Luck. It is something we all would like to have. Most of us look at luck as something like chance, with the attitude that there’s really little we can do about it.

But two business authors have looked at luck, and have determined that there are certain qualities that help people make their own luck. They talked to people who considered themselves fortunate in life and tried to find qualities they had in common. They looked at people who were not only financially and socially well off, but also at people who had made significant contributions to society, people whose lives were characterized by creativity and self-fulfillment.

What they found is something that many already claim to know – we make our own luck.

There were five major qualities that these “lucky” people had in common.

The first was responsibility. Those who seem to have good luck are those who also accept responsibility for their actions. They understand that their actions have consequences and, if something goes wrong, they look at what they themselves have done that might have contributed to the problem, rather than casting about for someone else to blame.

If they have difficulties, they look at what actions they have taken that might have caused the difficulties, and what they can do to overcome them.

The second quality shared by so-called lucky people is a willingness to learn from their mistakes. They see their errors not as failures, but as an opportunities to learn.

Another shared quality of the lucky is perseverance. But it’s a perseverance coupled with an action-oriented mindset. These people get things done.. They don’t put things on a to-do list. They tackle a problem right away. They either solve a problem, delegate it — or forget about it.

Another important quality of people who make their own luck is confidence. They not only have confidence in themselves, but confidence in other people as well. It’s this confidence that helps them to persevere when things get tough. And it’s confidence that helps them to really picture their goals, to visualize their realization.

Finally, another quality of the lucky is the ability to cooperate. They are able to put their trust in others and to form a network of colleagues they can rely on.

Being lucky is a matter of attitude, the researchers said.  It is having an attitude that we create the conditions of our success.

Add The Wellspring Group to your “network of colleagues” on which you may rely. We can help IT professionals and companies needing top-notch IT talent connect with each other. Contact us today!

A happy individual generally becomes a happy employee — and a productive employee. Why? Because happy, optimistic people tend to be problem solvers while pessimists tend to dwell on the fact that the problem exists and do little to try to fix it. Companies hire people to solve problems — happier people are problem solvers.

Here are some tips to help you find and hire the happy among your applicants.

1) Use pre-employment assessment tests. Yes, assessment tests exist that can help you determine how optimistic/happy an individual tends to be.

Tests exist that can measure an individual’s propensity to optimism or pessimism, how well someone reacts/copes when the pressure’s on, an individual’s stick-to-it-ness, etc.. These are all characteristics you will want to consider when searching for happy, productive employees.

2) As you interview job candidates, ask open-ended questions about how an applicant faced and handled problems in his or her work past. Take note of how the candidate focused on finding solutions (optimists tend to do this), or how he or she stayed mired in the problem at hand (signs of a pessimist).

You could ask candidates to tell you about the very worst things that ever happened to them on the job and then listen to how they answer — by looking at the situations as problems to be solved or as challenges beyond their control (blaming others for their circumstances).

3) Walk your own optimistic, happy talk. If managers are dour whiners, can a company really expect its employees to buck the trend? Your firm’s managers, executives and other leaders should aim to be a role model for subordinates. Focus on achieving goals and coming up with solutions when faced with challenges.

When looking for IT problem solvers, contact The Wellspring Group. We will find and place proven skilled and reliable information technology professionals with your firm on a temporary, temp-to-hire or direct-hire basis. We look forward to hearing from you!

If your company doesn’t take the time to write strong job descriptions, you run the risk of hiring employees who really don’t have the skills, backgrounds and other characteristics you need.

Here are some tips to help you create effective job descriptions.

Tip 1: All job descriptions will have basically the same sections: the job title, the department, supervisor’s name and title, required qualifications, the essential functions of the job and anticipated results.

Tip 2: Use action verbs. As you flesh out the different functions of a position, be sure you begin each statement with an action verb (organize, supervise, repair, create, educate, etc.).

Tip 3: Be clear and specific. Stay away from the vague; this only serves to confuse you and job candidates. Aim to create a job description that is as specific as possible regarding what the successful job candidate will do on a day-to-day basis.

For example, instead of “must possess good communications skills,” aim for something along the lines of “must be comfortable communicating with all levels of company personnel, from executives to management to line workers. Or, instead of “heavy lifting,” write that “this position requires lifting up to 40 pounds at a time and maneuver on ladders and tight spaces.”

