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 menschenwrdigism 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-neede d creative engineering solutions go beyond traditional approaches that have not 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 Scouts, 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 classic, 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,surveyedmore 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-supported 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 working 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 tha t 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 c learly 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.

Why You Shouldnt Judge Your Younger Co-Workers - The Muse

Why You Shouldnt Judge Your Younger Co-Workers - The MuseWhy You Shouldnt Judge Your Younger Co-Workers Im turning 30 in two months. And aside from getting nostalgic about the video games that I used to play when I welches younger, Ive done a lot of thinking lately about what this means for me at this point in my career. That thinking has led me back to a lot of memories of older colleagues Ive worked with in the past who went out of their way to remind me that I was younger than they were. And what they were implying was twofold. Not only were they trying to tell me I was less experienced than they were, but they were also trying to drive home the idea that I was also less qualified. Ive resolved never to be that person, no matter my age. And to make sure youre never that person either, Ive laid out a few symptoms in hopes you can catch yourself before its too late.1. You Make Fun of Their Lingo (Even Though You Also Use it Regularly)OK, I get it. There are plenty of popular smartph one apps I dont understand and even more, acronyms that make me feel like Im 100 years old. Its entirely reasonable if you just arent up to speed with what your younger co-workers like to do and how they prefer communicating. That doesnt give you license to make fun of them for it, though. What makes you an even bigger jerk is purposely mispronouncing these things, just to get under their skin. While it might be funny the first time you refer to Snapchat as SnortChip, it gets pretty tired if you keep up the charade, especially if your colleagues have taken the time to fill you in on whats going on. You know that feeling of frustration you get when your parents ask you (for the 100th time) how to attach a file to an email and then blame their lack of knowledge on being old- thats how you might be making your colleagues feel when you make these comments. 2. You Interrogate Them When They Dont Get One of Your ReferencesI love a good joke just as much as anyone when Im at work. But some times, they just dont land like you initially thought they would. When your joke or story flops because the references you make are a little bit dated, that can be a huge blow to your ego. And while youre totally allowed to be sad (and feel a little bit closer to death), that doesnt mean you can spend endless amounts of time and energy interrogating your colleagues about how they possibly didnt get what you were saying. Gosh, dont they know how much better my nostalgic childhood shows are than their nostalgic shows? Even if youre just trying to communicate that youre sad that nobody else got the reference, odds are high youre instead coming off as condescending because of the way youre expressing your point. Lets all accept that our childhood shows, toys, and music will always hold a special distributions-mix in our individual hearts- and no one elses.3. You Always Talk About How Things Were Harder in Your DayHeres another one Im totally empathetic about. Its easy to look at your cu rrent office space, your equipment, and even the snacks in your kitchen and think about what you didnt have when you were starting your career. My first work computer weighed about 50 pounds, had monitors that hurt my eyes if I stared at them for longer than 20 minutes at a time, and emails I needed to get out ASAP that would occasionally decide, Nope, I dont feel like being sent to your client. And Ill admit, its fun to reminisce about those times, especially with my former colleagues. But what Ive learned is that talking to younger co-workers about how good they have it with their organic milk and their ergonomic chair, is a quick way to make people look at you and think, Whats wrong with that guy? Does he believe he was born in the 1920s? Its perfectly fine (and recommended) to offer nuggets of wisdom when your younger colleagues ask for them. However, if youre just pointing this out in some kind of misguided attempt to make your co-workers feel grateful, its probably time to ret hink your lunchtime fodder.I can empathize with anyone whos feeling like theyre the elder statesman or woman of their team. Its not always easy looking around and feeling like youre way behind the times and will simply never catch up. However, dont lose sight of the fact that youre the one doing this to yourself. Unless you work with the meanest people on the face of the earth, the odds are that youre the reason you feel so old. And because of that, its important to deal with your insecurities in the right way. The right way being either accepting the fact that youre no longer in your twenties or (and) acknowledging what you dont know and working to fill in any vital gaps. Photo of co-workers talking courtesy of Hero Images/Getty Images.

