team

Science shows missing sleep can ruin your career

Posted on

White collar, blue collar, clergy collar, shirt-optional: If you’re part of the workforce, then you probably work in an industry infected by burnout, because the occupational stress disorder is a full-on epidemic, according to behavior science. Burnout might be most prevalent in healthcare — somewhere between 25 percent and 60 percent of med students and practicing doctors are, you guessed it, seriously b-ed out. But educators, social workers, lawyers, journalists, customer service reps and, well, members of the general working population, are struggling to keep their flames lit too.

Does burnout deserve the public-health spotlight it gets? I’ve had my doubts. I’ve said things like “it’s called work for a reason.” But I’ve changed my tune. We spend more time working than doing nearly anything else in our lives (even sleep). Researchers should, by all means, analyze different work environments to understand why some optimistic workers turn into drained, dispirited sacks of DGAF. Because burnout isn’t a 9-5 affliction. In studies, it’s consistently associated with poor overall well-being and health issues — notably insomnia and other sleep disorders. In fact, one such study, recently published in the journal BMJ Open, suggests that poor shuteye explains why some workers burn out from high-demand, low-power jobs while others can totally deal.

The term burnout formally showed up in research in 1974, when the psychologist Herbert Freudenberger noticed formerly idealistic volunteers at a mental health clinic exhibiting “loss of motivation, growing sense of emotional depletion, and cynicism,” according to The Observer. While definitions for burnout vary, it’s generally thought of as a state of stress defined by three things: 1) emotional exhaustion; 2) depersonalization, which describes cynical, detached feelings toward coworkers and/or clients (or patients or customers); 3) reduced personal accomplishment.

What leaves workers feeling like detached do-nothings? They might be stuck in jobs that require too much, reward too little and don’t fit their personalities. One new study suggests that burnout bubbles up when employers try to impose meaning on work that employees don’t authentically find meaningful. Another oft-mentioned cause of burnout is the neverending workday — the smartphone-as-a-leash syndrome. In one famous effort to give workers a break, France enacted an after-work email ban last year.

And poor sleep seems to unite burnt-out workers in all sorts of crappy, stressful job situations.

Burnout has consistently been linked to sleep problems, including insomnia and non-restorative sleep disorder, which happens when people get enough sleep but still don’t feel refreshed. Studies, however, differ in how they frame the relationship between between burnout and sleep. Some research says insomnia triggers burnout (and not the other way around), while at least one study says the relationship is bidirectional, meaning insomnia could cause burnout or burnout could cause insomnia, and then both issues mutually reinforce each other.

Click here to read the full article on Business Insider.

 

 

7 signs you’re a leader people want to follow

Posted on

It’s not always easy to gauge how you’re doing as a boss.

Your reports aren’t always likely to tell you how you’re undermining their performance — or even what you’re doing well that they’d like to see more of.

The best solution to this problem is probably to ask for direct feedback. But where to start?

We’ve rounded up seven signs, based on research and expert opinion, that you’re doing a great job of rallying and motivating your team. Ask yourself how much each trait or behavior describes you, and consider asking your employees the same.

You’re generally positive

Research from 2015 suggests that happy people make more effective leaders.

That’s largely because they’re more likely to display transformational leadership, which means they’re especially good at inspiring and motivating their team and stimulating them intellectually.

Interestingly, according to the research, positivity was an even better predictor of leadership effectiveness than extroversion — a personality trait we typically associate with successful bosses.

This isn’t to say that you should force yourself to smile and laugh at every team meeting. Instead, it might be more helpful for those in the position of selecting future leaders to be mindful of those candidates’ overall affect.

You’re not afraid of change

Young managers are perceived as more effective than their older counterparts, according to a study of more than 65,000 leaders conducted by leadership development consultancy Zenger/Folkman.

One key reason why? They welcome novelty.

Zenger/Folkman says it’s possible that younger managers’ relative lack of experience means they’re more optimistic about the changes they propose and more willing to be the “champions of change.”

You’re pretty boring

The technical term is “emotional maturity,” which means being emotionally stable, agreeable, and conscientious.

As business psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes in The Harvard Business Review, “[T]he best managers in the world tend to be stable rather than excitable, consistent rather than erratic, as well as polite and considerate.”

That might be part of the reason why Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, is so successful. Rather than being emotionally volatile, like Steve Jobs for example, Pichai is reported to be predictable and to stay out of the spotlight.

In other words, Jobs is more the exception than the rule — better to emulate Pichai if you’re hoping to lead your team to greatness.

You demonstrate integrity

Chamorro-Premuzic also suggests that integrity is a key component of leadership effectiveness. Acting in unethical or counterproductive ways will ultimately undermine you and your organization.

In fact, one analysis found that CEOs rated as high-integrity by their employees had a multi-year return of 9.4%, while CEOs rated as low-integrity saw a return of only 1.9%.

Psychologist Travis Bradberry highlights several traps that leaders fall into, which can undermine their integrity.

One such trap is making everything about them — instead, you’ll want to actively solicit questioning and criticism. Another is micromanaging — remember that productivity looks different for leaders and individual employees. Give people a chance to do their jobs well on their own.

Click here to read the full Business Insider article.

 

6 Reasons Companies Outsource their Recruiting

Posted on

6 Reasons Companies Outsource Recruiting

1. They’re Having Trouble Finding Great Candidates
Yes, even in this economy organizations are having trouble finding the right people to fill their open positions. No, they don’t always have this problem because they are being too picky or because they want to pay a lower-than-standard salary. If the organization is serious about finding great candidates and getting those positions filled, then they may outsource their recruiting to source candidates in more places, to improve their employment branding, and/or work on the job descriptions for these positions.

2. It’s Taking Time & Resources Away from the Core Business
Not everyone is in the hiring and recruiting business, and even though most companies have some sort of recruiting function, sometimes it could take away from a business’ core. This is especially true for smaller companies, who might not necessarily have someone on staff to just work on recruiting. Here, outsourced recruiting helps them by allowing a consultant or a provider to do what they do best without taking away from what the rest of the company does best.

3. They Need to Reduce Their Turnover Rates
The turnover rate is the percentage of new hires that leave within a designated period, say the first month or two of the position. A high turnover rate can hurt a company’s bottom line, and is often a sign that there are bigger problems with the company’s recruiting functions, problems that aren’t necessarily fixed by increasing the salary or by doing a better job interviewing (although, both might help). In this case, an organization may outsource its recruiting to a recruitment process outsourcing firm to reduce the turnover rate as well as fix those bigger problems.

4. It Levels the Playing Field
Start-ups and smaller companies will outsource their recruiting because they don’t have the resources in-house to keep up with larger competitors. By outsourcing, they can level the playing field and not have to worry about losing good talent because the competitor did a better job of selling the position or offering better benefits.

5. They’re Current Recruiting Functions are Out of Control
Companies who are on the fast track, or face seasonal cycles, often have recruiting functions that are tough to handle. Fast-growing companies are having a hard time keeping up with their hiring and recruiting, while those that are seasonal may need to hire many people very quickly, only for the rest of the year to be slower. Outsourced recruiting helps these companies handle the fluctuations, or could serve as a temporary solution to a temporary problem.

6. They Need to Cut Costs
Companies outsource recruiting to reduce their costs, whether that’s labor costs, capital costs, or perhaps costs from the previous reasons. Perhaps, unfortunately, they can’t justify the staff anymore. Or, the company has already spent too much money on headhunters and recruiting fees that they’re looking for another way. Maybe the organization didn’t do a good job of creating a standardized approach to hiring, so outsourcing will provide the organization needed.

Keep in mind that outsourcing your recruiting is different from outsourcing your human resources, as the latter may include benefits, compensation, employee and labor relations, and legal issues as well as the recruiting. Although outsourcing your recruiting to a recruitment process outsourcing firm includes a cursory look and a revision of those aspects, outsourced recruiting typically looks at the hiring process from sourcing great candidates to the new employee on boarding process.

 

REFFERAL CONTEST

Posted on

 

CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT – Any employee who works at ASPM permanently or as a temporary and refers the most candidates who are placed at ASPM will win $100.  Contest starts June 10th and ends July 8th.  Contact the BarryStaff office for more details.

 

 

What a Team We Have!

Posted on

By: Teresa Myers

I wanted to let everyone know that way back in 2006, Steven Hafer was placed at Industrial Fiber. He was hired perm by them. He now works for Lion Apparel and when the Ops Manager asked the employees if anyone knew of a good staffing agency he spoke up and said BarryStaff. I took him a gift from Doug, he looked shocked and I asked him what he liked about BarryStaff. He said, honestly, no one there laid a bunch of BS on me. They were straight up with me and everything they told me was exactly the way it was. He told me this in front of the Ops Mgr. So, thank you all for the job you do and as I have told you all before, it is so easy to sell when you have the team we have backing us up!