Despite the importance of human resources to businesses in handling the critical functions of recruitment, retention and developing the workforce, many of those in other departments look at HR with less than friendly feelings. Many managers perceive their company’s human resources department to be inefficient and more of a drag on progress rather than a contributor to it.

Business consultant Ron Ashkenas asks why this happens, and proposes that much of the conflict arises as a result of the transformations that are taking place in human resources today.

Companies are spending a lot of money to improve the basic functions of human resources and to develop the information processes involved with it. Naturally, it takes time to do all of this and (not unsurprisingly) there may be glitches now and then as the transition takes place. Moreover, companies are trying to give their human resources departments more of a strategic role in the business, taking over such things as assessing worker skills, developing leaders within the company, managing change and effectiveness in the business. This also takes considerable time.

Part of the challenge also stems from the role human resources plays and what managers expect from the department. The problem lies in educating managers about the need for them to step in and take the role in the development of their staff members. It is essential for managers to understand that they are accountable for things such as the assessment and growth of the employees in their own department, as well as rewarding and recognizing those workers.

By having department managers take over this kind of role, human resources is then able to focus on company-wide strategic planning, looking at problems that might crop up, seeing how business plans will affect employees and making sure that the best people are working on the most critical needs.

One way to help change department managers’ perception of human resources is to rotate people between human resources and management jobs, Ashkenas says. This will help whittle the perception that the human resources department is something separate and isolated from real business concerns.

When you need help finding great professionals for your Washington, DC-area construction, engineering or architecture firm, contact RealStreet Staffing. We can help you source, vet and place great workers for temporary and direct-hire assignments. We look forward to hearing from you!

When writing a resume, we have a certain image of our career in mind, an image of how it has progressed, and what we have done. It is this version that we present to employers when we apply for a job.

But career counselor Penelope Trunk says that if we are looking to switch careers or change jobs, we need to reevaluate the standard interpretation of our career, the one we have always used.

There are different ways of looking at the same events, depending on what you want to highlight or what perspective you are looking from. And this is something that many job hunters overlook. They continue to tell the same story about their career, when what they need is a new narrative, which may be completely different, Trunk says.

It’s not like a math test, where there is a correct answer or version and an incorrect one. Depending on what you emphasize in your background, you can fashion your resume to fit multiple scenarios. As Trunk says there is “no one correct story of your life.”

Say, for example, that you worked in the human resources department, but that over time you became the IT expert for the department, mastering the applications and databases used. Although your field is human resources, you could just as easily fashion a resume highlighting your expertise in information technology.

Trunk’s plan to look at your life story for your resume is, first, to figure out where you would really like to be with your career. Then, think back over your life and what you have done, pulling out the things you have done that have a bearing on what you would like to be doing right now. Toss out everything on your resume that is not relevant to what you want to be doing right now. Then, pull things together – work backward in a sense from what you want to be doing right now, using all those things that relate and linking them together into your personal story, your personal narrative.

As Trunk says, the important thing to remember is that your career is not something static and immutable, but dynamic and something you control. You need to tell that story from different perspectives, and not let the one perspective that is your current resume rule your life.

Come to RealStreet Staffing when you’re looking for work in Washington, DC in the architecture, construction or engineering sectors and tell us the story of your career – we’ll help you take it to where you want to go! We look forward to hearing from you.

Sooner or later, every person in a position of leadership is going to make a mistake, one that will also entail the obligation of an apology.  We’re only human.

It might involve a snafu on the job, some action that was taken or not taken, or something that was said that shouldn’t have been.  Once it has occurred, what then?

The first thing to do, according to Dorie Clark, New Hampshire communications director for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, is admit that you made a mistake.  If you are in charge of a business and something embarrassing has happened, you need to get it out in the open.  Without doing that, no one will be able to concentrate on business issues because they will be focusing on the mistake. Ignoring it may make you feel better, but it won’t make the problem go away.  Once you address the problem, you speed up the recovery.

Another thing that might help, according to Clark, is showing a little humor.  You have to be able to laugh at yourself.  You can’t take yourself too seriously.  If you do this, you let your workers know it’s all right for them to blow a little steam off that way, too.

Then, in order to get back on track, you need to refocus attention back on the task at hand and away from the gaffe.  You might want to take a different approach in addressing the problem, or get feedback from workers on how best to proceed.

The most important thing is maintaining the trust of your team.  If your error has disturbed that trust, the first order of business is to reestablish it.  If you or your business has made a mistake – it could be a new product that didn’t work out in the market, something you said that was inappropriate, or a public relations plan that went off track – there always will be some people who will be pitiless when you look for some sign of forgiveness.  You can’t worry about them.  What have to work to do is fix that trust with your team.

Errors happen, but communicating effectively can go a long way to repair the problem.

RealStreet Staffing can help Washington Metro construction, engineering and architecture firms meet and exceed their strategic staffing goals. Contact us today so that we may work with you to craft a staffing plan that will help your business grow and prosper.

We have lots of ways of measuring our physical well being that help us determine when our bodies are healthy and when we are pushing them too much.  But what we don’t have is a good measure of our mental well being, and it’s something we need because we’re pushing ourselves like never before.  We are doing more things, with more speed, being deluged with information, and scattering our attention as never before in history of humankind.

We really have no reliable information on good mental habits.  Business treats workers as if their mental effort were inexhaustible, an automatically replenishing resource. Yet in many organizations, the sense of being overwhelmed is one of the biggest problems workers face.  And if people don’t have reliable information about the mind and the brain and under what conditions they operate best, workers may not be aware how that is affecting their performance and their living.

Two physicians, David Rock and Daniel Siegel, have developed seven activities for mental well being.  By doing these activities every day, you will help improve your mental well being.

The first activity is focusing on a task.  When we do this in a goal-oriented way we make strong connections in the brain.  Another activity is simply taking the time to play, to do something spur of the moment or something creative, which helps make new neural connections in the brain.  Taking time to interact with other people also is important for building connections in the brain. Another way to strengthen the brain is through physical activity, as is simple reflection, turning inward to think about our thoughts and feelings.   We need to take time to relax, to just let our mind wander occasionally to help it recharge.  And we need to get enough sleep, which is crucial to mental health and the best functioning of our brain.

The physicians aren’t recommending that businesses drop everything and radically change in order to allow employees the time to incorporate each activity.  But they are saying that people should be more aware of these activities that help lead to good mental health and should make an effort to engage in some of them as often as possible.

When you’re looking for a position in the engineering, architectural or construction fields, contact a recruiter at RealStreet Staffing, your Washington Metro staffing firm. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you were upset at hearing about air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job, you shouldn’t be, according to Tony Schwartz, a business consultant.  The problem here is basically biological.  We have evolved to be awake during the day and to sleep at night.  The later it gets, the more tired we become.  Some of the worst accidents in history occurred at night – Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez running aground.

The government did a study about the effects of napping on the night shift and found that the more time the air traffic controllers had to sleep, the more alert they were.  Other studies of airline pilots showed the same thing.

What all of this points to is the fact that our society does not value rest and recuperation as much as it should.  And this hurts us all.  When we have a lot to do, rest and sleep usually are the first things to go, even if by cutting out sleep we do a poor job.  Businesses tend to judge their employees purely by the number of hours they put in, rather than the value they create.

But rather than get to work early and stay late, it would be better to get to work at little later and leave a little earlier, and take a few more breaks at work.  The fact is, if you do this, you will be more alert and do a better job.  And you will be more productive, because you will get more things done in a smaller amount of time.

You can see for yourself if resting more really does work, according to Schwartz.  For the next few weeks, try getting about 20 to 30 minutes of sleep between 1 and 3 p.m. You shouldn’t sleep for more than 30 minutes, or you will wake up groggy.  Then, at the end of the day, see how productive you were during the time after the nap.  You will be surprised at how much of a difference it makes.  If for some reason you don’t have the opportunity to sleep for a short time, find some other way to get some rest during the work day.  The best time schedule for this is to do it every 90 minutes.

The bottom line, according to Schwartz, is that there is nothing more important to improving your productivity and effectiveness at work than making sure you get enough rest.

RealStreet Staffing helps Washington Metro-area businesses in the construction, engineering and architecture sectors find productive and effective professionals. If you’re a Washington Metro engineering, construction or architecture firm looking for help in sourcing terrific professionals, contact us today!

Recent business research has focused not on problem solving skills but on problem finding skills.  Having problem finding skills means finding problems before they become major hindrances to a business.

How does one become a problem finder?  It’s about more than just a set of skills, but a whole different outlook, one that takes curiosity as its starting point, a willingness to ask questions and to learn more both about what you do know and what you don’t know.

Problem finding requires an active mind, one that is never satisfied with conventional answers, one that is always looking at things in a new way.  It is a mind that is always willing to question, no matter what level of expertise a person has attained.  And it is a mind that never just defers to authority.  These are tendencies that go against the psychological grain in many ways.  Research has shown that people are unwilling to part with their existing beliefs.  But in order to have a problem-finding mentality, you must be willing to do just that — to look at things in a new way and always question your beliefs and assumptions.

A problem finder is always looking to learn new things in order to get a new perspective on what he or she already knows.  Problem finders are never satisfied with the status quo, but are always looking for new ideas and experiences.  It is this learning new things that keeps the mind sharp, able to see problems develop.  Indeed, research has shown that when the mind encounters new images it becomes more stimulated than by familiar ones.

Problem finders also look at the big picture.  They recognize that any problem is never an isolated event but often part of a larger, systemic condition that gave rise to it.  They look at the more basic organizational situation that may have led to the conditions that allowed such a problem to occur.  Problem finders dig beneath the surface and look at hidden connections and deeper meanings.

And problem finders also have a healthy sense of paranoia.  They realize that in any organization problems exist, and that this is not a problem in itself.  They know that these problems are not always readily apparent, but are there nonetheless.  So, they know they are fallible as well, and know they need to watch themselves and their organizations, to stay alert, and to understand that finding problems is an ongoing activity.

RealStreet Staffing is committed to helping you in your job search within the construction, engineering or architecture sectors in the Washington Metro area. Contact us today!

Keeping a diary is ordinarily not something we associate with a work strategy, but recording daily thoughts and events can actually help in providing focus to what we are doing, in giving us more patience, in providing ideas to help with planning, and in helping with personal growth.

At first, keeping a diary may seem a little awkward, and you may feel that you could be making better use of your time.  But recording thoughts on a daily basis can have valuable results.

By using a diary about work, you can gain a focus to help determine your strengths and to identify the things you do that give you the most satisfaction.  You may learn where you can be the most effective and successful in your workplace.  By sitting down to write each day and writing out your thoughts, you learn patience.

Your journal will become a record of your progress, and an aid in helping you to pinpoint where you might have made errors.  It will help you gain perspective on your career – looking back over time, it may show that what appeared to be huge obstacles were actually only minor disturbances.  It may even become habit forming.

Psychological research has also shown the value of writing about daily experiences.  Writing about traumatic or stressful events helps a person develop a stronger defense system to adversity and actually helps improve overall health and sense of well-being.  It may even lead to some unexpected discoveries.

One of the most important benefits to be gained from keeping a diary is personal development.  Keeping a daily diary will help you to gain a new perspective on yourself and your job and what you need to do to make yourself better.  One person who kept a diary noticed that in reading over his entries, he had a rather pessimistic attitude toward his days’ activities.  He now tries to approach new activities with a more optimistic frame of mind.  Another person said that keeping a diary helped him learn more about how to motivate and get along with the members of his team at work.

If you’re an experienced professional in the architecture, engineering or construction sectors in the Washington, DC area, bring your resume to RealStreet Staffing. We can place you in temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments with some of the DC area’s top employers. We look forward to hearing from you.

A recent study has shown that the way managers are viewed is likely to change in the future as more women move into management positions.

Currently, only about two percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women.  And so when most people think of leaders, they envision a male in the position.  But in some businesses, women have moved into leadership roles, and in these areas, there is no stereotype of who a leader is.

Another survey has shown that these stereotypes of leaders as men have been an obstacle for women who want to move up the corporate ladder.  Because of these stereotypes, surveys have shown that businesses are not fully using the talents and abilities of the women in their organizations.  Women make up more than half of the people serving in management, professional and related jobs, but only a little more than 15 percent of them were corporate executives at Fortune 500 companies.

The research has shown that it is not women’s management style that is to blame for the dearth of female executives but gender stereotyping.  And because of this stereotyping, companies are losing out on a lot of female management talent.

Men are still seen as capable of better leadership because of gender stereotyping, which often puts women in a no-win situation, as they are faulted for whatever methods they use.  For example, if they act according to gender stereotypes, they are thought to be too soft, but if they oppose those stereotypes, they are thought to be too hard.

Female executives are held to higher standards than men, but they receive less compensation.  They often have to work even harder than a man just to get the same level of recognition.

Women who are assertive as leaders are stereotyped as cold-hearted and not friendly, but if they take on a more feminine leadership personality, they are considered poor leaders.

