Monday, May 28, 2012

USA: Patriotism and Memorial Day

Today is a Memorial Day Holiday in the United States, the day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.


Credit Source: wikipedia.org

Many Americans travel to visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service, during the Memorial Day weekend. 

Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.

Credits: Mark Wilson/Getty Images, wikipedia.org and jntconsulting

“I cannot begin to fully understand your loss,”  “As a father, I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to hear that knock on the door and learn that your worst fears have come true. But as commander in chief, I can tell you that sending our troops into harm’s way is the most wrenching decision that I have to make.” - President Barack Obama

"We honor our military more, we take care of our veterans better. Because of the hard lessons of Vietnam, because of you, America is stronger than before." - said, President Obama

By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.

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About JNT Consulting
JNT Consulting Global Resources offers professional consulting in  human capital and resources managementprovides workforce solutions that will achieve the "High Performance Organization" regardless of size and location.

JNT Consulting has its headquarters in San Jose, California and is "Your Partner for Growth & Development”, “Your Professional Coach”, and “Your Provider of Global Resources”. You can contact us by calling +1 650 241-3207 or visit our website.

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6 wikipedia.org

Global: Bridging Investments and R.O.I. of Workforce

A very interesting question was posted to me recently, when I spoke at one event, “Is there a co-relation between skills-gap and continuous hiring of people?”

When you are aware of your investments and returns, there are co-relations that exist because you are talking about people. People in your workforce are the same individuals who will make you become successful. Success and skills-gap versus cost of hiring are concepts that cannot be ignored when you like to be considered the ‘high performance organization’.  The following will help you understand many factors that affect the co-relations between concepts posted above.

Factors that create under-performance of a workforce:
1. Misunderstanding of actual responsibilities, duties and the extent of functions
2. Inefficient skills of the reporting manager to discuss, communicate and perform real-time expectations that are results driven
3. Acclimatization was taken for granted. The adaptation period where new hire was oriented, got equipped with knowledge about the organization, its business, its customers, diversity of people that work in the organization, what are the promises to achieve greater and grow within the organization.
4. Absence of Peer-to-peer learning, coaching and mentoring between more experienced members of the workforce to that of a newer hires
5. Non-existence of Feed backing session as a venue of learning short sightedness, wrong actions, development of rapport, building better competencies, with reporting manager, peer-to-peer and other colleagues in the team
6. Different focus of Team building activities, it is not emphasizing on the development of collaboration, helping each member of the team, partnership, and cross-training
7. External influences can deter focus and productivity

©2012 JNTConsulting

Plans with wrong focus 
When individuals within the organization are found to be under-performing, immediately the people in the human resources department and the reporting manager will take their check list and implement a performance management. The particular employee will be put into a plan where his/her activities will be monitored under a micromanagement practice. Then eventually lay-off or terminate the employment when such employee will not meet the desired expectations of the performance management plan. 

Lack of Knowledge and Competencies 
Immediate performance plan activity is a demonstration of lack of knowledge and competency. Reporting managers and representatives of human resources need to know more about looking into the deeper factors that are affecting poorer achievements of expectations. It is the best time to use the HCM Evidence-based approach.

Bridging Skills Gap Increase R.O.I. 
One of the expected areas of responsibilities of the “well-versed and experienced human capital and resources management practitioner” is the development of skills-gap within their organization. This is something that executive team will not need to tell you. Being pro-active in knowing these facts would help your organizational retention strategies to become a haven of effective workforce. You will save revenue that you incur when you re-hire or re-fill positions within a short period of time. Identify the co-relation of investments between skills-gap developments versus continuous hiring costs. 

At the very early stage of employment, an effective practice is to utilize efficient on-boarding acclimatization period. This will help the new hire to become familiar and adjust to the activities surrounding him/her. Give the new hire the opportunity to adapt and learn. Support him/her with resources of people, tools and knowledge. With the right content and approach in developing those gaps of skills, it will support a long term R.O.I. of your investment in hiring great individuals for your organization. 

