The Engineer and the Global Humanitarian

The Engineer and the Global Humanitarian The Engineer and the Global Humanitarian Engineering is so essential to all aspects of modern life that opportunities abound for mechanical engineering and global humanism to join as a powerful force to tackle critical issues facing this planet.Many engineers serve their communities offering their professional expertise. Now, engineers can also integrate global humanism into their careers, furthering the principle that regardless of political affiliation, religion, or culture, it is the responsibility of every human being to diminish human suffering.ASMEs strategic partnerships with humanitarian groups provide members access to volunteer opportunities for advocating mechanical engineering while making the world a better place. Volunteering with one of ASMEs partners, such as Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA), enables members to find innovative, sustainable, and appropriate solutions for many of the worlds problems.Such much-needed creati ve engineering solutions go beyond traditional approaches that have notlage focused on preserving resources, which has resulted in massive energy loss. For example, the average automobile wastes 80% to 85% of the energy in the gasoline before it gets to the wheels.The ineffective use of natural resources hits the poorest the fastest and hardest. For instance, in standard irrigation systems an average of 80% of water evaporates or leaks away before being used, according to ASMEs Strategic Management Sector. The lack of affordable basic necessities, such as energy, clean water, sanitation, food, medical care, and education, prevents billions of people from improving their lives. Engineering has the potential to change that and is one of the most emotionally fulfilling applications of humanitarian engineering.Some ways to get involved are to network with friends and colleagues and to volunteer with socially-minded organizations, such as Engineers Without Borders (EWB-USA), the Girl Sco uts, Boy Scouts, and Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS).Most important, join an organization you identify with so that your passion inspires others Become a mentor at your area high-school, college, or in your workplace sign up on ASMEs E-Mentor web site. Its a two-way street While you motivate another engineer, in return you gain fresh perspective, invaluable to your own development.There are many areas to choose from. For example, in the public policy arena, mechanical engineers can provide invaluable advice as legislators face new issues due to the pervasiveness of technology in modern life. As Dr. Bill Jones, consulting engineer and president, J. William Jones Consulting Engineers, told attendees at an ASME Congress, regardless of ones political views, no one wants the people in charge of making extremely important decisions about technological development, application and ethics to be uninformed. ASMEs Engineering the Greater Good program supports sending engineers to Washington, D.C., for one year to provide non-biased technical advice to politicians and the government.A thriving culture of globally conscious sustainable engineering can heal communities and help meet future challenges. No organization does it better than EWB-USA, whose founder Dr. Bernard Amadei has been awarded ASMEs and ASCEs joint Hoover Award recognizing service to humanity. EWB-USAs goal is to promote responsible, sustainable, culturally appropriate engineering solutions for developing communities. Volunteers at EWB-USA address community-specific engineering needs in developing areas of the world. Even though these projects may not have the glitz of high-tech research, they are innovative and rewarding. Furthermore, EWB-USAs philosophy can be adopted as an example of how to change the way one thinks about designing technology, developing sustainable products and services, and creating environmentally friendly engineering solutions across many applications. High-tech or clas sic, engineers have the ability to revolutionize the world and to bring the gifts of clean water, sanitation, transport, sustainable development, energy, and a higher standard of living to billions.The ineffective use of natural resources hits the poorest the fastest and hardest.

