Kinsa Group Blog

What’s the best way to ace your next food & beverage performance review?

Certainly, you need to do your job well throughout the year; but adequate job performance isn’t enough.  To guarantee a stellar review that lands you the promotion, raise or extra perks you want, use these proactive tips from Kinsa Group:

Remember the purposes of your performance review.  Annual evaluations provide an opportunity to highlight what you have done well, identify areas for improvement and outline your plans and goals for the future.  Bear these points in mind as you progress through the year, collecting documentation to support each area.

Plan well in advance.  In fact, you should start planning for your next review the moment you leave your previous one.  Create an accomplishments folder, document or portfolio to keep track of your most ambitious projects and biggest accomplishments.  Keep a detailed calendar of what you’ve achieved, quantifying your results whenever possible (keep track of ways you’ve helped save time, generate revenue, improve processes, save money, etc.).

Include 360-degree feedback.  When most food & beverage professionals think about performance reviews, they typically think about the opinions of those higher-up on the corporate ladder.  If you truly want to give yourself (and your manager) an accurate picture of who you are and how you contribute to the team, gather feedback from those who work with and for you.  Take the initiative to create a safe environment in which co-workers and subordinates can share honest feedback about your performance.  Use their input to spur ideas for future professional development, or to show how you’ve grown over the past 12 months.

Assess your performance against your goals.  Periodically throughout the year, check your progress toward mid- and long-term goals.  If you see that you’re off track, try to determine the reason(s) why – and take corrective action as soon as possible.  On the other hand, if you consistently exceed job requirements and targets throughout the year, prepare to make a case for additional responsibility in your next review.

Consider your last performance review.  If you’ve already been through the review process once with your current employer, note the steps you have taken since then to improve your performance or build on your strengths.  Document how you’ve enhanced your skills and knowledge (e.g., through training courses, on-the-job learning or setting personal challenges), and describe how these initiatives have benefited your performance.

Anticipate potential negative issues.  If you missed a goal, or had an issue with a co-worker or client, keep notes as to why the problem occurred.  Reduce your anxiety by preparing to explain what you learned from the mistake and how you’ll prevent it from happening again.  Should your manager surprise you with unexpected negative feedback, thank him – and ask what he would recommend to help you improve in that area.

Prioritize your information.  As your review date approaches, organize all of the performance documentation you’ve assembled.  Instead of going into the review with a simple bullet list, take the time to prioritize information according to its strategic importance for your career – and the company.

Outline ideas for a new annual plan.  Though this is one of the toughest parts of preparing for a review, it provides a great opportunity to demonstrate the value of your role in a company-wide context and to set yourself apart as an upward-bound professional.  Use the information you’ve gathered throughout the year to lay out a list of three or four annual goals that are measurable, challenging and in-line with your long-term career goals.

Still dreading that performance evaluation?  Maybe you’re in the wrong job!  As a leading food & beverage headhunter, Kinsa can help you confidentially search for the right professional or executive food & beverage job that matches your skills, interests and career aspirations.  For more information on who’s hiring in food & beverage, contact Kinsa Group today.

Neuroscientists have reported that men think differently than women.

But that doesn’t mean they’re better leaders.

Current statistics, however, might cause you to believe differently.  While women have made great strides in every profession – including those in the food & beverage industry – they still find fewer opportunities in executive offices and corporate boardrooms.  Case in point? Only 18 of today’s Fortune 500 have female leaders (according to cnn.com).

The question is: “Why?”  Here are a few possible reasons:

• Personal and social pressures may make it harder for them to succeed as leaders.  Factors like maternal and domestic priorities, greater societal pressures, office behavior double-standards and the burden of maintaining physical appearances place additional pressures on women.
• Standards in the business world are primarily made and enforced by men.
• Many companies espouse a commitment to gender diversity but do not know how to fully integrate it into their culture.  This allows for persistent stereotypes and biases against women to endure.
• Women may lack opportunities to join informal networks and role models to support their professional growth.  As a result, they keep lower level jobs, change companies or drop out of the workforce all together.

Realities like these are especially unfortunate, when studies continually find that companies with a high number of women executives and board members perform better, both organizationally and financially:

• According to Catalyst research, the 25 Fortune 500 companies with the best records for promoting women to senior positions have 69 percent higher returns than the Fortune 500 median for their industry.
• A 2010 McKinsey Global Survey found companies with the highest gender diversity also had higher returns on equity, operating results and growth in market valuation than the averages in their respective sectors.

In a time when strong leadership is definitely needed in the food & beverage industry, the Women’s Foodservice Forum (WFF) has answered the call.  Founded in 1989, the organization promotes gender diversity as both the right social move and a smart business decision.  They have played a principal role in not only raising the issue of gender among senior teams, but also inspiring and supporting its female members to pursue and succeed in high-level roles.

Over the past two years,  the WFF has implemented a new strategy to accelerate the impact its organization has on advancing women leaders:

• Talent Pipeline Development. The WFF helps women and men develop their leadership competencies, building stronger teams, resulting in more successful organizations.
• Strategic Connections. Organizations that are a part of the WFF community create strategic, transformational connections with peers and companies across all segments within the industry.
• Brand Distinction. Member organizations positioned themselves as companies where leaders grow leaders, helping them attract, retain and engage the best talent in the industry.

To learn more about conferences, alliances, leadership programs, scholarships and other services offered by the WFF, visit their website.

Kinsa Recruiters are proud members of  the WFF, and the Kinsa Group has been a WFF Partner organization at the Supporter level since 2011.  We developed, created, host and support their online Career Center and job board, to help further their goals of advancing women leaders in the foodservice industry.

Uncle Sam is probably smiling right now.

According to the 2012 Food and Health Survey: Consumer Attitudes toward Food Safety, Nutrition & Health:

More than half of Americans believe it is easier to figure out their income taxes than to figure out how to have a balanced diet within calorie needs.

Obviously, we’re living in a land of confusion when it comes to understanding diet and health.

Commissioned by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation, this web-based survey of over 1,000 Americans aged 18 to 80 revealed the following about our country’s attitudes toward food:

• They’re trying to improve their diets, but it’s hard to separate fact from hype.  While nearly all respondents give at least a little thought to how healthful their diets are, many consumers acknowledge that changes in nutritional guidance make it hard to know what to believe.
• They view themselves as healthy, but with room to improve.  Nine out of 10 respondents describe their health as good or better; 60 percent say their health is either excellent or very good.  Despite their beliefs, many recognize there is room to improve their diets and nearly all say they are trying to improve at least one aspect of their eating habits (87 percent try to eat more fruits and vegetables).  More than half (55 percent) say they are trying to lose weight.
• Most don’t know their own caloric needs.  Only 71 percent of respondents would even try to guess how many calories they need to maintain their weight; of those, only 15 percent estimated correctly.
• Americans are conscious of food safety.  More than 85 percent admit to giving some though to the safety of their foods and beverages over the past year.  78 percent are very or somewhat confident in the safety of the U.S. food supply.  Food safety factors having the largest impact on their purchasing decisions include bacteria (51 percent), “chemicals” in food (51 percent), imported food (49 percent), pesticides (47 percent), animal antibiotics (30 percent) and undeclared allergens (25 percent).
• Taste and price continue to drive food & beverage choices.  At the end of the day, taste (87 percent) and price (73 percent) beat out healthfulness (61 percent), convenience (53 percent) and sustainability (35 percent).  While respondents profess trying to improve the healthfulness of their diets, the majority (54 percent) say they would rather just enjoy their food than worry about what’s in it.
• Family meals are important.  Nearly nine in 10 parents believe that it’s good for their health to sit down and eat meals with their families, and two-thirds of parents worry more about the healthfulness of their children’s diets than their own.

Like filing your own taxes, food and health information can be complex and difficult to understand. These insights from the 2012 Food & Health Survey will play a vital role in helping food & beverage professionals better understand the American consumer and the challenges they face in adopting healthful, lifelong behavioral changes.

Kinsa Group – On Top of the Trends Impacting Our Industry

If there is one constant in the food & beverage industry, it’s change.  As national recruiters in the food & beverage industry, we at Kinsa Group stay on top of the issues and trends that are important to your food & beverage organization.

U.S. workers are working longer – and retiring later.  Why?

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s Retirement Confidence Survey (as reported by Workforce.com):

• about 36 percent of respondents cite the poor economy;
• 16 percent say their lack of faith in Social Security is forcing them to postpone retirement;
• 13 percent claim they simply can’t afford to stop working.

As a result, workers say they are more than twice as likely to work up to age 70 or older – a 25 percent increase from just a decade ago.

Rising numbers of older individuals remaining in the workforce creates both challenges and potential benefits for employers.  On the one hand, workers delaying retirement adds pressure to companies already struggling to reduce payroll as profit dwindles.  A glut of older workers also threatens to clog the talent pipeline for organizations who want to bring in new employees – at lower salary levels.

On the other hand, companies for which knowledge loss is a concern stand to gain a welcome benefit from a more mature workforce – less “brain drain.”  Key managers have more time to plan for the departure of older workers, and therefore can be more strategic in retraining or transferring institutional knowledge.

As older workers continue to delay retirement, HR needs to respond by reevaluating the way they manage human capital.  Instead of paying older workers to retire, HR should look for creative ways to take advantage of the shift in workforce demographics:

• Create cross-mentoring relationships. In a traditional mentor relationship, older, more experienced workers share knowledge with their less experienced counterparts.  When it comes to technology, however, younger employees are often more savvy.  Organizations can foster reverse mentorships, in which younger workers share their knowledge in areas like online social networking.
• Find new ways to attract younger workers. In a time when career advancement is likely to become more difficult, organizations should focus on new ways to bring top performers on board.  When HR can’t necessarily offer rapid upward mobility to new talent, they can offer lateral movement.  Lateral moves can help younger employees broaden their knowledge bases, become more valuable to the employer (increasing job security) and become more marketable overall.

Kinsa Group can help your organization proactively manage its professional and executive human capital needs as our workforce changes.  We provide recruiting and professional placement services with a specific focus on the food & beverage industry.  Serving companies throughout the United States since 1985, we are able to recruit and assess candidates for positions in:

• Executive Management
• General Management
• Sales
• Marketing
• Operations & Plant Production Management
• Research & Development
• Food Science
• Quality Assurance
• Food Safety
• Human Resources
• Engineering
• Maintenance
• Supply Chain and Purchasing
• Warehouse Management
• Finance & Accounting

How will your food & beverage organization address the shifts in workforce demographics?  We at Kinsa would like to know.  Please leave your comments below.

“It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.”

–Harold S. Geneen

If you’ve ever managed a single person, then you know that employees make excuses.  They procrastinate, miss deadlines and blame others when they fail.

So how do you get them to consistently perform to the best of their abilities?

Use these smart suggestions to get better results – and fewer excuses – from your staff every day:

Make performance management a daily activity. Annual and quarterly reviews definitely play their part in gauging performance, but nothing replaces the day-to-day guidance you give to your staff.  So talk to them regularly, leveraging every opportunity to improve employee’s efforts:

• give them honest feedback about what they’re doing right – and what they need to improve;
• discuss new projects and the opportunities they present for employee development and growth;
• talk about overdue assignments or project difficulties and how to resolve them;
• reinforce the importance of consistently doing a great job.

Limit excuses. Eliminate the external factors on which employees often blame their poor performance by:

• Ensuring employees have the resources they need to do their jobs;
• Ensuring employees are adequately trained to do their jobs;
• Setting clear, mutually agreed-upon performance expectations for each employee.

Ask the right questions when problems arise. Uncovering the cause of poor performance is the first step in creating a plan to remedy it.  So when an employee is failing at work, ask the following types of questions to diagnose the reasons why:

• What about the work system (e.g., tools, time, training, support) is causing the employee to fail?
• Does the employee know exactly what you want him/her to do, as well as the expected outcome?
• Does the employee practice effective work management?
• Does the employee feel valued, recognized and fairly compensated for his/her contributions?

Make performance goals SMART goals. This goal-setting acronym is still widely used for one simple reason:  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound goals are more likely to be achieved.  So as you work with your employees to set higher standards for the next quarter or year, teach them how to create SMART performance goals that will get them there.

Create a “performance mentality” among team members. Football players won’t play their hardest in a game where nobody keeps score.  Likewise, your employees won’t deliver superior results when they merely see themselves as “doing a job” everyday.  Foster a “performance mentality” by showing your team why their efforts matter – and what’s at stake.  Make sure employees understand your mission, how their jobs fit into the “big picture,” and what they need to do to help your company win.

Fuel Performance with Kinsa’s Search and Assessment Services

The best way to ensure top performance is by hiring top talent.  Kinsa Group Consultants evaluate candidates’ performance in the specialty skills of the available position, results achieved in past positions, and overall predictors of success.  Kinsa has the resources to fuel exceptional performance in your food & beverage organization.  Contact us today to learn more.

Men and women are different in many ways.  But when it comes to work/life balance issues, they apparently share several of the same concerns.

Results from a WorldatWork fall 2010 research study conflict with a previously wide-held assumption about the differences between men and women – namely, that male identity is rooted in work, while women place a higher priority on personal/family life.

Watch the video.

Summary of Study Findings

The Global Study on Men and Work-Life Integration, conducted in November and December 2010, surveyed more than 2,300 men and women working in organizations with 500 or more employees.   The international study focused on how organizations can eliminate stereotypes and barriers that prevent men from using work/life offerings, as well as what prevents organizational leaders (who are often men) from supporting the use of those offerings.

Here is a brief summary of the study findings:

• Work and Personal Identity – Identification with work is much stronger in emerging markets/countries than in developed ones.
• Managing Work and Family Life – Finding time for family is especially challenging for men; however, both men and women seek more personal time for exercise and hobbies.  For both sexes, flexible work arrangements dominate the list of most valuable options for finding a healthy work/life balance.
• Financial Stress – Not surprisingly, financial stress is a top (if not the top) work/life issue across country and gender.  To ease this stress, employers can: increase employee assistance programs; offer financial counseling programs; be as transparent as possible about corporate finances and job security.
• Leadership Attitudes – Business leaders around the world embrace the importance of work/life balance and have programs and policies in place to facilitate it.  These efforts, however, are often ineffective because managers still believe that the “ideal worker” is an employee with few personal commitments.  In fact, half of managers in emerging markets, and four in 10 managers in developed markets, believe that the most productive employees are those with few personal commitments.

According to Kathie Lingle, WLCP, executive director of WorldatWork’s Alliance for Work-Life Progress, “Working men and women around the world seek the same holy grail: success in both their work and family lives.  The assumption that male identity is rooted in work and not family is a major impediment to the effective integration of employees’ work and family lives.”

For over 25 years, Kinsa Group has delivered highly qualified professionals and senior-to-executive level management candidates to food & beverage employers nationwide.  Visit our website to learn more about our recruiting and assessment services for the food & beverage industry.

When preparing for big interviews, most food & beverage professionals focus on what they’re going to say – about their work experience, accomplishments, goals, strengths and weaknesses.

While it’s certainly essential to know how to speak intelligently in an interview, it’s just as important to know how to listen.  A good recruiter will critically evaluate your listening skills as closely as he will your speaking skills.  In a market where competition is fierce, your ability to truly listen will help you make a better impression and may tip the scales in your favor.

Hone Your Active Listening Skills

In an interview situation, active listening is much more than just waiting for your turn to talk.  It involves not only hearing the words that are said, but also fully comprehending what the interviewer is asking you to do.  Use these tips to enhance your listening skills and perform better in your next interview:

Give the interviewer your full attention. Try to remain focused during the interview and devote your full attention to what the interviewer is saying.  Develop the habit of reminding yourself to focus every time your attention begins to drift.  Throughout the interview, maintain appropriate eye contact and avoid the temptation to formulate your response while the interviewer is still speaking.

Listen with your ears, eyes and brain. Communication experts say that only a fraction of the meaning of any conversation is in the actual words that are being said.  To understand the interviewer’s true meaning, you must glean other nonverbal cues from his tone of voice, posture and facial expressions.

Adopt an active listening posture. Show that you’re listening through your posture.  Sit with your shoulders set straight, while inclining your body and head slightly toward the other speaker.  Your hands may be used to take notes, or be folded either on the table or your lap.

Think before you speak. The more poised you are when you speak, the more intelligent your response will be.  So take a moment after hearing the question to formulate your answer.  A second or two of silence will help both you and the interviewer organize your thoughts and prepare for the turn in conversation.

Confirm understanding. If the interviewer asks a complex or multi-part question, paraphrase what he’s asked to confirm your understanding before beginning your response.  This will help ensure your response is both complete and accurate.

Answer the question that you’re asked. Listen carefully to the entire question before you answer it.  For example, the question “When do you feel that experience matters?” is significantly different from “How do you feel that experience matters?”  Make sure you pay attention to the nuances of each question and that you accurately answer what’s asked.  Avoid rambling answers that stray too far from the question posed.  If the interviewer wants to know more about something, he will ask you to elaborate.

Becoming a better listener won’t just help you land the job you want; it will make you a more successful professional.  So try incorporating a few of these tips into your next interview.  Do so and you may soon be listening to your next job offer!

Contact Kinsa Group for more assistance with your executive food & beverage job search.

Here are a few interesting statistics for you, from a February 2011 press release issued by small-business social network MerchantCircle:

• Facebook is becoming an increasingly popular way for merchants to market their business, with 70 percent using the social network for marketing, up from 50 percent one year ago.
• Facebook has now surpassed Google (66 percent) as the most widely used marketing method amongst local merchants, and is almost tied with Google search (40 percent) as one of their top three most effective marketing methods, with 37 percent rating Facebook as one of their most effective tools.

Whether you’re one of the millions of today’s social media junkies, or you consider them to be the world’s biggest waste of time, social media are having a huge impact – on individuals, and of course, on organizations.

Regardless of your personal preferences, your business needs a proactive social media strategy.  Why?  Doing nothing is akin to management by abdication.  It’s a guaranteed recipe for gossip, disinformation, lack of innovation, loss of talent and even loss of competitive advantage.

If you’re still new to the world of social media, or struggle to use it effectively, here are some ways to use resources like LinkedIn and Facebook to keep your company strong and healthy:

Focus your efforts. Create a system to make sure your social media activities align with your business objectives (e.g., If you use LinkedIn for client prospecting, develop and formalize a company-wide strategy and list of accepted practices.)  Likewise, resist the urge to join every available network.  Do your homework up-front to determine which sites are likely to be the most beneficial for your business.  Otherwise, these sites can wind up being a tremendous waste of time and effort.

Position yourself (and your company) as an expert. Whatever your area of specialization, you can use online networking to showcase your talent and expertise:

• Be a leader, not a follower. Develop thought leadership in the food & beverage industry by posting articles that identify trends, cite the latest research and are generally ahead of the curve.  Timely, relevant information is extremely valuable to your clients, prospects and other contacts.
• Attract top talent. True professionals stay on top of their fields by constantly seeking out new information.  Become a trusted source they turn to.  Write and post articles about the topics most important to these individuals, and you’ll attract the top performers you need.
• Answer a question in your field to attain expert status within your network. If you’re selected as providing the best answer to a particular problem, it will show up on your LinkedIn profile.  Providing answers is also a great way to strike up an online conversation with a new contact and begin building a relationship.

Draw traffic to your website and blog. Link these to your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and reference them in your tweets to get more people reading about you and your company.  If you adjust your LinkedIn settings, it will automatically send a notice reminding your contacts to come see what’s new.

Expand your networks. Networking is the number one way small businesses find employees, suppliers and strategic partners.  Make it easy for others to connect with you.  If you haven’t already, place links to all your social media accounts prominently on your website and blog to encourage more people to friend you, follow you or join your network.

Get active and stay active. You may get some minimal value from passive participation, but you have to be at least moderately involved on a site to derive any real business value.  So don’t be a social media couch potato.  Focus on growing your network.  Post.  Blog.  Refer.  Recommend.  Follow-up.  The more effort you put into your social media activities, the greater the results you’ll see.

Kinsa uses a number of social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to strengthen our business relationships and recruit the nation’s top food & beverage professionals and executives.  How are you using social media to drive your business?  We’d love to know.  Please leave your comments below.

Still on the fence about using social media?  Consider these statistics from the recent Cone Business in Social Media Study:

• 93 percent of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites.
• 85 percent believe that these companies should use social media to interact with consumers.
• 60 percent of Americans regularly interact with companies on social media sites.

The truth is, social media can help expand your business network, enhance your career, recruit employees and more.

According to HR expert Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide, HR professionals need to participate in social media for career success – and she should know.  She is a management and organization development consultant who specializes in human resources issues and in management development to create forward-thinking workplaces.  Susan is also a professional facilitator, speaker, trainer and writer.

Heathfield’s About.com article “10 Reasons Social Media Should Rock Your World” details the rationale behind making social media time investment mandatory for every HR professional:

1. Stay in touch with colleagues and friends. Social media makes it easier than ever to re-connect with former colleagues, classmates, teachers and other professional contacts.
2. Make it easy for others to find you. Maintain both individual and company profiles to make it simple and convenient for customers, employees and candidates to reach you.
   
3. Find potential job candidates. For example, you can e-mail social media contacts with job requirements and ask them for referrals.
4. Investigate potential career opportunities. If you’re interested in finding a new job, social media sites like LinkedIn can be invaluable in your search.  You can use the site to network, garner recommendations and learn about new job openings.
5. Establish your online brand. You can use social media to promote your career progress by establishing an online presence that defines who you are professionally and what you want to be known for accomplishing.
6. Join groups that share your professional interests. As a group member you can give and get information about recommended reading, industry trade shows or other professional meetings/events.
7. Develop social connections. Sites like Facebook are rapidly gaining mature professional members.  Unlike LinkedIn, Facebook is ideally suited to having fun and developing social contacts over time.  A word of caution:  carefully manage your Privacy Settings and critically examine content – before you post or upload – to make sure it’s compatible with your professional image.
8. Provide a space in which users of your products/services can interact with you. Use social media to expand your customers’ opportunities to discuss their wants and needs – with you or with other customers.
9. Build community around your products or services. The people who are the “face” of your company should leverage social media opportunities to build relationships with consumers.  Forums and blogs on your company website (and within your HR Intranet), as well as fan pages, can help you build this sense of community.
10. Finally your company, in addition to individual employees, should establish a company presence on major social media sites to stay in step with the changing interests and needs of consumers.  The Internet has opened up worldwide communication.  Why not use its social media components to make you and your company more successful?

With a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as well as a food & beverage industry-specific blog, Kinsa Group leverages social media to locate talented, experienced food & beverage professionals and C-level executives – especially those with hard-to-find skill sets.  Contact Kinsa today.

If you are looking for a job in the food & beverage industry, then you know that using technology in your search process can be both complex and somewhat intimidating.  But while it is only a piece of the whole process of finding a job today, savvy job seekers like you should try to leverage technology’s benefits.  Why?  Doing so can make your job search shorter and more successful.

As a nationwide food & beverage industry recruiter with over 25 years of experience, we at Kinsa Group provide a full complement of technology tools and resources to facilitate your job search.  Here are some of the best:

• Twitter. Looking for a Business Development Manager opportunity?  Searching for the latest VP Plant Operations positions?  Be the first to know about new job postings by following Kinsa on Twitter.
• Facebook. If you’re on Facebook, Search Kinsa Group and Like our Fan Page.  We post select positions on our Wall, which will show up automatically on your Home Page.
• LinkedIn. Connect with our recruiters by becoming part of Kinsa Group’s LinkedIn network.
• Website. Kinsa Group’s website contains a full complement of technology tools to facilitate your job search.  You can learn about our services for food & beverage job seekers, upload your résumé, search open food & beverage jobs.  Once you’re registered with us, you can update your profile and track your interview schedule right from our website.
• Blog. Kinsa’s blog is updated weekly and contains valuable career advice, job search tips and trends impacting the food & beverage industry.
• Kinsa CareerEdge.  Kinsa CareerEdge™, powered by Kinsa Group, is our FREE online career resource that enables you to: access over 1,000 Job Boards on one site; prepare a résumé or receive a résumé critique; participate in weekly webinars covering job seeker “hot topics,” receive job search advice, and more.
• iHobnob. iHobnob, a niche job board for the food and beverage industry elite, provides an objective medium for you to establish relationships, grow professionally, manage and enhance your career.
• National database. As a Kinsa candidate, our Recruiters across the nation have instant access to your profile.  We actively maintain our database to rapidly match your skills, experience and career interests with potential employment opportunities from coast to coast.

At Kinsa Group, we’re dedicated to making your food & beverage job search search faster, easier and more effective than ever.