Tip 4: Make sure the job description includes the full scope of the position, which could include job duties that may have to be performed less frequently than others. The more comprehensive the job description, the better.

Tip 5: The job description must comply with the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act).

Tip 6: Understand that job descriptions change and evolve. Take a look at your job descriptions and review them to make sure they still describe the duties and tasks the people now in them actually do.

Tip 7: Understand the difference between tasks and qualifications. Remember that tasks are the things a person in a certain position does while qualifications are the skills, experience and credentials someone needs in order to be able to perform the tasks well and successfully.

Tip 8: As such, make sure that any licenses, credentials and/or academic degrees that you give as required for a position actually are needed in order to perform the job. In other words, the degrees, etc. you require should be essential to actually doing the job.

Tip 9: be careful to not create a position that no one could fill. Don’t be so strict on qualifications, requirements and tasks that you create a job that would could only be performed by the perfect person — such a job candidate doesn’t exist.

When looking for great IT professionals, look not further than The Wellspring Group. We can deliver customized staffing solutions to help you find the “good guys” in IT when you need them. Contact us today!

Make no bones about it – day one of a new job can be stressful regardless of how confident a person is. Coupled with a feeling of enthusiasm, are nervousness and anxiety about doing the right thing. Just about every new worker comes to the job with this mixture of feelings.

With this in mind, employers are well advised to roll out the red carpet when orienting new employees who are likely to be on edge when they report to work that first day. After all, new employees represent a substantial investment in the company’s future and should be handled accordingly.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes an orientation reflects one of two extremes – providing a minimum of guidance while expecting the new hire to perform from the get-go, or bombarding a new worker with reams of information that can quickly be forgotten. With some forethought, there are ways to make the orientation process more effective.

First, tailor the orientation to the particular individual, focusing on his or her specific needs. Consider a fresh college graduate reporting for his first meaningful job and someone with years of experience. Subjecting the experienced worker to the same detailed orientation as a college graduate might prove irritating as well as a waste of time. Not all new hires are exactly alike; the orientation process shouldn’t be either.

Involving the new worker’s supervisor in the orientation is also recommended. Don’t expect human resources to do everything. This helps to acquaint the individuals who will be working side by side quickly.

When possible, also involve a co-worker. It is likely a new hire will be more comfortable with a peer. This way he or she can interact on a less formal basis. This person can discuss the ebb and flow of the work environment, the do’s and don’ts of the work place, as well as other aspects of the job that are not covered in the formal orientation process.

It is also important to remember that people are not computers. Do not try to teach them every relevant piece of information in the shortest time span possible. Give new hires room to breathe and take in their new environment.

And don’t be afraid to have a new worker perform meaningful work on the first day, unless regulations prohibit it. This can instill a feeling of being a member of the team right away.
Remember, Rome was not built in a day. Give new hires room to feel comfortable in their new jobs. This is the time to show your new employees what a good company they have joined, while helping them learn all relevant information at a comfortable pace.

If you’re in the need for new IT professionals, contact The Wellspring Group. We will follow your needs and skills specifications and source and present to you the “top 3 talent”  — all you’ll have  to do is interview these highly qualified prospects and choose the one you believe is best. We look forward to hearing from you.

Managers contend that time management is a perpetual problem.  Because so much of the day is taken up with handling the unplanned and unforseen, the important work of establishing and accomplishing goals and developing skills among employees falls by the wayside.

However, the problem is not with managing time, but with the way managers do their job, with their vision of what managing is.  Managers shouldn’t look at putting out fires as something separate from management, but as an integral part of it, as an opportunity to achieve their goals, to do the work of managing.

To do this, managers need to look at each situation with a discerning eye.  Before taking any action, they need to prepare, to first figure out what they plan to do and how they will do it and what their goal is.  Then they carry out their plan.  And last, they reflect on what they did and how events unfolded.  They reflect on what they learned from the experience and if there is anything they would do differently.

This is a simple and not too difficult process, but one that many overlook.  When a crisis looms, many managers just jump right in and make out strategy on the run.  They just want to get the problem out of the way and move on.

But by using the process of preparing, doing and reflecting, managers can make every event an opportunity to achieve some managerial goal, whether it is taking action toward a goal, developing the skills of workers or creating stronger relationships.

Every situation can be a means toward moving closer to a goal and using the process of preparing, doing and reflecting is a way of making it a means and giving it direction.  Without doing the preparation, even taking just a few minutes, before plunging into a crisis, managers won’t be able to figure out how it can be transformed into an opportunity.

If managers don’t preparation process, they will continue to be mired in a cycle of putting out fires and not managing.  But if they employ the process, they will be able to use their daily activities as management tools to move their employees and company ahead.

Prepare for your upcoming IT staffing needs by contacting The Wellspring Group. We have a great database of some of the top IT professionals in the country and we’d love to talk to you about how we can keep your IT department running well, no matter what the workflow. Contact us today!

Has your company cut or increased your budget for employee training during the recession? Whether it went up or down, you may be interested to know that recent reports have shown that most firms continued to spend on educational programs for their workers and about half said their firms were beefing up their education programs. In addition, the surveys found that those companies that cut back suffered from declines in sales.

About half of the companies surveyed did curtail travel, conference, seminars, and workshops budgets, but continued to widely use Web-based and other electronic forms of learning. In addition, companies focused more on “targeted learning,” in which courses cover less material but gear it more toward the specific needs of an employee.

In addition, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas recently confirmed that the more knowledge-based education a worker has, the more he or she will earn in a lifetime.

Over a 40-year career, the report shows, those with a high school education will earn about $1.5 million, a college graduate will bring in $2.6 million, a master’s educated individual will earn $3 million, a doctorate degree will bring in $4 million, while a professional degree (physician, attorney) will help an individual earn $5.3 million in that time span.

Several economists believe that workers’ lifelong learning (in formal, school-based settings as well as in less-traditional settings, such as online), is critical to the United States’ economic growth. The good jobs will be available here, but only if we have the qualified workers to fill them.

Technology is important, of course, but it’s individual bran that truly counts. Continuous learning throughout a lifetime means better living standards and more opportunity.

If you’re an IT professional looking for your next opportunity, contact a recruiter at The Wellspring Group. We look forward to learning more about your career goals!

Businesses in America are great at handling discrimination problems within the workplace, but lag behind companies in other countries when it comes to helping their workers have a balanced work and home life.

A recent study researched the policies of companies in 173 countries regarding their employees with families, using information from a variety of sources, such as academic, private and government.

When it comes to right-to-work policies and programs that help reduce poverty in  the elderly, U.S. firms came out ahead. But when compared to how well U.S. firms aid their workers in their life away from the office or plant, America’s companies lagged.

The study found that most of the countries offer paid leave to women on maternity leave. As for the U.S.? We’re one of only five that don’t offer paid leave (the others are Sawziland, Liberia, Lesotho, and Papua New Guinea). In addition, 65 countries provide fathers with paid paternity leave. The U.S.? No.

Out of the countries surveyed, one-quarter have regulations allowing employees to take leave for marriage or funerals. In addition, 145 countries have laws on the books that allow workers to take paid sick leave, with about 80 countries offering paid sick l eave benefits for up to 26 weeks. In the U.S.? The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) does give unpaid leave for workers dealing with severe illness, yet FMLA doesn’t apply to all employees.

Study results are important, said the researchers, because of these programs’ — or  lack of the programs — effect on children. Giving workers paid leave to have a child or raise their family improves the health of children because parents are available to care for and bond with them. Paid leave also helps a family keep its finances healthy.

Employers also benefit, researchers said, because paid leave and other family-friendly benefits result in high employee morale, lower turnover and higher productivity.

Contact us at The Wellspring Group to learn more about management best practices, such as helping your employees better balance their work and home lives. We look forward to hearing from you.

Although companies increasingly are relying on personality evaluations in hiring employees, these types of tests are not reliable, according to psychologists. The trend has been for employers to use these tests as part of the hiring procedure. But a group of personnel psychologists who have worked together to evaluate these personality measures came to the conclusion that their validity is so minimal that employers should reconsider even using them.

According to research, general personality evaluations, such as the Big Five Personality Traits and Emotional Intelligence, can explain or predict less than six percent of the differences in peoples’ on-the-job performance. Even though the companies selling these tests tout their value, objective measures show that they have very little value in predicting how a person performs on the job.

What the researchers found is that these tests are very general in what they measure, while the traits or skills required for high performance on the job are much more particular, occupying a much smaller range. According to the researchers, the explicitness and exactness of what the tests measure has to match in exactness the nature of the work and its performance that the test is designed to predict. A broad-based test, one designed to measure only general personality characteristics, cannot get at the targeted behaviors a company needs to know about with nearly the degree of accuracy of a test designed especially to measure just those targeted behaviors. It will not have nearly the predictive power that a more narrow-gauge test would have.

