Strengthening Career Well-Being: New tips and eBook from Career Key

Interested in strengthening your career well-being? Learn how with the new “Guide to Strengthening Career Well-Being”, a free downloadable eBook from Career Key. 

Career well-being: what is it and how do I strengthen it? (PDF)

In it, Career Key career assessment author Dr. Lawrence K. Jones and Juliet Wehr Jones, GCDF describe:

• What career well being is, and
• How it impacts your overall well-being, including your health and relationships.

Then they recommend practical ways to strengthen your career well-being to improve your overall health and happiness. 

Both the website article and eBook link to additional resources and recommended self-help activities on the Career Key website.

More resources for professionals:

•   “Strengthening Career Well-Being and Well-Being:A Primer for Professionals” is a special eBook version for counselors, practitioners and professionals with additional references and citations.
• Using Holland's Theory of Career Choice to strengthen career well-being

 

Increase Your Job Security: Become a Free Agent

To increase your job security and career well-being, adopt a free agent outlook on work. This means spending time planning ahead, building marketable skills, and prioritizing your health and family. Doing so will empower you in the job market. 

Americans are vulnerable to forced career and job changes – this is the nature of our economy and our physical and mental frailty as human beings. I know this personally and from years practicing labor and employment law and volunteering at my neighborhood legal clinic. Statistics also bear this out.

Today the number of long term unemployed people (out of work over 6 months) remains historically high, at nearly 30% of the total unemployed. More than 22% of the unemployed have been out of work for over a year. (BLS, 2015)

Americans are also financially vulnerable. A recent Gallup poll found that half of us are unprepared for sudden financial need, like a major purchase, medical event, or job loss.

Lastly, employers are outsourcing the jobs we thought were safe from export. In just one example, technology workers at Disney were laid off after training foreign "guest" workers as replacements. A recent New York Times article explains this is not an isolated instance.

 

People’s stories of feeling trapped in and out of jobs haunt me. They feel powerless and acted upon by employers, mostly by legal means, and a rapidly changing job market. And they are educated people, like technology workers, business owners, teachers, police officers, and financial professionals. Any of us gainfully employed could be one of them.

But we can do things now to make ourselves less vulnerable. Instead of feeling trapped or ill-prepared for the next layoff, we can plan ahead for our next job or career change.

Six Principles of the Free Agent Outlook on Work

Adopting this outlook will help, as will saving more money this year for your emergency fund.  Having Plan B and a safety net go a long way toward increasing your job security.

One way I follow this advice is by keeping my lawyer “bar card” active and volunteering to keep my legal skills strong even though I have no plans to return to my own law practice. I still get to do what enjoyed most as a lawyer without the stress or overhead hassle.

We don’t need to be as vulnerable and many of us have the power to do something about it. Don’t let day to day work distract you from what matters most and your job security.

I also published a slightly different version of this post on LinkedIn.

4 Ways Veterans Can Successfully Make the Military to Civilian Transition

To celebrate Veterans Day on November 11, Career Key recommends four strategies veterans can use to make a successful military to civilian transition. They are:

1. Evaluate your readiness to make a career decision
2. Use the 4 S's Transition Model for a little structure and self-assessment: Situation, Self, Supports, and Strategies
3. Explore and narrow career options to personality-career matches using Holland's Theory, and
4. Follow the 4-step ACIP decision making model.

To see the full details, see press release, "4 Success Strategies for Veterans Making the Military to Civilian Transition" dated October 31, 2014.

Take action now by:

1. Evaluating your readiness to make decisions using the Career Decision Profile.
2. Visiting this short slideshow that explains the 4 S Transition Model and asking yourself questions about the 4 S's.
3. Learning about how to match your personality with career options
4. Download a free Decision Balance Sheet and watch a short video about decision making at the Career Key website.

What the Walmart VP Termination Over a Resume Teaches Us

Yes, it teaches us not to lie on our resume, not to leave a misimpression or omission about our credentials.  But why did Walmart’s former Vice President of Communications David Tovar feel the need to demonstrate he graduated from college?  I can’t speak for him but we know the answer… it’s because he needed the degree. You need to graduate from college if you want to make a living wage working for someone else. Like most employers, Walmart will not hire you for salaried sales or management without a college degree (example).

