Facilitating
Managing group interactions
Handling Complaints
Parents, clients or citizens
Inspecting or Examining
Physical objects, financial statements, or through test administration
Interpreting
Data, legal, medical terminology or another language
Interviewing
Seeking information from others and making subsequent decisions or suggestions
Investigating
Private information underlying causes or events
Making Layouts
For printed media public displays or advertising
Measuring
Meeting the Public
Receptionist, host, agency or product rep, salesperson, etc.
Monitoring
Progress of people or equipment
Motivating
Self and others
Observing
Physical phenomena, human behaviour or situations
Operating
Equipment, machines or vehicles
Organizing
People, information or events
Patience
Ability to remain calm, endurance
Planning
Budgeting, goal setting, scheduling
Perseverance
Ability to continue a course of action in spite of difficulties or opposition
Programming
Equipment or activities
Promoting
One-to-one or though media
Recording
Numerical or scientific data
Record Keeping
Logs, files or time sheets
Repairing
Equipment, vehicles, furniture, appliances, accessories, etc.
Researching
Obtaining information from the library, surveys or physical data
Self-knowledge
Ability to assess your own capabilities
Self-starter
Ability to identify purposeful work and to take action
Selling
Ideas, products or policies
Serving
A product or an individual
Sketching
Pictures, diagrams or charts
Speaking
In public, groups or via electronic media
Supervising
People or processes
Teaching
Formal or informal
Timing
Organizing time or events
Troubleshooting
Equipment or situations
Updating
Information or records
Using Instruments
Engineering, medical or scientific
Writing
Creative, business, or non-fiction
Other Skills You’d Like to Add (e.g. Word Processing, Spread Sheets, Accounting)




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Last Edit: 29 Aug 2009 @ 12:59 PM

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