One thing I was told by some high powered executive school people (a former chancellor of schools from Seattle and a superintendent of San Francisco Schools) was the need for the educational leader to take of him/herself. Our positions can be very stressful ones (a lot of this stress is self-induced). It’s important for us to take at least one day during the weekend to be with our family and with ourselves! This is very hard thing to do in the B-Berry/iPhone age! Make Saturday or Sunday YOUR (and your family) day!
Day: April 4, 2020
Changing the Culture of Student Performance Tracking
to changing the culture of assessment in the school district. It’s vital that everyone in the learning community recognizes the importance of being able to “tell the story” of a child’s success from grades PreK-12. It’s easy to stay in the September to June “comfort zone” and follow a child’s progress from one end of a school year to the other. Can we step back and be willing to follow a child’s progress from Age 5 to Age 18?
The most effective way to energize teachers around the power of long-range longitudinal data analysis is to send teams to other schools already doing good work in this area. These teams would, hopefully, come back to the district and help build a positive energy mass that would, in turn, permeate the rest of the faculty.
I found a wonderful interview with John Wooden (UCLA basketball coach from 1948-1975) in which he talks about children’s success. Coach Wooden speaks to the power of longitudinal data analysis in his opening dialogue when he points out the importance of growth as a measure of success. Watch Coach Wooden talk about success:
A wedding story
My daughter got married this week. She and her husband had originally intended to have their wedding May 2, but the virus crisis clearly was going to prevent that gathering. Instead of delaying the wedding until the crisis passes, they chose to be married one month early in an essentially empty church. Their guests watched the wedding on YouTube.
My new son-in-law is in his last year of seminary. In a few days, he will be told where he will begin serving as pastor. The May 2 wedding was to have taken place in the seminary chapel. When the two of them first realized that the wedding would have to be rescheduled, their families considered the possibility they would just get the license and be married at the courthouse. In other words, they nearly eloped. (A future pastor and his bride, the daughter of a pastor, eloping—that would be humorous.) They were able, however, to arrange for a church wedding at a place that was already equipped to livestream its services on YouTube.
The groom and the best man were attired in formal Scottish garb—yes, including kilts. The bride wore a traditional white wedding dress. (She nearly had to improvise: the woman doing alterations on the dress had basically closed down her business because of the virus and could not be reached by phone. I don’t know the details of how my daughter finally got hold of the dress.) The bride’s sister was maid of honor. Because she works at a hospital, she was not able to take a day off for the wedding, so it was held at 8 p.m. In his homily, the pastor who married them commented on the unusual timing of the wedding—during the season of Lent, in the darkness of night, and during a pandemic.
So there were bride and groom, best man and maid of honor, pastor, musician, and one other woman who helped the bride and took part in the singing. They began with a traditional evening liturgy, then sang a hymn. We rushed around the house gathering hymnals and got to join in singing the fourth and fifth verses of the hymn. The pastor read from Genesis 2, delivered his homily, and then conducted the wedding ceremony. During the exchange of vows, the bride and groom had their hands bound together with a strip of cloth—another Scottish tradition.
As the father of the bride, I watched from the den. I was sitting in the same chair where I sat to watch the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. (We are never getting rid of that chair.) I was wearing a t-shirt, sweat shirt, blue jeans, and slippers. Other family members were present, as was the family cat. Popcorn was served.
This is not an April Fools prank. This is not First Friday Fiction. This is part of how the pandemic is rewriting life’s scripts for us all. I hope that you and those you love are well. J.
THE FUTURE OF WORK IS HERE: ARE YOU READY?
There’s a battle being waged in today’s economy, and you may have already felt some of the casualties in your own business.
The prize is a limited group of people who possess in-demand technical skills — and organizations are duking it out for them. HR departments must create increasingly compelling compensation packages to attract and retain these highly prized IT employees.
Talent Wars and the Gig Economy
At Appirio, we decided to find out just how these “talent wars” are affecting businesses, what issues matter most to executives and IT staff, and how those issues may differ. We partnered with Wakefield Research on the “Talent Wars and the Gig Economy” survey, in which 400 individuals were surveyed this summer — including 200 U.S. and U.K. C-level executives at companies with more than 500 employees, and 200 U.S. and U.K. IT staff at companies with more than 500 employees.
Unsurprisingly, both executives and IT staff overwhelmingly agree that recruiting and retaining IT talent is a significant problem within their organizations. In fact, 90 percent of the C-suite and 82 percent of IT staff surveyed said it is a top business challenge within their organizations. As if the recruiting battle isn’t challenging enough, poaching appears to be a big problem, too.
Executives suspect that their IT employees are being approached by recruiters on a regular basis, and it looks like they’re right — more than half of the IT staff surveyed estimated that recruiters contact their peers an average of six times per month. This constant IT turnover and fight for top talent is not only affecting businesses’ bottom lines, it’s also hindering their ability to innovate.
Bridging the Talent Gap with Crowdsourcing
Everyone’s heard the old saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Rather than businesses putting a huge chunk of their IT resources into securing these highly skilled employees (and gambling on whether or not they hired the right person), many organizations are bridging the talent gap by usingcrowdsourcing as a way to scale innovation.
There is certainly no lack of top talent in the global crowd. Many of the world’s most talented IT professionals are choosing nontraditional paths to monetize their skills. The rise of the so-called “Gig Economy” has empowered workers to maximize their freedom and take work into their own hands. And the C-Suite has already taken note: 83 percent say that by 2050 the economy will shift toward gig-based work, rather than projects done by full-time employees.
The tactics companies are using to win top talent, such as well-padded compensation packages, fail to address what these individuals really want: a flexible and individualized worker experience. In fact, 81 percent of the IT workers in our survey said that they’re more likely to leave a job because of a lack of flexibility than because of unsatisfactory compensation.
The Future Is Now
The future of work is about breaking free from traditional ideologies of what “work” should be. Embracing mobility and creating a flexible, collaborative culture can help you attract those exceptional individuals that you want on your payroll. And crowdsourcing allows you to fill in the gaps — with some of the world’s top talent — while giving you the power to innovate like never before. Ready or not, the future of work is here. And it’s up to leadership to embrace it — or be left behind.
THE FUTURE OF WORK IS HERE: ARE YOU READY?
There\’s a battle being waged in today\’s economy, and you may have already felt some of the casualties in your own business.
The prize is a limited group of people who possess in-demand technical skills — and organizations are duking it out for them. HR departments must create increasingly compelling compensation packages to attract and retain these highly prized IT employees.
Talent Wars and the Gig Economy
At Appirio, we decided to find out just how these “talent wars\” are affecting businesses, what issues matter most to executives and IT staff, and how those issues may differ. We partnered with Wakefield Research on the “Talent Wars and the Gig Economy\” survey, in which 400 individuals were surveyed this summer — including 200 U.S. and U.K. C-level executives at companies with more than 500 employees, and 200 U.S. and U.K. IT staff at companies with more than 500 employees.
Unsurprisingly, both executives and IT staff overwhelmingly agree that recruiting and retaining IT talent is a significant problem within their organizations. In fact, 90 percent of the C-suite and 82 percent of IT staff surveyed said it is a top business challenge within their organizations. As if the recruiting battle isn\’t challenging enough, poaching appears to be a big problem, too.
Executives suspect that their IT employees are being approached by recruiters on a regular basis, and it looks like they\’re right — more than half of the IT staff surveyed estimated that recruiters contact their peers an average of six times per month. This constant IT turnover and fight for top talent is not only affecting businesses\’ bottom lines, it\’s also hindering their ability to innovate.
Bridging the Talent Gap with Crowdsourcing
Everyone\’s heard the old saying, “Don\’t put all your eggs in one basket.\” Rather than businesses putting a huge chunk of their IT resources into securing these highly skilled employees (and gambling on whether or not they hired the right person), many organizations are bridging the talent gap by usingcrowdsourcing as a way to scale innovation.
There is certainly no lack of top talent in the global crowd. Many of the world\’s most talented IT professionals are choosing nontraditional paths to monetize their skills. The rise of the so-called “Gig Economy\” has empowered workers to maximize their freedom and take work into their own hands. And the C-Suite has already taken note: 83 percent say that by 2050 the economy will shift toward gig-based work, rather than projects done by full-time employees.
The tactics companies are using to win top talent, such as well-padded compensation packages, fail to address what these individuals really want: a flexible and individualized worker experience. In fact, 81 percent of the IT workers in our survey said that they\’re more likely to leave a job because of a lack of flexibility than because of unsatisfactory compensation.
The Future Is Now
The future of work is about breaking free from traditional ideologies of what “work\” should be. Embracing mobility and creating a flexible, collaborative culture can help you attract those exceptional individuals that you want on your payroll. And crowdsourcing allows you to fill in the gaps — with some of the world\’s top talent — while giving you the power to innovate like never before. Ready or not, the future of work is here. And it\’s up to leadership to embrace it — or be left behind.
Eduindex 