 

Want a living wage? Want to be a VP someday? Finish college.

I’ve been reading Michael Ellsberg’s The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won’t Learn in College About How to Be Successful and other anti-college writing. The common position is that people do not need a college degree, pointing to many rich, entrepreneurial people as examples (High-tech company founders, information sales people, etc). And while I found I agreed with Ellsberg on many practical things that are wrong with higher education (and he has some great networking tips), the anti-college argument ultimately fails as a good career planning approach.  

First, a college degree or postsecondary training credential is necessary for most living-wage employment in this country; the statistics about unemployment and salaries do not lie. One reason employers require a college degree or post-secondary training credential in hiring is because it’s an easy way to screen people out, to narrow the hiring pool.  So many people are looking for jobs; employers can afford to be picky. Also, minimum job qualifications like an educational degree are legally necessary in a world where equal rights laws guard against discrimination. So does it really make sense to voluntarily cut yourself off from millions of jobs?

The anti-college crowd argues that you can creatively sell yourself into a job and if that doesn’t work (that employer must be an unimaginative boob), then start your own business. Having been happily self-employed myself at one time, I get the freedom, flexibility and success that can give you.

But self-employment and entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Not everyone has a strong Enterprising Holland personality type, someone who likes to and is good at persuading, leading, and selling things or ideas. Or is an extrovert. And while I agree with Dan Pink and many others that sales skills are needed in nearly every job now, to advise young people that a college degree is unnecessary, substituting sales and marketing skills through self-employment, is a naïve oversimplification of our work world. That's as bad as saying a college degree = a high-paying job.

Self-employment should always be a fallback option, if not a promising option for some. Having practiced labor and employment law for 10 years, I think people should be prepared, as a matter of emotional and financial survival, to be out of a job at any time, for any reason. But being prepared also means having proof of skills and education to support a job search.

Instead of warning people away from college degrees entirely, we can start by helping people approach their college years in smarter ways – identifying majors and programs of study that match their interests and Holland personality, learning more marketing skills, seeking out experiential education programs that don’t require an unpaid internship (that only wealthier parents can afford to subsidize), and adopting a flexible, free agent approach to the world of work.

If Mr. Tovar was so good at his job (it sounds like he was, given his planned promotion), he should not have needed a degree. I believe that it’s what people do, not their credentials, that matter most. But that’s not the economy and human resources legal reality we’re in. I hope and suspect Mr. Tovar will successfully bounce back from his mistake. Tellingly, it sounds like he will start by completing his degree.

5 Tips for Introverts' Success in Career Choices and in School

Introverts face certain challenges to their success at work and in the classroom. Introversion can also be a benefit.  Identifying the right compatible work and school environments can increase your chances of success.

The Introversion-Extroversion Scale with Holland's Hexagon

By combining what we know about introverts with Holland's theory of person-environment match, Career Key author and counseling psychologist Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, NCC gives you five tips for introverts' success in this new self-help article. Find it at the Introverts link above or in our Choose a Career section.

Explore Career Options Using LinkedIn’s New Field of Study Explorer, Especially Liberal Arts Majors

The new LinkedIn Field of Study Explorer is most valuable to students and parents as a tool for exploring possible career options for a particular college major.

It is particularly helpful for students considering liberal arts majors and the humanities because it shows their expansive use in the work world. It’s some form of proof (for skeptics) that jobs do exist for these majors, some with well-known, respected, and well-paying employers.

The Field of Study Explorer has some limitations (see below) but as long as students stick with using it as a “what can I do with a degree in ___” resource, it’s useful.  Here is a short video about how to use it for that purpose.

The Explorer can also be useful for adults changing careers. What else can you do with law degree? Or a massage therapy degree? To what other career fields could you transition that you might not have considered? You may even find connections you could contact for an informational interview.

For more information, students looking at career options related to majors should look on their college’s career services website for a “what can I do with a major in ____” type of page. High school students can look at a nearby state university’s career services website.  The University of North Carolina at Wilmington has a great one as does Kansas State University.

