Rosa Parks will be honored on February 27, 2013 when lawmakers will unveil a statue of this first lady of the civil rights movement in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.

The ceremony, which coincides with the end of Black History Month, will be attended by President Barack Obama and other lawmakers. Mrs. Parks, is best known for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in segregated Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.  Her brave actions sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  She will be the first black woman to have a statue in the Capitol.  She joins the ranks of such great Americans as Jefferson Davis, Thomas Fulton, Brigham Young, Ethan Allen, Sequoya and many others.

House Speaker John Boehner said, “Mrs. Parks takes her rightful place alongside the inventors, war heroes, freedom fighters, and doers who represent the heart of the American story. It’s another breakthrough for someone who has made so many of them possible.”

Mrs. Parks died in 2005 and laid in repose in the Capitol’s rotunda. She was the first woman and second African American to receive the honor. Shortly after her death, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. introduced a bill to honor her with a statue in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law two months later.

Judy Mackenzie

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As for Danica, she says she was raised to be the fastest driver on the track, not the fastest girl.  In an interview on CNN, Danica told Don Lemon, “I’ve heard stories about a kid, a boy or a girl, saying, ‘But mommy, daddy. That’s a girl that’s out there racing.’ And then they can have that conversation to say that, ‘You can do anything you want to do, and gender doesn’t matter.’ Your passion is what matters. And that’s cool.”

Following her passion led her to break barriers on the Indy car circuit and, as she’s made the transition to NASCAR, the barriers continue to fall. Her popularity with race fans has led to corporate sponsorships and branding. She has become a household name. For a generation of girls who grew up watching the likes of Mario Andretti and Dale Earnhardt, seeing a woman not just making the field but leading it is a dream come true.

Whether you’re a NASCAR fan, an Indy car fan or neither, Danica Patrick presents an inspiration.  Don’t strive to be the best woman in your field. Instead strive be the best in your field.

Judy Mackenzie

The post Danica Patrick: Breaking Barrriers appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

I love what I do

because I have such an appetite for learning that I can get distracted very quickly.  This topic also was the subject of one of my favourite authors, Clayton Christensen.  So I looked around me and started asking the tough questions. I am winning, losing or just treading water.

It is always hard to take the time to reflect on your progress.  It feels like a touchy, feely thing to do but you might be surprised to know that the most successful people do it all the time. It is what keeps them honest, in integrity and balanced.  How else can they juggle their complex lives. Of course we have seen the Bernie Maddocks of the world who is the epitome of “failing”. Sadly, he didn’t start to carry out a jail term. He had a big future ahead of him but he lost track of his core values and greed took over.

Bernie is one of the big news failures but we see them around us, far too often. I am a coach and I teach coaching in corporations. The reason I do this is to cut the amount of stress employees and managers are under. How many people do you know that would love to leave their job and do something different? How many people do you know hate their job?  I can’t help but wonder what the consequence of these feelings about their job  has on them, their co-workers, their managers, their customers, their family and everyone else that gets in their path. How can they feel good about themselves and continue in this negative pattern.

I am not going  to reinvent the wheel here. I follow this wonderful young man by the name of Scott Dinsmore.   This link is worth a look as he has a great community build around loving your workplace (maybe not the one you are in now but a new one).  His ideas follow mine in that the first key things you must do when you are thinking about your life going forward is;

• You will actually have to decide where you want to be in 5 and 10 years. I know that sounds like old school but it really is creating a destination point for your journey. If you don’t know where you want to go any road will take you there. This is dangerous to not have a vision of where you want to end up.
• Are you investing in your brain? Are you learning new things. Remember university and college was just the start. When was the last time you invested in a book about leadership or watched a training video on something that relates to your interests. You get the idea.
• Are you taking care of your body?  This handy little thing is the only way you can get around easily. It is worth the effort.

Okay, that is lots to think about today. I do recommend Clayton’s book and check out Scott’s site. These are investments in you.  Your life plan is calling.  Take good care of yourself.

