Combining a Paycheck with Your Passion

Monday Morning Pep Talk

The nonprofit sector may offer experienced workers a second career combining passion, social interaction and a continued income. The thought of “doing well by doing good” may not have been a possibility early in a career, however the idea of finding work with meaning is often of high importance choosing a second career. According to the Urban Institute, from 2001 to 2011 nonprofit jobs grew 25% while new jobs in the for-profit sector rose half of one percent.

As mature workers consider moving from for-profit organizations to nonprofit work, here are three major misconceptions to be aware of when making the career change to a nonprofit:

Myth #1: Working in a nonprofit is less complicated than corporate employment. The reality is that nonprofits have the same complexities and organizational structures as corporations. Nonprofits have the additional burden of constant fundraising and the transparency required to donors insuring their contributions are primarily directed to programs supporting their mission. Nonprofits also require the same infrastructure of any corporation including information technology, human resources, accounting, legal services, communication strategists, purchasing and project management along with a dependence on volunteers. 

Myth #2: Nonprofit employees spend all their time focused on their cause. The reality is while a nonprofit is not focused on shareholders and stock prices, the organization needs a revenue stream to maintain their programs and services. Fundraising and funding again becomes a focus. Whether the revenue stream comes from the government, businesses, individuals in the community or a mix of these sources, time is required to build and maintain relationships with funders. There are fundraising events to plan, grants to be written and after action reports due explaining to donors how their gifts were utilized.  In the nonprofit setting employees wear many hats, so “that’s not my job” is not an appropriate response.

Myth #3: Everyone working for nonprofits is “nice”.  As a donor, board member or volunteer people see nonprofit employees at their best. Many employees in the nonprofit sector are passionate, mission-driven individuals focused on their cause, however, all people have their flaws and that’s true in the nonprofit arena as well as corporate America. Work stress and burnout from difficult co-workers, office politics, a poor work environment or negligent leadership happens at nonprofits just like any other organization. The same skill sets used to manage challenging relationships in earlier jobs will help in the nonprofit environment.

Before making the switch from the for-profit world to the nonprofit sector, do your homework to insure the organization you plan to join is legitimate and a good steward of donor contributions. This can be done by consulting resources including www.guidestar.org, or the Better Business Bureau Charity List or Charitynavigator.org.

Job Burnout: Your Co-worker's Problem

Monday Morning Pep Talk

It’s the elephant in the room. 

After nearly a decade of layoffs, mergers/acquisitions, constant corporate change and cutbacks, threats of unemployment and volatile 401(k) values putting retirements at risk; is it any wonder that some of your co-workers are experiencing burnout?

The medical profession is ripe for career burnout and  the incidence is well-documented in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Archive of Internal Medicine and other professional journals. What about the employees of companies outside the medical field? 

Mayo Clinic offers these questions your co-worker can ask themselves:

• Are you troubled by unexplained headaches, backaches or other physical complaints?
• Are you using food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or to simply feel?
• Do you feel disillusioned about your job?
• Have you become irritable or impatient with with co-workers, customers or clients?
• Do you drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started once you arrive? 
• Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive?
• Have you become cynical or critical at work?
• Do you lack the the the energy to be consistently productive? 
• Have your sleep habits or appetite changed? 

There are many factors that contribute to job burnout. It is a root cause of declining employee engagement, declining productivity and increased health care costs human resources is trying to reverse in the workplace. Corporate America didn’t need the 2010 Gallup study by Harter to tell them lower job satisfaction foreshadowed decreasing bottom-line performance. Back then Gallup estimate $300 Billion annually lost to employee disengagement.

In the past three years, one of the most consistently viewed blog post I have written is about losing self-confidence as one ages in the workforce.

http://workinglater.blogspot.com/2012/07/where-did-my-confidence-go-i-know-its.html

Experienced workers face a host of challenges and this includes pressures at home to compound doing more with less at work. So this week, practice patience, tolerance and being human to your colleagues. Help is available confidentially through Employee Assistance Plans, health care professionals and through your trusted support network. Take some time to enjoy yourself over the next 168 hours!

