by EmiratesCommunityAdmin | Jul 29, 2018 | HR & Finance
Sean Burgess | PraxisIFM Asset Manager and Co-Founder Emirates HR
US SECOND QUARTER GROWTH HITS 4.1 PERCENT
The fastest rate of economic expansion since 2014, as companies rushed to export products before EU and Chinese tariffs took effect. As global trade uncertainty continues, economists are forecasting growth to slow significantly in the third quarter. Despite this, President Trump seized the opportunity to use this latest economic data release to declare his $1.5 trillion tax overhaul a success
EU AND US LEADERS PROPOSE ZERO TARIFFS
As well as removing subsidies and barriers that have impacted the $1 trillion market between the two groups. The EU also agreed to buy billions of dollars of soy beans and natural gas. Already boosted by strong corporate earnings reports, European equities responded positively to easing trade tensions with the pan-European STOXX 600 index closing up 0.5 percent for the week.
JAPAN AND EU SIGN FREE-TRADE AGREEMENT
Which will cover goods & services that make up a third of world’s gross domestic product. Both governments still need to vote in the new trade pact, however there is likely to be wide spread support as countries look to avoid harm from protectionist US policies. Amongst other exports, the new agreement would see tariffs removed on Japanese automobiles and European wines.
RENMINBI ENDS SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE WEEK DOWN
The worst losing streak in three years, with the Chinese currency now 8 percent lower against the US dollar since April. In recent weeks President Trump has accused the Chinese of devaluing their currency to hurt the US, however an annual report by the IMF found that the yuan is ‘fairly valued’ against the greenback and its loss is due mainly to diverging monetary policies.
OIL PRICES RISE FOR FIRST TIME IN FOUR WEEKS
As investors absorbed news of security concerns in the Middle East that could impact supply. Significantly, Saudi Arabia halted all shipments via the Red Sea shipping route of Bab el Mandeb, one of the busiest in the world, after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked two tankers earlier in the week. WTI and Brent crude closed the week at $68.69 and $74.29 a barrel, respectively.
In other financial news:
- Turkey holds key interest rate at 17.75 percent, despite inflation sitting at 15.4 inflation and the lira having fallen 28 percent against the dollar year-to-date.
- Slowest rise in UK’s living standards since 2012,as cuts in social welfare saw the incomes of the country’s poorest families decline by as much as £150 a year.
- $120 billion wiped off Facebook’s value, after the share price plummeted almost 20 percent on news that the tech giant’s second quarter earnings missed forecasts.
- Amazon’s share price hits record high, pushing the online retailer’s market value over $900 billion, after releasing stronger-than-expected second quarter earnings.
by EmiratesCommunityAdmin | Jul 29, 2018 | HR & Finance
People tend to think of perception as a passive process. We see, hear, smell, taste or feel stimuli that impinge upon our senses. We think that if we are at all objective, we record what is actually there. Yet perception is demonstrably an active rather than a passive process; it constructs rather than records “reality.” You construct how you choose to see the world.
Think for a moment about a bee. A bee settling on a flower has stung a boy. And the boy dreads bees and says the object of the bee is to sting people. A philosopher admires the bee, sipping honey from the cup of the flower, and says the object of the bee is to sip the nectar of the flower. A beekeeper says the object of the bee is to gather honey. Another beekeeper, who has studied bees more closely, says the object of the bee is to gather honey to feed the young ones, and to rear a queen, and to perpetuate the race. The botanist believes the object of the bee is to fertilize the pistil of the flower. Another sees the hybridization of plants and believes the object of the bee is to contribute to that end.
As you can see, the perception of the observer depends upon the observer’s own assumptions and perceptions. That is not to say we experience totally different things but different aspects of things. The Hindu’s view of a cow in no way corresponds to that of a canning factory meat packer, and in Istanbul they keep their pigs in the zoo instead of making them into sausage.
We build our own reality. Even colors are products of our mind. Vincent Van Gogh told his brother he could see twenty-seven different shades of grey. Who knows if my red is the same as your red? Even if the two most distinguished color experts in the world were asked to dress up Santa Claus, and one were asked to pick the coat and the other the trousers you can be sure the top will not exactly match the bottom.