LinkedIn Field of Study Explorer Limitations:

The “Explore More” button has a random selection of majors – they are not related to the one you list in your profile. For example, my major was Politics.  Yet “Explore More” recommended “Home Furnishings and Equipment Installation.” And no, I am not a furniture junkie. So you need to have a “short list” of majors that interest you, ideally ones that match your strongest Holland personality types.

I would not use the Field of Study Explorer to choose a college; in other words, ignore the “Where they went to school” as a limited data set. The more majors a school graduates is irrelevant to quality, even if LinkedIn’s data set were more representative of the U.S. as a whole.

Also see:

• For more analysis, I recommend “The New Rankings,” in Inside HigherEd by Charlie Tyson.
• LinkedIn Blog’s announcement for the Field of Study Explorer.
• Using LinkedIn Alumni to explore career and majors, video on TheCareerKey YouTube channel;
• Career Key's Learn More about College Majors

Choose a Career and College Major with Holland's Theory, New Career Key Video Series

Learn how to choose a career or college major with Holland's Theory of Career Choice in a new YouTube video series "How to Achieve Career and College Success" from Career Key.

These short videos cover Dr. John Holland's six main ideas, including the Holland personality types (also known as Holland codes), Holland's work and education environments, and how to use the Holland hexagon. It's based on the popular Career Key web article on Holland's Theory of Career Choice.

How to Achieve Career and College Success Video Series

• How to Achieve Career and College Success: Introduction
• The Six Holland Personality Types
• The Six Holland Environments
• Holland Environments: searching for and interacting with them
• The Holland Hexagon
• Congruence: Making a Good Match

The series is created and presented by Career Key author and nationally recognized counseling psychologist, Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, NCC. It is followed by a series on good career decision making.

All these videos will appear soon in a new section of the Career Key website.

Subscribe to The Career Key's YouTube channel to get notified of new videos as they appear.

Holland Personality Type Patterns That Are Inconsistent - and Their Advantages

One part of using Holland's Theory of Career Choice to choose a career is the concept of choosing a compatible work environment, one that matches your strongest personality types. Most people are a combination of types, most often found close to one another on the Holland Hexagon. The hexagon shows the relationship between the types - the closer they are to one another, the more compatible.

But what if your strongest personality types are opposite each other on the hexagon, like Realistic-Social (RS) Investigative-Enterprising (IE), or Conventional-Artistic (CA)? These are sometimes referred to as inconsistent personality patterns. But don't be alarmed.

While these combinations are less common, they are normal. In fact, Career Key's author Dr. Lawrence K. Jones has an inconsistent pattern himself: Realistic-Social. His personal story also shows these characteristics.

To learn more about understanding and taking advantage of these kinds of personality type combinations, visit Career Key's articles:

• The Inconsistent Holland Personality Pattern and Its Advantages
• Dr. Jones's advice to a Career Key user about these types of patterns, using his own experience as an example.

If you're new to Holland's approach, then start with our Holland's Theory of Career Choice article. We plan on adding a short video about inconsistent personality patterns soon to Career Key's YouTube channel so please subscribe if you want to be notified when that comes out.

Is College Worth It? 6 Ways to Increase Chances of Success in College

More students and parents are asking themselves, is college is worth it? A recent Pew study visualized in TIME magazine finds more people questioning college's value, and yet statistics are clear that it is. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's 2014 report, "Are Recent College Graduates Finding Good Jobs?" shows compelling reasons to go to college. But the report raises valid concerns about underemployment after graduation and the differing value of certain college majors and skills in the labor market.

Like anything else, research and planning ahead give a big payoff in these types of life decisions.  In Career Key's new website article"Is College Worth It?", counseling psychologist Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, NCC looks at whether people are getting good jobs after graduation based on the latest statistics. Then he recommends how people can increase their chances of success after college graduation.

These recommendations include:

1. Choose a major that matches your personality and interests.
2. Consider choosing a major in high school before you choose a college.
3. Be open to choosing a good job that does not require a 4 year degree.
4. Have realistic employment expectations; Underemployment is a reality you may have to face.
5. Be smart and make good decisions about your education plans using an effective decision making process.
6. Be aware of how the nature of work is changing and plan ways you can respond and adapt.

For more about why college is worth it and what's behind these recommendations, visit Career Key's Choose a College Major section and "Is College Worth It?"

What Job is Best for Me? 2014: New Edition of Popular EBook

What Job is Best for Me?, Career Key's most popular eBook, has just been updated for 2014. For people choosing a career, it is recommended as a companion to the Career Key's valid career test.  This career interest inventory is based on the respected Holland's Theory of Career Choice.

In the eBook, Career Key author and nationally recognized counseling psychologist Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, NCC focuses on helping people narrow their career choices and how to make the best career decision.  It include a free decision balance sheet and many articles on ways to learn more about career options and career specific networking.

Dr. Jones also shares his personal career journey in photos and words.  His background and experience as the first in his family to attend college and graduate school gives him a unique perspective on the challenges of taking risks in career choices.

"What Job is Best for Me?" 2014 is available for purchase in the Career Key Store for $8.95.  There is a special 20% discount when the Career Key test and What Job is Best for Me? are purchased together, for $14.50.

Holland’s Theory Promotes Innovation Skills

Taking advantage of Holland’s Theory of Career Choice in the form of a good person-work environment fit promotes skills needed for innovation.  These skills include collaboration and problem-solving, which top the list of 21^st Century “in-demand” job skills in employer surveys. When people work with people of similar interests, abilities and values, collaboration and problem-solving are natural outcomes. 

I made the Holland Theory/Innovation connection while listening to innovation evangelist Tony Wagner’s keynote at this summer’s National Career Development Association conference. Here are three other ways applying Holland’s Theory to career choices promotes innovation:

1. Person-environment fit encourages curiosity.  Wagner says that “curiosity, which is a habit of asking good questions and a desire to understand more deeply,” is an “innovation skill.” A good person-environment fit encourages immersing oneself in a career field, especially in a job market rewarding specialization. Colleagues interact with others of similar interests, learning from one another and feeding off mutual enthusiasm and curiosity in a career field.

2.  Knowing one’s strongest personality types leads to healthy risk-taking and confidence in career decision-making. Knowing more about themselves gives people a platform from which to take risks and create innovation within a job. It also enables necessary job and career changes required in the new economy. If you know your compatible environments within the world of work, you can see more options to make better, more informed choices.

3. Learning about the six different personalities and work environments teaches people about the value of “differing gifts.” Understanding Holland’s Theory highlights the need to collaborate and network with people blessed with “differing gifts.” Wagner says collaboration is an integral part of innovation – especially across disciplines. For example, an architect who wants to promote her innovative designs would likely be more successful integrating advice and ideas from Enterprising and Conventional types to promote and sell her work.

For more on innovation, see Tony Wagner’s book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World.

Military to Civilian Transition: Making It a Success

If you are making a military to civilian career change or advise people who are, Career Key has published a new online guide to making it a success.

In it, Career Key author Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, NCC recommends five strategies for making the transition a success:

1. Anticipate potential emotional and psychological challenges - make a Military to Civilian career plan to minimize the adjustment.
2. Know yourself and your Military to Civilian Career Change- understand why you're leaving the military and what job satisfaction really means. 
3. Know your options in a Military to Civilian Career Decision - and identify career options that fit you best. Our valid career assessment can help.
4. Make a Good Decision using a science-based career decision-making method; and
5. Prepare for Cultural Differences - learn how military and civilian employers differ.

According to recent studies, one of the biggest challenges to veterans is translating their military skills to the civilian work world.  In addition to several government sites that do an automated military to civilian skills translation, we recommend our job skills article:
Be Job and Work Skills Smart
It walks you through the process of identifying your skills, including ones you enjoy using most, and how to communicate them to employers. It includes a free, interactive "My Work Skills List" to fill out.

Other related articles that might interest you:
Choosing a Military Career
Career Change
Job Satisfaction

Occupational Health Concerns: Realistic Work Safety Career Advice

Do you have occupational health or work safety concerns? Do you work in an unsafe workplace and wonder what to do about it? For this last post in our occupational health series, I’ll wear my employment lawyer* and career development facilitator hats.  Let’s look at your options with a realistic, practical eye.

Consider Your Options and Make a Good Decision

Start by using Career Key’s ACIP decision making process to resolve a work safety situation. You can download a free Decision Balance Sheet to complete.  The four steps will help you:

1. Make a list of alternatives and options;
2. Explore the consequences of each option;
3. Get more information about each option, and
4. Plan out how to follow through on your decision.

Options Might Include (likely more than one will apply):

A.  Trying to fix the unsafe situation yourself, if possible (and safe);

Example:

You work for a supervisor whose management style and actions are causing you a lot of stress, impacting your physical and mental health. Can you switch to a different boss and a different department within your employer, ideally before you get a negative performance evaluation? Don’t let a bad boss go on too long, otherwise the company won’t likely let you transfer.

B. Following a procedure in an employer’s employee handbook or policy guide for reporting an unsafe condition. There may be a “chain of command” you must follow. The question is whether this will help or hurt you.  Only you know the culture and personality of your workplace.

C. Finding another job first, then quit your current job. This means:

• Saving money to support you during possible unemployment;
• Networking as much as possible without jeopardizing your current job.
• Applying to and interviewing for other jobs before you leave your current job.

D. Filing a complaint with a city, state or federal agency, like OHSA or the EEOC (if your stress is being caused by a manager illegally discriminating against you.)

E. Pay for a one-time consultation with a plaintiff’s employment lawyer to find out what your options are and what, if any actions, they recommend. It might be the best $200 (or less) you ever spent – especially if you end up keeping unemployment benefits you might have otherwise lost by checking the wrong box on a form. Consulting a lawyer doesn’t mean you’re committing to sue someone.

Let’s look at a realistic scenario:

Your supervisor requires you to record your work hours for driving a truck in a way that you know breaks the law and could cause driver error.  (There are strict federal rules about truck driving with limits on how many hours drivers can be on duty) There is a lot of pressure to get more loads delivered with fewer drivers, making it impossible to be honest about work hours. Your employee handbook says to report the legal violation and unsafe condition directly to the HR department.  You know that if you do, your supervisor will likely retaliate against you – perhaps through a bad performance evaluation or an excuse to fire you.  And HR will likely do nothing about it – your boss and the HR Manger go to lunch together all the time. What do you do?

A complicated decision…

There are a lot of factors to consider, like your finances, family support (of you) and obligations, the current level of personal danger/risk, and how easily you can find another job elsewhere.  Even if you are illegally fired in retaliation for complaining of a safety violation, you still need a job and income while you are pursuing any legal claim.  This is why you must try to make Option C, preparing to leave your job, a viable option.

Sometimes leaving an employer makes legal claims less valuable to lawyers, even though it likely makes you healthier.  The reality is that quitting a job can reduce the value of an employment claim and get your unemployment benefits denied if your safety complaint is not believed.  And to recover large amounts of money from an employer, there must be big damages – large amounts of lost wages and trips to the doctor for emotional distress.

However, waiting for a bad employer to fire or lay you off has serious consequences too – tolls on your physical and mental health and on your family. It’s also harder to find a job if you’ve been fired or laid off. Lawsuits take a long time and are a gamble – juries are not always sympathetic.

Give up?

But does that mean you should give up – leave and let a bad employer hurt other people?  No.  It just means that you might wait until you are safely in another job to file a complaint against your old employer with a government agency, which is required to investigate.  Know what you’re getting into and prepare accordingly.

So if you were that truck driver, you would likely file a complaint with your state’s department of transportation or highway patrol. They enforce truck driving regulations and will audit companies suspected of violating the law.  The best thing about filing with a government agency is that is it free, and forces the employer to respond to the investigating agency.  It may not be quick or net you a big money payoff, but they put the employer on the spot. Responding to a government agency takes time, money and effort.

I hope this post hasn’t been too discouraging.   These decisions are hard, with no easy conclusions.  I hope you don’t encounter an unhealthy work environment but if you do, you will be able to leave it if you want to.

*You knew there would be a legal disclaimer, right? This blog is not individual legal advice and is general in nature. State laws differ. If you need legal advice, please go consult a lawyer in your area.

