We Need to Brick Up Sexism

We Need to Brick Up Sexism As the world celebrated International Womens Day yesterday, there are still some cases of sexual discrimination in the workplace. It doesnt matter which industry women work in, it is something they will face, often on a daily basis. More than two-thirds of women in construction (72%) say they have experienced gender discrimination in the workplace â€" while 9 in 20 of the women say sexual harassment had made an impact on their career, a new report from specialist construction recruiter Randstad reveals. According to a poll of 4,200 construction workers in the UK, two in every five (41%) women in construction said they had been on the receiving end of inappropriate comments or behavior from a male colleague. Worryingly, this was significantly higher than when similar research was carried out two years ago when 28% of women said they had experienced gender discrimination in the workplace in the form of inappropriate comments or behavior from male colleagues. Types of gender discrimination experienced by women in construction (%) Comments/inappropriate behavior from male colleagues 41% Being excluded from male conversations or social events 26% Being offered a less important role 23% Being passed over for a promotion 21% Being passed over for particular projects/work 19% Being made redundant 13% Comments/inappropriate behavior from female colleagues 9% I have not experienced gender discrimination in the workplace 28% “Worryingly, more women are reporting problems with inappropriate comments or behavior from male colleagues than two years ago. Hopefully, this does not reflect a huge uptick in sexism we think it’s more likely that the #MeToo movement has left women in construction empowered and less likely to accept this sort of behavior as ‘banter’.Owen Goodhead, managing director of Randstad Construction Property Engineering Women also reported that the factor that held them back in their career was not sexual harassment but the need to maintain a work-life balance â€" 50% said that it had had “a lot” or “some” impact on their career. Factor (%) Lack of work-life balance 50% Lack of mentors 50% A lack of female role models 49% Lack of training opportunities 47% Lack of networking opportunities 45% Sexual harassment 26% Women in the industry are still encountering an unconscious but pervasive gender bias that is holding them back.   While misogyny and outright sexism are a problem, there are also less obviously malevolent factors at play, too â€" male-dominated culture and a lack of female role models may be less obnoxious than downright discrimination and sexual harassment but are still pushing women out of the industry. Why do women leave construction? (%) Male-dominated culture 47% Too few senior female role models   38% Lack of flexible hours 35% Stress 33% Long working hours 32% High costs of childcare 32% Discrimination 30% Unconscious bias 25% Poor maternity rights/pay 22% Working away from home too often 19% Change On The Horizon There are signs things are changing. Women over 65 were much more likely to report that sexual harassment had had a significant impact on their career (14%) than their younger colleagues (8%). And the findings revealed 8% of men reported having been on the receiving end of inappropriate comments or behavior from their female colleagues â€" suggesting this behavior is not solely aimed at women. “There are some encouraging signs here.   Eighteen years ago, when I started recruiting for construction and property organisations, sexism was still pretty common within the industry. The moment a woman stepped on the site, it began; the analysis of her face, her body, her voice, her demeanour; the scrutiny of her skills, her accomplishments, and her ability. Until recently, one in five companies have no women in senior roles. Less overt sexism was also more frequent.   Back in the day, site gear didn’t fit women, for instance.“Its reassuring to see how our data supports the positive advances we are seeing in our industry even if this isnt as quick as we would like!  The recent advances around the design of PPE to support our diverse workforce is a real achievement.   I am confident that over the next decade, we will start to see more women in senior roles.”Sarah Sidey, head of strategic accounts at Randstad Property, Construction Engineering Initiatives Solutions Randstad also asked women what they thought would help women stay in the industry. Half (50%) said more flexible working hours with 42% suggesting better childcare options. A third (33%) said the cultural change was needed. How to persuade more women to stay in the industry? (%) Equal growth opportunities for men and women 52% Flexible working hours 50% Better childcare options 42% Culture change 33% Better maternity rights/pay 28% More mentors 27% More serious approach to the management of sexual harassment claims 25% Available career advice 21% There are some concrete initiatives that the industry can adopt to stop the flood of women leaving the industry including more flexible working arrangements, and better childcare arrangements.   The worrying thing is that 35% of the women we polled were unaware of any initiatives offered by their own company to try to stem the flow. About the author: Founded in 1960, Randstad is an international recruitment and HR consultancy headquartered in Diemen, the Netherlands.   It operates in 38 countries, serves 280,000 clients, and employs approximately 38,000 people.   Last year, Randstad trained more than 350,000 people and helped more than two million candidates find jobs, generating €23.7bn worth of revenues.   Randstad N.V. is listed on the NYSE Euronext (symbol: RAND.AS).

