Warm-up

1. Warm-up • By some estimates, it costs an employer an additional ____% to ___% of an employee’s income to provide these benefits.

2. Unit 2: Career: Labor You Love

3. What did you learn about your classmates that surprised you or interested you? • What did you share about yourself that was important to you and to other students? • How did the information you shared reflect on your perception of work?

4. Objectives • Discuss the effects of education and training on a career • Define the characteristics of an entrepreneur • Distinguish benefits employees should consider when searching for employment • Define key words related to financial planning or careers.

5. Questions to answer by the end of the Unit • How does the career you choose affect your income? • What employee characteristics are important to an employer? • How do education and training affect your salary? • What is an entrepreneur? • What are employee benefits?

6. Overview: Work and Money • One of your single greatest assets is the earning power from your chosen career and/or your talents and skills. • Many people think a house is the most valuable thing they’ll ever own, but a lifetime of earnings is usually worth much more than a house.

7. Overview: Work and Money • How much you earn in a lifetime can be affected by your choices about education, training, where you live, and for whom you work.

8. Can You Believe?With a partner, fill in the following: • ____% of teenagers worked fulltime last summer (35 hours or more per week), while ___% worked part-time (20-35 hours). • Teenagers most typically have jobs that involve manual labor __% or food service ___%. • On average, teenagers with jobs work about ___hours per week and earn $5.70 per hour (more than the minimum wage of $5.15). • The average American changes jobs __times and careers ___times during a working lifetime.

9. Your Career • What is the difference between a job and a career? It usually comes down to attitude. • AJob—is relatively short-term work that “pays the bills.” • ACareer—is usually a long-term chosen profession or occupation that provides an income. • Often there is a planned sequence of jobs as you build a career.

10. Think of this way: in high school your “career” is being a student. In just 4 years of school, you take a lot of different classes (jobs). Some of these classes you love, some you endure. But ultimately you achieve your career goals as a student and graduate. {Refer to page 17—top of page}

11. The secret to being happy and successful in most jobs is very often your attitude. A good attitude leads to job satisfaction, which means you enjoy the work you do. Employers pick up on good attitudes and often reward their employees accordingly with better pay, better benefits, more challenging work, etc. So what do employers look for in an employee?

12. What Employers Want • The US Government conducted a study to identify the basic skills and abilities that teenagers and young adults would need to obtain “high-skill, high-wage employment” in a high-performance economy.

13. Are dependable Work well with others Are good problem solvers Have high productivity Conduct increasingly complex and unique activities Have great attitudes Employers look for employees who:

14. Display Visual 2-A, Key Employee Skills

15. My strongest skill is : My Weakest skill is: I can put this skill to even better use today by: I can improve this skill today by: Assignment 2.1 My Skill Assessment

16. Making Money • One key reason you need to know what an employer expects from you as an employee is money. • Money—cash—is often what drives personal financial planning. Why? • Money is usually what it takes to reach your financial goals. • Employers are looking for the right experience, the kind that adds value to a company’s products and services, which helps the company grow.

17. If need to know yourself. The key is knowing what makes you happy and gives you a desire to succeed. • That means knowing yourself. Consider the many ways different jobs add value to our society and economy. • Ultimately, all workers trade their time for money in the form of wages. Since time is a limited resource, it makes sense to make the most of it. One way to do that is by earning large enough wage that you feel compensated fairly for your time. • And speaking of time, when you finish high school you’ll face another choice: what to do with the rest of your life.

18. After High School: Then What? • What will you do after you finish high school? Go to college? Enter a trade school? Enter directly into the workforce? • Your choice will affect your career and your future earnings. • More specifically, additional education and training normally have a positive impact on the money you earn in the future.

19. The Costs of Benefits of College Education • Education is the level of formal knowledge and training you have attained. • As a general rule, the more education you have, the higher your income. • Higher education leads to higher income levels.

20. Average College Costs • http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html • http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/trends/trends_pricing_07.pdf

21. Education vs. Earnings • http://www.uwec.edu/career/Online_Library/education_earnings.htm

22. Other Education Options • Technical and trade schools—these are typically one-to two-year programs that will provide you with a working skill, such as PC repair, computer technical support, diesel mechanic, or paralegal assistant. • How much a job pays depends on its value to society as a whole. • Fast-food work takes little training in terms of skills and specialized knowledge, and almost anyone can do the job. So these positions often pay minimum wage. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/01/minwage/map.html

23. Other Education Options • On the other end of the spectrum, becoming a heart surgeon requires advanced skills and years of education and training; the pay reflects the unique value that only a few individuals can provide. • No matter what the job, an almost sure way of increasing your worth in the workplace is to get relevant training. You will need to learn new skills throughout your lifetime, and many employers will pay for additional training. Of course, in return, the employer expects you to be more efficient and better skilled on the job after training. • You never know about training opportunities unless you ask, and asking is free!

24. “He Said, She Said…”Activity • Visual 2-F • Students will form a small group to four to five students. • Oral Discussion— • What new insights did you gain about being an employee? • In what kind of jobs would you consider becoming self-employed (starting your own business) • When would you want to be an employee of being your own boss?

25. Create a Venn Diagram • Create a Venn Diagram that compares/contrasts the characteristics of an entrepreneur and an employee. How are they similar? How are they different? (Use visual 2-A and characteristics of an entrepreneur, see page 21 (student guide).

26. Entrepreneurship • An entrepreneur—is a person who creates a business from scratch, based on a need or personal expertise, and puts creativity and ingenuity expertise into action to provide either a service or product. • Many entrepreneurs are self-employed. • Being in business for yourself sometimes means a lot of no’s: no guarantees, not boss, and no regular paycheck. So being an entrepreneur normally means you’re willing to take risks.

27. Enjoy being their own boss Have a strong sense of discipline Keep a higher percentage of products from their labor Why do people work for themselves?

28. Independence Positive attitude Creativity and talent Risk-taker Good work ethic and honesty Hard worker Organization and planning skills Self-confidence Good listener Team listener Decision maker Motivated Salesmanship Follow through Characteristics that describe the typical self-employed person

29. Steps in Becoming an Entrepreneur • See an opportunity—to provide a service or goods that is currently missing or that you can provide better than any existing business. • Take the initiative—to learn all you can about existing competitors, and discovering what it is customers really want from your product/service. • Develop plans—to market your business, analyze your potential profit or losses, and then produce the product/service.

30. Pros of becoming an entrepreneur • Freedom: To begin with, one of the best things is that becoming an entrepreneur lets you decide when and where you will work. You can make your own schedule and work when it's convenient for you, which may not necessarily be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Control: Many people start their own enterprise because they are tired of being at the mercy of a boss and a job. Even if you like your boss and your job, it still remains that you are at their mercy. You can be fired at any time and that boss you like so much can be transferred. Your company can go bankrupt or get bought out. Starting your own business is empowering because it puts you back in control of a very important part of your work.

31. Pros of becoming an entrepreneur • Freedom: To begin with, one of the best things is that becoming an entrepreneur lets you decide when and where you will work. You can make your own schedule and work when it's convenient for you, which may not necessarily be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Control: Many people start their own enterprise because they are tired of being at the mercy of a boss and a job. Even if you like your boss and your job, it still remains that you are at their mercy. You can be fired at any time and that boss you like so much can be transferred. Your company can go bankrupt or get bought out. Starting your own business is empowering because it puts you back in control of a very important part of your work.

32. Pros of becoming an entrepreneur • Risk taking: Starting your own business is a risk. While you can prepare yourself to help eliminate some of this risk, it is also true that there is no amount of planning, learning and reading that will completely eliminate the risk of going it alone. Great entrepreneurs have many traits in common; chief among them is a willingness to take a risk. Not a blind risk mind you, but a calculated, prudent, honest risk. (Note: Not everyone considers risk-taking a "pro.")So yes, there are many great reasons to start your own business. But let's not get carried away; issues will be encountered along the way. You need to weigh the benefits against the burdens listed below. If you conclude that the benefits outweigh the burdens, then continue on.

33. Cons of becoming an entrepreneur • Uncertainty: The life of an entrepreneur is not necessarily an easy one. Is it fun? Yes. Is it challenging, exciting and spontaneous? You bet. But it is not easy. Probably the hardest part is that there is no steady source of income. A paycheck does not come every two weeks. If you don't pay your health insurance premium or your life insurance, you are not insured. There is no company car. There are no free donuts on Fridays. If you think you can handle this sort of uncertainty, that's good, because you will -- every day.There are no guarantees: Not all entrepreneurial ventures are successful. Again, it is a willingness to take a smart, calculated risk that is a major key to success here. You have to be willing to fail if you are to succeed.

34. Cons of becoming an entrepreneur • It's easy to get distracted: When you go to work every day to an office full of people dressed well and who are (theoretically) committed to achieving the same goal, it forces you to take work seriously. That is simply not true when you work for yourself. If you want to sleep in, you can. There is no one to report to but you. If you want to skip work one day, you can. It's pretty easy to find yourself watching too much TV or playing a round of golf too many. It's easy to feel alone: If it is easy to get distracted working for yourself, it is equally easy to feel isolated. Another good thing about going to a regular office every day is the social aspect of work. Work is a great place to meet people, exchange ideas and share a joke.But, while it is certainly true that you may take on employees down the road, at the beginning of your venture, you are likely going to be working alone. One way that some entrepreneurs handle this is by making sure to schedule meetings and business lunches with associates, to maintain that social aspect of work.The bottom line is this: It is easy to romanticize the idea of becoming an entrepreneur. The smarter move is to consider the pros and the cons very carefully and act accordingly.

35. Your Career and your Financial Future • There is more to work than just money. Job satisfaction is equally, if not more important.

36. What Employees Want • Employee benefits, which are additional benefits offered by employers. • Show Visual 2-D. • By some estimates, it costs an employer an additional 20% to 50% of an employee’s income to provide these benefits.

37. Cost of Living • Include items like rent or home costs, transportation costs, insurance, utilities like natural gas and electricity, and food. • http://www.bestplaces.net/col/default.aspx

38. Starting a Family • According to the United States Department of Agriculture, average $100,000 and $200,000 per child on expenses from birth to age 18. • Throw in the cost of a college education on top of that, and you can see just how valuable you really are to those who love you! • It takes a lot of money to support a family, and that’s another reason to seriously consider your career choices.

39. Health benefits are very helpful when you have children, and retirement benefits will come in handy when your reach your golden years. • By now you can probably see how your career choice ties in closely with your financial plan over a lifetime. • The individual jobs you hold over the years generate cash and other benefits that drive your financial plan. • Your plan provides guidance and direction to which jobs and which you reject, based on your values and career goals.