3 Strategic Ways to Find Green Jobs

3 Strategic Ways to Find Green Jobs3 Strategic Ways to Find Green JobsThe countdown to Earth Day is winding down and all week were going to be blogging about green jobs and green ways to work. Today, well focus on how to find green jobs.First, lets dispel a common mythIn order to find green jobs, you must be an environmental scientist, or you should have majored in environmental studies. Absolutely not While we applaud people who devote their studies and professions to in-depth environmental activities, any person in any profession can find green jobs and greener ways of working. Heres how.3 tips to find green jobsLook for companies whose main line of work is environmentally-related.These include nonprofit environmental organizations, solar and wind technology companies, environmental science centers, think-tanks, watershed and water resource agencies, government agencies, health and beauty companies, farms and farming co-ops, conservation organizations, museums and educational insti tutions, waste management companies, and information technology companies, among others.In order to run successfully and smoothly, these environmentally-focused organizations need a variety of support staff in human resources, finance and accounting, government relations, administrative assistance, management, and other areas that require no previous environmental experience.Look for companies who place a great deal of emphasis on environmental sustainability.There are several ways to find out whether or not a company is truly green.Read through company websites to see if they are green certified through the Green geschftliches miteinander Bureau or other certification agencies. is proud to be green certified through the GBBCheck out the companys mission/vision statement. Do they mention anything about sustainability or the environment? Some companies will even craft a separate mission statement dedicated to their green efforts.During the job interview, ask them straight-out to talk about their environmental efforts. Whats their office recycling program like? Do they actively encourage employees to avoid commuting by car and instead to walk, bike, or ride public transit to work?Look for telecommuting jobs that allow you to work from home.Working from home can be one of the greenest ways to work for a number of reasons. It lessens the amount of office space a company needs to heat/cool, light, and clean. It allows you to completely control your carbon footprint while working because you control your heating/cooling, lighting, recycling, paper usage.You can make your home and home office mora energy-efficient with weather stripping, window caulking, and insulation, as well as CFL or LED lightbulbs, and office plants which reduce CO2. People might look at you funny if you walked into a regular office with a caulking gun and yards of insulation. And of course, theres the big one no more commuting, which lessening your gas consumption and carbon emissions, and givi ng you more time for work or personal pursuits

