griebcw1, Author at Building Careers

Lower Turnover Rate For Your Company

Leave a Comment / Blog, Employers, Set Yourself Up For Success

Turnover rate. It isn’t fun or sexy. That said, if you know anything about balancing the science of running a business and the art of having employees, you know it’s a vital measure of your company’s overall health and culture.

Before we get too much further, let’s be clear that there’s something in this for everyone. For the rookies, we’re going to cover the basics, including how to calculate turnover rate for your company. We’ll talk about how turnover rate pertains to the health of your business and nail down an answer to the question: What is a high turnover rate? And for the seasoned veterans in the audience, we’ll talk through how to reduce turnover rate with employee retention strategies.

Still there? Great—glad we didn’t lose you to a pie recipe. Let’s get to it.

Define Turnover Rate

Employee turnover rate pertains to the percentage of your employees who leave your company over a specific amount of time. Think about all the people who quit voluntarily, get fired, or choose to retire—that’s what you should factor in when calculating your company’s turnover rate. Why is it so important to keep that pulse? Because you need to keep track of when and why employees “turn over,” not just wave goodbye and hope you can replace them as quick as possible.

Is Your Company Experiencing This?

Ugh. As if employees leaving wasn’t painful enough, now we have to do math. Most companies want to know their employee turnover rate on a quarterly or annual basis, by the way. Why? It just takes that long for anything meaningful to show out of it.

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Personal Connections Land Jobs

Leave a Comment / Blog, Job Search, Set Yourself Up For Success

Personal connections land jobs; everybody knows that. Hence, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Indeed, in surveys, it’s typical for roughly half of employees to say that they found their job through a friend, family member, or other type of social network contact. But not all connections are likely to be equal. In a job search, talking to people and networking is clearly important, but who are the best people to talk to?

How social networks matter for getting jobs—and all other sorts of life outcomes—has long pre-occupied sociologists and networks researchers. The classic answer to the question of which contacts matter for finding a job starts with the work of Mark Granovetter, who in the late 1960s and early 1970s interviewed a few hundred Boston-area job seekers. To his surprise, Granovetter found that people were much more likely to land jobs from information passed on by people they weren’t particularly close to. In interviews, Granovetter asked people whether a friend had told them about their current job, and time and again people said things along the lines of, “Not a friend, an acquaintance.”

Granovetter began systematically tracking the “strength” of the social tie between job seekers and the people giving them employment leads, and found that of those who found jobs through contacts, only 17% saw their contact “often,” while 56% saw the contact “occasionally,” and 28% saw him “rarely.” The punch line: the people in your life who you don’t know too well are the ones who often matter the most when it comes time to find a job.

Plenty of other studies since have backed up the importance of what Granovetter dubbed “weak ties.” The general interpretation is that people you don’t know too well tend to belong to social groups that aren’t your own. They therefore have access to information—including about jobs—that you wouldn’t otherwise come across. The people who you’re closest to, your “strong ties,” typically move in the same social circles as you do. Most jobs they can tell you about, you could have found out about from someone else anyway. As painful as it can be to talk to people you don’t know too well about the fact that you’re looking for work, those could very easily prove to be the most fruitful conversations.

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How to Find Fulfillment at Work

Leave a Comment / Blog, Set Yourself Up For Success

A lifetime of satisfaction on the job isn’t just a preference – it’s a necessity. Without fulfillment at work, you simply won’t push yourself to excel. And even if your compensation is more than adequate, losing out on the personal satisfaction of excelling in your role isn’t worth it. You spend so much of your life at work. Why stick with a career that doesn’t engage you, grow you, and fulfill you?

Identifying Your Passion

Finding your passion has become cliché these days. But for good reason. In order to find fulfilment at work, you must first identify your passion. If you want to rise above the frenetic monotony of just going through the motions, find a career in what you love, what interests you, what makes you curious and engaged.

First, slow down and reflect. Your ideal career path is out there. But most people don’t find it until they take time to think it through and really connect with their passion.
Next, study yourself. Where do you usually wind up in the bookstore? What activities light up your brain with excitement? What activities positively bore you? Take notes.
Then, go deeper. As you begin to identify what you enjoy and what drains you, explore these interests deeper. Do more of those activities that feed into your passion and less of those you hate. This will narrow down these categories.
Next, reach out to others. As you begin to focus in on what may be your dream job, talk to others already in those roles. In finalizing what career path will contribute to your fulfillment at work, get a feel for how to excel in those specific roles.
Finally, keep your options open. As you pursue a career in your passion and grow within that fulfilling role, you may find another role is similar but even more fulfilling. Stay flexible. The journey isn’t over until it’s over.

Finding The Fulfilling Job

Knowing your passion is a critical foundation. But also important is knowing what to look for in a position. Not every opening in your target industry or function is necessarily a good one. Here’s what to look for when considering jobs that will provide fulfillment at work.

Good Pay Let’s not pretend compensation isn’t a critical factor in fulfillment. Of course, it’s not the only factor, but it is very important. Fulfilling roles will more than cover your basic living expenses. They’ll also afford you opportunities to chase other passions and interests in life.

Interesting Responsibilities

What sort of curiosities will this role satisfy? Will your work be interesting to you? A fulfilling job is one that involves responsibilities you find inherently fascinating and enjoyable. Conversely, boredom will sap your growth and engagement.

Enriching Environment

The right workplace culture is critical. Are your co-workers respectful? Do you have mutual interests and compatible personalities? Finding fulfillment at work often hinges on how well you fit into a team. When you are able to contribute and be respected and rewarded for your unique contributions, you will find fulfillment much easier to attain.

Growth Opportunities

We need challenges. We are hardwired to look for the next mountain to conquer. Find a job that has clear advancement opportunities to remain engaged and fulfilled at work.

How to Be Fulfilled in Any Job

Maybe you’re not looking for a new career. Maybe you’re already at a great job and just want to find a better work-life balance or to infuse passion into what you already do. No matter what your current situation, here are the essential components necessary for fulfillment at work.

Define your personal mission to live by each day.
Work towards achieving goals to consistently achieve fulfillment in any position.
Invest in your professional development long term.
Maintain an attitude of gratitude to make each day a bit brighter.
Enjoy your job more by investing emotional energy and initiative into everything you do.
Never stop learning.
Create positive relationships by genuinely listening to and helping others around you.

Whatever your career choice or current job, you can find fulfillment at work. Don’t settle for the mundane 9-5. You know you weren’t meant to just collect a paycheck. Take the time to identify just what it is you were born to do, find the right career path to do it, and then proactively create a fulfilling set of conditions around you. You’re investing, not only in a career, but in yourself.

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Headed Back To The Office? How to Adjust!

Leave a Comment / Blog, Set Yourself Up For Success

Our working situations have changed dramatically since early 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many people to lose their jobs, and companies around the world made the move to remote work. For example, by June 2020, 42% of the US labor force were working from home. Over the past year, we’ve nailed the bed-to-Zoom commute: We can be up, presentably dressed (our top half at least), hydrated, caffeinated and in front of the screen in minutes.

Despite the challenges of making our living space into our working space, we’ve gotten used to the comforts of working from home. Surveys show that employees are feeling anxious about returning to the office. As COVID cases drop, more of us are being asked to go back to in-person workplaces. So how can we make this transition easier? Here are 6 tips for returning back to the office:

1. Be Considerate

The shift to home working was sudden, and that kind of change was psychologically jarring and therefore negative for most people, according to Meag-gan O’Reilly PhD, a psychologist at Stanford, cofounder of Inherent Value Psychology Inc. What’s more, this shift was combined with uncertainty about the future; the loss of autonomy, freedom, and connection that came with lockdown.

Being at home all the time and losing familiar structures and routines led some of us to overwork — which might have included taking up new hobbies with overly high expectations — while others struggled to focus.

Consider the things that have changed for you this year and decide what elements you want to keep. Besides these huge societal issues were the minutiae — the cancelled holidays, birthdays over Zoom instead of in person, not being able to hug loved ones or even stop by a coworker’s desk to say “hello” in the morning. We lost or had to adjust the little daily routines that make up our lives, and as many of us are exiting crisis mode, it’s time to take stock of both what your life is like now and what it used to be like.

2. Be Intentional

If a commute is part of your return to the office, your time is likely to be squeezed during this transition.

To help motivate you as you go back to the office, think about what projects, teams, activities and individuals you want to be more connected with. How can you show up where you want to be? How are you going to distribute your finite energy and time intentionally? Are there certain things you’ve invested time or energy in that you want to continue? Or leave behind?

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Inflation And The Workplace

Leave a Comment / Blog, Industry Insights

As we continue the new year with the expectation of slowing economic growth and continued high inflation, we want to take a closer look at the relationship of inflation and the workplace — and how commercial property trends will change as a result.

Inflation and Expending

As we know from our own personal finances, people tend to change their spending habits when inflation drives prices higher. We may buy fewer name-brand products, eat out less frequently, and cut back on luxuries like vacations. To manage our expenses long-term, homeowners may even choose to downsize to a smaller house.

Businesses are no different. Inflation and the workplace relationship forces businesses to also make more prudent buying decisions, spend less opulently and manage costs aggressively.

For businesses, however, there is an additional complicating factor. Inflation and the resulting increase in the cost of living often necessitates higher pay for workers. As companies attempt to manage costs, this presents a significant challenge in any inflationary year. Further confounding the matter in 2022 is the nation’s tight labor market, in which competitive pay will be vital to attracting new employees and retaining existing ones.

Can Workplaces Navigate Inflation?

With pay cuts presumably off the table, how will employers contain costs while remaining competitive in the marketplace? One of the most obvious cost-cutting measures is to reduce operating costs like rent and utilities. This can be done in one of two ways: either by moving to a less costly facility or reducing the amount of space they own or lease.

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How Do Recruiters Work?

Leave a Comment / Ask An Expert, Blog, Industry Insights, Job Search

ou know that the economy is crazy right now, that the CRE talent war is escalating, and that it can be challenging to find the right hire or open position. You know that recruiters are said to be the best way to cut through the white noise and identify the ideal opportunity. But what you may not know is how recruiters work.

There is a lot of mystery surrounding the art and science of headhunting. But really, the average, effective recruiting firm follows a basic process to match the best talent with the best positions. So, if you’ve ever wondered just how a recruiter goes about making these matches, keep reading. Let’s look at key elements that make up just how recruiters work.

What Do Recruiters Do?

Of course, recruiters match talent with open positions. But just what is the process of effective recruiting?

As a rule, recruiters maintain a database of professionals, whether on the bench or currently employed. They routinely make contact with the people in this network to discuss opportunities, industry needs, compensation norms, and other strategic insights.

In other words, they stay in the know. They are on the front lines of hiring for their industry, and when a position comes open, they can leverage their database to yield a slate of qualified candidates. These databases can be sorted by a myriad of filters and parameters, based on the specifications provided by the clients.

By analyzing resumes and advising both employers and candidates, the recruiter acts as a go-between and matchmaker. They are both a strategic advisor and your inside scoop.

How Recruiters Work for Candidates

If you are a professional interested in working with a recruiter, you need to understand how recruiters work for you and just what it means to work with a recruiter as a candidate.

First off, it’s important to note that recruiters technically work for the company doing the hiring. In other words, they are paid by the employer, not the candidate. This means they are free for you. And though you don’t cut them a check, you can avail yourself of numerous services through the process.

When you submit your resume or CV to a recruiter, be accurate about your skills, compensation expectations, etc. When a recruiter learns of an opening, the first thing they will likely do is search their database. If the position is offering $100,000 annual salary, but you’ve said your minimum is $110,000, your resume likely won’t come up.

When a recruiter surfaces your resume as a potential match, they will reach out to you, typically via phone, but often via email, too. Talk freely with them about your expectations and goals, work/life balance needs and company culture requirements. Recruiters guard the confidentiality of everyone they speak to, and they can be a great sounding board for what you would like from your next career move.

If they choose to present you to the client, they may not reach back out immediately. They are likely discussing your qualifications with the client and waiting for definite feedback. Don’t bug them, but do reach out after a few days to get a status update if you hear nothing back. When you are selected for an interview, a recruiter will likely help you prepare. Listen, ask questions, and take advantage of this free resource.

How Recruiters Work for Employers

If you represent a company in need of rockstar talent, developing a relationship with a recruiter could be your smartest move. But how recruiters work for you may not be clear just yet.

To start with, there are two types of recruiters: contingent and retained. Retained recruiters are typically reserved for high-level, C-suite positions. Retained recruiters are paid up front or on a schedule. For entry-level to middle-senior positions, contingent recruiters are more common. Rather than being paid for their effort, they are only paid for results.

A contingent recruiter in the CRE industry will closely study your candidate requirements and put forward only the best candidates. Because they only get paid if their candidate is hired (typically 30-90 days after to ensure a long-term fit), and because hiring companies sometimes field candidates from multiple recruiters, contingency firms are highly incentivized to surface the best match possible. And they are highly efficient at doing so.

And because they are paid only after their candidate is hired, there is no risk for a company to work with them. It’s exciting to realize that you can maximize your recruitment reach by working with multiple contingency recruiters and source the best match, risk free. While you consider the most qualified candidates, the recruiter will reach out to them on your behalf for clarifying info and to align expectations.

Recruiters are trusted partners in the hiring or job search process. By better understanding how recruiters work and what they can do for you, you’ll be able to get the maximum results and ensure long-term success in your career or company.

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Making A Good First Impression

Leave a Comment / Blog, Interview Tips, Set Yourself Up For Success

During the interview process, you have the opportunity to make a good first impression by the way you speak, act and how well you listen. Making the most of this opportunity is important to landing a job and winning over your new colleagues. In this article, you’ll learn what a first impression is, why a good first impression is important, how to make a good first impression during a job interview and how first impressions can affect you in the workplace.

Define A First Impression?

A first impression is the initial consideration or judgment someone makes about who you are after their first interaction with you. Several factors may influence someone’s first impression of you, such as how you look, what you wear, how you speak and your overall emotional state. When you are looking for a new position, how you present yourself on your application, in your resume and during an interview can all impact the recruiter and hiring manager’s first impression of who you are.

Why You Need A Good First Impression

First impressions are important because human nature compels us to hold on to our initial impression of someone and we can find it difficult to change this opinion even when the other person presents us with evidence contrary to that belief. This makes it very important for us to know the impression we portray of ourselves when we first meet someone in an interview or the workplace.

How To Make Good First Impression

Follow these steps to ensure you make a good first impression during your interview:

Prepare Beforehand
Arrive on Time
Dress Professionally
Use Good Posture
Use a Friendly Greeting

1. Prepare Beforehand

The best thing you can do to make a good first impression during an interview is to be well-prepared for the interview when you arrive. Before your interview, research the company and know what they do, what your responsibility would be in the position you are applying for, what the company’s core values are and how you can add value to the company. Showing you have done your research can leave the interviewer with the impression that you are serious about the position you have applied to.

You can also role-play with a friend or family member to practice interview questions you expect the interviewer to ask. Prepare answers to both technical interview questions related to the responsibilities of the job and behavioral interview questions. Practicing answers to interview questions will show your confidence during the interview.

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What Is “Growth Mindset”?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Set Yourself Up For Success

A growth mindset is the belief that you can learn, change and improve with time and effort.

People who have a growth mindset build up the strength to overcome challenges instead of giving up because they think they just don’t have what it takes to succeed. They aren’t scared of failure because they know failure helps them get one step closer to where they want to be.

Now, the opposite of a growth mindset is something called a fixed mindset. People who have a fixed mindset believe that success (or failure) is a result of permanent qualities, circumstances and character traits that they don’t have the power to change. It’s possible that Eeyore is their spirit animal.

Whether they realize it or not, they believe they were born with certain characteristics—like intelligence, shyness, talent or a hot temper—with no way to improve or adjust. They live their life making decisions based on those beliefs, which can really hold them back in the long run. With a fixed mindset, pessimism always wins.

Here are some examples of a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset:

Fixed: “I’ll never learn how to do this. I’m not smart.”
Growth: “I might not know how to do this now, but I’m going to read up on it and figure it out.”
Fixed: “I don’t have to prep for this job interview. I’m good at marketing, so they’ll give me the job.”
Growth: “I’m going to spend time preparing and give it my all, so even if I don’t get hired, I’ll know I did my best.”

See the difference? This mindset thing is something we all have to work on. No one’s going to get it right all the time. But now that we know what it means, let’s break down some practical steps you can take to start developing a growth mindset.

How To Develop A Growth Mindset

Readdress Harmful Thoughts

If you notice yourself getting stuck in a fixed mindset about something, pause and take a second to reword that thought or statement. The word yet can really help with this. You could say, “I’m not married yet,” or “I’m not debt-free yet.”

There are a lot of brainy, science-y facts that go along with this, like how taking control of your thoughts changes the cells in your brain and stuff like that. Ain’t nobody got time to go into all that, but the studies are out there if you want to read them. Basically, the most important thing to know is that you really can train your brain to think differently if you put in the effort, and it’ll get easier and easier as time goes on.

Failing Is Okay

Yeah, I know. It sounds weird. Why the heck would you want to fail more?

For this simple reason: If you fail 10 times, you’ll get 10 times better. That’s the game. Because the ones who quit after they’ve failed aren’t around anymore to compete! Seth Godin sums it up perfectly: “The person who fails the most wins.”

It takes a whole lot of suck to get good at playing the guitar, designing, writing, cooking. And over time, you suck less and less and less . . . until one day you’re an overnight success. Try. Fail. Repeat.

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Key Highlights from the NAIOP Annual Report for 2022

Leave a Comment / Blog, Industry Insights

Each year, NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, releases a report on the state of the commercial real estate industry with thoughts on the previous year and forecasts for the current year. The NAIOP annual report contains strategic insights from the nation’s foremost commercial real estate, economic, and public policy experts through their Research Foundation’s Distinguished Fellows Program.

This year’s report focused on the challenges of 2021, from the ongoing COVID crisis to supply shortages to stalled back-to-office plans. The 2022 report further examined key hot-button issue and trends unfolding in the current year. Here are the key takeaways from the NAIOP annual report.

Economic Impact of CRE

Commercial real estate generates significant economic activity, and 2021 was no different. In the NAIOP annual report, the Research Foundation examined the wages, salaries, and other financial factors stemming from the commercial real estate industry in the US for the previous year. They found the following were generated from commercial, residential, institutional, and infrastructure development of existing commercial buildings:

$4.8 trillion USD or 21% of total GDP
32.7 million US jobs, including new job creation and support of existing jobs
Substantial personal earnings and state revenues

New Development Approvals Index

NAIOP announced the creation of a new resource to help developers better evaluate local approval processes. This New Development Approvals Index compares the process of obtaining entitlements and permits across various local jurisdictions. This index will help new developers overcome the inconsistency and costliness inherent in a fragmented approvals system to make investment decisions clearer.

Future Trends for Industrial and Office Space Demand

The NAIOP annual report announced two studies that provided a strategic outlook on current and future trends relating to commercial real estate market in the US.

On the office space side, their study showed that office net absorption was negative throughout 2021. Yet heading into 2022, absorption is gradually digging out of this whole and steadily improving. In the final quarter of 2021, the net absorption is forecasted to reach 8.3 million square.

Some of the factors contributing to this positive revision include declining unemployment rates, more workers returning to the office, and an improving economy.

On the industrial space side, according to the forecast from Q# of 2021, demand is strong. Industrial real estate is expected to remain strong in the long term in spite of rising interest in ecommerce.

According to the study’s forecast, total net absorption for the last half of 2021 is expected to be 162.6 million square feet. This represents a quarterly average of 81.3 million square feet. The forecast for 2022 is even more positive, with projected net absorption at nearly 335 million square feet, reflecting an 83.6 million square feet average per quarter.

New Talent Entering CRE

Commenting on prospects for new professionals beginning a career in CRE – with its pros and cons – F.E. “Skip” Kalb, the 2022 NAIOP Research Foundation Chair, commented:

I’m enthusiastic about the young professionals coming into commercial real estate…This generation grew up in a technology-driven world, and they offer unique perspectives into the data and trends shaping commercial real estate.

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Work-Life Balance is More of An Ebb and Flow: Here’s Why

Leave a Comment / Blog, Set Yourself Up For Success

Despite the resounding evidence that working long hours can be harmful to both employees and employers, many professionals still struggle to overcome their assumptions — and their deeply-ingrained habits — around work hours. What does it take to free yourself from these unhealthy patterns and reach a more sustainable, rewarding work-life balance?

To explore this question, the Harvard Business Review conducted almost 200 in-depth interviews with 78 professionals from the London offices of a global law firm and an accounting firm. They spoke with an equal number of men and women, and most of the interviewees were between 30 and 50 years old, with at least one dependent child, and in either middle or senior management roles.

According to their study, the majority of the interviewees described their jobs as highly demanding, exhausting, and chaotic, and they seemed to take for granted that working long hours was necessary for their professional success. However, about 30% of the men and 50% of women in our sample appeared to consciously resist working long hours, describing a variety of strategies they developed for maintaining a healthier work-life balance. While the details of every individual case differed, their study suggested a common mental process that consistently helped this group of professionals to change the way they worked — and lived — for the better.

At a high level, their research showed that achieving better balance between professional and personal priorities boils down to a combination of reflexivity — or questioning assumptions to increase self-awareness — and intentional role redefinition. Importantly, their research suggests that this is not a one-time fix, but rather, a cycle that we must engage in continuously as circumstances and priorities evolve. This work-life balance ebb and flow is made up of five distinct steps:

1. Focus On Your Emotions

Once you’ve increased your awareness of your current situation, examine how that situation makes you feel. Ask yourself, do I feel energized, fulfilled, satisfied? Or do I feel angry, resentful, sad? For example, one respondent described his realization that his current work-life balance (or lack thereof) was engendering some pretty negative emotions.

A rational understanding of the decisions and priorities driving your life is important, but equally important is emotional reflexivity — that is, the capacity to recognize how a situation is making you feel. Awareness of your emotional state is essential in order to determine the changes you want to make in your work and in your life.

2. Do You Have Alternatives?

Before jumping into solutions, first reflect on the aspects of your work and life that could be different in order to better align with your priorities. Are there components of your job that you would like to see changed? How much time would you like to spend with your family, or on hobbies?

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