All the research shows that businesses need to develop plans for how to combat these stereotypes so that they can get the best use out of their female management talent.  Educating employees about these stereotypes and their effects was listed as a key method of changing attitudes about women and leadership.

Organizations need to give all workers the resources to enable them to be more aware of the skills that women leaders have and how stereotypes can harm organizations.  Businesses also need to look at new ways of counteracting stereotypes in the workplace.

RealStreet Staffing can help you find exceptionally talent for all levels within your organization. Whether you’re looking for entry-level architects, engineers or construction professionals on up to project managers and beyond, we can help your Washington Metro firm. Contact us today!

There are many things in life you can give up that aren’t very beneficial: fatty foods, sweets, or a sedentary lifestyle. However, if you cut down on the amount of sleep you get every night you are setting yourself up for some tough times.

We all need a sufficient amount of sleep to function at our best, yet sleep often is the first thing to be sacrificed when we have a million and one things to do and little time to do it.

Cutting off an hour here and an hour there may not seem like much but the cumulative effect can be highly detrimental. It can significantly affect the quality of our work as well as our mood. Even though the affects may seem minor, sleep loss reduces our ability to learn and affects our memory.

So how much sleep do we generally need? Studies show that most people require seven to eight hours of sleep a night to feel comfortably rested. Research shows that less than three percent of the population can get by on less than seven hours. Unfortunately, the majority of the population is routinely getting fewer than seven hours of sleep every night.

Less sleep can translate into diminished production on the job. Studies show that individuals who excel at their jobs typically get more sleep than the general population. Consider a study in which a leading violinist reported getting an average of eight and a half hours of sleep every night while fitting in an hour nap during the day. This individual told researchers that next to practice, sleep was the next most important factor to improving his performance. Now that is an endorsement.

Getting a better night’s sleep has a lot to do with routine. The earlier you can get to bed, the better it is for you. Also, try to go to bed the same time every night. Doing so helps you to avoid staying up too late and running the risk of a poor night’s rest.

It is also recommended that one prepare for bed about 45 minutes in advance. That means ending busy activities first so you can begin to relax. Engage in calming activities such as reading a book, listening to relaxing music and even drinking a warm liquid such as milk.

If your mind is like a spinning Rolodex of unfinished projects, take time to jot them down before you go to bed. If you don’t, you run the risk of scanning over these projects in your mind and making it harder to fall asleep. This is the time when you want your mind to be as uncluttered as possible.

Relax. Your job search is in good hands when you come to RealStreet Staffing. We can help professionals in the construction, architecture and engineering sectors find terrific positions with some of Washington Metro’s best employers. Contact us today!

The office party.  It’s meant to help boost morale and help people get to know each other better.  But it can also present challenges – a tricky maze to navigate.

What workers should always keep in mind about the office party is that it is another aspect of the workplace, and they should act with that in mind. It’s definitely not a party with family and friends. It is certainly a time for enjoyment, but it is also an opportunity to network with people in other areas of the company, and even the people in charge.

There are, however, some things you should avoid when it comes to office parties, if you don’t want to offend anyone.  The first is not showing up at all.  If you don’t put in an appearance, you may give the impression of having a little too much ego.  Plus, you miss the opportunity to network.  Another thing to avoid is mingling only with people you know and not meeting new people.  The office party is a place to make yourself known.

Also, you want to thank the person or people who organized the party.

Make sure that it’s acceptable to bring guests before you decide to bring a friend.  And then you need to make sure that your friend will fit in with your co-workers. You will need to fill your date in on the organization as well.  He or she also should dress appropriately, know who the company leaders are, and stay away from gossip.

Another thing to watch is how you dress. The rule of thumb is to dress for the job you want, not the one that you have.  Leave the nightclub attire for the nightclub.

You also want to watch any criticism you make of the company.  The wrong word said at the wrong time could end up affecting your career.  You want to have good things to say about the company, without looking too much like a yes-man or -woman.

You also need to be careful of the language you use – nothing off-color, or discriminatory.  And it may be an obvious point, but good manners apply at the office party as anywhere else.  Make the proper introductions, and watch how you eat.
The office party can be a great opportunity, if you handle it in the right manner.

When you’re looking for a position in the engineering, architectural or construction fields, contact a recruiter at RealStreet Staffing, your Washington Metro staffing firm. We look forward to hearing from you.