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 Hi Joel,

You want me to edit this, rather than drop it in a fire?

It breaks every conceivable rule I have ever learned about technical
writing and looking at it makes me nauseous. The 1,000 superficial
changes of note on each page, don't come close to the deep-seated
problems with that document. Now usually, I consider myself a
descriptive person when it comes to language and uses, but the use of
language and lack of structure in this doc makes my skin crawl in ways
no southern drawl on the vowels of Es and Is ever could. This
document’s passive, yet controlling voice, rekindles my hatred for the
patriarchy and the society wrapped around the fragile male ego. The
lack of graphical determination reminds me of those so lacking in
imagination and knowledge that one must consider the writer's lacked
theory of mind. I shudder to think what a Greek God of Language would
do to those perpetuating such filth, and that's saying a lot because
the Ancient Greek didn't even have spaces between their words.

If I accept this project, I will edit it like God did to Sodom &
Gomorra and utterly wipe it off the face of the earth, but instead of
leaving pillars of salt, I will leave you with an easily printable
version of this: Hugh the Ducky’s Quick Quack Start Guide

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10f6lU-PBFuDpG8Jp7qiG6GxwtZr3B6xXDlEDIAtrMrs/edit?usp=sharing

I can have a mostly finished document to you in 2 weeks.

Cheers!
Raya



On 2022-05-17 10:26, joleary@hugllc.com wrote:

Hi Raya. Later last week I dropped the Quick Start Guide on your desk.
If I recall correctly, we briefly discussed this document last week. I
marked it up fairly significantly, and Mike also added some edits.
(His edits are in red ink.) Anyway, I believe you are the person to
make edits to the master copy. (With your educational background,
please make whatever changes you feel are necessary/beneficial too.)
Also, please remember the audience is anyone who has purchased a HH1
system, thus fairly broad. Lastly, let me know when you think you will
be able to tackle this project. If you have questions, you know where
to find me.

Thanks so very much for your help with this task.

~ Joel

The next big thing

 Part of me wants to be just a poet and a gardener, weaving words and guiding grapes up trellises. My grapes escaped their trellis and grew high into the branches of the pine trees above my garden, and I realize I must climb to harvest my grapes.

 Yet the only reason I have had time to dabble in such pastoral pursuits, as gardening, is because of the generosity of those of whose knees I sat at as I learned business as a child. Bedtime stories became quests of learning everything my father ate on a business trip. Movies became times to clip leads or fold brochures. Family holidays always became business planning sessions.

At 17, I opened my first business, the only dance studio in the town we had moved to for my parents business to grow. I had 3 students and we put on a full length ballet, with a little recruiting from students at the dance studio where I trained, before I moved to college.

As my parents business made its first million, I eyed the MBA program at my college. Then I got married and started having children, but the maternity clothes were not cutting it. So by my third child I opened a new business, using the infant technologies available to online retailers in the early 2000s. 

After struggling to open clothing production facilities in the USA,  mostly due to my failure to create a functioning team, and being overwhelmed with my own children’s needs at the time. We chose to downsize just to me again, but still hit all of our growth estimates until I had my 5th baby. Then I knew I could either grow my business or my children.

Now we have another business, one that I must climb to harvest. That climbing includes learning how to market the technology that revolutionized in-floor heating, learning how to manage and focus our talented team, and learning how to set up manufacturing and fulfillment. 

Our current marketing and sales team is staffed by engineers, attempting to market to the Heating and Plumbing professionals, which is the lowest value proposition market we have access to. One year ago, I took over the online marketing bringing us to the do-it-yourselfers and small contactor market. Our online sales have triple the closure rate with 10% higher margins than our average sales. 

I want to know enough to bring HUG Hydronics to the world, starting with North America and then Europe.  I need to learn how to manage people, build networks, finance a growing business, add to my abilities to analyze data and see trends, and build sustainable and robust supply chains in our ever-changing economic and physical environments. 

I see the MBA giving me the tools to climb and harvest safely. I see St. Catherine’s MBA as being particularly valuable in helping me navigate a traditionally male centered business and learning how to establish a workplace that values all voices, experiences, and backgrounds.

Hiring the Gaps

  

Those of us who are the most capable in the workplace are often the most capable caregivers, when demands collide we have to place priorities on those we love the most. The problem is caregiving can leave gaps of years in our resume and make us feel out of touch with the business world. New York Time’s Clair Cane Miller pointed out on February 4, 2021 that we should not penalize people for care giving. In her article, Working Moms Are Struggling. Here’s What Would Help. What government, employers and the rest of us can do, she says “hiring managers should not discard résumés with pandemic-era gaps, and consider rehiring the employees who left for caregiving reasons.” This empathy for caregivers during the pandemic should be extended to all who are caregivers, in whatever circumstances they have been in.