Judy Mackenzie

The post Am I Winning in the Game of Life? appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

Violence against women presents in frighteningly high statistics. Three women are killed by intimate partners every day.  One in six women has been raped. Countless women live in the shadow of abuse and fear. The Violence Against Women Act has garnered a great deal of attention recently. VAWA was originally passed in 1994 and is usually is extended without much of a production but last year Congress failed to do so when some members of the House objected to expanding provisions to include Native Americans, undocumented immigrants and members of the LGBT community.  VAWA supports programs and services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.

This year’s version of the Senate bill authorizes $659 billion over the next five years for VAWA programs. It also expands VAWA to include additional measures to protect LGBT and Native American victims of domestic violence but leaves out protections for undocumented immigrants.  Provisions will also increase attention to sexual assault prevention and to help reduce a backlog in processing rape kits.  The bill passed the Senate on February 12, 2013 by a vote of 78 – 22 with 62 cosponsors.

As the bill moves to the House, it’s fate remains unclear. A question many raise is why anyone would object to protecting women. Senator Marco Rubio D-FL, who voted against the Senate version of the bill has issued a  statement citing several concerns including giving Indian tribal courts jurisdiction over any incidents that occurred on tribal lands including over persons of non-Indian descent.  All eyes now turn to the a House and already seventeen House members have written to Speaker of the House John Boehner R-OH and Majority Leader Eric Cantor R-VA recommending immediate passing of a bipartisan VAWA bill but without specifically endorsing the Senate’s version.

“Now is the time to seek bipartisan compromise on the reauthorization of these programs,” the letter reads. “VAWA programs save lives, and we must allow states and communities the opportunity to build upon the success of current VAWA programs so that we can help even more people.”

Judy Mackenzie

The post Why You Should Care About VAWA appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

The question that this raises is whether or not quotas will help or hurt the cause of female executives?  On that question there are divisions both in academic circles and among female executives.  Two powerful women from Norway, the first to impose mandatory quotas, offer up opposing opinions.

“We oppose it out of principle,” said Nina Solli at the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, an employer’s association. “Owners of companies should be able to decide who is on boards of directors. We are in favor of the goals of diversity on boards and in management but not with these kinds of strategies.”

“If you want a transformative change, if you want something to move forward faster, you sometimes have to impose mechanisms to reach that,” said Hilde Tonne, executive vice president and head of group industrial development at Norway’s largest telecoms company Telenor. She doesn’t subscribe to the idea that this leads to tokenism. “You want someone to be there because they are the best candidate,” she said. “I think you get more and more competent women to choose from and you get more and more men that have had to compete with women so they are more competent now as well.”

We’d like to know what you think.  Will quotas help or hurt in breaking the glass ceiling once and for all?

Judy Mackenzie

The post Are Quotas The Key to The Boardroom? appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

In doing a little incidental research, I’ve spoken with several friends on this topic.  One woman, a divorced lawyer in her late 30′s usually meets men through mutual acquaintances.  She’s met some enough oddballs to start keeping a list entitled ‘Men I Will Not Date’. My personal favorite was a fellow lawyer who threw a paperclip at her in a bar then picked it up and asked her if she’d dropped it.  Some of the men she’s met are only interested in ‘hooking up’ and not any sort of real relationship.  While her anecdotes are funny and definitely book worthy, the frustrations she faces are not uncommon.

Two other friends have tried online dating. While this eliminates some issues it introduces new ones.  One woman doesn’t want children while the other would consider adopting or step-parenting. One prefers tall men. One loves to travel. Online dating profiles certainly make it easier to weed out the incompatibles. However, it’s easy to get lured into a false sense of the person you’re dealing with when all you have to go by is a string of emails.  The old Internet warning that a person can pretend to be anything online still applies.

How much do you choose to reveal to a perfect stranger?  You could consider setting up a separate email account for online dating purposes, but if you’re a professional woman with any online presence at all, once a person knows your name, you’re going to be pretty easy to find.  This is particularly true of entrepreneurs. Your contact information is readily available. Social media accounts offer up a bevy of personal information.

There’s a whole new dating etiquette out there. How many emails to you exchange before do you decide to exchange phone numbers? How many conversations before you decide to meet?  Where do you meet? Do you go alone or as part of a group? These are all factors to consider before diving into the online dating pool.

