Do you need a change?
“I always wanted to be someone some day. I see now I should have been more specific.”
– Trudy the Bag Lady (a Lily Tomlin character). Quoted in Getting It Together by Patricia Katz.
“Work on your character. Many men and women are so concerned with their reputations that they give little or no thought to the development of their most important possession: their character. Do we know who we really are? Are we well-defined persons? Have we established standards for our lives on which we simply refuse to compromise? Remember, reputation only functions under favorable circumstances; character functions under unfavorable circumstances.”
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Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
– Excerpt from The Best of Ted Lingstrom, On Personal Excellence and Leadership, Here’s Life Publishers.
Have you thought about your character and reputation lately? What kind of a somebody are you? What do you want to be like on Jan. 1, 2000?
January 1998 is a good time to get specific about the type of person you want to be. Set your goal and then take one step at a time to get there. Identify smaller goals to work toward each day. By the end of the week you will know you have made progress. This will encourage you for the next week.
By sharing your goal with someone else, you become accountable to them and they can help motivate you by encouragement. Change is possible and goals are achievable one moment, one step, one day at a time.
Productivity and money
Employees with poor personal finances cost their employers big money. There are substantial costs to employers caused by the stresses associated with the poor personal financial behavior of employees.
“This is the most glossed over and ignored worker issue today,” stated E. Thomas Garman at the 1997 National Foundation for Consumer Credit Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
“With the absence of blood on the workplace floor, or an understanding of some of the genuine factors contributing to such situations, it is not easy for employers to recognize how employees’ personal financial problems spill over into the workplace.”
Approximately 25 to 30 percent of workers report high work stress. Over one-third of America’s workforce report that money worries sometimes hamper job performance.
Laurie Campbell, program manager, Credit Counselling Service of Metropolitan Toronto, indicated that with Canada’s similar consumer debt problems and high bankruptcies, the situation here is likely the same.
Minutes to days of productive labor time are lost due to employee personal financial problems. Workers take time away from productive labor to confer on the telephone with creditors, seek sources of additional credit, converse with co-workers about stresses, talk with supervisors about financial problems, and place gambling wagers. Employees sometimes even call in sick to their employers so they can make court appearances, talk with lawyers and meet with others concerning their personal financial problems.
An employee who misses four days of work in one month, for example, personally experiences a 20 percent loss in productivity (four days missed divided by 20 working days). This does not include any related costs for temporary labor, worker’s compensation, employee health care and increased insurance premiums.
Cost to employers
A 20 percent loss in productivity by employees converts to extremely high costs incurred by employers. The true nature of the losses are often hard to identify because they would be included in lower job productivity, absenteeism, tardiness, loss of customers who seek better service, loss of revenue from sales not made, accidents and increased risk taking, health care costs for stress-related illnesses, disability and worker compensation claims, thefts from employers, time lost from the job dealing with personal finance matters and employee turnover.
If the decline in worker productivity is 20 percent, the cost to an employer of 1,000 people is estimated at $900,000 annually. This is calculated as follows: $30,000 (annual employee wage) x 150 (current number of financially troubled employees) x 20 (lost productivity).
This amounts to $6,000 per financially troubled employee, and it is based on the assumption that workers experience personal financial problems to the extent that their productivity is reduced by 20 percent.
Garman encouraged credit counsellors to work with employers in assessing their business’ lost productivity due to workers’ personal financial concerns. By identifying specific business needs, a personal finance education and credit counselling service for their employees could be established.
The following criteria could be used to measure the success of such programs:
- Increasing employee motivation, self-confidence and job productivity.
- Decreasing absenteeism due to matters associated with personal finances.
- Decreasing health care costs, particularly for stress-related illnesses.
- Saving work time by not attending to personal finances during the work day.
- Securing employee loyalty and retention.
- Avoiding lawsuits from employees claiming employer negligence.
Summarized from Connections, the newsletter of the Ontario Association of Credit Counselling Services, Fall 1997.
Lexia raisin found
L.H., Rocanville, Sask., was searching for large seeded raisins that she liked to use in her fruit cakes and Christmas puddings. We would like to thank H.P., Oxbow, Sask. for providing the answer. Unfortunately, due to the mail strike, it was too late to include in our pre-Christmas articles.
The raisin is called Lexia. It is a jumbo, soft-seeded raisin grown in Australia. Our reader was able to purchase them from a Nutters store. I contacted Nutters in Kindersley and the manager said this was the first time in three years he had been able to get Lexia raisins.
The shortage is because Australia doesn’t produce a lot of this raisin and what they do grow is often sold on the European and Asian markets. Most large Canadian wholesalers prefer not to stock them because they are sold primarily for the Christmas baking market.
The Lexia has a characteristic soft, sticky texture. The raisins are very flavorful and contain soft edible seeds. Due to limited availability, they are more expensive than Sultana raisins.
For more information, contact Nutters’ head office in Medicine Hat, Alta., at 1-800-665-5122.
Grape wine recipe sought
Dear TEAM: I have just finished making grape jelly. It is delicious and a beautiful red color. I have oodles left from last year so now I give most of it away. I would like to save some of the juice next year and make wine. Is there an easy way to make some good grape wine? – Scotty, N.B.
If any of our readers would like to share their wine making secrets we will send them on to Scotty.
