Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Wed, Jul 28, 2010
Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed.
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Mon, Feb 08, 2010
Great game last night! No, not the Superbowl... the game played afterwards by President and COO of Waste Management, Larry O'Donnell who goes undercover on the new CBS series, Undercover Boss.
No pun intended, there is a lot of reality garbage saturating TV programming these days. But, to me this seems like the real deal. Take some executive who is insulated from tens of thousands of employees, throw him a hard-hat, and give him a veritable tour of duty across the least appreciated and perhaps most difficult roles in the company and you get great PR, improved employee relations, and higher productivity. Brilliant. Yet, that's not all...
When "Randy," as Larry is called in his undercover role, goes onsite to a recycling plant, hangs off the back of a garbage truck, picks up litter on the side of a dump, and even vacuums the **** out of porta-potties for a day, those employees he shadows all seem to present a common strand... They have each seemingly overcome adversity to assume an improbably attitude about their work... they make trash meaningful, fulfilling, even fun.
Walter, trash-picking supervisor at central landfill, has been on dialysis for nearly 20 years and still bags more trash than most; Jaclyn, a facility office manager, does the work of three typical employees after a hysterectomy; Janice, garbage truck driver, pushes on through the day using a coffee can as her portable toilet so she can keep pace with male drivers. Are you kidding me?
Certainly, this was all by design; the irony of reality TV is that everything IS staged. But, some of the stories are indeed remarkable... as are some of these employees with odds stacked against them. Although it shouldn't take a reality show about Randy/Larry going into the trenches to learn about the real-life challenges of Waste Management employees, it does give us a glimpse into character in the workplace and why it is so essential to get down and dirty when contemplating employee engagement.
Let us know if you have any extraordinary employee stories...
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Thu, Feb 04, 2010
EnCompass Education Founder/CEO, Adam Goldberg was selected to speak at the EAP/MAP Conference held from June 28-29, 2010 at the Villanova Conference Center in Villanova, PA.
Their presentation is entitled, "No Longer the Occasional Crisis: EAP's...Introducing Special Education 101" and will draw from the following abstract:
Special education is emerging from the shadows as a top-tier work/life issue affecting employees from CEO's through support staff. EAP's are encountering an increasing number of parents and grandparents in the workplace struggling to address the school-based needs of their children and grandchildren with autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, ADHD, and a host of other "hidden issues." These needs go well beyond periodic parent-teacher conferences and into a plethora of areas ranging from ongoing evaluations and therapies to IEP's and school meetings requiring immediate attention and interventions. And many of these situations vacillate between constant monitoring and crisis situations. EAP's today are facing the dual challenge of effectively supporting employees by providing the individualized assistance they need with fully understanding how to help them secure the services and supports their children/grandchildren need in school. If left unaddressed, these complex needs will continue to impact employee engagement and retention. At the end of the day, these struggling children come first.
The event is jointly sponsored by the Hudson Valley, Long Island, New Jersey, New York City, Keystone and Greater Philadelphia Chapters of EAPA.
For more information on this event or for general speaking/media inquiries, please contact Hannah Cleveland.
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Thu, Oct 29, 2009
We at EnCompass Education would, first-off, like to thank the Garden State Council SHRM leadership, support staff, student volunteers from Rutgers University, and event sponsors for contributing to such a well-run annual conference and exhibition.
Secondly, many thanks to all of you who attended our session on "Work-Life Forensics." We hope that our key message to "ask questions in a new way" will help you uncover both the data and the underlying work-life issues within your organization. By asking questions that provide you with specifics, your work-life programming will resonate with employees in new and beneficial ways. Here are some photographs from our session...
We look forward to seeing everyone again at future events!
In the meantime, because we believe that "children color work and lifeTM," we are asking HR leaders to answer a few quick questions (it will take 2-3 minutes to complete). For your efforts, we are offering a chance to win a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card for you and wait, that's not it - a monthly "creative" gift for the next 12 months for the child of your choice! Please click here for more specifics...
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Fri, Sep 11, 2009
"I'm relocating to (insert city, state) for my job. Which school districts are the best?"
Sound like a reasonable question? Sure it does. Children will always figure as one of, if not, the most important factors in a decision to move.
My colleague and I recently fell into a discussion 
regarding this inquiry, one of the most common among those planning to relocate. For those families who face the challenge of relocating children with special needs, impending decisions are even more daunting.
Which districts are the most accommodating? Which ones have the best track record of collaboration? Where can we gain access to the best resources for autism spectrum disorders? What about services for learning disabled students? Where will our child with emotional/behavioral issues feel most supported? Which schools have the best special education staff?
Again, these, among many others, are questions which are at the forefront of any decision involving a move for those relocating employees whose children present with special needs.
Why are these questions so difficult to answer, even as a trained practitioner? Here are some reasons to consider:
1. While there are school districts that are clearly "better" than others when it comes to serving and supporting children within both the legal and cultural context of special education, what is "best" for one student is not necessarily "best" for another, even if they have both been diagnosed similarly.
2. It follows that there are many factors that determine the most appropriate fit for a student with special needs. These range from academic to social to extracurricular to environmental considerations, all of which need to be taken into account when making placement decisions.
3. Staff can change from one year to the next. There is no guarantee that, for instance, a revered special education director at a particular school is going to be there the following year. I have seen many schools and entire districts go from "best" to "worst" in a matter of a year or two.
4. While a student with special needs can add more weight to a decision surrounding relocation, other family priorities still need to be factored into the equation. The community itself, outside of school, needs to constitute the right fit for the student and the rest of the family. Commutes to and from work, to and from school, and to and from activities, resources, and practitioners for all in the family must also figure into the decision.
...and there are plenty more. But, don't despair; this does not mean that there are no good answers to these questions. It just means that there are additional questions that must be asked in order to help get to the most appropriate answers.
Please feel welcome to share your own experiences with relocation and school placement...
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Wed, Aug 26, 2009
Employers don't put it that way, but it's typically true. To their credit, they get you started very effectively during those first few years, but then you're left to stumble through the decades of life matters that follow for each dependent child. All the while, time is passing and opportunity costs are mounting for their employees' families. Employers are not to be blamed though - these issues tend to lie just beneath the surface, unexposed to those who could help make a difference for you.
Most employers are not yet aware that this is analogous to putting money into a bank account that stops paying interest after year three, yet locks in your funds for 20 years, and doesn't even adjust for inflation. It just doesn't add up for you.
As an employer, you can choose to view this as a threat... Every year, dependent children age out of the childcare phase, essentially giving rise to a whole new generation of caretakers with completely new sets of needs.
On the flipside, if you're a forward-thinking employer and you catch my drift, you probably can foresee an absolutely mammoth "green-field" opportunity in an untapped category of care that will ultimately change the face of the work-life mix.
As I spend a good share of my time these days speaking with leadership in companies, it is crystal clear who lies on what side of this divide.
Let us know what you think and whether you see this as a threat or an opportunity.
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Mon, Aug 03, 2009
Let me be the first to tell you... there is no work-life magic wand!
If you, as an HR professional, want your third-party work life partnerships to be successful, there are things you need to do on your end as an active participant in the roll-out and ongoing support. And this doesn't just apply to education benefit programs; the same applies to EAPs, elder care programs, and any other outsourced initiatives.
Thankfully, we at EnCompass Education are the beneficiaries of past and current client experience, which enables us to enlist best-practices in each engagement we undertake. In fact, our experience actually helps us to prequalify which clients would genuinely be best served by us in a client engagement. The last thing we want is for a company to invest in us and then learn that programming cannot be as successful without this level of active collaboration. While we'd like to think that our implementation team and systems make it as easy as can be, there are still touch points on the client side that we cannot logistically, legally, or even ethically access, which ultimately contribute to the overall success of the engagement.
Here are some pointers we would like to share with HR leaders who are considering best practices for work-life program partnerships:
- Communicate proactively with your providers. Establish how you should not only handle the nuts and bolts of a program, but how you are going to assess its success, tweak things as needed, and resolve issues.
- Just as providers/vendors attempt to do with you, try to assess who plays what role within their organizations, so you know whom to approach for what and have a better understanding of what drives them.
- Don't hide things from your providers. You stand to gain much more in your collaboration if you are very clear about your organizational and your own professional (and personal) goals. In most cases, providers will only try to help you accomplish those goals.
- Try to be accessible to your providers. They are not out to waste anyone's time. If they are trying to get in touch, it's only because they are trying to make something work in the collaboration. Besides, they already cleared the sales hurdle; they should not be viewed as yet another cold-call.
- Consider new approaches to internal marketing. Providers have fresh ideas and the foresight of what has worked and what has not worked within other organizations.
- Keep your ear to the ground - employee feedback can only help your providers hone their programs to the prevailing needs within the organization.
- Communicate your successes, both internally and externally - it benefits you, your organization, and your providers.
Let us know if you have any pointers to add from your experience in working successfully with work life partners...
Posted by Karen Plescia, M.S. on Tue, Jul 21, 2009
I am an educational consultant.
Sometimes that is hard for me to say out loud or to put in print because there are some self-promoting educational consultants who exploit the anxiety that families feel about the college admissions process and charge tens of thousands of dollars for access to their "inside information" or a "100% guarantee" of admission. 
My philosophy of helping students navigate the college admissions process, however, is grounded in student development; helping students figure out their own interests, strengths, values, and learning styles and then using this self-awareness to find the college that best "fits" them.
I believe that any family who feels that they need guidance beyond that which the guidance or school counselor can provide - for whatever reason - should be able to access it. And that is why I jumped right on board when Adam Goldberg decided to found EnCompass Education Solutions. As one of the consultants on the "front line" advising employees about education-related matters, I love the fact that anyone - regardless of income level or educational background - can have access to my expertise through this fantastic employer-sponsored work-life benefit.
And based on the feedback I have received following our seminars and one-on-one meetings, the employees with whom I have met love it, too. Most of the people I have met could not have afforded to hire an educational consultant on a private basis. Many of them have children in schools where the guidance or school counselor has an unmanageable caseload or where there is a lot of turnover in the guidance staff due to low salaries and unrealistic expectations. The students are left with little or no access to counselors who barely know them. Parents, who themselves are very often stretched to the limit, become frustrated and do not know where to turn for guidance. At the companies offering EnCompass' seminars, web-based Portal, individualized meetings, and help lines, employees have someone to whom they can turn. They are genuinely grateful that their employers recognize and meet their families' educational guidance needs.
EnCompass Education Solutions represents what education consulting can and should be.
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Thu, Jul 16, 2009
Why is it that work life audits all seem to focus on the programming side rather than the human side?
When asked recently by a company's leadership to help shape the foundation for a whole new work life construct, I first "thumbed through" my inventory of models from which to draw. One after another, I realized that (with all due respect) most of our work life thought leadership tends to present organizations with laundry lists of programs, ranging from childcare to flexible work arrangements to financial advising to educational consulting to elder care, etc. We've all seen these published work life audits... Put a check in the box next to any of the 100 or so random programs that you have or would like to have in the wild world of work life... AND, you can then use this list to confuse your employees even more!
Great - that's all we need - a fragmented picture of work life to convince executives that it deserves their focus.
OK... unearth a problem, you better propose a solution! I threw myself into a conference room with a white board and tried to find a way to turn all of this on its head... and what I kept returning to was the system I have been utilizing for my own purposes for more than a decade: if my heart, mind, body, and soul are all in balance, life is good. I map out the quadrants, list priorities and goals in each, and look to see where I'm succeeding and where I'm falling short, reviewing this regularly over time. Simple? Yes. Eastern philosophy-like? Perhaps. A bit hokey? Sure. But, it works... I promise.
So, I figured, why not bring this holistic notion to the organizational level - isn't that what we're after in the first place? Don't start by examining what cool programming exists and what providers can do for companies and their employees; dig into the "forensics" to authenticate what employees really need in each of these four areas and THEN match organizational decision-making to programming. Suddenly work life looks kind-of human.
Behold... conception of The Work life Forensics ModelTM we at EnCompass Education coined and have been taking on the road to both corporate strategy sessions and human resources speaking engagements.
What does it look like? How does it work? How can a company possibly make the leap from examining matters of the heart, mind, body, and soul on an individual basis to sound organization-wide decision making in work life? Well, that's where it gets a bit more involved.
Stay tuned for future blogs in which we'll break down our methodology and track its success in helping organizations examine and implement work life programming at a whole new depth. If you would like more information in the short-term, whether you are with a company, an HR association, or the media, please feel free to contact me directly at adam@encompasseducation.com.
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Mon, Jul 06, 2009
We were bombarded. I hardly made it through the door of Cipriani in New York City for the Families and Work Institute's Work Life Legacy Awards before I was asked to prognosticate on the future of work-life innovation... on the record.
We know what's in store for work life; it's tough not to see the impending unprecedented unshackling of talent. How else are companies going to get an edge as the music begins once again, as it always does in the end?
What's different this go-around is the depth which companies are going to have to reach in order to meet the unspoken needs of employees and their family members. We refer to this new notion as "work life forensics." While you can't follow your employees home, you're going to have to come pretty close to that in order to investigate what really impacts their work.
Here is the short video clip for my live take on this: