Marc Plooster is an Accountant for the County of Ottawa, MI. Prior to joining Ottawa County, he worked for the City of Grand Rapids, MI in multiple roles including as a John H. Logie Fellow. Marc was the Grand Valley State University 2014 Most outstanding Public and Nonprofit Administration Student and earned a double major in political science. Currently Marc is a graduate student at Grand Valley State University and expects to earn his Master of Science in Accounting in December 2017.
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If scientific thinking can be learned through application to large challenges, the hope is the behavior will be applied to all challenges without effort or thought. As the administration has embraced lean production and Toyota Production System, it is no surprise kata is the chosen methodology.
Have you ever been invited to a meeting only to find out the other invitees have met multiple times before? Have you ever been asked to provide your input on a project after a lot of time an effort has already been spent on it by others? Have you ever started one project only to realize multiple prerequisite projects must be completed first?
For someone still in high school during the Great Recession, I do not have the experience others have with taking on more roles as the number of employees around dwindles.
Collaboration is a buzz word in today’s workplace. High schools, colleges, and universities are pushing curriculum geared towards group projects. After consulting local businesses who say students are not well prepared for team work, universities are encouraging their instructors to incorporate group projects as an integral part of program curriculum.
One of the most significant characteristics to consider when accepting or rejecting a job offer is the workplace culture. Unlike other characteristics, workplace culture can change quickly whenever there is a change in management personnel.
For those who have utilized career centers at colleges, or for those who have read one of the many advice articles about planning one’s career, this process may seem familiar to a growth plan.
Last November, the government I am employed by requested employees take the organization’s anonymous biannual survey. As with any organization-wide, multiple question survey, the results are at times underwhelming because of the central limit theorem, but the trends are none-the-less interesting.
A couple months back I listened to a TED Talk by Jon Bowers titled, “We should aim for perfection – and stop fearing failure”. I could not help but consider the relationship between ideas on perfection and failure to the recent trend of near daily stories of sexual harassment and impropriety of men in positions of power.
As the domestic United States’ economy becomes increasingly focused on service industries away from manufacturing, local governments will continue to be compared to for-profit businesses and the way they treat customers.
One of the significant challenges employers face when an employee leaves is the loss of that individual’s institutional knowledge.