Eye on the Workforce

Among the indignities we suffer in the modern workplace is the cubicle. Miracles of modern human resource unit warehousing, they enable us to work without privacy or protection from biological infection. There is even the occasional head-scratcher: Someone once told me that they heard a supervisor terminating an employee over the phone from a cubicle. In all this don't forget that the benefit desired was that there would be improved performance from more interaction between workers. That's what the "workstation" sales people told us anyway - just after they showed facilities management drastically lower prices compared to offices.

If you were the type of project manager who wanted to score points with your workforce, what could you do to make a real difference here? A recent study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology reveals factors that really matter to workers.

• According to this research, workers in Cubical World were dissatisfied mostly with sound privacy. They had no control over what they heard and they could not keep their own conversations from traveling to other ears.
• Visual privacy wasthe next frustrating factor. Workers, their desktops and their screens could be seen at any time.
• Noise level was the third most highly rated item causing dissatisfaction.

Should you care? Does it matter to you if your workers are bothered by gossip from a nearby desk? Should you be concerned if workers see each other shop for underwear online or pick their nose?

It matters to you because one of the top ten important factors affecting employee satisfaction (as reported here previously) is the relationship with immediate supervisor. So here is an opportunity to show that you understand basic daily problems.  In case you don’t have the power to put all your workers in quiet private offices, what can you do about these causes of dissatisfaction? Here are some ideas to get you started.

• Use team meetings to determine if these are current real problems for your workers.
• Let workers decide for themselves how to respond. Recommend ideas such as people taking conversations into meeting rooms or out of earshot when they are not solving team problems.
• Help the teams deal with chatty workers by requesting that conversations be kept to a minimum outside of lunch times.
• Do not violate the respectful quiet yourself.
• Suggest a polite privacy expectation.

This will not replace other motivational tactics you should use, but it can help as cubicle life is not good. This can help improve team performance as well if distractions are keeping workers from focusing.

Do you have a cubicle horror story? Let me know.

I recently re-certified for my PMP, and I learned some lessons for next time. Still, I’m glad I did it and learned a lot to become more skillful for the future.

Procrastination

There are just too many points needed to fill them in at the last minute, even in the last months. I was lucky in that I had a continuous way to make points over time, but the rationalization that comes from procrastination made me think that I had more PDUs than I thought. Look at the number of PDUs you need and plan to space them out over the three years. It’s just like an intermediate milestone in a project plan. Tracking your progress will let you know whether you are falling behind or not.

PDU Caps

What made procrastination worse was that the PDU category caps limited the number PDUs I could get from certain activities. I mismanaged this.

Granted, you can do all the PDU classes and local PMI continuing education you want to meet 100% of your goal and this is a good thing. You even get to meet great people.

But if you choose to get PDUs through other means, there are limits. That’s where I went wrong. I thought I could get more points in one category than was actually true. Don’t do as I do, do as I say.

• Don’t think Self-Directed Learning is the same as continuing education or other types of courses. You are limited to 30 self-directed learning PDUs per cycle, for example, if you are maintaining a PMP.
• The same goes for Creating New PM Knowledge. There is a 45 PDU cap there. And by the way, check the three categories of Creating New PM Knowledge to make sure what you think qualifies actually qualifies. Ditto this for Volunteer Service.
• Next, you might think that you can get a large number of PDUs from Work as a Practitioner. Here you are limited to 5 PDUs per year.

So clearly you need a decent plan where you think about how and when you will best obtain the most PDUs for the activities you will actually complete and enjoy. You like taking classes? Then take classes. You like a mix of classes, continuing education at PMI meetings, but you also enjoy create new knowledge? Plan to do all of those things and document it during the 3-year cycle on your PDU meter on the PMI site.

If you don’t have a plan, then you could be left scrambling in the final months, when work load happens to be at its peak and when employer-provided online courses are switching over to the new PMBOK versions and then you find that you have completed the wrong mix of PDUs in categories.

Believe me, it can happen. Don’t ask me how I know.

If you lead PMs who are also re-certifying, tell them the same thing.

Have you noticed?  Older workers are happier with their jobs than younger workers. This news comes to us fromThe Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which is studying the impact of the large number of those 50+ in the workforce. This trend is important and gets continuing coverage in Eye on the Workforce. Demographics is destiny in your projects.

The key to happiness for those over 50 seems to be security and respect. In general, they have climbed the career ladder and attained a comfortable salary level. They are asked for advice more often by coworkers, giving them prestige that comes from experience.

Good for them, but how do you use this information as a project manager?

First of all, don't try to set your expectations too high for making the youngest workers satisfied with their jobs. Over 40 years of the survey, young adults have reported the lowest percentage being deeply satisfied with their jobs.