An oft-quoted story about Pablo Picasso is about the time he was hanging around an exhibition of his paintings in Paris. He was approached by a man who asked Picasso why he didn’t paint people the way they look. “Well, how do they look?” asked Picasso. The man took a photograph of his wife from his wallet and handed it over. Picasso looked at the picture; then handing it back, said, “She is awfully small isn’t she. And flat too.” We have to accept the fact that much of what seems real to us is governed by our own perceptions.
WE SEE NO MORE THAN WE EXPECT TO SEE. Our stereotyped notions block clear vision and crowd out imagination. This happens without any alarms sounding, so we never realize it is occurring. Not long ago, a man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin. It was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station.
One man stopped for a few seconds and then hurried on to meet his schedule. A little later, a woman threw a dollar into the till and without stopping continued on her way. The first person who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only the children it seemed wanted to stop and listen.
When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.00.
Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment. Because he was playing in a subway station, people assumed he was a street musician playing for handouts and paid no attention to his music. They saw and heard what they expected to see and hear from a street musician.
Thumbs up to the children who had the awareness they were listening to extraordinary music.
COUNT THE FINGERS IN THE ILLUSTRATION.
We make instantaneous judgments every day all predicated on what we see and hear based on our past experiences. For example, did you notice anything unusual in the above illustration? No. Count the fingers.
PRIMING THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THINGS. I have always been fascinated by how easily we can change the way we look at things. What made psychologist Sigmund Freud famous was not the discovery of a new science about the subconscious, but in fact, was his way of representing the subject in a new way. Sigmund Freud would “reframe” something to transform its meaning by putting it into a different framework or context than it has previously been perceived. For example, by reframing the “unconscious” as a part of him that was “infantile,” Freud began to help his patients prime the way they thought and reacted to their own behavior.
Psychologists Ap Dijksterhuis and Ad van Knippenberg at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, asked half a group of volunteers to carry out a simple mental exercise that involved imagining the mindset of a typical university professor. The other half imagined a football hooligan. All then had to answer some general- knowledge questions. The professor group got 6o per cent of their questions right, while the hooligan group got only 41 per cent.
Focusing on the body rather than the mind, John Bargh and his colleagues at New York University asked their volunteers to do a mental task involving words relating to old age, such as “wrinkled”, “grey” and “bingo”. A second group was shown words unrelated to old age. The researchers then said the experiment was over and secretly recorded the time each participant took to walk down the long hallway to the exit. Those with old age on their mind took significantly longer to walk down the corridor.
So it seems that a just a few moments’ thinking time can prime you to perform either better or worse than normal at both mental and physical tasks.
Remarkably, you can even lessen pain by changing the way you look at it. Researchers at Oxford University discovered a way using inverted binoculars to reduce pain and swelling in wounds. Remarkably, when you look at a wound through the wrong end of binoculars, your perception of the wound makes it seem much smaller. It’s this perception that acts like a painkiller and diminishes pain. According to the researchers, this demonstrates that even basic bodily sensations are modulated by your perception.
Source: http://www.creativitypost.com/create/change_the_way_you_look_at_things_and_the_things_you_look_at_changewww.creativitypost.com/create/change_the_way_you_look_at_things_and_the_things_you_look_at_change
by EmiratesCommunityAdmin | Jul 29, 2018 | HR & Finance
Your trustworthiness will help determine your success in your job and career. Take these steps to forge genuine relationships with your co-workers.
What’s at the core of any professional relationship? One word: trust. It’s absolutely necessary in order to establish not only your reputation, but also a strong network of people who will help you throughout your career.
It goes without saying: No one person is responsible for the success of a company; it’s a team effort. “There is a tightly woven chain of events that needs to happen in any organization in order to achieve results,” says Kathy Robinson, founder of Career Advisors Network, a national association of independent career professionals. “People are relying on each other in a workplace.”
But that reliance can’t exist without trust. “It’s a reflection of your character,” says Jennifer McClure, president of Unbridled Talent LLC, a leadership advisory firm. “Co-workers will go above and beyond for people they trust.” That, in turn, helps produce above-and-beyond results.
Follow these tips to build trust with your peers, subordinates, and superiors.