It is also the responsibility of the human capital and resources management practitioner to create the venue of learning for the development of its management team. Enhancing their skills to train their team members, measure their skills, manage productive performance and provide feedbacks and communicate effectively is important. It is critical to develop a partnership in identifying areas where they can help their employee. Put an investment to every employee in order to achieve better results. Having more robust competencies of workforce will advance strategically the overall goals of the teams, and the organization as a whole.

Leadership cannot be ignored
Every leader must have a strong communicative competence. Leading people effectively is one of the highest roles when there are people that will work underneath you in an organization. Productivity, results-driven and R.O.I. are things that are looked at continuously. Decision making of terminating someone is another when expected managers or representative do not deliver their roles despite equipping them with support and resources to do their job. HR representatives need to step up their strategic mindset in order not to be displaced. During the 21st Century, organizational leaders are looking through their windows. They like people who are effective people managers, individuals who create opportunities among workforce and develop them to become leaders of the future

What this means to you? 
Before you take the high road of managing low performance of your under-achieving employees, as a reporting manager, team leader and HR representative – you must understand what are causing the low performance level. 

Encourage a person-to-person collaborative relationship within the team and the organization. Avoid the practice of lacking communication. These practices have caused failures of many organizations. 

Open the door of communication and use active listening. Practice efficiency driven by results and R.O.I. of your investments with your people. They are the driver of your success and not the reverse. Put emphasis on the way you develop them and how you achieve results through them.

High performance organizations value their people and their competencies. They put 100 percent emphasis on their effectiveness in making sure that their workforce has all the knowledge, skills, technical trade, tools and competencies. When people are valued, comfortable and supported, their drive to succeed is powerful.


Comments:
We like to hear about your insights. You can email your comments to: info@jntconsulting.com or share them in the provided comments field at the end of this article.

About JNT Consulting
JNT Consulting Global Resources offers professional consulting in  human capital and resources managementprovides workforce solutions that will achieve the "High Performance Organization" regardless of size and location.

JNT Consulting has its headquarters in San Jose, California and is "Your Partner for Growth & Development”, “Your Professional Coach”, and “Your Provider of Global Resources”. You can contact us by calling +1 650 241-3207 or visit our website.

Reference:




Saturday, May 26, 2012

Reducing and managing high blood pressure without medication

In the workplace, it is not unusual to hear about a colleague or team mate who was diagnosed with hypertension and were taking hypertension pills to maintain their high blood pressure. Many research findings showed that the health and conditions of the workforce were affected by different forces at work environment. Like the quota and sales pressures, long work hours, uncertainties of employment, economic challenges, and lay-off, conflict with co-workers and or reporting supervisor / manager and responsibilities at home and or family.

According to the Mayo Clinic Staff,  “You don't always need prescription medications to lower your blood pressure. By making some lifestyle changes, you can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease.”

If you've been diagnosed with high blood pressure (a systolic pressure - the top number - of 140 or above) or (a diastolic pressure  - the bottom number - of 90 or above), you might consider taking steps to bring your numbers down.

It is a matter of Lifestyle change that will play an important role in treating your high blood pressure without medication. When you successfully control your blood pressure with a healthy lifestyle, you may avoid, delay or reduce the need for medication. Challenge yourself to execute healthy ways in managing your high blood pressure. Do not be dependent on medications unless necessary.

The following are insightful suggestions that will help lower your blood pressure and naturally maintaining it.

Monitoring your blood pressure at home and have a caring physician
Learning to self-monitor your blood pressure with an upper arm monitor can help motivate you.  If you have high blood pressure, you may need to monitor your blood pressure at home.  There are many small health kits that you can buy that will help you monitor your blood pressure at home.

Establishing a caring program and patient relationship with your personal physician would be ideal.
Have a personal care physician. 
o   Find a doctor who will evaluate your whole being as a healthy person. Someone who is open to create a caring relationship with you. Your personal care physician will provide you guidance on healthy diets, exercises, advantages of living healthy, feedbacks on  avoidance of risky unhealthy practices and lifestyle living  and one who will not  recommend immediate use of prescription, drugs and regimen of medication.
o   Scheduling a program with your personal care physician is advantageous.