Recognising the Early Signs Before You Burn Out

Recognising the Early Signs Before You Burn Out According to HSE, around 15.4 million working days are lost due to  work-related  stress in 2017 with  595,000 British workers suffering from Mental Health issues such as depression and anxiety over the last 12 months with 239,000 new cases. Further research by the CIPD and SimplyHealth found presenteeism had more than tripled from 26 per cent in 2010 to 86 per cent in 2018 and was associated with rising stress levels. Following these recent statistics,  Instant Offices  shows what the early signs of suffering burnout and how to effectively avoid hitting rock bottom. If your work and family life are consistently stressful, you’re almost certainly at risk of burnout. Most people only realize that they are genuinely burnt out when it’s too late and then they need to work towards eliminating the symptoms, often while still having to deal with the stresses that caused it in the first place. But by keeping an eye out for warning signs can help you make changes proactively, making it easier to prevent burnout, while you still have the will and motivation to make the changes required. Disengagement Over-engagement is a symptom of high-stress levels. Going to sleep and waking up thinking about a problem or a deadline is a perfect example of over-engagement. When you start to disengage with your work or your personal problems by ignoring or avoiding them, burnout warning bells should start ringing. Helplessness Stress usually manifests as a sense of urgency, often resulting in hyperactivity. Anyone facing perpetual deadlines knows the feeling. Burnout, however, is characterized by helplessness and hopelessness. The belief that nothing you do is going to have any effect on your situation, or drive any real change. Blunted emotions When under stress, you may find that your feelings are exaggerated and more difficult to control. You may become angry or upset far easier than usual. Blunted emotions are a symptom of burnout. You may feel that you do not have the energy to react emotionally to situations, or that you are unable to feel excited or worried at all. If you’ve started exhibiting any of these symptoms, you may be approaching burnout. By taking action and making changes as soon as possible, you can minimize the severity and effect of burnout. The following are the most critical steps in addressing the issues that are leading to your exhaustion. Acknowledge your problems When one problem causes overwhelming levels of stress, it’s easy to ignore or downplay other issues in your life that may be contributing to your burnout. Make a list of all things you worry about on a daily basis, including the things you feel that you have no power to change. By ordering these by the level of importance, you’ll know which issues you need to address first. Actively address your problems While this may feel like an impossible task, once you start to work toward actively making changes, you’ll find that many issues only exist because you haven’t had the strength or motivation to correct them. This is particularly important in the workplace, as most employers and team leaders would instead take drastic steps to help you through your burnout, rather than lose you. The following are the most important steps: Assert yourself and explain the reasons why you feel like you do. Just speaking about the issue will start to eliminate some of your feelings of helplessness, and give your employer a chance to try to rectify the situation. Talk to your boss about new duties you could assume, or any training opportunities available. Getting out of the rut of doing the same thing every day is a great motivator and learning new skills, or augmenting those you have, may help to reignite your interest in what you do. Take some time off. Sometimes taking time off work is the only way to give yourself time to re-evaluate your priorities and get to the root of your stresses. Make a conscious decision to use this time to reflect on your situation and not merely evade it. Slow it down Feelings of being out of control, and the idea that everything is under severe time-pressure, are common symptoms of long-term stress. Take a few minutes each day to acknowledge your anxieties for what they are; irrational and exaggerated. Prioritize things like spending time with friends and family and outdoor activities. When listening to music or watching movies, make an effort to pay attention and don’t let your mind return to endless loops of stress. John Williams,  Head of Marketing Research at The Instant Group concludes: Under stress, it’s easy to prioritise relatively meaningless aspects of your life, over those that contribute most to your happiness. If work stress is affecting your personal life, it’s time to move on, or to change your thought patterns in order to be able to leave work stress at work. It’s vitally important to learn to create a mental divide between work and your life outside it, as it’s extremely unhealthy and unproductive to be thinking about work during “off time. It’s important to be honest with yourself during the onset of burnout and to acknowledge the stresses that you have surrendered to. Remember, these are simply tips to help you improve your situation in the short term. Burnout has genuine health implications and we strongly recommend that you seek professional help in overcoming it. A mental health professional will provide you with tools to make your recovery simpler and easier to maintain. About the author:  Established in 1999,  The Instant Group  is a global flexible workspace specialist. Underpinned by unrivaled expertise, Instant tailors unique solutions to help businesses of all sizes to grow, drive savings or gain invaluable insight.   With offices in London, Berlin, Dallas, New York, Hong Kong,  and  Sydney, The Instant Group employs more than 100 experts and has clients in 113 countries.

Was Your LinkedIn Profile One of the Most Viewed in 2012

Was Your LinkedIn Profile One of the Most Viewed in 2012 Have you got the email yet? I havent but I have got 20 odd emails from confused people wondering if this email from LinkedIn is a big phishing scam or just a great marketing ploy. First of all, the email is legit as far as we know. If this were a phishing campaign we would have known about it by now (remember those leaked LinkedIn passwords last year?). The thing that puzzles me and others is that fairly new and/or passive users have received this email, how is this possible? Nobody knows how LinkedIn have calculated these stats. The whole thing is obviously a great PR opportunity for LinkedIn, almost everyone that got sent this tweeted, shared on LinkedIn and other places about how popular the are. Some even think LinkedIn were being unethical with the whole mailshot. If you have any further thoughts, let us know at @linkhumans or leave a comment here! PS. Clarification from LinkedIn received: We have reached out to our members who were one of the first to have become a member, who have had the most profile views, who are the most connected in the world or a specific country, and our members who have received the most endorsements. From our 200 million members, we looked at those who have active accounts and were within the first million to register, have more than 100 profile views (excluding self-profile views), have more than 100 connections, and have the most endorsements for popular skills in their country. Unfortunately we arent sharing specifics around the details which make up this number, but want to thank you for being a part of the LinkedIn network.

Unpaid Internships Leave University a Master, Enter Unpaid Employment a Slave

Unpaid Internships â€" Leave University a Master, Enter Unpaid Employment a Slave Unpaid Overtime Last year the Trades Union Congress (TUC) announced that UK workers collectively worked two billion hours of unpaid overtime. If you’re willing to do the maths, this is not only worth an immense amount to the UK economy from a financial point of view,   £29.2 billion to be precise, but is also enough hours to create a potential million plus full-time jobs. According to the analysis of TUC’s official figures, 5.3 million of us employed are working on average 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime each week, worth annually an extra £5,300 per person. If you fall into this depressing demographic and you’re still able to read this post through your overworked eyes, you may be experiencing a painful sense of injustice knowing that those extra pounds would have reduced the height of those financial hurdles last year. The truth is, however, you should be counting yourselves extremely lucky. Unpaid Internships For some time now many work experience placements or internships have fully established themselves as a mandatory stepping-stone for graduates and students keen to initiate their careers for the first time. These graduates, some of them some of the brightest minds in the country, will unfortunately, have to wait far longer for their first pennies to roll into their bank account. These internships that are not protected by the minimum wage laws seem extremely bizarre in my eyes. Under the employment law, people who work a set number of hours, do set task and thus benefit the organization financially or in any other way are constituted as “workers” and are, therefore, entitled to the minimum wage. In reality, however, this unpaid internship culture is now endemic in the professional industry, with professional bodies happily adopting this exploitative practice. A Threat to the Brightest The biggest injustice of unpaid internships in my opinion, however, is not the fact that they are unpaid, but the fact that they potentially prevent the most talented individuals from achieving their aspirations in their desired roles. The truth is that recent graduates are riddled with debt before they can even think about entering the job market. Those graduates from middle-class families who have parents who are willing to subsidize their internship progress are more likely to succeed in the most competitive industries. In addition, the majority of the best internships are based in London, and thus living expenses and rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world also need to be taken care of. This produces an extremely antagonistic effect on people from working-class families or those that live outside the capital, usually forcing these aspiring employees to take up undesirable jobs in sectors which are free from the brutal competition which creates this awful system. What to be Aware of Even though I don’t personally believe in the unpaid internship culture, this belief alone will not change the fact that it exists, and that it’s probably going to stay. In addition to this, if you have decided to do an internship, I would be lying to say that you wouldn’t gain some valuable skills and insight into the professional world. For example, internships allow you to experiment, add to your experience, meet people and network. The only advice I can offer on the matter, which I believe is quite important, is that you first do some research to find out if an unpaid internship is even worth your while. Discuss the purpose and clarify your expectations Make sure that it provides insight into your desired industry Do a mid-review and think if the internship is still providing you with appropriate contacts and training. Discuss paid work with your employer towards the end, referring to the valuable skills you have gained.