How to Pick the Best Type of Leadership

How to Pick the Best Type of LeadershipHow to Pick the Best Type of LeadershipHow does a leader act? You may have an idea, but there are many different schrifts of leadership, so when you are ready to lead, you dont have to look like the other leaders you know. You can look like you. You can pick the best types of leadership that work for you. Thats a big relief when you already have a ton on your plate in your new leadership role. Daniel Golemans Harvard Business Review Study, Leadership That Gets Results identified six types of leadership styles. Here they are The pacesetting leader This leader says Do as I do, now. Many people think this is what a leader looks like. The downside is that if youre always doing what the boss says, there isnt much room for your innovation.The authoritative leader This leader says Come with me. Goleman found this leadership type is best when there is a need for a new vision. For instance, if the company is dealing with change. These leaders inspire wor kers towards that new vision.The affiliative leader This leader says People come first. When a company is going through a tough time, this style can serve you well in relationships. But Goleman cautions that too much focus on nurturing leadership can result in weakened performance. The coaching leader This leader says Try this. When developing a leadership pipeline, this type of leader shines. This is someone who looks for personal strengths and helps develop them. However, this leadership style wont work if the team doesnt want to learn.The coercive leader This leader says Do what I tell you. Goleman says this is a last resort leadership style because it alienates team members. If there is an actual emergency, this approach works great, though. Otherwise, stay away. The democratic leader This leader says, What do you think? This works great when you need new ideas- which is often. But it fails miserably in an emergency. You can see that different occasions exist when each type of l eadership style is effective. Which style is best for you? These are questions you need to ask yourself to see. What Is Your Natural Leadership Style? Its easiest, of course, to embrace a leadership style that fits your personality. If youre naturally a coalition builder, a democratic or affiliative leadership role may fit you the best. If youre naturally a bossy jerk, a coercive leadership style may appeal to you. This is the style that may naturally attract you- but dont think that just because its your nature to lead one way thats how you should lead. What Does Your Team Need? This is more important than your own natural leadership style. How will your team respond to each style? What do you need to accomplish the work? If you need to implement a tedious plan that senior leadership laid out before and there is no room for change, then pacesetting might be best. But if youve had a rough year and changes need to happen, democratic leadership might be your best bet. Your tea m may respond positively to your attempts to involve them in the planning and decision making. Actually, sit down and think through what your team needs from yourleadership style. What Does Your Boss Want? This is especially important if you are new to this role. Why did she hire you? Was she looking for you to continue where the last manager left off or did she hire you because she thought youd take the team in a different direction? Its important that you know so that you can select your best leadership style. You can, of course, make changes (unless your boss is a coercive leader), but your awareness of your bosss expectations can help you focus on what you need to do. Is Your Current Style Working? If your employees are happy and engaged, youre meeting or exceeding goals, and your bosses are happy with your performance, great. If any of those are not true, however, check your leadership style. You may need to change your fundamental leadership styles. Of course, a mismat ched leadership style isnt the only area you can fix, but its a good place to start. Why? Its always easier to change your own behavior than to get others to change their behavior. Can You Get Help to Change Your Style? Sometimes it is as easy as saying, you know, it doesnt work when I give detailed instructions and make everyone do exactly what I want, Im going to allow more freedom. But often its not quite that simple. First, you need to recognize how you are managing and then you need to figure out how you need to manage. You should reach out for help and support from your boss or your Human Resources department. If possible, executive coaching can make a huge difference in helping you navigate these difficult leadership style approaches and choices. The types of leadership really do make a difference. Make sure that you are using the one that works best for your situation, and youll see work relationships and output improve- even if they were great when you started your jour ney to pick your best types of leadership styles. - - - - - - - - - - - - Suzanne Lucas is a freelance journalist specializing in Human Resources. Suzannes work has been featured on notes publications including Forbes, CBS, Business Insider and Yahoo.

