Posted on

Five Questions with Kristen House: Content Strategy Manager at Google

Before diving into tech—she currently manages the content team on Google’s Ads products—Kristen House taught college students to write and to read literature closely. She is the founder of A Novel Idea, a nonprofit organization that teaches young people ages 12 to 18 to write novels during their summer breaks, and she loves the written and spoken word. “I believe communication is the answer to most of life’s questions,” she says. Oh, and she reportedly bakes a mean apple pie.

We look forward to getting better acquainted with her at In/Visible Talks 2020, where she’ll join Joscelin Cooper on the main stage to discuss “Content Strategy: A Transformational Lens”. Together they’ll look at how content strategy is applied to product design and organizational communications, with a foray into how the right words and messages can transform critical moments of one’s personal life.

Till then, here are some of the things that inspire Kristen.

What is your relationship to the creative process?

“Daily commitment. Like a marriage.” 

When did you first realize you needed to be in a creative field?

“Oh, I’ve always known. My childhood bedroom walls were filled with words I’d scrawled in the night when I woke from dreams. I painted and drew and sang and wrote all the things that I loved and feared. Every day, I practice rolling a single moment around in my mind until it’s smooth like a stone. And then I write it down.”

How or where do you find inspiration?

“In the quiet. In moments of grief and change. By finding the sore spot and pressing into it until I can find why it hurts. In the celebration of the small and wondrous moments that make this one single life worth living and sharing.”

What was one of your biggest creative challenges?

“Finding time to create things while I was starting my young family. I have four small children (ages 4 to 12), and their big lives demand a lot of my mental space.”

Who is one of your heroes and why?

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because she exercises more than I do. 😉 ”

Bonus Round: What are you reading now?

“I Miss You When I Blink, a collection of essays by Mary Laura Philpott.”   

Posted on

January 2020 Design & Art Event Hotlist

What better way to kick off a new decade than to inspire ourselves at exciting design and art events. To help you decide which creative adventures you must do this month, In/Visible Talks’ co-founders (and long-time practicing designers) Arianna Orland and Dava Guthmiller have perused all the options around the Bay Area and picked their favorites. You might get a new perspective on fonts, learn how to fine-tune your hand-lettering techniques, and celebrate innovation in art, design, and dance. We’ll see you there!

A Crash Course in Type Selection.

We’re pretty much type geeks, but finding the perfect font for every job isn’t always an enjoyable task. At this weekend event, typographic consultant Stephen Coles and type designer Christopher Slye will help us build a broader and smarter selection criteria, understand the connections between font and function, and catch up on the latest suppliers and purchasing models. $360. January 11 and 12, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Letterform Archive, 1001 Mariposa Street #304, San Francisco.

Make.

Mingle with designers, artists, and makers as you experience projects featuring the themes, concepts, and materials found in Survival Architecture and the Art of Resilience and Linda Gass: and then this happened…. We’ll get in on the creating, too, by learning hand-lettering techniques from graphic designer Lara McCormick and acknowledging Zero-Waste Month with a cast-off fabric banner-making workshop led by Shu Bertrand, product designer and founder of Aplat. $8. January 16, 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Museum of Craft and Design, 2569 3rd Street, San Francisco.

In/Visible Talks & Workshops. 

It’s our third annual design and art conference event! The boundaries of design are constantly evolving, so to kick off the new decade, we’ve asked our speakers to GO BEYOND the expected perspectives, guardrails, materials, and thinking of the creative practice. Join us for candid conversations with our world-class lineup of mainstage speakers, Lunch + Learn moderators, and workshop facilitators. And meet everyone for extended networking at our Happy Hour on the 16th at Make (see above). $450 (talks), $150 (workshops), $20 (hackathon). January 16: Conference, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, at The Pearl, 601 19th Street; and Happy Hour, starting 5:30 pm, at Make, Museum of Craft and Design, 2569 3rd Street. January 17: Workshops at CCA Graduate Center, 184 Hooper Street. All in San Francisco.

Untitled, Art.

Founded in 2012, this international art fair focuses on curatorial balance and integrity across all disciplines of contemporary art. We love that this fab event is held the same weekend as In/Visible Talks, as it extends and expands of our art and design inspiration. Be sure to check out Creativity Explored’s booth. $40. Free for In/Visible Talks 2020 attendees. January 17 through 19. Friday noon to 8:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm. Pier 35, 1454 Embarcadero, San Francisco.

FOG Design & Art Fair.

Celebrating today’s most significant creatives and leading contributors to the worlds of design and visual arts, this fair assembles 48 leading international galleries, prominent 20th-century and contemporary design dealers, and 21POP, a special installation created by Stanlee Gatti. FOG also features a series of conversations and panel discussions throughout the fair, included with admission. $25 in advance, $32 after January 15. January 16 through 19. Thursday through Saturday, 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, Sunday 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Fort Mason, Festival Pavilion, 2 Marina Blvd., San Francisco.