Dumb Things Organizations Do to Mess Up Relationships

Dumb Things Organizations Do to Mess Up RelationshipsDumb Things Organizations Do to Mess Up RelationshipsEven the best organizations periodically make mistakes in dealing with people. They mess up their opportunity to create effective, successful, positive employee relations. They treat people like children and then ask why people fail so frequently to live up to their expectations. Managers apply different rules to different employees and wonder why workplace negativity is so high. People work hard and infrequently receive positive feedback. At the same time, many organizations invest untold energy in actions that ensure employees are unhappy. They ensure ineffective employee relations results. For example, one of the most important current trends in organizations is increasing employee involvement and input. Organizations must find ways to utilize all of the strengths of the people they employ. Or, people will leave to find work in an organization that does. According to former Se cretary of Labor Elaine Chao, the number of people in the labor force ages 25 to 34 is projected to decline by 2.7 million in the next seven years. To meet this challenge, workplaces need to recruit new populations and non-traditional employees. And, workplaces urgently need to retain valued employees. The book, High Five, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, talks about building powerfully effective teams. The book emphasizes that the essence of a team, according to Dr. Blanchard, is the genuine understanding that none of us is as smart as all of us. Teams allow people to achieve things far beyond each members individual ability. But teamwork also requires powerful motivation for people to put the good of the group ahead of their own self-interest. Fortunately, the millennial generation grew up working in a teamwork environment. Valuing and appreciating teams, your youngest workers will lead the way. Pull these workplace trends together and it is no wonder that the Dilbert cartoon is perennially popular. Consider that Scott Adams, the strips creator, will never zustrom out of material because, despite what organizations want or say they want for effective employee relations - they often fail to retain valued employees,develop empowered people working together to serve the best interests of the organization, andcreate an environment in which every employee contributes all of their talents and skills to the success of organizational goals. The next time you are confronted with any of the following proposed actions, ask yourself this question. Is the action likely to create the result, for powerfully motivating employee relations, that you want to create? Twenty Dumb Mistakes Employers Make Here are the twenty dumb mistakes organizations make to mess up their relationships with the people they employ. Add abedrngnisher level of hierarchy because people arent doing what you want them to do. (More watchers get results)Appraise the performance of individuals an d provide bonuses for the performance of individuals and complain that you cannot get your staff working as a team.Add inspectors and multiple audits because you dont trust peoples work to meet standards.Fail to create standards and give people clear expectations so they know what they are supposed to do, and wonder why they fail.Create hierarchy, permission steps, and other roadblocks that teach people quickly that their ideas are subject to veto and wonder why no one has any suggestions for improvement. (Make people beg for money) Ask people for their opinions, ideas, and continuous improvement suggestions, and fail to implement their suggestions or empower them to do so. Better? Dont even provide feedback about whether the idea was considered or why it was rejected.Make a decision and then ask people for their input as if their feedback mattered.Find a few people breaking rules and company policies and chide everybody at company meetings rather than dealing directly with the rule breakers. Better? Make everyone wonder who the bad guy is. Best? Come up another policy to punish every employee.Make up new rules for everyone to follow as a means to address the failings of a few. Provide recognition in expected patterns so that what started as a great idea quickly becomes an entitlement. (For example, by Friday lunch when production goals are met. Wait until people start asking you for the money if they cannot attend the lunch. And, find employees meeting only the production goal that will merit the prize - and not one bit more.)Treat people as if they are untrustworthy - watch them, track them, admonish them for every slight failing - because a few people are untrustworthy. Fail to address behavior and actions of people that are inconsistent with stated and published organizational expectations and policies. (Better yet, let non-conformance go on until you are out of patience then ambush the next offender, no matter how significant, with a disciplinary action.) When managers complain that they cannot get to all of their reviews because they have too many reporting staff members, and performance development planning takes too much time, eliminate PDPs. Better? Require supervisors to do them less frequently than quarterly. Or, hire more supervisors to do reviews. (Fail to recognize that an hour per quarter per person invested in employee development is the managers most important job.) Create policies for every contingency, thus allowing very little management latitude in addressing individual employee needs.Conversely, have so few policies, that employees feel as if they reside in a free-for-all environment of favoritism and unfair treatment.Make every task a priority. People will soon believe there are no priorities. More importantly, they will never feel as if they have accomplished a complete task or goal.Schedule daily emergencies that prove to be false. This will ensure employees dont know what to do or are, minimally, jaded about resp onding when you have a true customer emergency. Ask employees to change the way they are doing something without providing a picture of what you are attempting to accomplish with the change. Label them resisters and send them to change management training when they dont immediately hop on the train.Expect that people learn by doing everything perfectly the first time rather than recognizing that learning occurs most frequently in failure.Letting a person fail when you had information, that he did not, which he might have used to make a different decision. You can avoid these employee relations nightmares. These ingredients add up to a recipe for disaster if you want to be the employer of choice in the next decade. Effective employee relations will always result in a win - for both the employees and for you.

