Letters from the Mail Bag

You have questions and I have opinions. These are the top 5 questions from the last few months. If you have ideas, you are welcomed to share.

Why are  Boomers expected to conform to Millennials at work and not the other way around?

Dear Boomer:

While more Baby Boomers (born ages 1946-1964) tend to be in leadership roles and management; the Millinnials are responsible for doing the work. In 2015, the Millennials (born 1982-2000) became the largest generation in the workforce. 28% of millennial responded to a recent survey saying they are already in supervisory/management positions. A full two-thirds say they expect to be in management by 2024 according to a recent study. And yes, there are often generational stle clashes. I hear of more issues when Boomers report to Millennials than the other way around. The oldest GenX members turned 50 in 2015. As long as everyone stays focused on the organization’s goals, you both win! It is important not to label people—this answer was filled with descriptions to define the generations.

How can I update my LinkedIn profile without all my connections, including my co-workers seeing that I am improving my profile? 

When you are on your LinkedIn profile, go to your photo in the upper right corner and tap. In the drop down menu, choose “ manage privacy and settings.” Under Privacy Controls, Choose whether or not to share your profile edits. Voila you are ready to fully update your LinkedIn profile to draw the attention of recruiters. Make sure to add a professional photo. If you need more LinkedIn assistance, I can confidently recommend Wayne Breitbarth’s book, The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success. He’s a good guy, the book easily will become a reference book and he offers a lot of free online information.


Where can I find Social Security projections?     

Dear Pre-Retiree:

I like to go to the source: https://www.ssa.gov/retire/estimator.html is an encrypted site from the Social Security Administation.

There is also a social security calculator on the AARP.org site:
http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/social-security-benefits-calculator.html

Talk to a certified financial planner about what is best for your personal situation in claiming your Social Security benefits.

Now, I hate long-time job and I am scared to leave because I am not sure I can earn the same salary if I start somewhere new.

Dear Unhappy Employee:

I always go back to the old Tony Robbins quote, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” You have to ask yourself what about your job do you now hate? Maybe that will change and you can stay as long as you like the work. Is it a new boss, new company owners, something change in your personal life or your job duties? If you are actively job-hunting, there are ways you can research the salary if the time is not right to discuss it with the recruiter or hiring manager. There is salary.com (I hear groans from the HR readers), glassdoor.com is another site to explore and your professional organizations may have offer salary ranges based on location. You might also consider finding a local career coach to help you manage your next step.

How can I have enough money to live through retirement?  

Dear Future 90-year-old:

Can you imagine being a vibrant 90-something? If I knew the answer to your question, I’d be very rich or in a minimum security government facilty somewhere warm. Outliving our retirement savings is a concern even for those of us with defined benefit pension plans to supplement social security. If you read the blog posts, you’ll see that I am a proponent of “encore careers” and doing something you love after your primary career ends. I have a friend who started a successful winery, Chapin Family Vineyards in Temecula, CA after a 25-year career in medical sales. Another friend brings in extra cash during retirement as a photograher focused on weddings and babies. Some work part-time a couple of days a week.

Share your responses!

Career Management IS Urgent

I am often asked what is career management. Career management is the steps you take while you are employed to insure that if you are suddenly unemployed or in an unacceptable situation, you can bounce back quickly with a great new job. Those steps include face-to-face networking with key contacts in and outside your organization; updating your resume, managing your profile and presence on LinkedIn, actually attending local meetings of your professional organization and maintaining certification. At that point, most people tell me that with their family and home to manage, kids, grandkids, pets and aging parents, they don’t have time to do their job at work and do that career management stuff.

The comment bubble over my head says, “well, join the club!” What comes out of my mouth is, “wow, you’re really busy.” 

Could you manage being unemployed six months or more? That’s the question you have to answer for yourself if you decide not to proactively manage your career. The situation for 40+ workers is that it takes longer to rebound from an unexpected career transition. That’s how it happens-suddenly, unexpectedly, shockingly fast. Here’s what happened to me.

Memorial Day weekend 1997, I was enjoying a cook-out with family in the Chicago suburbs. A family member came outdoors and said, “Don’t you work for Boehringer Mannheim Corporation?” (badly butchering the Boehringer part) “On CNN they said the company was just sold.” As a member of the human resources leadership team my manager reported to the CEO and I worked closely with the executive team. This made me confident my relative heard it wrong. So, I went inside to listen since CNN cycled the same stories repeatedly on the slow news days of a holiday weekend.

“In a deal exceeding 11 billion dollars Roche Group of Switzerland purchased the German entity, Boehringer Mannheim GmbH in a move that caught industry analysts and experts by surprise.” Everything said after that was a blur. What did it mean? How was I going to be affected personally? Where is my boss? I called his home, no answer. (No cell phones or texts back then.) Finally I reached an HR colleague on the phone. We were both stunned.

My story ultimately had a happy ending. The acquisition was an opportunity to learn a lot about HR very quickly since I had just come to the function from sales a year before. There were more opportunities to learn about global issues. Four years later, because of contacts made and experienced gained, I was able to launch an independent human resource consulting firm. It didn’t have to work out that way and many times it does not.

Managing a career does not have to be a time-consuming activity. You can exchange resumes with a friend and share critiques over a quarterly face-to-face catch-up. Once a week I spend 10-30 minutes managing LinkedIn connection requests, deleting connections trying to sell me anything, hiding inappropriate posts, reading articles and using the “settings” feature to prevent connections from being notified of my maintenance. Once a quarter, I try to enroll in a free webinar, attend a workshop or attend a professional talk. Arizona State’s, ASUx has free courses online and MOOCs (massive open online courses) are offered by many colleges. Over the course of a month, it is a couple of hours at most.

Proactive or reactive, it’s your choice. It’s your career.