Sitting Near a High-Performer Can Make You Better at Your Job

Sitting Near a High-Performer Can Make You Better at Yur JobSitting Near a High-Performer Can Make You Better at Your Job The people we sit near at work inevitably impact our day. They may brighten our mood or drive us crazy.Whats mora, our work neighbors can actually change how well we do our own jobs .Researchers looked at the 25-foot radius around high-performers at a large technology firm and found that ansicht workers boosted performance in coworkers by 15 percent. That positive spillover translated into an estimated $1 million in additional annual profits, according to new research from Dylan Minor , an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School.Of course, the flipside is that badeanstalt eggs impact their neighbors, too. Negative spillover from so-called toxic workers is even mora pronounced- sometimes having twice the magnitude of impact on profits as positive spillover. Yet, while this toxic spillover happens ver y quickly, it also dissipates almost immediately once that worker is either fired or relegated to the far physical reaches of the company.Which means that companies potentially have a very cheap way to boost productivity - simply shift some desks around- as opposed to relying on expensive training and recruiting, Minor says. In an era where companies are experimenting with open floor plans and other nontraditional seating arrangements, the stakes can be high. Minors research provides tangible takeaways for leaders thinking about how to group their staff.Companies are realizing that, wow, spatial management really does matter. Lets put some more work into thinking about how to do it well, he says.This research grew out of previous work by Minor and coauthor Michael Housman of HiQ Labs that focused only on toxic workers . Using data from consulting firm Cornerstone OnDemand , the researchers analyzed more than 58,000 hourly service workers at 11 well-known firms. They found tha t a toxic workers negative financial impact- $12,800 by their calculation- was far greater than the financial boost that comes from a superstar.Minor and Housman presented their findings to the firms involved. A technology company in California that was part of the study approached the researchers afterward and asked if they could drill down deeper into the data. How, the company wondered, did physical proximity impact spillover?Weve known since kindergarten that who you sit next to can matter, Minor says.But its notlage so simple. People are not uniformly good or bad at their jobs many excel in some areas and are average or below average in others. In todays world, most of the jobs we do are very much multidimensional, Minor says. Were not just putting widgets together one piece at a time.So what did physical proximity do when employees work was approached in a multidimensional way? To explore this, Minor and Housman got two years worth of detailed information on the performance of more than 2,000 workers at the tech firm. They picked two measures of performance- speed and quality- and gave workers a ranking of either high or low for each.They also defined toxic workers the same way as in their previous research, as anyone whose behavior was so bad that they were fired. Toxic workers ended up comprising about 2 percent of the workers studied.Then the researchers literally mapped out where each employee sat and analyzed how each persons work shifted over time as their neighbors changed.Having a high-performing neighbor is a bonus for everyone. Employees who ranked high on either speed or quality boosted the performance of those within a 25-foot radius.The impact was particularly strong on those who were matched with someone who had a complementary skill. In other words, if Bill is rated high for speed and Bob is rated low, Bobs speed will improve when he sits near Bill, more so than if they were both already speedy workers. The same holds true for quality.And, crucially, Bills speed will not be dragged down by his slower-moving neighbor.The beautiful part of it is that when we put these people together, theyre not going to materially suffer on the area of strength, Minor says. Theyre only going to improve on their area of weakness.This idea of matching people with complementary strengths makes sense when the skill in question is something that has a finite upper limit, like speed, Minor explains. But for other skills, like creativity, where there is no true upper limit, it might make sense to pair people with the same strengths so that their positive spillover keeps nudging the other to do more and more creative work.Toxic workers are really, really toxic. And they infect their neighbors very quickly.Once a toxic person shows up next to you, your risk of becoming toxic yourself has gone up, Minor says. And while positive spillover was limited to about a 25-foot radius, with toxic workers, you can see their imprint and negative effect across an entire floor.Keep in mind how narrowly the researchers defined toxic- someone who is fired for their behavior. This means that simply sitting near someone who gets fired means you yourself are now more likely to commit an act heinous enough to merit firing.And this toxic spillover happens almost immediately. The researchers saw neighbors go bad, so to speak, as soon as that toxic neighbor showed up. Whereas positive spillover that boosted speed or quality generally took a month to impact a lower-performing neighbor.Why is negative spillover so much more powerful than positive? Minor believes it is line with many other psychological studies that show that, negative effects have more of a magnitude than positive effects. For example, losing $100 is more painful than winning $100 is joyful.But even among the toxic, there is reason to be reassured, Minor says. Once theyre transferred or fired, your risk pretty much immediately subsides. Plus, he adds, most people are not toxic .Next the researchers explored why spillover happens. Are people learning good or bad behavior from their neighbors or is something like peer pressure at work ?They reasoned that if employees were learning from those nearby, then the positive or negative effects would continue after their influential neighbor left. But the data showed that both positive and negative spillover were fleeting.While this is unfortunate for positive spillover- wouldnt it be great if the improved employee continued being awesome forever?- it is good news in the negative department.You could have this other kind of model where people learn how to become a criminal or a jerk and then they stay a criminal or a jerk, Minor says.The researchers findings provide some tangible advice for managers.In addition to measuring spillover, Minor was interested to find that, at least among the hourly workers he studied, there really was no such thing as a worker who is highly skilled in everything.Theres not really th at quote unquote superstar, he says. Its more a story of finding different specialists in a way that you can pair them together.He advises leaders to think about what strengths they want in their employees and then narrow that down to the two or three most important ones. Then leaders should decide whether to pair people with similar or complementary skills near each other, based on whether the skills have an upper limit, like speed, or do not, like creativity.You can actually measure a lot of this stuff and be pretty scientific about putting together an optimal spatial management of the organization, Minor says.Yet much of the changes in office layouts have not been done scientifically. Minor is working with the same firm now to look at the pros and cons of open floor plans. Other offices are experimenting with different nontraditional seating, he says, like nomad workers, where people have no fixed desks and just roam around.Architects are trying all kinds of crazy stuff, Minor says. There are all kinds of theories behind it, but so little research.Previously published in Kellogg Insight . Reprinted with permission of the Kellogg School of Management.