Lindsay reimagined and implemented the blog strategy for Brandman University, now UMass Global. She served as an author, content creator and Editor in Chief for the website and related organic channels.
This article was published on the UMass Global blog.
There are so many factors to consider when selecting the right university for you to achieve your degree at. Once you’ve selected your program and researched universities that offer it, you’ll likely run into narrowing down your options by school type. Here are our top five reasons to apply to a private school for your education.
This article was published on the UMass Global blog.
For some educators, the back to school season means more than stocking up on supplies and new outfits for the first day of school. A recent graduate may be planning to launch a teaching career, and long-time professionals may consider new opportunities for growth. As the teacher shortage intensifies to a national level, we explore the U.S states with the highest demand and the best states to work for educators.
This article was published on the Brandman University blog.
In the words of Brandman University’s distinguished dean, Dr. Glenn Worthington, “Ultimately, your success story is our success story at Brandman.” We thank our wonderful students and alumni for sharing their tales about those who supported them and inspired them to achieve their degrees.
This article was published on the Brandman University blog.
As a student-centric university, Brandman is dedicated to building a strong culture of support for its students and community members. Our academic advising team is a primary part of the many ways we ensure that students are provided the help they need to transition into their educational careers and achieve long-term success. Lynda Snyder has personally witnessed this support system and thanks her experience with faculty and staff as she moves forward on the path to graduation. Continue reading
This article was published on the UMass Global blog.
There is no single definition of “success.” Many different people have their own interpretation of the word that is often based on personal values, experiences, beliefs and other complex factors. Sometimes it’s a mix of factual evidence and emotional sentiments that influence its meaning, while other times it can skew stronger in one direction than the other. Continue reading
This article was published on the UMass Global blog.
Location. Location. Location. House hunting requires a significant amount of business sense and self-reflection since our places of residence often help shape our professional and personal life experiences. We consider everything: our career opportunities, costs of living, expenses and cultural support for making a home in an area where we can also live out our personal interests. Continue reading
This article was published on the Brandman University blog.
Part of maintaining a healthy balance between work and life not only involves beating burnout at work but also includes taking care of your physical well being. One of the main reasons it is so challenging to fit exercise into our busy schedules is that it’s simply not part of our daily routine. Brushing our teeth is easy because we are used to it, and the same can be true for fitness. Continue reading
This article was published on the Brandman University blog.
For some people work is something they simply have to do, for others it may be their motivations to wake up in the morning. Wherever on the spectrum an employee resides, at some point during the natural cycles of life, both personally and professionally, there will be times when their fire may fade. Fight to bring back the blaze with these tips on how to beat burnout at work.
This article was published on the Brandman University blog.
The popularity of offering flextime programs to employees is skyrocketing among modern companies in efforts to encourage a healthy balance between work and life commitments. Although it seems like an ideal concept for many busy professionals who have to drop their kids off at daycare or school before work, a new study reveals that it may present the biggest morning work mistake for the career conscious.
Traditionally research shows that in general, flexible work practices lead to increased productivity, higher job satisfaction and decreased turnover intentions. Despite this positive feedback for human resources to consider, there is still an air of uncertainty of whether employees who take advantage of these options incur career penalties for doing so. Lisa M. Leslie at the University of Minnesota along with fellow scholars reported in a recent paper featured in the Academy of Management Journal that the results are mixed and primarily rely on supervisors’ perceptions.
Taking the findings a step further, researchers at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business recently revealed that a type of morning bias can negatively impact employees. According to their findings bosses may be unconsciously judging their employees when they give themselves later start times, regardless of how much work they are getting done during work designated hours.
The hypothesis was based on the importance of in which direction an employee shifts hours based on the premise that people seem to have a tendency to celebrate early risers. The concept is written in historic phrases and everyday language such as:
The question that was posed was simply if in the eyes of managers with power over careers, are employees who choose later start times stereotyped as less conscientious, and given poorer performance evaluations on average? The researchers did confirm this stereotype on average after implementing a laboratory experiment that involved natural reactions to related words such as “sunrise” and “sunset.”
With the stereotype solidified the researchers went on to explore its impact in actual work settings and on ratings provided by actual supervisors. The hypothesis was supported by hard evidence. Across nearly 150 employee-supervisor relationships, they found that employees who started work earlier in the day had higher conscientious and performance ratings by their leadership.
Like many professors, the researchers had to conduct another laboratory experiment to test the hypothesis in a more tightly controlled setting which included the following details:
“We put participants in the role of being a supervisor, and asked them to rate the performance of a fictitious employee. We gave a performance profile to the supervisors, which was constant across everyone. However, in the “morning” condition we indicated that the fictional employee tended to work from 7am to 3pm, and in the “evening” condition we indicated that the fictional employee tended to work from 11am to 7pm. Everything else about the fictional employee and performance profile was identical across the conditions. Across 141 participants, we found that the research participants gave higher ratings of conscientiousness and performance to the 7am-3pm employees than to the 11am-7pm employees.”
The results clearly found evidence of the natural “early bird” stereotype in the workplace concluding that, “compared to people who choose to work earlier in the day, people who choose to work later in the day are implicitly assumed to be less conscientious and less effective in their jobs.” Interestingly enough an additional finding was also revealed. In both the field study and the lab experiment, the effects were strongest for employees who had supervisors that were early risers themselves, and disappeared for employees who had supervisors who were night owls.
Considering the popularity of flextime policies the fallout of this morning work mistake were considerable.
This vicious cycle can be avoided if organizational leaders and human resource managers work together, and if done correctly the original positive workplace findings of many previous studies will be achieved. Similar to other common unintentional but proven bias, the advice is to increase awareness of this tendency to stereotype and why it is invalid. Employees may also want to actively engage with their superiors to ensure they understand the reasons for their adjusted work schedule.
Researchers Chris Barnes, Kai Chi Yam and Ryan Fehr presented a preview of these findings in the Harvard Business Review.
This article was published on the Brandman University blog.
With all of the commitments that we have in our day-to-day schedules it is often easy to become stressed out. Of course no one likes to be hit with the anxiety and pressure that ensues, but what many people don’t realize is just how important stress management can be to living a long and healthy life. Continue reading