Majority of workers are unhappy employees, study finds

Majority of workers are unhappy employees, study findsMajority of workers are unhappy employees, study findsNearly three-fourths of American workers are actively hunting for a new job, and the vast majority dont feel like they get enough recognition from their company, according to a new study that reveals the state of todays office workers.The 2017 Mind the Workplace report, released by the nonprofit groupMental Health America (MHA) and The Faas Foundation,surveyedmora than 17,000 U.S. workers in 19 industries and found that 71% were either actively looking for new job opportunities or had the topic on their minds always, often or sometimes at work.Only 19% said they rarely or never think about getting another job.Here are some of the studys findings on how employees say theyre really faringProfessional recognition is hard to come byWhen it comes to feeling appreciated enough by their companies - either through salary or recognition - American workers are struggling, according to the survey.Seventy-seven percent of workers surveyed said some of their colleagues get recognition they dont deserve, while those who bring more to the table professionally get ignored, according to the study.Nearly half - or 45% of participants - said they rarely or never raked in the amount of money they deserved, and 44% said skilled workers were always or often overlooked.Paul Gionfriddo, president and CEO of MHA, commentedon why this is bad for business.We know that employees who are overstressed and under-sttzeed can significantly impact the people around them and a companys successInterestingly, our research found that recognition overall was more important than salaries in employee satisfaction which means even small companies with limited budgets can improve workplace health and productivity by focusing on the individual in addition to the bottom line, he said.Companies should pay attention to how each employee is faring at work.Feeling aloneIts easy to feel like youre w orking in a sink or swim environment, the survey found.Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said that the stress of their job had a significant impact on their mental and behavioral health.Sixty-six percent of respondents said they sometimes, rarely or never feel like they can trust their colleagues to support them at the office.And 64% percent of employees reported that if things got tough, their supervisor would sometimes, rarely or never support them.Skyrocketing stressAndrew Faas, Founder of The Faas Foundation, writes in the report that work environments may be a huge source of stress for employees - he even cites a 2016 Harvard/Stanford study that found thatan average of 120,000 workplace deaths annually might be linked to work-related stress.When we consider that these are premature deaths, this is a number one killer, Fass writes.Key triggers for stress are job demands, the amount of responsibilities, team dynamics and staff management, according to the report.Add to that a perception that bosses and colleagues have a lack of recognition, support, and structure in their workplace, and workers stress levels skyrocket, the study found.Our data confirms that higher levels of stress contribute to increased absenteeism and mental and behavioral health risks, researchers wrote.The Mind the Workplace report found that awhopping 63% of respondents said that they always, often or sometimes take part in unhealthy behaviors such as drinking or crying regularly. Only 37% said rarely or never.It was the same numerical breakdown for people when asked how often they work by themselves because of the their negative work environment.The detrimental nature of stress at work has also been echoed in other research done by the Society for Human Resource Management and Kronos.The executive summary of the organizationsTotal Financial Impact of Employee Absences in the U.S. Survey in 2014 also showed that theres a clear link between stress and absenteeism.Absenteeism is cle arly a key driver of inadequate staffing and thus may result in rising employee stress levels. Poor management of employee absences can lead to a vicious cycle of rising stress levels that negatively affect employee health and morale and lead to even more days of work missed, the summary says.Here are some ways to combat stressbefore it boils over.

