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The People's Marathon
by Guest Blogger, Angela GuidrozI love the fall for so many reasons. Growing up in Northern New York, I loved this time of year getting outside in the cool weather, watching football right before the big winter freeze. I live in Southern Louisiana now and here October is the time we get outside because we aren't melting in the summer heat. Football, festivals and other outdoor activities are part of what lots of people do in the fall months in the South.
Being a big fan of out door activities I was excited to learn Sodexo has been named the foodservice provider for the Marine Corps Marathon and its surrounding weekend of events in Washington, D.C. on October 26th. The Marine Corps Marathon, also known as "The People’s Marathon," brings together runners from all walks of life to participate in a patriotic race and a day of family-friendly activities, including the Healthy Kids’ Fun Run, which Sodexo has co-sponsored since 2003. We are going to be providing the fuel that makes both the marathoners and event staff run. The highlight of the weekend though is the 26.2 mile race which winds its way from the start at Arlington Cemetery through historic monuments and sites along the Potomac River.
So, exactly what does it take to provide nourishment for Marine Corps Marathon staff, volunteers, and participants throughout the weekend?
A Sodexo team from the D.C. area will provide breakfast for 700 people; lunch for 900 people; 5,100 boxed lunches for the Marines working the event; 27,000 hospitality bags for runners; and catering services to the marathon VIP tent. If you didn't know, Sodexo is proud foodservice provider to the United States Marine Corps since 2002, provides services to all mess halls on USMC bases throughout the continental United States.
I read a lot about marathon runners because I am fascinated with the mental and physical endurance they must have just to complete the race. Physically their training regimen is solidly based on increasing mileage throughout the training period and good nutrition. Even though I am a former Marine, it's still hard for me to imagine having this kind of strength - but I can dream can't I?
This morning I was emailing a friend who suggested I train for next year's event. I said, "I will if you do." We aren't going to be training.
What about you? Are you up for the challenge?
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Angela has been with Sodexo since 2003 in various roles from Human Resource Manager, General Manager Food and Nutrition, and Senior Recruiter and was recently promoted to Recruitment Manager for Military and Veteran Sourcing . In this role, Angela is actively planning the strategy to source Veterans, active and reserve military, for opportunities within Sodexo. She recruits for contract management positions for Sodexo's Health Care division under the Environmental Service brand eXPress Service Solutions. eXPress Service managers lead Patient Transport, Service Response Centers (Call Centers), Concierge, Valet along with other combinations of non-clinical services in Hospitals.
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Read more articles by Angela at ERE.net
Visit Sodexo's new Military Community microsite - http://www.sodexohiresheroes.com/
Does multitasking make you stupid?
Apparently is does. But not knowing that it makes you stupid... is what makes you stupid. Did you follow that?All week I have been feeling so productive because I have been on a multitasking streak. I have the privilege of being on a number of committees at work and I have a lot (too many if you ask my boss) of outstanding project that are either near completion, ongoing, not yet started, or almost there but not quite 100%. All the while I am trying to complete these projects I am also trying to stay on top of our talent networks. Oh, and did I mention I have a life outside of Sodexo too? A rather full life with 2 children who have to either be at swim team or soccer practice every night of the week.
I know the key to multitasking is prioritizing. It is the only way to multitask. Prioritizing is what I find to be a challenge. To me there is not one thing that is more important than the other at work. Finalizing the AV contract for our annual meeting is just as important as updating our Facilities microsite to promote our support for an upcoming SHPE conference (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) and both of these projects are as important as having all of our ducks in a row for our new employee referral program that we are launching next Wednesday (for a sneak peak at our Sodexo Star Finder landing page click here). And everything I do during the day at work is as important as my children's swim team practice. Of course, if it came right down to it my family comes first (always) and I am lucky to have a boss who shares this "family first" mentality. I am lucky that I am able to multitask well enough to have both a family and a career.
So back to multitasking making us stupid.
On my way home from the dermatologist this morning (my appointment was at 7:45 AM and the office was packed so I know I am not the only one who is trying to fit it all in) I was listening to NPR and on the Morning Edition they talked about multitasking and how it makes you stupid. You can multitask too and listen to it while you read this blog post if you'd like. Even though technology allows us to do more at the same time, juggling tasks can make our brains "lose connections to important information." Which means it actually takes us longer to complete a task because we have to remind our brains what we were working on. The segment actually focused on teens but multitasking is not generation bias... in fact they even said we all fall under the "Generation M" as in Generation Multitasking. We all often switch between phone, work, family, music, television, and e-mail and all of this switching around slows down our brain. It makes us stupid.
Researcher, David Meyer (who was the guest on today's show) at the University of Michigan has spent the past few decades studying multitasking — mostly in adults. "For tasks that are at all complicated, no matter how good you have become at multitasking, you're still going to suffer hits against your performance. You will be worse compared to if you were actually concentrating from start to finish on the task," Meyer says. "Multitasking causes a kind of brownout in the brain," Meyer says. "All the lights go dim because there just isn't enough power to go around. So, the brain starts shutting things down." To restore those connections, Meyer says, "we have to repeat much of the thought process that created them in the first place."
Great. So all week I thought I was movin' and groovin' and come to find out I'm not as good as I think I am at doing several things at once. While working on several projects at once has become a workplace standard, experts now say that multitasking actually takes longer than doing things one at a time.
So for those of you who are looking for a job and you have, "...the ability to efficiently multitask." on your resume (like I do) maybe you should think about your choice of words. Something like, "the ability to work efficiently under tight deadlines in an organized and professional manner" might be more appropriate.
Getting to know Sodexo's CEO
About 90% of Sodexo's Talent Acquisition Group works from their home office and we are located across the United States. My boss for example lives in MA and I live in MD. We talk and or email daily but I have only seen him a handful of times in the last year.
But, once a year we all get together for our annual meeting - this year our annual meeting is in Las Vegas in November. I think I speak for all of us in Talent Acquisition that this is one of the most anticipated events of the year for our group. It allows us to reconnect on a personal level with the people that we work with every day. Last year was my first Annual Meeting and it happened to be my first day with Sodexo. To say I was a little nervous is an under statement. I am particularly excited for this year's event because I will be able to enjoy myself without the nerves.
This year we are thrilled to welcome Sodexo's President and CEO, George Chavel to our meeting. I've read a lot about him and was on a team call with him just a couple of weeks ago but have never met him in person and I have to admit I am somewhat star struck. Sodexo is a very large company with more than 120,000 employees and more than 6,000 client sites in the US - talk about responsibility and career motivation! Mr. Chavel was recently profiled in The Gazette’s 2008 edition of “25 CEOs You Need to Know.” This news supplement features 25 top CEOs from successful Maryland-based companies. He was was selected from more than 130 nominations to appear in the publication. The story is personal, honest, uninhibited, and well... pretty darn cool.
But, once a year we all get together for our annual meeting - this year our annual meeting is in Las Vegas in November. I think I speak for all of us in Talent Acquisition that this is one of the most anticipated events of the year for our group. It allows us to reconnect on a personal level with the people that we work with every day. Last year was my first Annual Meeting and it happened to be my first day with Sodexo. To say I was a little nervous is an under statement. I am particularly excited for this year's event because I will be able to enjoy myself without the nerves.
This year we are thrilled to welcome Sodexo's President and CEO, George Chavel to our meeting. I've read a lot about him and was on a team call with him just a couple of weeks ago but have never met him in person and I have to admit I am somewhat star struck. Sodexo is a very large company with more than 120,000 employees and more than 6,000 client sites in the US - talk about responsibility and career motivation! Mr. Chavel was recently profiled in The Gazette’s 2008 edition of “25 CEOs You Need to Know.” This news supplement features 25 top CEOs from successful Maryland-based companies. He was was selected from more than 130 nominations to appear in the publication. The story is personal, honest, uninhibited, and well... pretty darn cool.
What do you think?
First a little background information about him...
First a little background information about him...
Age: 48
Education: B.A. in economics and management from Albion College, Albion, Michigan
First Job Held: "As a teenager, I was a stock boy on the loading dock of my father's candy and tobacco wholesale distributorship. After college, I joined Arthur Andersen."
Hobbies: Spending time with family (my wife and two teenage sons) doing things together. Playing the piano.
What keeps you awake at night: Thinking about how we can be the employer of choice in the battle for talented people.
Person Most Want to Have Dinner With: George Gershwin.
Life Motto: "Be yourself; treat everyone around you with respect and dignity; be open to new possibilities; listen to good advice; have fun; be responsible; know when to rest and understand that you can and do make a difference with every interaction you have."
And now the article:
George Chavel, president and CEO of Sodexo, Inc., remembers his father getting up every morning at 5:00 to go to work. He did this for years, never taking a sick day. "But yet he was home for us," said Chavel. "But I watched his work ethic and saw commitment to a job in order to take care of us. You can translate that to a career."
He also counts himself fortunate to take on opportunities to do what he enjoys doing, which in turn have led to other opportunities. For example, at Sodexo, he started in the health care division in 1991. He credits the great team of people who helped him learn the business.
In 1998, Chavel took on a more senior executive role in health care and in 2005, was named chief operating officer and market president for the health care market, which was Sodexo's largest at the time, and included Senior Services, Acute Care and Laundry Services divisions. Two years later, he assumed responsibility for all of the company's North America Operations as President and Chief Executive Officer.
Sodexo, Inc. is a leading integrated food and facilities management services company in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with $7.3 billion (USD) in annual revenue and 120,000 employees. Sodexo, Inc. serves more than 10 million customers daily. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, is a member of Sodexo Group, and funds the Sodexo Foundation (www.helpstophunger.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $9.2 million in grants to fight hunger in America.
Earlier this year, Sodexo was named one of the top 5 five companies on the 2008 Global Outsourcing 100 List published by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals™ (IAOP). "There's a lot to be proud of…our business is strong and growing in all segments," said Chavel. "In the past 12 months, I'm most proud of the very public and company-wide priority Sodexo has placed on programs and strategy around corporate citizenship."
Sodexo's corporate citizenship priorities include: fighting hunger and malnutrition; improving the quality of life of those served; and protecting the environment.
His favorite part of the business is the people that he's worked with. "I've had the opportunity to work with so many great people who have that deep-rooted spirit of service and who have gone beyond what they needed to do, not only for our clients and customers, but also for our own people," said Chavel.
He has found the toughest issues and decisions involve people and, because they do, it makes it personal. He lives by a "mission/ business first, people always" motto, and his challenge of leadership is to wisely balance the two.
Keeping employees happy is attainable, according to Chavel, by providing clear direction, setting expectations, and communicating intent. "I give them the tools they need to succeed, and get out of their way," observed Chavel. He tries to stay focused on what the objectives are and on being a good communicator. "I'm not a micro-manager. I trust and respect the accountability that I convey to people and that they know they have the responsibility to deliver."
You can also read the article here .
George Chavel, president and CEO of Sodexo, Inc., remembers his father getting up every morning at 5:00 to go to work. He did this for years, never taking a sick day. "But yet he was home for us," said Chavel. "But I watched his work ethic and saw commitment to a job in order to take care of us. You can translate that to a career."
He also counts himself fortunate to take on opportunities to do what he enjoys doing, which in turn have led to other opportunities. For example, at Sodexo, he started in the health care division in 1991. He credits the great team of people who helped him learn the business.
In 1998, Chavel took on a more senior executive role in health care and in 2005, was named chief operating officer and market president for the health care market, which was Sodexo's largest at the time, and included Senior Services, Acute Care and Laundry Services divisions. Two years later, he assumed responsibility for all of the company's North America Operations as President and Chief Executive Officer.
Sodexo, Inc. is a leading integrated food and facilities management services company in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with $7.3 billion (USD) in annual revenue and 120,000 employees. Sodexo, Inc. serves more than 10 million customers daily. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, is a member of Sodexo Group, and funds the Sodexo Foundation (www.helpstophunger.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $9.2 million in grants to fight hunger in America.
Earlier this year, Sodexo was named one of the top 5 five companies on the 2008 Global Outsourcing 100 List published by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals™ (IAOP). "There's a lot to be proud of…our business is strong and growing in all segments," said Chavel. "In the past 12 months, I'm most proud of the very public and company-wide priority Sodexo has placed on programs and strategy around corporate citizenship."
Sodexo's corporate citizenship priorities include: fighting hunger and malnutrition; improving the quality of life of those served; and protecting the environment.
His favorite part of the business is the people that he's worked with. "I've had the opportunity to work with so many great people who have that deep-rooted spirit of service and who have gone beyond what they needed to do, not only for our clients and customers, but also for our own people," said Chavel.
He has found the toughest issues and decisions involve people and, because they do, it makes it personal. He lives by a "mission/ business first, people always" motto, and his challenge of leadership is to wisely balance the two.
Keeping employees happy is attainable, according to Chavel, by providing clear direction, setting expectations, and communicating intent. "I give them the tools they need to succeed, and get out of their way," observed Chavel. He tries to stay focused on what the objectives are and on being a good communicator. "I'm not a micro-manager. I trust and respect the accountability that I convey to people and that they know they have the responsibility to deliver."
You can also read the article here .
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