Online Career Tips

Interview with Dr. Chad Patrizi
VP & Dean, School of Business & Interim Dean, School of Management at American Public University

What is change management? It is an approach to shifting individuals or terms from one state to a desired one. In a growing organization it’s important to understand how to be flexible with the demands of your growing industry, and how to adapt when your company is expanding. To find out more about change management, and the challenges that come along with it, we interviewed Dr. Chad Patrizi. After being with APU for more than 11 years he has a great perspective on seeing a company grow from a handful of employees to more than several hundred.

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Photo Credit: J. Thompson

By J. Thompson
Online Career Tips Staff

Forged from steel and cables, a towering symbol of economic hope and job renewal ascends from the barren Arizona desert and dominates the horizon for miles around. It’s the world’s largest land-based crane reaching 689 feet in height and boasting a total boom length of 740 feet, capable of lifting over 400 tons. Even more impressive than the skyscraper-tall crane is the state-of-the-art microprocessor manufacturing facility, Fab 42, which Intel is building in the City of Chandler.

Costing upwards of $5 billion, Fab 42 is currently the second largest construction project in the entire world, next only to the 2012 Olympic facilities construction project in London. With a fabrication plant so massive that it makes Mall of America feel like the size of your neighborhood 7-Eleven, Fab 42 represents what America dearly needs—jobs. Once completed in 2013, the thousands of current construction, engineering and security jobs will transition to thousands of high-paying and high-tech careers. So wide-reaching is this symbol of economic promise that even President Obama featured it as a backdrop for a recent campaign stump.

If you build it, will they come?

According to Intel’s News Backgrounder, “More than three-fourths of Intel’s revenue comes from outside the United States, yet roughly three-fourths of the company’s microprocessor manufacturing is conducted here in America.” What’s not lost on POTUS 44 is that despite Fab 42 and similar investments, the resulting jobs will only be available for highly skilled workers and especially those educated in the subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math (i.e., STEM fields).

[Check out the American Public University School of Science and Technology.]

“We want tomorrow’s workers to have the skills they need for the jobs like the ones they’ll be opening up here and I have to tell you I’ve been to these plants at Intel,” the President joked, “Young people, you have better have done some math before you get in here. You can’t just kind of wander in and you didn’t do some math at school.”

Although made in jest, the President’s comments touch a nerve and expose a reality that everyone should take into consideration if they want to take advantage of high-tech careers. A quality, advanced education in mathematics, science, information technology or engineering will always be a necessity.

Long after the record-breaking crane has been disassembled and the economy is chugging along at full-steam, will you be qualified to step into plants like Fab 42 and build the brains of our next-generation computers, applications, and robots?

By J. Thompson
Online Career Tips Staff

Buckle your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy and contentious campaign season and the hot-button topics are focused squarely on the economy and jobs creation. Much like front-running Republican presidential nomination candidates, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, President Barack Obama is placing jobs creation as priority one and he addressed it during the 2012 State of the Union. “Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people,” said Obama, “An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs.”

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By J. Thompson
Online Career Tips Staff

I recently thumbed my way through a popular book entitled, “A Complaint is a Gift.” It’s written by Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller with a foreword by employee culture and retail customer service rock star, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com.

[American Public University has online degrees for retail management professionals.]

The book reinforces common business principles, but what struck me as most interesting, were how well these lessons could translate into improving interoffice relationships. No matter how good an environment, there’s always opportunity to improve communication, break down silos, and be more effective in the workplace.

One way to do this is to view your colleagues as internal clients. This only works if you’re committed to providing exceptional customer service much like Zappos.com employees are renowned for doing, and which is why their company is incredibly successful.

Good service isn’t solely predicated on your ability to entice new customers, but in your ability to support them consistently at each touch point and for the long term. It’s critical that you are always prepared to resolve issues promptly and effectively when a client expresses that he or she is not happy.

Here’s why.

According to the book, research concludes that when customers become dissatisfied, only about 1 to 5 percent will complain to management or headquarters. Fifty percent will simply walk away and will not return. The remaining 45 percent are the people who complain to customer-facing staff. Rather than react to a complaint as a negative, it should be viewed as a gift. Moreover, it’s an opportunity to repair the relationship. Often this can build more loyalty. If you lose them, customers are more apt to “speak out to the world” through word-of-mouth and social media.

Isn’t that a little similar to what happens in the workplace? By not resolving needs of dissatisfied colleagues, you run the risk of increasing the amount and the voracity of complaints to others, which can hurt your reputation. So if you ever get a complaint, don’t throw up barriers. Break them down and resolve the issue. We’re all human and there will be mistakes. The bigger mistake is not looking at a complaint as a gift.