For my first two posts in the series see:

Career Choices and Occupational Health: Let’s Honor Workers Memorial Day

Occupational Health and Career Options: How to Learn More

After writing this post, I realized I wanted to say a lot more about self-preservation and being proactive in a volatile, unforgiving job market.  That will be up next....

Occupational Health and Career Options: How to Learn More

Some occupational hazards may be less obvious, like stress.

In choosing a career and comparing career options, don’t forget to include occupational health in your research along with salary, education, and job outlook. Stress, longer work hours, less job security, and a trend toward smaller employers make workplace safety and health more important than ever. This post lists top career information resources related to occupational health.

While some careers have obvious hazards (law enforcement, construction), other careers may be more hazardous than you realize. For example, chemical exposure is widespread from fire fighting, to cosmetology, to working as a scientist. Learning about workplace safety and health helps you make a more informed career decision. All jobs have hazards - it's just a matter of knowing what they are, assessing the risks and being prepared.

Part 2 of this occupational health blog series focuses on how people can find information about the safety and risks of different work environments. Try starting your research online and then follow up with occupational health-related questions during informational interviews.

Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH)

When looking up a career in the OOH, make sure to click on the occupation's “Work Environment” tab.  Some occupations have a separate “injuries” description. Under “Contacts for More Information,” industry organizations are listed and may have occupational hazard information. If you are using the Career Key test to explore careers that match your interests and strongest Holland personality types, all its occupations link to and use the OOH for career information.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

NIOSH is one of the best, most current online resources for occupational health.  There is a convenient list of Industries and Occupations, including special sections on Women and Young Worker Safety. Their most popular document is the free “Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards”, which they hope to offer in a mobile form soon. It helps people recognize and control occupational chemical hazards.

NIOSH Science Blog

This blog is an excellent, up to date resource on a wide range of career fields like health care, nanotechnology, stress, green jobs, and sports and entertainment. The authors explain recent research in a layperson-friendly way.

U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration  (OSHA)

OSHA’s website has a helpful list of web-based e-tools and articles on common hazards, like bloodborne pathogens (for careers in dentistry, healthcare, emergency medicine, and adult care), green jobs, and computer workstations.

Also look at OSHA’s Safety and Health Topics.  You can do a keyword search or choose an industry or topic from a drop down menu (the easiest). For example, in 2010, nursing homes and residential care facilities had one of the highest rates of lost workdays due to injuries and illness of all major American industries. (Source: BLS).  OSHA’s nursing homes article has a list of Hazards and Solutions, with links to OHSA’s industry specific resources.

State OSHA Programs

For a more local approach to workplace safety, some states have an OSHA approved program. Here is an OSHA Program list by state. You can also do a online search for [your state] OSHA.  I’ve found that some of these state sites (I did not visit all of them) are more employer and/or enforcement focused instead of education for individuals. But your state may offer something helpful.

Other online resources:

Society for Human Resource Management: Safety and Security articles

YouTube, for specific government agencies, like the U.S. Department of Labor that has an OSHA playlist.

Informational Interview Questions

When you conduct information interviews as part of researching your career options, don’t forget to ask about their experience with occupational hazards.  Some people may not realize certain aspects of their work environment are “occupational hazards,” like stress or work schedules. So make sure to ask questions like, “What do you like least about your job?” or “How busy is your work schedule?”

Up next in this series final post:

Practical although imperfect answers to these career questions:

What should I do if I am working in an unsafe work environment or career?

How can I be proactive in protecting myself at work?

If you missed the first post: Career Choices and Occupational Health

A special thank you to Sheryl Eldridge, BBA, GCDF and others who recommended resources to me for this blog on the National Career Development Association LinkedIn Group.

Career Choices and Occupational Health: Let’s Honor Workers Memorial Day

In talking about career choices, we rarely mention occupational health hazards; but we should.  This weekend, April 28, is national Workers Memorial Day, honoring the lives of 13 Americans a day who are killed on the job.  All kinds of occupations involve fatalities: cashiers, farmers, workers in grain silos, a college football team student intern, healthcare workers infected by bloodborne pathogens.  And there are social justice impacts too: Hispanics suffer from a higher rate of work-related injuries than any other group. 