Check Out: 

Positivity by Barbara L. Frederickson, Ph.D.

Flourish by Martin E. P. Seligman

Employability: Finding a Job When You Need One, Part 1

The ability to find a job that covers your current expenses and leaves a cushion for savings and fun is my definition of employability. As an experienced worker it is an evaluation we should make before the time comes that it has to be tested. Working past 62 enhances your retirement security more than you might think. The case for staying employed doing part-time or even short duration (temp) jobs past 55 or 59 ½ when I see some workers leaving the workforce angry, forced-out or burnt-out is critical to their financial survival for a lifetime that can easily last to age 90. The point of this blog post is not to convince why you should stay employable; it is how to find a job as an experienced worker. Here are two of my five best tips. The other 3 tips are in Part II. Add your ideas as a comment to this post:

#1: Networking correctly works. This is not becoming a LinkedIn LION or having 500+ connections or writing a blog that has 10,000 viewers per post. These accomplishments are impressive, but they will not help you find you a job when you need one in a hurry. To network correctly, you should know who will take action on your behalf and not just who knows you. Before you need it, try to develop a network of at least a dozen connections that will (a) make a phone call on your behalf to introduce you to someone; (b) send an e-mail or LinkedIn to a connection to “introduce” you to a hiring manager or recruiter; (c) act as a reference when you need one for a job; (d) forward your resume, so the hiring manager will “ask” the recruiter to pull it out of the applicant tracking system. These types of connections are built over time and require trust, contact and knowledge of your work.


#2: Take Care of Yourself. 20% of people in their 50s and 60s have a health issue or disability that makes it nearly impossible to work according to a business television show I watched recently. I’m not sure of their source, but I do know that in a competitive corporate environment absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Look like you can do the job. When you are constantly off sick for a variety of maladies, I know it is not your fault. From a corporate perspective, if management figures out the work gets done while you’re gone three months—it is not helpful the next time layoffs roll around. What can you do? Do your best to stay healthy, be lively and energetic at work so your vitality comes through. Do Not discuss your aches and pains with your co-workers; tell your doctor or your relatives, not your boss. Don’t be a martyr and come to work sick and risk everyone else’s health because you need the money. That’s kind of an oxymoron to what I’ve said above, but everyone will remember you for the wrong reason if your germs undermine your co-workers and their families.

Employability: Finding a Job When You Need One, Part 2

The ability to secure work as an experienced worker doesn’t begin in your 50s and 60s. The relationships you create with your managers, suppliers, co-workers and subordinates decades earlier in your career will help you later. Part I focused on networking with the “right” people and keeping yourself in the game physically. In Part II, my final three components of employability are listed and I’d be interested in yours as a comment on the blog:

#3: Play Well with Others: At a certain point in your career at 50+ many of your company’s senior leadership team and your direct manager may be younger than you. I had a manager twenty-one years younger than me!  It is not just a different generation; it is a different mindset and he had a perception of mature workers (it wasn’t good).  I’ll repeat what you already know—the dynamic of Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Generation X (born 1965-1981) and Millennials (1982-2004) in the workforce with a smattering of “The Greatest Generation” ( a term coined by Tom Brokaw) brings a clash of values to the workforce Corporate America is ignoring. While there are stereotypes for each generational cohort, from my Boomer perspective, “the boss is still the boss.” So, I treated “Boy Wonder” (a derogatory name coined by my friends) with the respect I treated previous managers and worked hard to dispel the myths that someone my age couldn’t master new software programs, perform my job duties or working with me was like working with his mother. I endured him and like they often do; he finally went away. (Hear me breathing a sigh of relief)

#4: Leverage Your Experience: In a US News & World Report 2010 blog post advised that if you make money or save money for a company, it protects your job. “It would be silly to let go of somebody who is making you money…” their post continues. Everyone 50+ knows it happens, a lot. A typical example is an employee who was the number one sales representative in a division of a Fortune 50 company whose combination of high base salary and long tenure found her surprisingly laid-off in the company’s first wave of reductions in force. Highly compensated non-management employees are an issue for companies when they have to provide lump sum raise annually instead of the average 3% merit increase in 2014 because their base salary has topped the range or band for their role. Try to protect yourself from sudden unemployment by finding and accepting a new role within the company that moves you into a different salary grade or broadband, if you currently receive lump sum annual increases. You might also try to expand your duties to move into a position so your salary is not in the upper deciles.

#5: Maintain a Professional Image: Humans are primarily visual beings with some researchers claiming 90% of the transmitted information in the human brain is visual. There are hundreds of studies of about physical attractiveness bias in business. While most 40+ and 50+ workers would look ridiculous dressed like a college student, men and women should keep the clothing they wear to work, their hair and anything about their visual appearance updated. Department stores often have free personal shoppers to help you create your perfect look for an important interview or meeting. Aim for styling yourself so you feel confident.

Use these five tips along with whatever skills and attitudes are unique to your workplace to be successful where you work today and able to get a new job if needed in the future.

While You Weren't Looking....

Timing is everything. It is used by the most strategic communicators to insure their message doesn’t hit a busy news day and is drowned out by other stories. Johnson & Johnson’s announcement Thursday that they are suspending their defined benefit pension plan for employees who join the firm after January 1, 2015 was a timed release. Thursday was September 11, Patriot’s Day in the United States and a day of remembrance when the news media, even the business media was focused on what happened in America thirteen years ago. It was the perfect day for the world’s biggest maker of health care products to release that news to media. On September 10, J&J management presented a rosy, yet cautious picture at the Morgan Stanley Health Care Conference. On September 11 you tell your workforce the pension plan won’t be there for your kids when you get them hired. Timing.

So, this is the part of the blog post, where I share in full transparency that I am an early retiree of J&J. At this point, I know from the scant news coverage this story garnered, that current retirees (like me) and active employees are not impacted. This action is for new hires and re-hires after 1/1/2015, I know that because I read it on the Internet. I probably have a letter coming from J&J’s benefit service center’s HQ in Lincolnshire, IL explaining I am not impacted at all. That letter hasn’t arrived yet. Timing.

I am certainly not surprised J&J’s defined benefit plan went away. I came to work for the company primarily because they offered the plan. In my 21 years of work prior to joining the health care giant my previous employers only offered 401(k) or defined contribution plans. In 401(k) plans you pay and the company matches. In defined benefit (DB) plans, the company pays 100% and you are guaranteed* a set amount for life or in J&J’s plan design until you are 90-years-old. I’ll figure out what to about 90 to death when I get there. According to a report by Towers Watson, an employee benefit consulting firm, about 24% of Fortune 500 companies offer “DB” plans to new hires in a considerable decline over the years.

Hopefully, you read the previous blog post: Pension Smoothing, Potholes & Pork. I highly recommend it.  

http://workinglater.blogspot.com/2014/09/pension-smoothing-potholes-and-pork.html

DB plans are notorious for being underfunded (aka not having enough money to pay the amount of money owed). J&J is no different. From a J&J public website on strategic framework—oh forget it, I’ll just let corporate communications speak for themselves:

“At the end of fiscal year 2012, the projected benefit obligation was $21,829 million, and the fair value of the assets equaled $17,536 million, for a shortfall of $4,293 million. Discretionary contributions are made when deemed appropriate to meet the plan’s long-term obligations. For more information, see Note 10 in our 2012 10-K Annual Report.”

All I know is when I do get ready to tap into my DB money, I hope there is a big pile of cash with my name on it and the plan is not “short” (aka underfunded, broke, busted…). Timing.

Pension Smoothing, Potholes and Pork

Generally I keep politics out of this blog. Then I heard about pension smoothing. It is the latest sleight of hand trick in government and don’t worry, it is equally loved by all political parties and even many labor unions. On the surface it appears to be a victimless maneuver only affecting the millions of people counting on a future pension payment from American companies. So, what is pension smoothing?

Simply put, pension smoothing allows companies to defer making mandatory contributions to defined benefit pensions plans in order to use that money for any reason they choose. Pension smoothing was added to a recent transportation bill that covers repairs to highways, bridges and subways saving the Highway Trust Fund from bankruptcy. Just to make the entire situation more complicated, in addition to funding the highway work, this bill also saves 700,000 American jobs.