How to decide what industry to work in - Debut

How to decide what industry to work in - Debut This article was written by an external contributor. Connor Gotto shares some wisdom about how to choose the right industry for you.   University is a time of growth and change. It’s probably your first time away from home and a time to make friends that will last a lifetime. It is (as they say) the best years of your life. But dont forget, theres more exciting things to come As well as a time of personal growth, it’s also a time of professional development, where you’re expected to find the industry that you’ll be working in for the next 40+ years. Scary, right?! But it doesnt need to be. Although you might feel alone, there will be thousands of others with you who feel the same, with absolutely no idea about what to expect next. So, to help you along the way, here are some key things to consider to help you know whether the industry that you have in mind  is truly right for you. Whats your passion? First things first, passion is key, and the best indicator as to whether you’re on the right path or not. However, whether you follow through on you dream career or not can often come down to the opinions of those around you. For example; most family members would be supportive of a choice to become a doctor or a dentist. However, if you want to be an actor or poet, you may be deterred as these professions are not seen as particularly stable to many. As much as people happily voice their opinions, it’s vital that you have faith in your own convictions. The person that knows you best is you, which means that you are the one that should ultimately make the choice. Take our advice and try out as many things as you can. There are a whole number of clubs and societies that you can join at university that will not only allow you to try different things out, but also provide you with solid experience to reference when choosing your future career industry. Be informed, but don’t let others put you off. If it’s your passion and you really believe in it, then go for it! Youll never know unless you try. What are you good at? Passion is one thing, but talent is equally as important. Whilst we are big advocates for following your passions, to succeed you do actually have to be good at it. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. For example; when it comes to performing I consider myself alongside the likes of Judy Garland and Doris Day, when in reality I can’t hold a note to save my life! And I know that, so I’m not going to become a singer. Measuring what you’re good at isn’t just a case of school reports and parent’s opinions. It’s a fully rounded thing, a judgement that you get from everyone around you. On paper you may not be a great writer, so professional copywriting may not be for you. You may, however, be great at making people laugh, in which case you could consider TV and comedy work. Learn to balance fact and opinion and develop an understanding of what you’re good at. It’s not about excelling at everything, it’s about finding your niche. Where could this lead you? Another thing to consider when deciding the path that you want to take through life is where you want it to ultimately lead you to. And were not just talking about how much dosh you make a month. Yes, uni is totally about having a good time. But it’s also about making good decisions, and this is one of them! You need to make sure that you’re choosing career that is viable in the future. So, take a good look at the job market and the ways that it’s progressing. Think about the jobs that people will always need, as well as the jobs of the future. It’s constantly changing, so you don’t want to be left behind. We’d suggest grounding yourself in a discipline that’ll never die out. If you’re personable, friendly and passionate, PR could be a career for you. Similarly, if you master computers and tech, there’ll always be work out there for you. This is an intricate combination of passion, talent and sustainability make sure you make the right choice! What are others saying? Finally and we touched on this earlier it’s vital to consider the opinions of those around you. Whilst you may think that you know exactly what you want to do, family, friends and peers may have other ideas as to what you’re good at, which could be better suited to your talents and skill sets. Don’t dismiss them! If it’s coming from people that spend a lot of time with you, they’ll likely know you well and have a good understanding of where your abilities lie. Just be open! It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own little bubble, but don’t let that cloud your judgement. There’s a whole world out there, and dismissing parts of it will only do you an injustice. Once you leave uni, you’re looking at 40+ years of work, so there’s plenty of time to learn and adapt. Heck, when J.K. Rowling set out to become an English teacher, we doubt that she ever thought she’d end up where she is today. So, give it good thought, be open to suggestion, and search around until you find the path of life that best suits you! Connect with Debut on  Facebook,  Twitter,  and  LinkedIn  for more careers insights.

Going... going... Goa - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Going... going... Goa - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Expect light blogging over the next couple of weeks, which Patricia and I will be spending in Goa, India. Well take some vacation time and I will participate in the international Open Space on Open Space conference. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Important Information About a Resume Summary Statement

Important Information About a Resume Summary StatementThe resume summary statement is an important part of the entire resume. Though it can't be used as a part of the entire resume, it still needs to be included in the resume. Here are some tips for writing a resume summary statement.There are three parts to the resume summary statement. The first part should outline your qualifications. This will then lead into the next part. If you've already passed all of your required tests, you might want to include this part. Otherwise, make sure you leave it out.Your Experience and Skills will follow shortly after your Experience and Qualifications. Do not list experience in this section. If you already have experience, do not list it. It is better to leave that section blank.After the relevant experience and qualifications, write your objectives. Write them short so they will not look too long. If possible, highlight the key areas that need improvement, so that you will know how to fill them in properly.The next one should be your career objective statements. These will give you information about your career goals. You can also describe in detail your goals for the specific position you're applying for. Be sure to follow all the proper spelling and grammar rules.Finally, you will need to write your past work experience. These will provide you with details about your previous jobs. It will also help you relate your job experiences to the position you are applying for. Be sure to provide relevant work history, and it may be a good idea to use your resume summary statement as a guide.The resume summary statement should be one of the most important parts of your resume. It is your chance to show your potential employer that you understand their expectations, and that you are focused on getting hired. It is important to provide details and a goal to your employment history.When creating your resume summary statement, make sure to be thorough and accurate. Make sure that you include every single detail that your potential employer requires. Remember, the fact that you've already passed your background checks should be enough. Having this type of information on your resume summary statement will not only make you look more professional, but it will also make you appear more qualified.