But don’t give up on younger workers! Give younger workers respect and ask them for input. For example:

• Use corporate social media and other ways to ask and obtain their ideas. Show your appreciation for the guidance they provide.
• Help younger workers build up their expertise by connecting them with the happier older workers creating a win-win culture. This could be a formal effort following an existing human resources mentoring program.
• Alternately, you can establish a less formal but organized coaching effort limited to your project, supported in your project Training Plan. Coaches can be identified early from experienced workers. They may love it, of course, as long as they are not overused.
• A very limited ad hoc solution would be to connect older workers with younger workers informally as needed. Imagine a young architect paired up with an older worker in Data Management. Effort on your end could be reduced by simply advertising within the project experienced workers who don’t mind making themselves available.

Sometimes generational differences cause friction in the workplace, but this is an example where differences provide opportunities. Consider using one of these options – or one inspired by them – to leverage the happier older workers in your project to improve performance as a whole.

Conflict is something you can’t eliminate. Avoiding conflict, while an easy short term fix, is not a real solution. Differences of opinions, objectives, principle, and experiences cannot help but lead to conflict and you need those differences to build better team decisions and performance.

Don’t avoid conflict just because you lack tactics to make it work for you. This Harvard Business Review article has information we can use to devise tactics to make conflict easier to manage.

Initiate Conflict-Based Discussions

• In meetings, ask for lessons learned from recent work. But first, ask for positives – what went right.
• Ask for more options to eliminate group think. Support individuals with contrary ideas. Make sure these ideas are respected and processed routinely.
• Emphasize that active group think avoidance takes rules and practice
• Explain that this is how the team works. Team members should not take it personally.

Transform Unconstructive Conflict

Let’s say you see a team in conflict:  personal attacks, broadcasting their opinions without working together for a team solution, not talking to each other, complaining, the team getting stuck and not being able to continue. Seize the opportunity stop immediately and facilitate the group to constructive conflict.

You might try a white board or other media for a four-quadrant discussion. Again, set this up by saying it’s just the way the team should work. Not evn team processes you set up are sacred Follow this order:

• On the top left, ask for team behaviors or actions that would come under the heading “Keep doing this.” Examples:  Remaining passionate about the project, bringing in ideas from outside the team, project or organization.
• On the top right, ask for team behaviors or actions that would come under the heading “Do more of this.” Examples: Showing appreciation, communicating when too busy, accepting unusual alternatives that solve problems.
• On the bottom left, ask for team behaviors or actions that would come under the heading “Keep not doing this.” Examples:  Complaining publically about the team, actively sabotaging someone else’s work, taking credit for other’s work. (You may have to help fill this in to build confidence)
• On the bottom right, ask for team behaviors or actions that would come under the heading “Do less of this.” Examples: Complaining without problem-solving, blaming, missing intermediate deadlines because of team lack of cooperation

The point is that teams can fall into conflict, but you can pull them out. Use techniques to support positive dispruption.

In your projects, you may bring in contingency workers to "try before you buy" before making them full-time employees. The question is do you know what to look for during this period? It's worth taking the time to plan to get this right because it is costly and frustrating to make an error in hiring, as has been covered in the Eye before. 

Taking a step back for a second, think about the interview process. You ask questions to check whether the candidate fits the position. But can every characteristic be clearly verified in the interview process? No. There are certainly factors that are verifiable during an interview and others that are very difficult to judge during an interview.

It would be helpful now to have a practical way to categorize characteristics being sought in candidates. CEO of oDesk Gary Swart did just that recently here (login may be needed). He uses four categories:

• Skills
• Knowledge
• Motivation
• Personal Characteristics  

In my estimation, the top two are easier to verify during the interview. The bottom two are more difficult, making them better for verifying during actual working time. Here are tips for doing that.

Assessing Motivation

You know it is difficult to judge a person’s motivation fully in an interview, but weeks or months of working with that person in the heat of a project battle will reveal the truth. Does the worker show evidence of being

• Team-focused OR self-serving?
• Results-oriented OR obsessed with career advancement?
• Supportive of long-term organizational success OR of short-term gain for notoriety?

Monitoring Personal Characteristics

It will help to use a few of examples from Gary Swart’s list of personal characteristics: integrity, passion and judgment. We’d all like to know that these characteristics are displayed in ways that are constructive and productive. So while the contingency worker completes tasks and interacts with the project team and stakeholders, monitor behavior so that you can see whether the worker

• behaves and communicates in an authentic way
• elicits trust
• is prepared for meetings
• shows excitement for the project objectives
• appears to be “building a castle” rather than merely laying bricks
• interprets messages correctly
• considers alternatives before acting in controversial or complex situations
• appropriately (per your culture) uses short cuts and influence to get results

With this practical way to categorize characteristics and evaluate a candidate, you can create a more sophisticated selection process that extends into the working period and does a better job of finding and hiring that high performer you desperately need.