Give co-workers praise when it’s due
One way to cultivate authentic relationships with your peers is to praise their work. “When you give credit to others, you’re seen as gracious,” says Los Angeles–based executive coach Libby Gill. However, “it has to be authentic and well timed,” says Gill. A team meeting, for example, is a natural setting to celebrate a co-worker’s big career achievement or say thank you for someone’s help with a project.
Avoid office gossip
We know this is easier said than done, but the plaint truth is office gossip can be toxic. Furthermore, “gossiping doesn’t even build trust with the people you’re gossiping with because they’re going to fear you’ll do the same thing to them,” says Gill. A better coping mechanism? When you’re frustrated with a co-worker, vent to someone outside the company.
If you have an issue with a co-worker, try to resolve the problem with the person in private before bringing it to your boss, Robinson advises.
Share information
Being perceived as a team player by your co-workers builds trust, but you have to take steps to shape your image.
Let’s say you attended an industry conference. Rather than hogging all you learned so that only you can benefit, sharing what you learned with your peers can help establish credibility as a team player.
But it’s important to have the right intentions. “If your goal is to help your colleagues and peers develop and succeed, you’ll build trust,” McClure says. If you’re just sharing because you want something in return, odds are your peers are going to pick up on that and trust you less.
Trust others
This sounds like a no-brainer, but if you view others as trustworthy, chances are they’ll reciprocate. Give your co-workers all the help they need from you, then trust them to execute.
This goes doubly if you’re someone’s manager. Many supervisors unintentionally micromanage their employees, and that can be a huge blow to building trust.
To avoid over-meddling, Gill recommends setting check-in meetings—say, once a week or once a month—so that you can effectively oversee your direct reports without hovering over their shoulder.
Invest in your employees’ development
If you manage others, part of your job is to help your direct reports grow by gaining new skills and sharpening the skills they already have. To do that though, you have to provide them with honest feedback—a combination of praise and constructive criticism—on a regular basis, says Gill.
Performance reviews are another opportunity to build trust with your direct reports. “People trust leaders who make them feel valued,” says McClure. By asking your employees what you can be doing to better support their work, you’ll not only solidify a good work relationship but also boost their level of engagement.
Be consistent
Leaders want people who routinely exceed their expectations—meaning you have to produce excellent work day in and day out. No one on your team should have to wonder whether you’re going to deliver. “You have to be trusted to not only do a great job but also deliver results on time,” says Marcelle Yeager, president of Career Valet, a professional coaching firm.
Not only does your performance need to be consistent, but so should your mood. “Your boss needs to know that you can be counted on to keep a calm, cool, and collected mind,” says Robinson, “otherwise the trust level is going to go way down.”
Pay attention to non-verbal communication
Your body language can help you build trust with co-workers, but it can also undermine your efforts if you’re not careful. Research shows a slumping posture or crossed arms can turn people off. Conversely, making eye contact and nodding to show your interest can help build trust. Create a welcoming atmosphere for others so they don’t hesitate to approach you. Being open to your co-workers will make them feel invited to share ideas and feedback with you.
Welcome new hires graciously
Managers play a crucial role in their company’s onboarding process, which can be a great way of boosting employee retention. (One survey from Paycom found that a great onboarding experience can reduce turnover by 157% and boost employee engagement by 54%.) That’s why it’s important for supervisors to make new hires feel welcome. Even small gestures, like taking someone out for coffee or lunch, can enable you to build rapport and trust from the start.
Put your trust in us
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Source : https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/6-steps-to-building-trust-in-the-workplace-hot-jobs
by EmiratesCommunityAdmin | Jul 29, 2018 | HR & Finance
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #PressForProgress. It’s a strong call to action to collectively push harder for gender parity. In the spirit of this important campaign (which everyone should consider a year-long project rather than a single day of mindfulness), I take a look at the new factors holding gender equity back in the workplace and how leaders can push harder for progress.
Despite the considerable attention on women’s rights and gender equity, and the strong support of movements such as the Women’s March, the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report has found that global gender parity is still over 200 years away.
This is echoed by 2017 gender data from the Visier Insights database, our unique database of anonymized, standardized workforce data. We found that the gender pay gap widened in 2017 rather than becoming smaller. In 2016, women made 81 cents to the dollar, but in 2017, women made 78 cents to the dollar – that’s 22% less than men.
Gender equity is an issue of incredible focus and debate for employers and lawmakers, particularly when it comes to compensation. Research shows that gender diverse companies are more likely to outperform their less diverse peers, and a lack of a gender diverse workforce can also impact employer brand.
So what’s holding up progress?
Establishing an equitable pay policy is an important step forward, but the gender pay gap is more than a compensation issue. Let’s examine the workforce gender equity factors impacting this disparity.
Revisiting the Manager Divide
In our Visier Insights: Gender Equity report, we uncovered the Manager Divide: a growing underrepresentation of women compared to men in manager positions from age 32 onwards, which is also the age at which the gender wage gap begins to widen.
According to the report, at the time the gender wage gap begins to widen (starting with women at age 32 earning on average 90% the wages of men and decreasing to just 82% by age 40), women are increasingly underrepresented in manager positions. This directly drives the gender wage gap as managers earn on average two times the salary of non-managers. (See figure below)
2017 data from our database shows that when comparing the performance ratings of men and women, female managers are 24% more likely to be high performers than their male counterparts–yet female employees are 33% less likely to become managers than male employees.
By eliminating the Manager Divide and ensuring gender pay equity in manager positions would reduce the gender wage gap by almost one-half for workers over age 32.
The Influence of The Motherhood Penalty
In examining the Manager Divide, we found a strong correlation to motherhood.
According to this Vox article: “Historical drivers of the gender wage gap — a lack of education among women, for example — are disappearing. But the professional penalty women face for having children is stubborn, and it isn’t going anywhere.”
As female representation in the workforce drops, the gulf between the proportion of men who are managers and the proportion of women who are managers grows wider, stabilizing only after women’s childcare demands lessen (typically after age 39).
This is echoed by a 2018 study by the National Bureau Of Economic Research, which found that women’s earnings declined sharply after the birth of their first child, while men experienced no comparable salary drop. The study also looked at the earnings of women without children and found that it stays quite similar to men’s salaries, which shows that the gender wage gap may actually be more of a childbearing pay gap or rather, a motherhood penalty.
This is clearly a systemic issue, one that business leaders should pay special attention to. As Visier CEO, John Schwarz, puts it:
“Clearly it is in society’s interest to have children, and women have the children. If we want women to have children, and women want careers, we need to find a way to mitigate the price that women pay to have a child. If we don’t find a way to make 50% of the workforce equally compensated and equally valued, it’s going to be difficult for us to progress at the rate we need to.”
While the motherhood penalty is an important challenge we need to overcome, both women with and without children still face many of the same gender equity issues, such as gender bias in performance reviews, which directly impact their promotions and compensation.
The Problem with Gender Bias
In 2015, 90% of new CEOs in the S&P 500 were promoted or hired from line roles — and 100% of these executives were men. Furthermore, the McKinsey and LeanIn.Org study, Women in the Workplace 2017, found that women are 18% less likely to be promoted to manager.
Furthermore, Visier Insights data shows that despite women being more likely to achieve top performer ratings, men under age 40 receive more promotions than women (over age 40, however, this trend inverts, with women receiving more promotions than men).
An individual’s contributions to the organization should typically be the primary factors used to determine promotions and salary raises; however, McKinsey found that while 93% of companies report they use clear and consistently applied criteria to evaluate performance, only 57% of employees report managers actually do this in practice.
When performance management practices are unclear and unstructured, it opens up the possibility for unconscious biases to creep in.
Researchers at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute conducted an analysis of the language in hundreds of performance reviews and found that women received 2.5 times the amount of feedback men did about aggressive communication styles, with phrases such as “your speaking style is off-putting.” Women were also described as “supportive,” “collaborative,” and “helpful” nearly twice as often as men, and the women’s reviews had more than twice the references to team accomplishments, rather than individual achievements.
On the other hand, men’s reviews had twice as many words related to assertiveness, independence, and self-confidence. Men also received three times as much feedback linked to a specific business outcome, and twice the number of references to their technical expertise.