One thing is certain, all the women I spoke with are perfectly willing to hold out for The Right One rather than lower their standards.  We’re more educated and independent than in past generations. We’d like someone to share our lives with but we don’t need a partner to validate our existence or to provide financial security. We’re doing just fine on our own, thank you, and we’re not going to settle for cheesy pickup lines or being strung along.

Judy Mackenzie

The post Professional Women & Dating appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

The glass ceiling is a question worth reframing.  Rather than asking if a glass ceiling exists, lets ask who is perpetuating it.  Are we as women, getting out of own way?  Speak up. Women have a tendency to be more reticent than men, especially when we’re younger and less sure of ourselves. Take on the visible roles on projects.  Lead meetings.  Make yourself heard on the conference calls.

Equal pay for equal work has long been a thorn in the side of working women.  While giant strides have been made, we’re not quite there yet.  Especially important is determining a fair starting salary.  The amount start with will become the baseline for every increase following.  Don’t sell yourself short. One of the most important things we can do to help ourselves is to ask for the pay increases we deserve.   Keep your own accounting of what contributions you have made to the company.  As with taking leadership roles, reticence will only hurt your pay scale.

One of the more persistent stereotypes is that of women being more ‘chatty’ and less business-like.  Pay attention to what you’re saying or writing.  Eliminate unnecessary or superfluous wording.  Bullet points are your best friends when trying to clearly convey information in emails. When speaking, devise your points carefully and stick with them.

We don’t have to be like men to succeed in this business world.  We do need to embrace our drive, our passion and our ambitions.  Being assertive and confident traditionally comes with age and experience but don’t be afraid to take the risks that will give you the experience you need to grow.

Judy Mackenzie

The post Advice for Younger Women in Business appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

Now Hiring

Has your team had too much to do lately? Are people increasingly overworked and stressed, because of the volume of tasks they must complete? How do you know when to hire new workers? This is not easy to decide. There’s much more to consider than just your current staff’s protests that they have too much to do.

When NOT to Create a New Role

Hiring a team member at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons can cost you time, and waste money. There are several factors that do not justify a permanent addition to your team:

• Seasonal increases in workload – If your team is overworked at specific times of the year, then hire temporary help to relieve the workload.
• One-time or unusual projects – If your people are responsible for delivering an unusually large project that’s outside either the type or volume of “business as usual” work, then consider using contractors to meet this temporary change in staffing requirements. You can use contractors to do the project work itself, or you can use them to do the regular work of your permanent staff, whose expertise you need to deliver the project.
• Sick or vacationing team members – Again, temporary staffing can help fill these gaps.
• Complaining staff members – If people on your team complain about their workload, then make sure they’re managing their time well. You can fix poor time management much more easily than hiring someone new to do some of their work.
• Before you decide to hire a permanent addition to your team, make sure your team members are managing their time effectively, are properly resourced, and are working as efficiently as possible. Also, make sure that their heavy workload isn’t just temporary.

When to Consider a New Role

So, what does justify creating a new job in your organization?

• Consistent work overload – The main indicator that your people need extra help is that they’re consistently overloaded with tasks and projects. If they work hard and manage their time effectively, then adding a role will increase your team’s productivity as well as reduce stress.
• Regular use of contractors – Do you already use a lot of temporary workers, contractors or freelancers? If you regularly hire outside help, this could mean that you need a permanent person. Contractors often cost more per hour than your permanent staff, and they generally don’t know your organization as well. Analyzing the hidden costs as well as the more obvious costs will help you decide whether to use contractors or create new, permanent roles to get the best overall value for money.
• Improvements in the economy – If a role was eliminated, there might be laws that determine when it can be reactivated, so talk to your HR department early in your decision-making process. They’ll be able to advise you on whether you can create a new permanent role, and what the scope of the role can and cannot be.
• Time spent on tasks that don’t need your expertise – Your own schedule and tasks can determine if you need additional help. If you spend most of your day performing tasks that could easily be done by someone less skilled (and therefore cheaper), then creating a new role could actually help you increase revenue or productivity. This would free some of your time to focus on more profitable tasks and strategies.

When and How to Structure Team Growth

• Option 1: Hire in advance – Proactively hire someone before your team gets really busy. Hiring in advance allows you to train new people before workloads increase, so that you can maintain turnaround times and quality levels.
• Option 2: Wait until the need is obvious – If you wait until work volumes increase to a level where people are over-stretched, then you’ll have to recruit and train during a very busy time. And by the time your new worker is trained enough to be effective, you’ll have risked upsetting existing staff because they’re overworked and stressed.

Both options have benefits and risks, and it’s important to choose a path that’s right for you, your team, and your organization.

Key Points

Creating a new role takes time and careful thought. Start by identifying why you or your team needs help. If you have a temporary increase in workload, or if several workers are out sick or on vacation, then hire temporary help. If business forecasts show a big increase in the near future, then carefully consider your two main options: hiring now to train the new team member, or waiting until business has already increased.

If your organization requires HR approval, then make sure you have the budget for a new role, write a detailed job description, and learn about other HR requirements for the approval process.

Compliments of:

JANIS STRATHEARN

Direct | 604.731.2073

Cell: | 604.313.4866

Finding Exceptionally Talented IT Professionals for Outstanding Career Opportunities.

Judy Mackenzie

The post When to Create a New Role – Choosing the Right Time to Expand Your Team appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

For centuries men were expected to be the main providers or breadwinners for their families.  As times have changed, women have established themselves in the working world alongside their male counterparts.  But what about responsibilities at home?  Working women, even those working full-time careers were often still viewed as a ‘second wage earner’ not as the primary breadwinner for the family.  They maintained nearly the same level of responsibility in childcare and household tasks as their ancestral female forebears while also holding down full-time careers.  Times are changing yet again.  Women are now more likely to seek a masters degree than their male counterparts. Women have steadily outpaced men in earning higher degrees since the late 1990′s.

There has been a slow but steady societal shift in which women are taking over as the primary breadwinner and handing off more of the domestic tasks to their significant others.  According to the most recent census, one in five stay-at-home parents is a man.  More women are reporting that they share equally household chores such as cleaning, laundry and cooking than in previous decades.  In a rising number of cases, the husbands are shouldering more of the chores then their wives.  Childcare is the one area where women still tend to take on more than their husband.

Does that mean that a woman who earns more has more power?  Not necessarily.  A majority of breadwinner wives surveyed report that they share power equally with their spouses.   A similar majority report that they are very happy in their marriages, whether they had children or not made little difference in that number.

Judy Mackenzie

The post Breadwinner Wives appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.

If you remember when we were kids in school, we looked forward to summer vacation. We worked hard all year and we knew that come June, we were going to get a nice long break.  As we grew up and entered the workforce, we quickly learned to looked forward to the weekends, when we could take a much needed break from the stress of the job.  But our society has experienced a major shift in the span of a single generation.  Our workday doesn’t always end when we leave the office.  In some cases, our office is in our home, beckoning us. We carry our tablets and smartphones with us 24/7. We’re rarely out of touch with the goings on at the office.  Entrepreneurs are especially prone to this trait. An urgent email from a client can sneak into dinner time, even if you don’t answer it right away, it nags at the back of your mind throughout the meal.

This type of constant busyness adds to our stress levels. The longterm effects of this stress buildup are unhealthy.  As our body responds to stress by producing chemicals such as adrenaline and natural steroids. In the short term, these are normal and healthy but constant longterm stress has given rise to an epidemic of depression in the United States.  Some researchers also believe that longterm exposure to stress hormones may increase the risk of diabetes and obesity.

There is a new push for the return to a traditional a day of rest.  Many are finding a day to spend time with family and to enjoy downtime is the antidote to our hectic lifestyles. That may mean curling up with a great novel, writing a great novel or maybe taking a nice long run, whatever relaxes and rejuvenates you.  If you have a family, it can take some real effort to introduce the idea of a day off that applies to everyone. No sporting events.  No practices. No homework projects. No checking in on the home office. But with a little creative scheduling and a some time to adjust, it can be healthier for everyone.  The benefits move beyond physical health.  Stress and gadget attachment can also seriously impact our relationships, which, you guessed it, raises our stress levels even higher.

Judy Mackenzie

The post A Day Off appeared first on TEVO Small Biz.