Regular visits to your doctor may become a part of your normal routine. These visits will help you monitor and learn about your progress in maintaining a healthy blood pressure.
Visit your doctor regularly. 
o   If your blood pressure is under control, you might need to visit your personal physician only every six to 12 months, depending on other conditions you might have.
o   If your blood pressure isn't well controlled, or if you have other medical problems, you might need to visit your doctor more often or every month to review your treatment and make adjustments as necessary.

Dr. Oz’ suggests monitoring your blood pressure at home can give you better insight about your health. And you will manage your own technique to treat this condition.  Watch what he says.

Other ways in managing your high blood pressure naturally:
1. Reduce your stress levels
  • Stress or anxiety can temporarily increase blood pressure. Consider taking time to think about what are causing your stresses. The following may be some factors like work, family, finances or some illness. Once you have identified the causes, consider how you can eliminate or reduce stress.
  • Dr. Oz’ suggested natural techniques in reducing high blood pressure – see Treatments for high blood pressure.
  • Reducing stress is a matter of identifying mechanisms or activities that are interesting to you. Make sure that the particular activity will create relaxation to your consciousness and self. There are many ways of reducing stress.
  • If you can't eliminate all of your stressors, you can at least cope with them in a healthier way. For example, take breaks for deep-breathing exercises. Consider some meditation, Yoga or a massage. If self-help doesn't work, seek out the help of an experienced professional who can help you in reducing your stress.
 2. Exercise regularly
Regular physical activity of at least 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week - can lower your blood pressure by 4 to 9 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). When doing your regular activity you will see a difference. If you haven't been active, increasing your exercise level can lower your blood pressure within few weeks.

If you have prehypertension (systolic pressure between 120 and 139 or diastolic pressure between 80 and 89), exercise can help you avoid developing full-blown hypertension. If you already have hypertension, regular physical activity can bring your blood pressure down to safer levels.

Oftentimes, your personal physician can help you determine applicable exercises along with restrictions. Even moderate activity for 10 minutes at a time, such as walking and light strength training, can help.

Avoid being a "weekend warrior." Do not try to squeeze all your exercise on the weekends to make up for week days inactivity. It would be healthier to exercise on a regular basis, conduct short intervals of exercises during the week.

3. Lose excess weight and watch your waistline
Blood pressure often increases as weight increases. Losing just 10 pounds can help reduce your blood pressure. In general, the more weight you lose, the lower your blood pressure. If you are taking medication, losing weight also makes any blood pressure medications you're taking more effective.

Besides losing few pounds, you should also keep an eye on your waistline. The following information about weight will give you general perspectives:
- Men are at risk if their waist measurement is greater than 40 inches (102 centimeters, or cm).
- Women are at risk if their waist measurement is greater than 35 inches (88 cm).
- Asian men are at risk if their waist measurement is greater than 36 inches (90 cm).
- Asian women are at risk if their waist measurement is greater than 32 inches (80 cm).

4. Eat healthy and balanced diet
Eating a diet that is rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products and controlling on saturated fat and cholesterol can lower your blood pressure by up to 14 mm Hg. Try an eating plan that is known as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet.