In response to the research, Caroline Simard, director of research at the Clayman Institute, said that such hidden biases could ultimately lead to “cumulative disadvantage over a woman’s career over time, resulting in lower access to key leadership positions and stretch assignments, advancement and pay,” Simard added.
Similarly, in this Harvard Business Review article, Herminia Ibarra, Robin J. Ely, and Deborah M. Kolb point out that becoming a leader “involves a fundamental identity shift. Organizations inadvertently undermine this process when they advise women to proactively seek leadership roles without also addressing policies and practices that communicate a mismatch between how women are seen and the qualities and experiences people tend to associate with leaders.”
Data-Driven Practices That Help Mitigate Gender Equity Issues
The gender wage gap cannot simply be explained as “unequal pay for equal work.” For example, if a company pays women and men the same for equal work, but then underrepresents women in the better-compensated manager roles, that company has not achieved gender equity.
Rather, gender pay inequity is a systemic challenge where women as a whole earn less than men on average, and do so across education levels and occupations.
Here are some actions leaders can take to promote and ensure gender equity:
1.Get a high-level understanding of the state of gender equity within your organization
Start with simple metrics like “female ratio” (looking at the percent of total headcount that are female) by department, role, and/or location, and in your hiring pipelines.
2. Uncover gender bias in performance reviews and take steps to eliminate it
Once you know the state of your gender equity, dig deeper into the data to find out if pay and performance ratings are unbiased for men and women. Compa-ratio is a classic compensation calculation that indicates how close a person’s base pay is to the pay level midpoint for the role they perform.
If women have a lower than average compa-ratio, then it is likely that pay decisions are not being made equitably. Similarly, understanding the proportion of employees who receive each level of performance rating and then comparing this to the proportion of each rating for female employees will uncover if performance ratings are handed out in an unbiased manner.
3. Pay attention to changing legislations
Many U.S. cities and states are considering measures that prohibits employers from asking job candidates for past wages or salary history. The purpose of these rules is to help women get out of the cycle of earning lower wages from their first jobs and throughout their entire careers.
The practice has already been banned in Oregon, California, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Delaware, New York City, Pittsburgh and New Orleans, with more expected to come this year. If your company isn’t already complying with this practice, don’t wait for it to become law. Start working with your leaders to implement hiring and compensation strategies that enable your female employees to receive more equitable pay.
4. Ensure promotions are done fairly
Measure not only promotions by gender, but also the nature of the promotions: by role, department, or location, find out if the percent of women promoted to or holding manager positions is lower than the percent of men promoted to or holding manager positions.
5. Make sure women don’t get left behind when it comes to leadership development
Leadership development can help more women rise higher in the ranks, especially mothers who are coming back to work after having their children.
Research from The Conference Board and DDI found that while a leadership development program will be equally effective at improving the skills of both men and women, 82 percent of women reported their confidence in being a leader increased after participating in a development program (lack of self-confidence can also be considered a significant factor holding women back from career advancement.
6. Support Paid Parental Leave
Given the negative impact of the motherhood penalty, look into ways your organization can better support paid parental leave. It should be equally available to mothers and fathers, and be socially acceptable not just for mothers, but also for fathers to take. Flexible working time arrangements could also be a key part of your solution.
Supporting this, a survey of 253 employers affected by California’s paid family leave initiative found that the vast majority reported that paid family leave “had either ‘no noticeable’ or a ‘positive effect’ on productivity (89%), profitability/performance (91%), turnover (96%), and employee morale (99%).”
Gender Equity Is A Good Thing For Everyone
Make the business case for gender equity at your organization, but remember this isn’t just about fairness, avoiding lawsuits, and protecting (or building) your employer brand (check out the InHerSight for an idea of what the future holds — a Glassdoor-type site that focuses on rating companies from the perspective of their support of women).
Research by McKinsey shows that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. According to a 2016 McKinsey Global Institute report, if full gender equality is attained, $4.3 trillion could also be added to the U.S. economy by 2025.
Source : http://www.humanresourcestoday.com/?open-article-id=7929030&article-title=the-new-workforce-gender-equity-factors-hr-needs-to-watch&blog-domain=visier.com&blog-title=visier
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