This blog starts a career planning series on workplace safety and health, and how to realistically assess our own risks in career decisions and the importance of staying mobile in the job market – a free agent – so you can leave an unsafe work environment.  This is true whether you have a stressful office job or work on an Alaskan crab boat.

Ultimately it is up to you to decide on your work environment and the occupational health hazards you can handle – with the option to leave an employer that is not taking your safety seriously.

I hope occupational health issues will become more visible in the career planning and counseling process. It is important that people have informed choices and develop job skills to gain as much job market mobility as possible.

At least two tragic reminders of workplace safety’s importance have occurred in the last week, the deadly Texas fertilizer plant explosion and just today, the factory collapse killing over 87 garment workers in Bangladesh. You might say, well, we have better standards in the U.S.

But do we really? Especially considering all the economic resources at our disposal? Failure of government enforcement (assisted by poor funding and special interest lobbies) and an insecure job market make a risky work environment. To give one example of poor performance, the ratio of OSHA inspectors has fallen over the past 30 years, with 2,200 inspectors for 8 million workplaces and 130 million workers.

While overall on the job fatalities in the U.S. have fallen since they were tracked starting in the early 1970s, there are still 13 people per day too many being killed and many more injured.  

My next post will focus on what individuals can do to find more occupation health information about a career option they are considering. In a later post, putting my employment lawyer hat on, I'll recommend realistic ways to deal with an unsafe working environment.

For more information:

Texas Explosion Seen as Sign of Weak U.S. Oversight

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries

Occupational Safety & Health Administration Common Statistics

It’s Official: Random Inspection Improve Workplace Safety, Science Magazine

National Action Summit on Health and Safety of Latino Workers, OSHA, 2010

Create a Green Career for Earth Day

All of us can celebrate Earth Day through our work, even if we do not have what's considered a "green career."  Whether you are choosing a new career or happy in your current job, you can make Earth Day more meaningful and make positive contributions to the environment at work.

Match Your Personality with Green Careers
Career Key has a great article on Green Careers that explains the role of careers in the green economy.  It includes lists of green jobs by the six Holland personality types (or Holland Codes) and Career Key work group. These lists match the results of Career Key's valid career test that measures these types and shows lists of matching occupations linked to helpful career information about each one.

Not Your Typical "Green Career"
But the Green Careers article also talks about ways we can contribute to environmental causes through careers not typically associated with being "green," like religious leaders and teachers.  Pope Francis recently declared protecting the environment as a focus in his new papacy.  Teachers can educate students in many ways about the environment that are relevant to their subject.

Being Greener in the Workplace
You know your workplace best.  Are there ways to decrease your carbon footprint that are not being used? Are there lessons learned or experiences from other similar employers that you could adopt?  Some may cost additional money but some may not. You'll never know unless you ask.

Another way to contribute is to join or start an environmental committee or program within a professional association. Be creative in coming up with a project or program that's relevant to your job.  Sometimes, as long as you volunteer to do the research and startup work, people are willing to follow your lead.

There are different views about climate change and people differ on how much they are willing to participate in environment-related efforts. But even making people aware of a more environmentally-friendly way to do something or serving as a (not too preachy) example can help.

What Career Key is Doing
For many years, Career Key has donated 10% of its website sales to charity. The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund are two main beneficiaries because Career Key's author, Dr. Lawrence K. Jones and his wife Jeanine are interested in protecting nature and the environment.  Our server also runs on green, renewable energy.

To put a final, personal touch on this post, Dr. Jones emailed me last week to ask if I had signed up yet for Seattle City Light's Green Power Program. The Program allows customers to "Green Up" their electricity bill using Renewable Energy Credits. (like wind - we don't do much solar here in the Pacific NW for obvious reasons!) So I did - and soon this computer I'm using to write this blog will be 100% powered by wind or similar renewable resources.  There's nothing like pressure from your boss (and your father) to be green!

But I'm not perfect, like everyone else. Occasionally I use plastic sandwich bags for my son's lunch and no doubt other green faux pas I'm not even aware of.  But I make efforts to be environmentally conscious both at work and home, and that's good enough for me.

What do you do at work to be green - or to make your career green?