The Best (and Worst) Times to Check Your Email

The Best (and Worst) Times to Check Your EmailThe Best (and Worst) Times to Check Your EmailWhen You Should (and Shouldnt) Check Your EmailDont worry your schmelzglass arent going anywhere.Email might be a crucial tool for communication in your day-to-day work, but it can end up being a major waste of time if not used effectively. This is especially true if your smartphone is linked to your work email youll get swamped with notifications regardless of where you go and what youre doing, leading you to constantly switch your focus from one thing to another.While having zero unread messages might give you short-term satisfaction, keep in mind that it does not reflect your productivity In fact, youll be dragged into a never-ending cycle of distraction, as new emails will only keep coming in. TopResumes career advice expert, Amanda Augustine, recently shared her tips with nahe daran sein Company for when you should and shouldnt check your email. Here are her seven tips for checking your e mails and minimizing distraction1. Dont check your email first thing in the morningIts an instinctive habit for many professionals to check their inbox the moment they reach the office, or even worse, as soon as they wake up in the morning. While you might think that checking your emails before moving on to other tasks boosts your productivity, its actually one of the worst ways to start your day.Not only can it throw off your schedule and to-do list for the whole day how many times did you open your inbox to just check and then, hours later, you look up and realize your morning is gone? but it also wastes precious hours when most people are operating at their peak levels of productivity, Augustine explains. Imagine coming in to work with urgent tasks to schliff by the end of the day, only to open your inbox and find hundreds of unread emails. Hours later, you finish responding to the emails only to realize that your day is gone2. Do use the 2-minute rule to skim through your inbo xIf youre really worried that you might be missing out on urgent requests and emails from your boss by not checking your inbox, use the 2-minute rule to skim through your emails at a tischset time in the morning. This strategy is based on productivity expert David Allens best-selling book, Getting Things Done.Look through your inbox and identify emails that require immediate response or ones that can be replied to easily. If you can finish your responses to these emails in two minutes, send them right away. Keep in mind that this doesnt mean that you should respond to every email that you can respond to within two minutes. This strategy means responding to messages that you can process easily and that relate to important people in the organization. Anything else can wait until later when you have more time.3. Do check your email when youre away on a business tripIf your employer is sending you away for conferences or business meetings and youve disappeared from their email trails wi thout a single response, things wont look good for you. Remember, while you shouldnt be expected to be reachable 24/7 while traveling for work, your employer should be able to contact you from time to time during the duration of your trip. The company is bearing the cost of your excursion after all, so that isnt too much to ask for.Additionally, you should also be up to date with your emails when traveling on a business trip so that you dont miss out on whats going on back at the office. Your boss might be offering an exciting project thats up for grabs, and a simple mistake like checking your email late can cost you an exciting opportunity for growth. If youre traveling, always make sure that you enable roaming data or buy a local SIM card for easier connectivity.4. Dont check your email when youre overwhelmed and procrastinatingWhen youre feeling overwhelmed with your workload and approaching deadlines, its easy to think of checking your email as being productive. Responding to yo ur emails might help you feel like youre getting something done, but in fact, youre just running away from reality and putting off tasks that are more urgent and critical.Dont allow your email to become an excuse for why the real work you needed to complete did not get done, Augustine suggests. Whenever you find yourself opening your inbox, stop and take a step back to examine your pending tasks and re-establish your priorities. Never use your inbox as an excuse for why you couldnt finish the other tasks at hand, as that reflects badly on you.5. Do check your email when youre expecting an important responseIf youre waiting for an important email from your clients, a delayed response can significantly slow down the progress of the whole project and opens up room for miscommunication and misinterpretation. Hence, keep your inbox open when youre expecting important emails. It also helps to set up special notifications on your phone for certain senders so that youll get alerts when they email you. schauplatz up alerts like these would help to prevent distractions from unnecessary promotional messages.6. Do check your email when youre commuting on public transportationIf you happen to take the train or bus to work on a daily basis, this would be an ideal place to skim through your inbox and apply the 2-minute rule. It gives you a productive start of the day, using time that cant be spent doing much else. Additionally, it helps you to dive straight into urgent tasks when you reach the office. Similarly, the evening commute back home can be used to organize your emails into folders, delete spam and promotional messages, and set up an action list for the next day.7. Do check your email on a scheduled timeOne of the most efficient ways to boost productivity is to schedule tasks in your calendar and keep to it. Similar to how you block out time for meetings and events in your calendar, set aside a block of time every day to check and respond to your emails. Setting asid e a specific time like this helps to keep yourself accountable and fully focus on the task at hand. Additionally, this habit helps to set clear expectations to your colleagues about your response time.Dont let your inbox rule your time and energy. Instead, follow these tips to create an efficient and effective way of checking and responding to your work emails each day. You will thank yourself laterIs your email inbox full of recruiters or random promotions? If youre waiting for recruiter emails, your resume may be to blame. Check today with a resume review, on usRecommended Reading5 Lessons From Marie Kondo to Help You Tidy Up Your Job Search12 Things Successful People Do Each MorningProductivity Tips That Really Work

New Ideas Into Genius Sign up Never Before Revealed

New Ideas Into Genius Sign up Never Before Revealed In case youre patient and understanding, you simply might help them. If you want to hold another practice you may use a field thats not reserved. Therefore, its a good deal more inclined to undertake odd pursuits as a way to reach wonderful advancements. Find a day-planner and utilize it. The Secret to Genius Sign up Writing things down can help you remember. OLC Innovate isnt a passive conference experience Top finishers will get recognition. Thats the reason why we include regular standard group training virtually every week throughout the year. Starting times are staggered to permit for participation in many events. If its the super villain should go for technology over furry minions is dependent upon the job at hand, Lee states. The reasons, however, could be more complicated than the basic explanations (no one would like to cuddle a nerd) were utilized to. Whatever the case, it requires a sort of genius to do the work well, knowing that nobody might notice. Another indication that you may be a genius is if youre a superb listener. When individuals start to doubt your mental acuity, it becomes simpler to feel that about you. Listed below are only a few of those traits that were shown to be commonly related to genius. A succession of events in my personal life convinced me of the ability of imagination and inner visualization. Forgetfulness is definitely a tricky condition, and in addition, they require understanding and patience. The reasoning is a little unexpected. Both of them are very useful and might clear up a number of your confusion. Of your intellect, youve got multiple distinct strategies to reveal your genius. Gossip, Lies and Genius Sign up Bright people appear to have their own agendas and their very own schedules. If youre searching for a fairly easy and quick way to create leads, look at testing out a squeeze page on your site. Though a squeeze page may be detailed, full-length webpage, its usually much better to keep it short and easy. Besides that, your squeeze page might have endless variations. The very first task youre assigned with is developing a page for your event. Come to as a lot of the classes as you desire. You also ought to know what sort of event you are making. If you choose a time-slot event, you can designate the quantity of time available for each time slot and enable the guests to decide what time to enter. Type of Genius Sign up Apple has lately made the procedure of creating a Genius Bar appointment much harder. To use the capabilities of Sign Up Genius for your activity, you will need to experience a very simple procedure to set up your event. Planners and calendars are something you wish to always be using. Otherwise, you wont have the ability to register for races or utilize other functionality of the site. The folks at Vimeo chose to devote a huge page to a small form. Nonetheless, your browser doesnt seem to allow cookies by default. A squeeze page is a specialized sort of landing page which appears every time a user first visits a site. I believe the 13 Creative form below is the ideal instance of this technique in action. You will need a means to organize this, and Sign Up Genius is the remedy to that issue. Healthy fats are extremely vital for any healthful brain. There are lots of books available which were published by psychiatrists that supplies you with helpful and professional methods for improving brain function and general memory. It only means you got a huge old brain. Its possible to reduce loss of memory by incorporating simple measures.

Are Colleges Preparing Students for the Working World [Infographic]

Are Colleges Preparing Students for the Working World Infographic First things first theres an argument to be made that looking at college as nothing mora than away to get a good job is the absolute wrong way to look at college that education is a worthy end in and of itself, and that college is a time to become a richer, more experiencedhuman being, not a richer, more experiencedpotential employee. But the fact remains that a significant portion if not the majority of the population sees college as an investment. Go ahead, just Google Is college worth it? and bask in the endless stream of thinkpieces on whether or not college is worth the money (that is, whether or not spending money on college will get you more money in the future).Thinks are looking grim forthe college is a good investment crowd these daysfewerthan half of employers believe that college grads are prepared for entry-level work , and, according to an article from Slate, new grads havebleak lives ahead of themTodays crop of new B.A.s are staring at roughly 8.5 percent unemployment, 16.8 percent underemployment. Close to half of those who land work wont immediately find a job that requires their degree, and for those stuck in that situation, there are fewer good jobs to go around.The folks atKnod, a global learning network that focuses on experience-based education, offer a new infographic that tracks the ways in which colleges may be failing to prepare graduates for the workplace, which you can check out below. The message of Knods infographic Students should focus on gaining skills and experiences over just gaining a degree.