San Francisco Movement Arts Festival.

San Francisco’s iconic cathedral will transform itself into many staging areas—on the main floor and in attached chapels, hallways, stairways, and the front entryway—to allow 300+ performers to celebrate their movement art. Artists from the Bay Area and beyond will present rotating short pieces (about 4 minutes each) that explore subjects including female empowerment, artistic beauty, social issues, cultural heritage, personal loss, and family love. $28–$45. January 24, 6:00 to 8:30 pm. Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street, San Francisco.

Want more? Check out the In/Visible Talks blog for reviews of design and arts events we’ve attended recently and to learn about upcoming opportunities.

Posted on

Five Questions with Sarah Charlotte Jones: Education and Program Manager at the Museum of Craft and Design

Sarah Charlotte Jones’s first job was at Ross, and “It was awesome,” she says. Today she has another awesome job as the Education and Programs Manager at the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. Creatives featured in programs she has produced include Marcel Wanders, Ben Venom, Wendy Muriyama, Jay Nelson, Rae Dunn, and Future Cities Lab (now Futureforms).

She has a gift for creating a “Party with a Purpose”, and she works to utilize museums as platforms for meaningful partnerships that inspire the public for good. We’re excited about exploring this with her at In/Visible Talks 2020, where she’ll moderate a Lunch+Learn on “Beyond Exhibitions: Creative Channels for Getting Your Work Museum-Featured”.

Get to know Sarah Charlotte.

What is your relationship to the creative process?

“As a programmer, I am inspired by themes and concepts. Give me any subject matter and I will immediately begin developing a menu, a playlist, a community partner, an artist instructor, collaborations, and some takeaways. I revel in creating spaces for learning that are both fun and inclusive. As an artist, I start with a vision and reverse engineer from there—often incorporating multiple mediums and utilizing materials in somewhat unintended ways.” 

When did you first realize you needed to be in a creative field?

“I was finding success in more conventional fields, but intuited that I could apply these very marketable skills to subject matter that was actually interesting and could also potentially make a difference in people’s lives. I was right.”

How or where do you find inspiration?

“In museums of all kinds, festivals/events, music, friends ’n’ fam, books, fashion, pop culture, and travel.”

What was one of your biggest creative challenges?

“One of my biggest creative challenges is in having the bandwidth to make a fully formed programmatic idea come to fruition. The blessing and the curse of my creative process is that I can immediately see this very robust, holistic vision, but the laws of space and time limit what is realistically possible. So, my challenge is to constantly be assessing and shifting what stays and what gets moved elsewhere, for later.”

What drives you to create?

“An instinct for curating my experience on this Earth.” 

Bonus Round: What’s on your current playlist?

“RL Grime’s Halloween 8, Scarypoolparty, Danny Brown, Post Malone, Pure Wrath, Phem, and Kate Mo$$.”

Posted on

Vacation policies and time off

accrued vacation pay meaning

If employers decide to provide time off they need to make sure to do so in a uniform manner and apply the same regulations to each employee. Specify the categories of employees who are eligible to accrue and use paid sick leave; i.e. full-time, temporary, or part-time employees. Specify whether the vacation time is earned on a monthly basis, by pay period, or after https://www.bookstime.com/ a certain period of service with the company, such as one year. Paid sick days that are part of a separate sick leave policy are not subject to the same rules and do not have to be paid out when an employee leaves the company. However, when sick days are included in a general PTO policy, all of the PTO is treated like vacation and must be paid out on separation.

  • The employee might be able to decide whether they want to roll over time off, cash it out, or do a mix of the two options.
  • In the last decade, Strauss & Strauss APC has recovered over $100 million dollars for employees in California.
  • The employee’s anniversary date is also a popular time for employees who start in the middle of the calendar year.
  • The employer gave the employee written notice at the time of hiring of the limitation on payment of accrued paid time off.
  • For example, an employee earns one hour of paid time off for every 20 hours worked.
  • When audited financial statements are required, any vacation pay accrual balances have to be reported on these as a current liability.
  • In any case, it’s important for an employer to be clear on their PTO policy while staying within the law.

Employees receive or rather accumulate their paid time offs over a period of time. The actual number of pays per fiscal year may vary for employees in their first year of employment and for employees who have a change in employment status during the fiscal year. Any other written or verbal agreement between the employer and employee.

Paid Vacation Time

This is because, if the employee were to leave the company and be paid all of his unused vacation pay, he would be paid at his most recent pay rate. If a company awards pay raises to all employees during the same time period in each year, this can result in a sudden jump in the vacation expense accrual. Research consistently shows that incorporating a PTO policy will result in employees taking more vacation time and fewer sick days. First, employers typically receive more notice about scheduled vacations and can plan for adequate coverage. Second, employees return to work more refreshed and productive following vacation leave, which generally doesn’t happen if they’re using sick days.

How do you record accrued vacation pay?

Calculate the accrued PTO.

To calculate accrued PTO, find the amount of vacation time earned through the beginning of the accounting period, add the number of hours earned in the current accounting period, then subtract the number of vacation hours used in the current period.

An employer policy may specify that employees lose accrued benefits under certain conditions, as long as employees are given prior notice of the policy (Glenville, 417 N.E.2d at 1009). However, one Louisiana Court of Appeals court found that termination for cause may invalidate an employee’s claim for unused vacation pay (Avila v. Sanofi-Aventis, 90 So. 3d 1132 (La. Ct. App. 2012)). Wages include vacation pay when the employer has a policy or practice of paying employees for this time (Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § ). Save yourself the hassle of a disgruntled worker by knowing how to figure out how much your employees have in vacation accrual so you can pay them properly during their vacation time. If you are cashing out the employee’s paid time off, multiply the remaining accrued time off by the employee’s hourly rate. Make sure to withhold taxes from accrued paid time off before paying your employee.

Talk to an Employment Rights attorney.

Typically, organizations allow new employees to start accruing time off after a probationary period of days. Is my employer required to pay me time and one-half for working on a legal holiday? Overtime is generally required to be paid only after you work more than 40 hours in one week, regardless accrued vacation pay of whether or not a holiday occurs in the workweek. Some employers allow their employees to take more vacation than they have accrued, and earn back the amount advanced later. Your employer cannot force you to give up your earned vacation time if you don’t use it within a certain amount of time.

accrued vacation pay meaning

As a result, you are not responsible for paying it out or rolling it over to the next year. In many businesses, accrued time off expires at the end of the year. The employee might be able to decide whether they want to roll over time off, cash it out, or do a mix of the two options.

What Is a Non-Benefited Employee?

Employers must follow certain rules when providing vacation or paid time off in California. However, if you still want to go the round-about way and calculate time offs manually, you can follow the below steps.

Years of Service refers to years of continuous full-time employment. These and other useful resources are available with a FREE Practice Point Trial. Charge dept – select a department to allocate the earning type amounts for reporting, if applicable. All Compensation due and payable to Employees shall be prorated as of the Cut Off Time, other than Accrued Vacation Pay (which is addressed in Section 7.1 above).

Posted on

Five Questions with Jenara Nerenberg: Founder of the Neurodiversity Project

As we get ready to “Go Beyond” the expected perspectives, guardrails, materials, and thinking of the creative process at our third annual In/Visible Talks conference, we are incredibly inspired by Jenara Nerenberg. A journalist, author, and founder of the Neurodiversity Project, Jenara is “neurodivergent”, someone who lives with ADHD, autism, synesthesia, high sensitivity, or a sensory processing disorder. When she discovered her own experience of sensitivity—labeled as “anxiety”—was actually considered autistic and ADHD, she dove into research and shared her findings in her soon-to-be released book, Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You.

Among the questions she asks: What is “normal” and “abnormal”? Why are women so frequently undiagnosed or misdiagnosed? How can we go beyond the labeling to allow a wide variety of brain makeups to flourish, resulting in a richer, better world for all?

We’re looking forward to hearing Jenara’s thoughts when she joins us on the main stage on January 16 to talk about “Design, Empathy, and Neurodiversity”. Meanwhile, here are some insights into her creative life.

What is your relationship to the creative process?

“I’m neurodivergent—like many creatives, whether they know it or not—so my creative process looks different each day. I need lots of time alone every day. I often write from my car, because I can take it anywhere and there’s absolute silence.”

How or where do you find inspiration?

“I think the disconnect I feel with the way societal structures are set up causes me to stay at a distance, so I have a lot of time in my head to think, reflect, observe, and analyze. A lot of the inspiration I get is from that cognitive dissonance—my own internal space where there is sometimes awe and wonder, but also intense questioning and occasional turmoil.”

When did you first realize you needed to be in a creative field?

“I was a circus artist as a child and enrolled in the theater program at the San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA) for high school. From a young age, I was always moving, dancing, and standing on my hands. At the same time, I was deeply curious about people’s minds. I watched people and asked constant questions about their behavior. And I loved media and film. This combination led me to psychology and journalism.”

What was one of your biggest creative challenges?

“Everyday life is honestly a creative challenge. I wake up and think, ‘How do I structure my day today?’ How do I manage the fatigue, the headaches, trying to eat healthy, being a present parent and spouse, and my writing deadlines?”

Who is one of your heroes and why?

“Anyone who is actively and intentionally generating new, healthy, unbiased, and objective narratives—especially on a massive scale—is my hero. Ava DuVernay is one such example. She is reframing race narratives in mass media and Hollywood’s pop culture.”

Bonus Question: What is your favorite digital or nondigital tool?

“My car charger.”