Changing your eating habits is challenging, but with the following tips, you can adopt a healthy diet:
a. Keep a food diary. 
o   Monitor what you eat, how much, when and why. By writing down what you eat, even for just a week, can shed surprising light on your true eating habits.
o   Dr. Oz’ recommended foods for High Blood Pressure
1.      Soy Beans For High Blood Pressure – Eat 2-3 cups of soybeans a week.
2.      Edamame relaxes the blood vessels plus they are high in potassium that balances out the salt and reduces blood pressure.
3.      Collard Greens For High Blood Pressure – Collard greens have lots of calcium and lots of fiber to help lower your blood pressure, they have compounds that help reverse and prevent damage to your blood vessels. Two to three servings a week which is a fist full for high blood pressure.
4.      Cocoa Powder For HIgh Blood Pressure – Dr. Oz says 2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder 1-2 times per week.
b. Consider boosting potassium. 
o   Potassium can lessen the effects of sodium on blood pressure. The best sources of potassium are fruits and vegetables, rather than supplements. You can discuss also with your personal physician about the potassium level that's best for you (where applicable).
c. Be a smart shopper. 
o   Do not buy junk food. Read food labels when you pick up your groceries, and stick to your healthy-eating plan. When you're dining out, be mindful of the type of food you eat. It is the best technique to make a shopping list before heading to the supermarket to avoid picking up junk food.
d. Cut yourself some slack. Although the DASH diet is a lifelong eating guide, it doesn't mean you have to cut out all of the foods you love. It's OK to treat yourself occasionally to foods you wouldn't find on a DASH diet menu, like a candy bar or mashed potatoes with gravy.

5. Reduce sodium in your diet
Even a small reduction in the sodium in your diet can reduce blood pressure by 2 to 8 mm Hg. The recommendations for reducing sodium are:
- Limit sodium to 2,300 milligrams (mg) a day or less.
- A lower sodium level -1,500 mg a day or less is appropriate for people 51 years of age or older, and individuals of any age who are African-American or who have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.

To decrease sodium in your diet, consider the following tips:
Track how much salt is in your diet. 
o   Keep a food diary to estimate how much sodium is in what you eat and drink each day.
Read food labels. 
o   Choose low-sodium alternatives of the foods and beverages you normally buy.
Eat fewer processed foods. 
o   Potato chips, frozen dinners, bacon and processed lunch meats.
Don't add salt. 
o   Just 1 level teaspoon of salt has 2,300 mg of sodium. Use herbs or spices, rather than salt, to add more flavor to your foods.
Ease into it. 
o   If you feel that you cannot drastically reduce the sodium in your diet, take a slow approach in reducing it. Your palate will adjust over time.

6. Control on caffeine
Regardless of your sensitivity to effects of caffeine, doctors recommend you drink no more than 200 milligrams a day or about two cups of coffee.

To see if caffeine raises your blood pressure, check your pressure within 30 minutes of drinking a cup of coffee or another caffeinated beverage you regularly drink. If your blood pressure increases by five to 10 points, you may be sensitive to the blood pressure raising effects of caffeine.

7. Get support from family and friends
Supportive family and friends can help improve your health. They may encourage you to take care of yourself, drive you to the doctor's office or embark on an exercise program with you to keep your blood pressure low.
  • Talk to your family and friends about the dangers of high blood pressure.
If you are alone and don’t have immediate family and friend support, consider joining a support group. This may create an avenue to put you in touch with people who can give you an emotional or morale boost. The people you will meet can offer you practical tips in coping up with your health and condition.

8. Limit alcohol intake
Alcohol can be both good and bad for your health. Drinking moderately, it can potentially lower your blood pressure by 2 to 4 mm Hg. But that protective effect is lost if you drink too much alcohol - generally more than one drink a day for women and more than two a day for men. If you don't normally drink alcohol, you shouldn't start drinking as a way to lower your blood pressure. There's more potential harm than benefit to drinking alcohol.

If you drink more than moderate amounts, alcohol can actually raise blood pressure by several points. It can also reduce the effectiveness of high blood pressure medications.

Monitor your drinking patterns. 
o   Along with your food diary, keep an alcohol diary to track your true drinking patterns. One drink equals 12 ounces (355 milliliters, or mL) of beer, 5 ounces of wine (148 mL) or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor (45 mL). If you're drinking more than the suggested amounts, cut back.
Consider tapering off. 
o   Slowly reducing your drinking pattern will help you. If you're a heavy drinker, suddenly eliminating all alcohol can actually trigger severe high blood pressure for several days. It would be best to slowly eliminating it for better health in the long term.

