Taking Action to Attract High-Skilled Immigrants, Graduates, and Entrepreneurs

Dear i4j group,

with 6.1 million USD in funding, I’m about to employ 25 people and I’m relocating a 2800sqft Office. Our company will create work and opportunity for millions of people in America in the coming years. 

Now Office of Homeland Security turned down my VISA, I have 30 days to appeal or leave the country. 

Any advice?

For you to know more about tispr:

America wants this immigration - how can we match wants of policy to mechanics of bureaucracy? 

Policy thoughts from the White House 

- America needs a 21st century immigration system that lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants – and that grows our economy.

- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced more good news for job creation and economic growth:  a new proposal to streamline the EB-5 visa process, designed for immigrant investors and entrepreneurs who create at least 10 U.S. jobs.  Applicants can expect accelerated processing times, direct communication with specialized intake teams, and decision boards with considerable expertise.

 America needs a 21st century immigration system that lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants -- and that grows our economy..... And it seems that the President is taking action .

According to an analysis by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, the President’s executive actions on immigration stand to boost the nation’s GDP by $90 billion to $210 billion, while shrinking the Federal deficit by $25 billion over the next ten years. These actions will also increase the productivity and wages of all American workers, not just immigrants.

Many of these economic benefits spring from the President’s actions to “make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to our economy.” We need to build on our strengths -- after all, over one-quarter of all U.S.-based Nobel laureates over the past 50 years were foreign-born, and more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.

But for too long, our broken immigration system has made it needlessly difficult for America to attract the best and brightest talent from around the world. Highly skilled workers often have to wait years, even decades, to obtain the green cards that will allow them to fully contribute to our economy and become Americans over time. Entrepreneurs have no dedicated immigration pathway that allows them to grow their companies and create jobs here. And every year, we educate some of the world’s most talented students at our universities, only to compel them to go back to their home countries to compete against us.

Here are the key things that the President’s executive actions will do to improve the immigration system for high-skilled workers, graduates, and entrepreneurs:

Unlocking the talents of highly skilled Americans-in-waiting: Most high-skilled immigrants get started on a temporary work visa (typically the H-1B visa), and if there are no American workers qualified and available to do the job, the employer can sponsor that worker for lawful permanent residence—commonly called a “green card.” But the wait for that green card can last years, even decades, even after their application is approved. During this time the worker is effectively locked into one position at the sponsoring company. The President’s actions will make it possible for these highly skilled workers and certain spouses to obtain a portable work authorization, allowing them to accept promotions, change positions or employers, or start new companies while they and their families wait to receive their green cards, and ultimately become Americans.

Clearing the path for job-creating entrepreneurs: The President’s actions will, for the first time, clarify dedicated immigration pathways for entrepreneurs who seek to start and grow their companies here. Entrepreneurs who meet certain criteria for creating jobs, attracting investment, and generating revenue within the United States will be eligible for temporary status or a green card. More than ever before, these “startup visa” pathways will allow the world’s most promising and innovative entrepreneurs to innovate and hire here in America.

Retaining the scientists and engineers we educate here. Our universities train some of the world’s most talented students in science, technology engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but our broken immigration system compels many of them to take their skills back to their home countries. The President’s actions will strengthen and extend on-the-job training for STEM graduates from U.S. universities, giving them a limited but more reasonable period of time to fully realize their course of study.

The President has also issued a new directive to make sure that his Administration is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to modernizing our system of managing and issuing visas more effectively in order to improve the employment-based immigration system, as well as other pieces of our immigration system.

These are commonsense steps, but only Congress can finish the job. As the President acts, he’ll continue to work with Congress on a comprehensive, bipartisan bill—like the one passed by the Senate more than a year ago—that can replace these actions and fix the whole system.

“Q: What do you think? How does technology affect human relationships?”

Interesting Observation by Bryan Kramer ....

Do you reach for your smartphone as soon as you wake up to check email and respond to texts?

How often are you messaging, browsing, friending, tweeting and sharing on your phone, tablet or computer?

Are we connecting with people around the globe..:.:.. Or are we "DISCONNECTING"?

Has the immediate world has lost out full attention?

Is their a long term impact of technology on personal interactions?

I requested some input from my Facebook followers. I asked: 

“Q: What do you think? How does technology affect human relationships?” 

I was amazed by the overwhelming response.

Conversations Lack Context

Their is an inability to detect tone. Is the writer being sarcastic, funny, not funny, serious or joking.”

Unless you see the person’s face, hear their voice and understand the environment, you have no idea of the context surrounding the written words. 

Misunderstandings, miscommunications and assumptions result, which have an impact on how we view others.

Online Contact Falls Short on Empathy - you need the personal touch

There’s an utter lack of empathy when using technology to interact with others. 

“I’m so sorry your ___ died” or “I heard you lost your job; I feel for you.” Where is the compassion and solidarity with loss? It certainly does exist within the soul of the person who texted, posted or emailed this – but words alone don’t necessarily convey that personal touch.

Do you use technology to pet your dog or cat? Not likely, because they couldn’t care less. Sometimes we fail to realize that, as humans, we’re also animals that need personal touch.

Tech Overload Leads to Cocooning

Technology takes you out of the physical world impacting on the number and quality of human relationships. 

Conversations through social media and email take the place of traditional interactions and discussions; eventually, a person doesn’t even need to leave the house to communicate with others – and many people won’t. The cocooning phenomenon leads to social isolation that can be crippling for some.

Online Dating - a blessing or a curse ? A case study....

“Stan” married his college sweetheart. After two months of marriage, he walked into the home office to find his wife chatting with someone on Facebook. She assured him the guy was just a friend, but Stan soon saw the person’s name all over his wife’s news feed and posts. Not long after, she traveled to meet the man – staying at his place. Their child was born within a year after the visit.

Stan sees that whole relationship as something that started and developed entirely online. He’s convinced his ex-wife’s behavior would have manifested at some point, but technology drove the two of them apart faster. Stan’s new relationship started through an online dating site, but he quickly moved it into the real world. He’s understandably not a fan of developing relationships through social media.

Key Takeaway

There are many positives of online communication - but it is important to balanceour offline and online communications with others – personally and professionally.

 I guess the best approach is to make yourself available through technology only when appropriate, so that it supplements our relationships rather than replacing them.

Is this a too-dismal view of technology in human relationships? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This post originally appeared on Bryan Kramer's blog

40pc decrease in low skilled jobs

Low-skilled jobs could be given to robots that can mimic people’s abilities and eventually perform better and at no cost.

According to a major report on automation, intelligent computers that can learn people’s jobs could lead to a 40 per cent decrease in low-skilled jobs. Plus, ‘robot workers’ can cut costs for business in half. IBM, ANZ Banking Group and Westpac are among the companies moving to embrace this type of technology to automate finance, back office and human resources functions.

The Australian Financial Review cited Simen Munter, ANZ’s general manager of group hubs as saying that the bank planned to deploy 100 ‘robots’ in 2016, after running a pilot program across the bank especially in its human resources, finance and mortgage processing departments. Robots are meant to eliminate routine tasks such as invoices, payrolls and closing accounts so that employees can focus on more high-level tasks, Mr Munter added.

ANZ’s general manager of group hubs claimed the bank’s decision to include ‘robot workers’ is not driven by the cost saving and emphasized “it is about smart people working with smart robots.”

According to the report management advisory firm Mindfields, staff reduction strategies will be necessary where staff members cannot be trained for other roles. The report also showed that robotic automation will lead to a “change in hiring strategy and the mix of staffing required.”

- Click here to see more 

Being politically Correct

Don't call machines "robots" - call then "Android Americans"

The current system will go the way of the dodo

From a Facebook feed :- Yanni Konstantinopolus....

 

There will be a time, hopefully soon, when we will have a social revolution and the whole political system will go the way of the Dodo. 

What will rise in its place? I think it's time for the obvious - a humanitarian system, because, lo and behold, we are all humans, and, as such, we need a system that is relevant to us, engages us and looks after us - all of us.

The political systems seems only to take care of the politicians, anybody else that benefits seems to do so by an off chance that doesn't often last.

My comment:- 

Progress starts with desire!

We need a system that is relevant to us, engages us and looks after all of us! - Luvit - is the current mode of 9-5 jobs doing it for us? Are jobs for pay necessary to live a fulfilling life ?  #i4j #burningman

What do you think?

Why does gender Equality Exist in Leadership

Great insights by Kala Philip - General Manager BSI Learning 

Since organisations in the top tier of financial performance have more women in leadership roles, why does gender inequality still exist in leadership?

After reading the research undertaken by DDI Worldwide regarding diversity and gender inequality I was very keen to learn more about why this underrepresentation exists. Therefore I decided, with one of our directors, to sponsor the American Chamber of Commerce Women in Leadership Executive Tutorial to learn more about gender inequality in leadership.

My colleague Kerry Metcalfe-Smith, Director Organisational Development, BSI Learning opened the tutorial with the Current Situation of Women in Leadership. Following Kerry was Tanya Gilerman, Partner, Financial Services, Audit, KPMG who discussed how KPMG Create an Environment to Support, Mentor, Retain and Grow Women in Leadership Roles.

Kerry had undertaken substantive research into gender inequality in leadership roles and presented to us the Leaky Pipeline. Her research uncovered that organisations lose 50% of women at each hierarchical level of management, and this was supported by the AICD findings in 2012 that men are nine times more likely to be promoted into senior executive roles than women.

The question is, why does a leaky pipeline exist?

 Kerry presented two interesting findings:

• Workforce participation affects leadership roles - more women work part time and casual hours than men (DDI Worldwide)

• Midcareer confidence - aspiration and confidence is low to move into top management (DDI Worldwide)

However, is it fair to ask women to take on leadership roles whilst they are working part time?

And is it also realistic for companies to provide their leaders with flexible working hours when they need them to lead and develop high performing teams?

 Kerry listed a number of solutions for organisations including:

• Providing sponsorship and development opportunities for women
• Removing the barriers to appointing more women into leadership roles
• Focusing on the middle talent pipeline - to avoid the Leaky Pipeline
• Promoting flexible working practices
• Making every manager accountable for building an inclusive culture.

Kerry’s solutions explicitly suggest that part time work/flexible hours should not be creating gender inequality in leaders.

OK Kerry, that’s all well and good in theory but how does it work in real life?

Enter Tanya Gilerman of KPMG. Tanya presented to us the ways in which a global consulting firm has increased their number of women leaders due to the vision of KPMGs CEO regarding gender equality in leadership. In June 2015, of the 51 new partners appointed, 56% of internal partner promotions were women, and some of them were on maternity leave

"Leadership", Tanya announced, "is about the job, not the gender." KPMGs goal is to not lose talent. They want to invest in their people and provide all team members equal opportunities for promotion regardless of their personal situation and need for flexible hours. The consequence of not doing so is the loss of productivity, innovation and talent.

 So as Tanya spoke it became increasingly evident that Kerry’s solutions were indeed realistic. Below are a number of points Tanya shared regarding supporting women in leadership: 

• Provide flexible return to work arrangements to include: 
  • Working from home
  • Reduced work load after returning to work
  • Access to phone and computer to keep in touch with the team during leave

• Future Leaders Program - which fast tracks high performers with access to senior leaders as mentors. If the gender ratio is not equal for this group, the company has to rethink its choices.
• Challenge the organisational culture. Just because somebody is working three days a week, male or female, why can they not be promoted?

KPMG, like any other organisation, they want to promote the best person for the job. But the real difference I saw, and Tanya demonstrated was that KPMG want to give women and men the same opportunity to develop into the best person for the job, regardless of their personal needs.

I’ll leave you with a takeaway from KPMG, the “If not, then why not?” question leaders must ask themselves. For instance:

 If there aren’t part time leaders in your organisation, then why not?

If there aren’t flexible working arrangements in your organisation, then why not?

 When you have great talent you need to hold onto, why let traditional definitions of a workweek let them slip through your fingers?

What can we learn from the Japanese

From thought Leader Curtis Carlson

See the text below.  This is a remarkable book.  Only a Japanese could write those words but, as is typical, they have great meaning.  No wonder the head of Toyota is having everyone read it.  

I always thought that our employees at SRI were the most important.  In a very real way I loved them.  I had enormous respect for them and they inspired me every day.   Management’s major responsibility is to grow the company and make sure that no one is unfairly threatened by the company’s poor performance.  I didn’t always succeeded and it broke my heart every time I failed.   If we helped our staff to do the right things I also knew that they would put our customers first.  Paradoxical for some I know — but true.  I wanted them to do important things that would give their professional life meaning — a powerful form of “happiness" for technical professionals.  I also wanted to make sure they had essential value-creation skills so that they could be successful and control their careers, not someone else.  I was sure that if we helped them do these two things SRI would do well.  

From the book.

"My sole focus in managing the company has been to ensure that it endures, because I believe a company' s greatest virtue is endurance. To be perfectly honest, for the first 20 years, I had no spare time to think about such things. I was simply desperate to survive and keep the company going. I think it was about 25 years after joining the company, when the pressure finally began to ease a bit, that I started thinking about why companies exist and what corporate growth really means. The conclusion I reached after pondering such questions for years is that a good company exists to make its employees happy, thereby contributing to its local community and society at large. I realized that endurance was the most important part of making this happen, because if the company fails to endure, the happiness of its employees will come to an abrupt end. 

Seek Not to Be a Successful Company, But a Good Company 

Having decided that a company exists to make its employees happy and that a company' s greatest virtue is endurance, I began to entertain doubts about the conventional wisdom of what defines successful management. Doctrines emphasizing sales above all, the expansion of profits, or market capitalization seem all too often to come at the expense of employee happiness. It is impossible to manage a company whose sales do not grow, and in the absence of profits, a company' s very survival may be in doubt. Yet, once you make increased sales and profits your sole objective, employee happiness becomes secondary. In short, you start to think about how profits could be effectively raised by reducing labor costs and welfare expenditures, or by cutting back on activities that give back to the community and support culture and the arts. This seems completely backward to me. Management is all about finding a balance between the company' s numbers and the happiness of its employees. "

Hiroshi Tsukakoshi;  Hart Larrabee. Tree-Ring Management (JAPAN LIBRARY).  Kindle Edition. 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/to-whom-do-japans-most-powerful-turn-for-advice-the-sensei-of-seaweed-1441069219

http://www.amazon.com/Tree-Ring-Management-Take-Business-Slowly/dp/4916055462