Here’s the risk: To solve the short-term issues of maintaining the nation’s road infrastructure; companies do not have to fully fund their pension plans which may mean more plans won’t have the money to meet their obligations to pensioners later. According to a survey by Pensions & Investments, a money management newspaper, the largest 100 U. S. pension plans were underfunded by $122.3 billion in 2013 and that was an improvement!

Companies today put much of the retirement burden on the employees by focusing on 401(k) plans where workers cobble together a DIY strategy to save for the future. However, there are millions of employees counting on employer-paid defined benefit plan payouts for at least a portion of their wealth when they are too old to work. Pensions are in trouble as city and municipal workers in Detroit, Stockton, CA along with Pennsylvania school districts and other public employees across the country realize. Private sector pensions are no better as the retirees of Hostess Brands, who bring us Wonder Bread, Twinkies and other goodies, learned in 2012 when the company filed bankruptcy. The PBGC, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a government agency had to step in and rescue their plan.

The concept of the PBGC is itself an oxymoron. The same Congress that is encouraging companies to delay funding their pensions has a safety net for 44 million workers covered by defined-benefit private pension plans, the PBGC. When private sector firms cannot meet their liability, the PBGC pays an amount less than the company-promised benefit, but it is something. The problem is that in their July 3, 2014 annual report, the PBGC says it is “90% likely to run out of funds in 2025.” The biggest birth year of Baby Boomers will be 68-years-old in 2025 with plenty of life ahead of them, but maybe not as many job prospects.

Creating a Career Path: A Personal Story

Friend of the Blog--Tiffany Hatfield shares her story of deciding on a career path. As our careers evolve over time and we choose one opportunity over another or decide to remain with one company instead of making a move, we are creating a path. Some create it consciously and for others one day comes after another and things happen to us. Like Tiffany, I prefer to blaze my own career trail. That isn't necessarily the right approach for everyone. Thank you Tiffany for letting us look inside your decision points in creating your career path

By Tiffany Hatfield, linkedin.com/tiffanyhatfield1

This year I began to reconsider the focus of my work. This article lays out that process.

Fresh out of grad school, I began work as a nonprofit division manager. In twelve years I doubled the budget, tripled the program base, managed two strategic plan processes and completed a nine-year project to achieve national accreditation for the site.

But the organization I worked for had no position that I could be promoted to. And after twelve years, I needed a change.

So I left the organization and started consulting, specializing in grant research, strategy and proposal writing, all of which were part of my previous job, this time for cultural and human service organizations.

The business goal? To find two or three part-time contracts that would fill the work week. Did that happen? Heck no.

I ended up spending thirteen years riding the waves of cyclical grant deadlines, and learning how to look at my budget in 4-month increments.

Many months, days, nights and weekends in 2013 were spent serving the largest client load I’d ever had (!), but the downside was that I started to feel the pangs of burnout.

Something had to change, but what? Continue in grant writing alone, or expand to other forms of writing? Leave self-employment? If so, doing what?

I had to find answers, and fast. I discovered the incredible gift of informational meetings, and the time and advice from people whose work I respected (some I’d never even met before!).   

So I set up the annual calendar of work with my clients and began a dogged pursuit to the answers to my questions. My resources became (and still are) Passport to Employment (golove.org/passport), Work One (workoneindy.org), Accountability Group at WorkOne, and lots and lots and lots of networking. Lots of it. Lots.

From one colleague’s recommendation, I added blogging and article writing to my work. You’d think that I would naturally have done that already, but all my writing energies went to the client, and those grants rarely had my name on them. It is exciting now to contribute to Inside Edge, a daily Indiana business news e-blast, about how to seek grants (the Perspectives column), and also to serve as a contributor here, on LinkedIn, and hopefully more by the end of this year.  

So, going forward from here, I’ll continue consulting until I am eventually employed with one organization. And I’ll keep writing regardless of where I’m working. Thank you for reading!