Tag Archives: Workforce development

Retreat at Work

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Having a “regular job” the past 7 ½ years hasn’t been the norm for me. Project work, consulting, tutoring, along with freelancing, sprinkled a few other “moonlighting” gigs have gotten me through. This followed what felt at the time was being “kicked to the curve.” A role I was perfectly suited for and really loved being in, ended when our idiot governor at the time thought he knew better than anyone how the state’s workforce development system functioned, and de-funded parts of it. His petulance at the time affected me directly and ended six years of successful local and statewide initiatives.

In August, I went back to work. My new position is a part-time one. I’m still surviving as a writer. This requires maintaining a patchwork-quilt of income streams. I’m also spending a few Saturdays each month advising young drivers on safer practices behind the wheel.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure embracing change would end well, or even last more than a few weeks. But I’d been a satisfied consumer at this not-for-profit committed to delivering healthcare in a way that still values the patient, so I knew firsthand that their core values were genuine. When I learned they were looking for people with customer service experience and skills, I applied.

Being in a healthcare setting as an employee isn’t that far afield for me. One of my better jobs I had found me landing at Healthsource back in 1997, when they were still locally managed. Continue reading →

Speaking in Public

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An amalgamation of skills acquired across a lifetime continues to intrigue and also puzzle me. My skill set offers surprises, too. Where did it come from? Were there models in my life that I emulated that led me to them?

Public speaking is a primary one. My evolution as a speaker was a gradual one. I never envisioned when I was in my late teens or early 20s that I’d become someone who would eventually speak before a myriad of groups, and deliver a host of disparate topics, mainly after the age of 40.

When I was a player attending classes mainly to maintain my spot on the Maine Black Bears fall baseball roster and so I could pitch for John Winkin, I enrolled in Public Speaking 101. The class of primarily freshman and sophomores—most of whom dreaded getting up to speak—offered me that first taste of the thrill that I’ve always experienced standing before a group, and the sense of power inherent in being able to do that. While most people equate speaking in public with fear, cold sweats, and ostracism, I was learning back in 1980 that this skill was a valuable one to have in your back pocket.

At 18, I wasn’t committed to my craft. I simply chose a topic and basically got up and riffed on a few things I knew, threw in a joke or two, and thought I was something special. I wasn’t. What allowed me to pull this off back then was some belief I managed to summon from somewhere. I believed I could do it. Continue reading →

Looking Ahead and Planning Today

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Fashion dictates planning for the upcoming year on New Year’s Eve—that’s if your fashion sense tends towards procrastination. But, is the second week of November, especially a month dead set on maximizing the mildness of the season, the time to begin thinking about 2016?

If you’ve played the resolutions game with a fresh new calendar staring you in the face, then you know that the first six weeks of any new year is the duration of most people’s plan for success, and their implementation phase. How do I know this? Past experience. Also, I used to be a member of Planet Fitness in Auburn for a couple of years while working out of the CareerCenter on the other side of the river. I got to see firsthand that six-week spike played out with a flurry of new members crowding the gym during some New Year’s promotion. By the middle of February, however, people were falling by the wayside and by the end of the month, there was no more waiting for machines. Come March, it was the same old regulars grunting and sweating at 5:30 in the morning, another great anecdotal example that the wait-until-the-start-of-the-year approach has serious shortcomings.

In considering the past year, I now realize how often and mistakenly have characterized it as an unsuccessful year in my own perception. I’m now recognizing that this hasn’t been an accurate frame. A better way of looking at the past 11 months might be one of gaining valuable experience and some new perspective. The key to maintaining a success mindset involves building on a foundation set on these essential learnings.

Seeking out the signpost of success.

Seeking out the signpost of success.

Continue reading →

Scripting Your Life

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Is it possible to script your own life? Can you put things into play that lead to the outcomes you desire?

When I used to do workforce development, which involved training and preparing individuals for employment, I was amazed by how many of our trainees’ lives were out of control. Poor choices in men, past employment decisions that marred resumes, the permanent altering of aspects of their bodies, and criminal histories, all severely limited many in the choice of work we could train them for. There are reasons why some jobs pay $9/hour, while others pay $20.

Setting off in a certain direction 10 years ago, I had a global sense of where I wanted to go. My primary goal at the time was leaving the place where I was working—at Moscow Mutual—embarking on a life of writing. Looking back on 2004 from my current vantage point, I am amazed by how few of the specifics I had figured out at that moment in time in respect to reaching this point on the timeline of my life—for instance, I had no clue about what a gap analysis was. Continue reading →

Reconsidering Our Education Model

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Having a generalized set of skills can be an advantage if you’re an entrepreneur, a free agent, or someone who has already become fully immersed in the new economy of the 21st century. While colleges are abandoning liberal arts majors in droves in favor of specialization, the inherent value of what higher education offers is also coming under increased scrutiny by some.

What are these “general” skills that I speak of? Is there a core toolkit of skills that someone looking to make it as a free agent should have? What are the skills that I’ve been able to cobble together and master, or at least become proficient at many over the past 10 years? Continue reading →

Don’t Wait Too Long

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Maine has lost one of its workforce champions.

Maine has lost one of its workforce champions.

Mentoring has become somewhat of a lost art in our culture. At one time, it was an expectation that older men would pass on their knowledge and wisdom to those younger and on their way up. Some cultures still maintain elements of this. I think it’s a positive thing. Continue reading →

Communication Breakdown

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School boy from the 1970sI’m glad that I went to school when I did. My public school teachers may have been part of a nefarious plot to turn me into a minor cog in some impersonal corporate machine. Or they might have just been putting in their time until retirement, weathering each successive storm of boomer births. Something along the way foiled their intent, however. Continue reading →

Raging against the machine (not so much)

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Corporations have become easy targets for criticism and even outrage. Railing against them has actually spawned a chic cottage industry with multiple offshoots and subsidiaries.

Corporations are first and foremost a business entity or construct. Possibly the most important aspect of this business structure is that corporations exist separate and apart from their owners.  We think of corporations as giant, impersonal behemoths; uncaring and unfeeling. Surprisingly, many corporations are quite small. Continue reading →

The aging workforce and disability

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My background in workforce development makes me take the larger or holistic (a term I like to use) view about our workforce. Last week’s USBLN conference in Orlando was informative and I came away with a better understanding of the specifics of employment and other initiatives for people with disabilities. However, it was still important for me to come away with some “big picture” takeaways from the conference.

The issue of an aging workforce in America is a significant one. Interestingly, this doesn’t get talked about by the two candidates for president. Workforce issues have been airbrushed from the national debate, like many other important topics. Continue reading →

Conferences come to an end

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It’s hard to believe four days have gone by so fast. USBLN 2012 is now officially in the books.

As a BLN rookie, I didn’t know what to expect. My first thought when I found out shortly after being hired in August that I was going to a national conference was, “why Orlando?” I should have known not to be overly critical before arriving. Continue reading →