Whether it is motherhood or elderly care, caregiving builds many soft skills that are important to becoming good leaders and effective employees. In 2019, Berline Cameron did a study on Motherhood and Leadership, aptly titled Reframing Motherhood . They found “that 75% of mothers believe that parenting has made them better leaders.” Jennifer DaSilva, the president of Berline Cameron commented on this study by explaining   

The skills that you develop as a parent — empathy, multitasking, flexibility, understanding, time management, communication skills, staying calm under pressure, and many more — are all skills needed for being successful in the workplace. It’s no wonder, then, that even non-parents who worked with managers who were parents found them to be better in all of these areas.

Due to the soft skills learned in caretaking, our company has a policy of hiring farmers and teachers because they have learned through the constant caretaking of children, animals and/or crops the skills of hard work, adaptability, and leading others. It is fun to watch Molissa, a cow farmer, who works in sales and fulfillment, handle communications snafus with  particularly dense salesmen we have. She takes no guff as she pulls that stubborn bull into line.

Yet about one third of the workforce have left to give care at home. “Overall,” writes Joyce Famakinwa at Home Health Care News in August of 2019, (pre-pandemic) said “researchers found that 73% of the employees surveyed had some form of current caregiving responsibility. About 32% of employees reported voluntarily leaving a job due to caregiving responsibilities.” Shelley Zalis, in her 2019  article for Forbes, The Power Of Caregiving In The Workplace No One Talks About, says “The best leaders today are caregivers, and yet we’re losing our best leaders to caregiving.” So how do we help our leaders to stay?

In the tight labor market this question seems to be on every HR person’s mind. Forbes had a panel discussion on this very topic. An article dated July 26, 2021, named Nine Ways For Organizations To Better Support Working Parents first mentions the big ways “major steps like setting up a breastfeeding area and offering daycare during working hours” which are often out of reach for small employers, but then gives several “little ways” to support working caregivers. This list includes: flexibility, autonomy, letting employees account for their own time, extended maternity leave, giving parents time off for children’s activities, allowing them to bring kids to work, and ultimately a focus on results. It is interesting to note that every one of these is practiced by my company, not just for parents, but for all employees. When I started back to work, I did have a baby in tow. I was allowed office space where she could hang with me all day without disturbing or being disturbed by the noises in the shop. The breaks from what I was focusing on to nurse or play with her served as a cognitive reset, allowing me space to think about what I was doing and accomplish the tasks clearer and easier when I returned to them. 

Whenever another interesting job would cross my feed it was easy to stay loyal because of the incredible flexibility and autonomy my employers allow. Sharon Rusinowitz at Chart Hop in September of 2022 offers 4 Ways to Support Working Parents beyond parental leave policies.  She explains it is all about the work-life balance and points out that “According to a study by Catalyst and CNBC, 64% of working parents are considering changing careers for a better work-life balance to meet their new priorities and schedules.”  Rusinowitz discusses the same ideas of flexibility, autonomy, and the focus on results rather than seat time that were brought up in the Forbe’s Panel, and says businesses should be 

Creating a culture of flexibility. Cultivate a culture of trust, where parents can leave if needed, with no shame attached. In a results-oriented company, leaders trust employees to meet deadlines, whether that happens at 10am or 10pm.

These policies can be applied equally to caregivers and non-caregivers with minimal costs and high increase in worker satisfaction. 

Another awesome idea to hold on to and attract caregivers is suggested by Zalis. “Rewrite job descriptions to include caregiving qualities. . . such as being nurturing, collaborative, empathetic.” Zalis explains why this will help women to apply; “research finds that men apply for a job when they meet just 60% of the qualifications, but women don’t apply unless they meet 100% of them.” She then says “Imagine how many women would feel more qualified if we rewrote job descriptions to include caregiving qualities.” When job descriptions are written to include skills we have honed in caregiving, we are way more likely to include the caregiving on our resume and fill in the gaps, but even if the gaps are left in the resume, it could be a sign of something good.  

 

 

Works Cited

 

Brower, Tracy. “Working Parents Need Better Support: 3 Ways to Build the Best Support Systems.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 11 July 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2022/07/10/working-parents-need-better-support-3-ways-to-build-the-best-support-systems/?sh=3acea35f75ea

 

Famakinwa, Joyce. “32% Of Employees Quit Jobs to Provide Informal Care at Home.” Home Health Care News, 7 Aug. 2019, https://homehealthcarenews.com/2019/08/32-of-employees-quit-jobs-to-provide-informal-care-at-home/#:~:text=About%2032%25%20of%20employees%20reported,job%20due%20to%20caregiving%20responsibilities

 

Miller, Claire Cain. “Working Moms Are Struggling. Here's What Would Help.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/parenting/government-employer-support-moms.html

 

Rusinowitz, Sharon. “4 Ways to Support Working Parents (beyond Parental Leave).” ChartHop, 23 Sept. 2022, https://www.charthop.com/resources/blog/employee-experience/how-to-support-parents-at-work/

 

Zalis, Shelley. “The Power of Caregiving in the Workplace No One Talks About.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 May 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2019/05/14/the-power-of-caregiving-in-the-workplace-no-one-talks-about/?sh=67cdbd1047c8