The more general tests, because they measure only wide-ranging personality traits, such as assertiveness, extraversion or persuasiveness, give only an overall description of what a person’s personality is like, not a prediction of how he or she will do in a particular job. The evaluation will work only if it measures the targeted job-related actions that a person needs to perform, such actions as closing skills or presentation skills, for example. In other words, when using a personality test, you need to keep the outcome or goal of the test in mind, which is to predict how a person will perform on the job, not to give an overall description of a person’s personality.

If you’re looking for great IT talent, contact The Wellspring Group. We will source, interview, reference check and place dependable and highly skilled IT professionals for your temporary, temp-to-hire and direct hire needs. Contact us today!

Information technology companies need to be aware of the tremendous diversity of motives and attitudes of female workers when dealing with these employees, according to researchers, who based their conclusions on interviews with women from three countries.

The way women approach their careers, home life and motherhood (if applicable) can vary tremendously, according to researchers who looked at this issue. It would be a mistake to assume that in general all women look at work and home life the same way.  The career paths women take are influenced by a wide variety of factors, including gender stereotypes, other messages that society sends and family relationships.

Researchers at Penn State University’s School of Information Technology interviewed almost 200 women in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The woman came from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Researchers said company managers should not simply assume a young woman will, as a matter of course marry, have children and drop out of the workforce. Human resource policies based on these assumptions may not apply to many women, who are motivated by different factors, such as salary, job security and work environment.

The researchers said women in the IT industry have developed many ways to handle their work and home life duties. Some rely more on work-oriented programs, such as flexible schedules, while others rely more on home-based support, such as spouses or parents. Because each woman may use different support systems and approach her responsibilities in a different way, it would be a mistake for companies to develop a one-size-fits all kind of program.

The researchers gave several examples of how different cultural influences could affect women in information technology. For example, in China, calling a woman a “geek” is seen as a compliment. In Ireland, people characterize information technology careers as “clean” work. And in India, exam scores determine whether a woman will be able to work in information technology or not. The researchers said cultural stereotypes may be part of the reason why there is a relative paucity of women in information technology in the United States.

When you’re looking for exceptional IT professionals, contact The Wellspring Group. We can source, vet and place skilled and reliable workers for your short-term, long-term and direct-hire assignments. We look forward to hearing from you.

According to a recent survey, business executives around the world are reporting that the rate of change in their organizations is increasing.  More than 80 percent of executives contacted reported the growth of change, and 70 percent said that during the past year, their companies went through unsettling changes.

Business management has always highlighted the need for companies to be adaptable and resilient, but such flexibility is more difficult to achieve in practice, according to the researchers.  Handling the fast pace of change is a challenge, they said, and it must be studied constantly to find the best ways to recognize the kinds of skills that are needed to cope with such change.

The management techniques of those at the top are key components in the response to change, and can make a company more or less adaptable to change.  In companies where workers are pigeon-holed in narrow functional areas, where decisions require working through a company bureaucracy, where conformity has a strong grip, where information does not flow freely, where there is an entrenched corporate bureaucracy, and where there is an unwillingness to work together – these are all conditions that hinder a company’s response to change.

All of the processes, policies, systems, technologies, and corporate cultures in place at a company work together to determine its adaptability to change.

The rate of change is increasing — and is becoming more destructive.  Almost three-fourths of those surveyed said that change had been distracting at their companies, causing big surprises or shocks during the previous year.  These executives said that the rate of the shocks and surprises at their company had increased over the last five years.

The researchers said that handling change probably will not become any less difficult.  Part of the reason for that is that some companies actually like change that is disruptive, and they are many times companies that are setting the agenda in their industry.

The best performing companies and individuals within companies were the ones who could best cope and take advantage of change, researchers said.

The study also looked at the causes of change.  The most important factors leading to change centered around the demands of customers and vendors, the introduction of new products and services, and technological advancements.  The study showed that change is constant, always to be reckoned with, and companies need to be aware of that fact and make it a part of their business strategy.

If you’ve decided that your company needs to change how it sources and places the IT professionals you need, contact The Wellspring Group. We’ll find and vet the best IT professionals for your firm’s particular needs. Contact us today.