3 Ways To Find A Job Beyond The Job Boards

3 Ways To Find A Job Beyond The Job Boards3 Ways To Find A Job Beyond The Job BoardsThe 1st thing I say when a candidate tells me, I cant find anything, even though Ive been looking for months and Ive applied to hundreds of positions by now, is, Well, whats your process? Tell me about that.Inevitably, I hear some version of, I find an ad online, apply for it, and wait. But either notlagehing happens, or maybe Ill get an automated email with no way to contact a real rolle.If thats your process, then Im here to tell you, thats not a process. sorrynotsorry The job boards give you a 1-2% chance of landing an interview ALL the job boards including the executive job boards, premium job boards, six-figure job boards, and niche job boards.Let me shed some light on where 99.9% of candidates stop they stop once they apply online. They erroneously think something along the lines of, If you build post it, they will come. However, from here forward, I want you to START with the ads you read onl ine. Consider the job boards as spring boards only, and use the information to do 1 or all of the following1. Extra Extra Read All About ItBlog, blog, and blog some more. Everyone likes to say on their resumes that theyre passionate about their work. Well, if thats really true for you, prove it. Use the job ads to identify the organizations that are hiring, then demonstrate the expertise you have that dovetails with your target companys needs. Use the blog to not only showcase your writing style, but also prove that youre up to date on the latest and greatest in your field, by launching a blog.A little daunted by the technical end of things? Dont be. Blog hosts abound WordPress, SquareSpace, and Blogger.com are super-simple to start. You can even find someone on Fiverr.com to set things up for you. Whats even easier is writing an article on LinkedIn. Whatever platform you choose, get the technical stuff out of the way quickly, so all youre left to do is concentrate on showing what y ou know.Understand something hiring managers, once they receive you resume, look you up online. While theyre not necessarily conducting an investigation to uncover digital dirt, make sure you dont have any of that. The ideal situation is that the decision maker pops your name into the search bar, and the results indicate your expertise in the form of blog articles wherever you decided to post them. Thats going to instantly make you stand head and shoulders above the other 1,000 candidates who applied for the saatkorn position you did on any given day.Put your blog post in front of the right audiences by posting it inside of LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry, for example. Blog about a product and send it to decision makers at the company youre interested in by using Twitter. There are any number of promotional tactics you can take to build your brand and professional reputation.2. Present A Project.The typical candidate will go on an interview, then come up with the really in genious (ok, but not really) strategy of formulating a 30-60-90-day plan. Thats fine, but certainly not fabulous. Graduate to the remarkable by doing a project before you land the interview, to prove to the decision maker that you can solve a problem the company is facing right now.For example, if you see an ad for a role in product development, it likely caught your eye because youre used to creating, innovating, and literally, building something out of nothing. You dont have to go so far as to invent something novel for the organization youre interested in theyre not paying you yet. However, you can evaluate what the company already has, conduct usability testing, document what you find, and, based on that, recommend a design improvement. Popular products stay popular because the design and development teams are always looking for features to add or improve.If youre in marketing, improve on a marketing campaign that a company has already executed. Or recommend a marketing strateg y you havent seen them do yet, but perhaps you did something similar before and you can prove its success based on data and insights. No need to show your entire hand youre not handing over a whole new marketing campaign to an organization thats not paying you. Youre simply demonstrating that you have the real-world experience to address a specific issue successfully.I understand these ideas are hard harder than applying for jobs online. I understand they take work. Everybody wants to do something easy. Be different. Be better. Do this work now, to get into the work you want to be doing, sooner rather than later.3. Consult For Real.Heres consulting thats fake Lead development of inspired, focused, and productive leaders ready to purposefully impact greater society, by helping change how people get healthy. What? I think that means you sell either vitamins or organic skin care stuff. Thats not consulting.When a candidate tells me shes been consulting, I ask, what is the most recent project? Heres where this gets hard when you consult for free, consult for your friends company, or the last consulting gig you did was 2 months ago, you tend to discard that from your mind. Instead, I want you to lean into those things.Consulting counts on your resume if you did actual projects for someone and delivered a result. Think about the areas of expertise that repeatedly crop up in the job ads youre coming across. If youve consulting using those areas of expertise, ask yourself the following? How would you describe the client or the clients business / organization?? What was this a project to do?? What did you actually do, recommend, or put into distribution policy?? What specific result came from your work?Consulting is a fantastic approach to filling in a recent gap in time on your resume, as long as you can fill it in with real projects that delivered real results.The moral of the story here is use the job boards not as the end point like most of your competition will do. Use them as the starting point, and be inspired to go beyond the job boards to do something for the decision maker that will genuinely, uniquely showcase who you are, what you do, and the value you bring. Smart jobseekers found out even more in our free online program, 3 Simple Steps To Cut Your Job Search Time In HALF There, we go deep into how to make sure youre the person the decision maker finds on LinkedIn, how to uncover the real decision maker in the 1st place, and what to do to increase the likelihood that youre the candidate who gets the responses you need. The full webinar is coming up here.