Here are some proven solutions to workplace problems:
Paging workers: Employees required to wear pagers 24 hours a day get frustrated about the intrusion into their personal lives. Being compensated would make a big difference, they say. But few employers offer pay for being on call.
One solution, according to Bryan Earl of Crest Hill, a software support technician, is to be proactive: Ask for compensation, not with money but with time. You’ll have a better chance of getting it.
“Ask for partial comp time, based on the theory that something is better than nothing,” said Earl. “For instance, if you are on call for four hours, you might ask for one hour off, perhaps on Fridays. And be open to alternatives.”
If you get it, he stresses, “remember it’s a gift, not a requirement.”
How to answer tricky interview questions: What happens in a job interview when hiring officers ask you if you can perform a certain task–and you have absolutely no experience ever in doing it.
“Don’t say, `No, I can’t,'” urges Kathy Lilly, a human-resource staffing supervisor in St. Paul. “Instead, with direct eye contact, reply: `I’ve always wanted to try that!'”
And even if you’ve never done so before, I’m sure you have always wanted, for the longest time, to try following Lilly’s advice.
Getting benefits for domestic partners: It’s been a long, slow struggle for unmarried employees to get health and other company benefits extended to their committed partners. But now it looks as if such coverage by employers finally is beginning to accelerate.
According a survey of 570 of the country’s largest employers by Hewitt Associates, a global-management consulting and employee benefits firm based in Lincolnshire, offering domestic-partner benefits doubled in 2000 to 22 percent of the firms from 10 percent in 1997.
And an additional 35 percent of those surveyed who don’t offer the benefit say they are considering doing so in the next few years.
The reason: They want to attract and retain the best employees, and “providing domestic-partner benefits is one way to do that,” said Jennifer Boehm, a Hewitt consultant.
Putting the professional in temporary work: One way to give temporary workers the professional recognition they deserve is to call them talent, not temps. That’s the suggestion of Karen Desko, Chicago-area manager for Aquent, Inc., a professional-services firm based in Boston with 60 offices in 12 countries. Aquent specializes in providing personnel for creative, Web and technical firms.
“We don’t call our employees temps, we call them talent because we believe they deserve fair and equitable working conditions,” said Desko.
What to do about back pain: Marilyn McLean of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is a musician who also worked as a headhunter–and who suffered from a bad back. “My stress level was very high, so in 1995 I took an early retirement and my back pain went away,” said McLean, who directs the Broward (Fla.) Women’s Chorus, which she founded.
Her advice: “Do what you love, but also have enough money to be able to do it.”
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Carol Kleiman’s column also appears in Tuesday’s Business section. Watch her Career Coach segments Sunday and Tuesday mornings on CLTV.
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