What this means to you?
High Blood Pressure is deadly when it is not monitored and managed properly.  Many individuals have this challenge in their life and most are being dependent to medications. There are many ways to help yourself in maintaining a healthy blood pressure.

Being healthy is always the best way to enjoy life and its promise. However, the most important skill in order to enjoy that promise is by demonstrating healthy practices in managing and controlling habits in our lifestyle. Eating regular fruits, vegetables, balanced diets, drink moderately, being conscious on the bad and unhealthy foods, avoid junk foods, avoid ready-frozen foods that were prepared with unhealthy ingredients, read labels of foods that you buy, take time to research sources of healthy foods like organic markets and supermarkets, keeping track of your blood pressure at home.

Learn to prepare your own food. Cooking is healthy and it will give you many advantages in managing your healthy intake of foods that are nutritious and useful for your body. Cooking is easy; it is an art of putting together different edible foods and products. Experiment with ingredients from many different cultures.  There are many foods from various ethnicity that can give you natural nutrients, vitamins and food supply to maintain your healthy body.

Having a healthy workforce, it will advance the organization with greater corporate health and it will always have a greater R.O.I. Lesser insurance claims for illness, doctor's visits and medications.  One way to influence the members of the workforce to eat healthy foods is by providing them a cafeteria that do not offer junk foods. There are many ways to incorporate health-driven communications, practices and habits that will encourage the workforce to become healthier and they will avoid to become one among the hypertension patients.


Being healthy is a beautiful asset of oneself.


The following Chart will show you the different stages of Blood Pressures from Stage 1 up to the most severe, based from an analytical study from Vaughn's Summaries.


Credits: Vaughn's Summaries

Please note that this chart was meant for informational use only. It is suggested that you need to seek medical advise or seek your personal physician's advise in order to make the right judgement for your current and specific health conditions.

Comments:
We like to hear about your insights. You can email your comments to: info@jntconsulting.com or share them in the provided comments field at the end of this article.

About JNT Consulting
JNT Consulting Global Resources offers professional consulting in  human capital and resources managementprovides workforce solutions that will achieve the "High Performance Organization" regardless of size and location.

JNT Consulting has its headquarters in San Jose, California and is "Your Partner for Growth & Development”, “Your Professional Coach”, and “Your Provider of Global Resources”. You can contact us by calling +1 650 241-3207 or visit our website.

Reference:

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

FYI - USCIS "Unexpected Delays of Receipt Notices"

Important Announcement on Delays of Receipt Notices for I-129 Applications


Today, May 23, 2012 - The USCIS Announced that petition applicants will experience an unexpected delays for the issuance of Receipt Notices of applied I-129 Petition Applications.

Normally, Receipt Notices are issued within 30 days from confirmation date.

This time, USCIS says that it received high volume of I-129 Petition Applications. It may take additional two to four weeks before customers will receive a Receipt Notice.

It is further advised that when a customer may not receive the Receipt Notice within 60 days of the Confirmation date of Delivery. Please contact the appropriate Service Center via email address listed on the USCIS webpage.

The details of this notification can be read at: Temporary Delay



What this means to you:
Staffing and HR personnel involved for the hiring of new people who are petitioned with employment visas need to adjust time of start and may be relocation date for those who will be coming from international zone.  This is important in order to manage expectations of the new employee and hiring and reporting manager.

Two things that will get impacted:
1. This will delay the start date of a petitioned new hire without the Receipt Notice issued by the USCIS
2. Transfers who holds another visa cannot begin at new employer location without the Receipt Notice of I-129 Application


Comments:
We like to hear about your insights. You can email your comments to: info@jntconsulting.com or share them in the provided comments field at the end of this article.

About JNT Consulting
JNT Consulting Global Resources offers professional consulting in  human capital and resources managementprovides workforce solutions that will achieve the "High Performance Organization" regardless of size and location.

JNT Consulting has its headquarters in San Jose, California and is "Your Partner for Growth & Development”, “Your Professional Coach”, and “Your Provider of Global Resources”. You can contact us by calling +1 650 241-3207 or visit our website.

Reference: