Favorite Friday Are you cheating on your employer

Favorite Friday Are you cheating on your employer Almost 4 years ago I wrote this post talking about what you can do on your employers time, or while you have a job, for your career management. I did nothing for myself because I was too engaged with my employer. What a gross disservice.  Im not the only one who does this hundreds of thousands of people who have been let go in the last few years have thought but I was doing my job, and taking care of the company why dont they take care of me? Check out Are you cheating on your employer, which has a list of 10 things I should have been doing while I had a job. Favorite Friday Are you cheating on your employer Almost 4 years ago I wrote this post talking about what you can do on your employers time, or while you have a job, for your career management. I did nothing for myself because I was too engaged with my employer. What a gross disservice.  Im not the only one who does this hundreds of thousands of people who have been let go in the last few years have thought but I was doing my job, and taking care of the company why dont they take care of me? Check out Are you cheating on your employer, which has a list of 10 things I should have been doing while I had a job. Favorite Friday Are you cheating on your employer Almost 4 years ago I wrote this post talking about what you can do on your employers time, or while you have a job, for your career management. I did nothing for myself because I was too engaged with my employer. What a gross disservice.  Im not the only one who does this hundreds of thousands of people who have been let go in the last few years have thought but I was doing my job, and taking care of the company why dont they take care of me? Check out Are you cheating on your employer, which has a list of 10 things I should have been doing while I had a job.

A Roadmap to Greater Employer Transparency

A Roadmap to Greater Employer Transparency The road to a more transparent company begins with a single step. After all, without organizational transparency, your employees could be working on all the wrong things. You want to work toward the right goals, which means being able to visualize workflow throughout the company. The infographic below compiled by  ClearCompany, the first talent alignment platform that bridges the gap between talent management and business strategy shows how companies can get back on the road to organizational transparency. Takeaways: Nearly 44% of workers, while familiar with company goals, can’t specifically name them Only 5.9% of companies communicate goals daily 56.7% of business leaders see misalignment during goal cascading as a big challenge 70% of employees are disengaged in the workplace Companies with high levels of engagement report 22% higher productivity Check out the full infographic below for more tips on how to find your way towards great company transparency! What do you think?  How will you foster a more transparent company? Share in the comments!

7 Steps Which Can Improve Workplace Diversity For Free

7 Steps Which Can Improve Workplace Diversity For Free First of all what does a diverse workforce mean and why is it important? If youre looking to improve diversity in the workplace its essential to understand this! Before being involved in a diversity scheme I had a perception  that diversity programs were introduced to improve male to female and ethnic ratios. Actually, diversity goes far beyond that its about ensuring that you include people from as many walks of life,  at different stages in their life / career who draw on diverse experiences! So now that we know diversity means so much more than a set of traits  how do we make sure we are attracting a wide pool  of potential candidates and providing an environment which will make them want to stay? Here are some top tips: 1. Improve  your adverts Make sure you create job adverts which have less fixed requirements. For example, research shows that  women (typically)  feel they need to hit (close to) 100% of the job experience requirements before applying for a job, whilst men require a much lower match to feel confident in applying. This means that if youre putting out a long list of must haves you are probably immediately discounting a large pool of potential candidates. Instead,  describe any areas of support and development which can be offered. Women, typically are not as self promoting and are put off by wordings such as rockstar or best of the best so make sure you steer clear of words like that. In general, describing an atmosphere which promotes values and loyalty above freebies will attract a larger candidate pool. 2.  Remove subconscious bias So once youve got candidates to apply how do you make sure youre giving them the best chance to succeed? You need to understand that natural bias is a thing!  We are naturally  drawn to people that  we think are  similar to ourselves and tend to lean towards  people that share the same opinion or have the same likes and dislikes. By developing  a structure to your hiring process which requires set interview questions for every interviewee you can look to limit unconscious bias towards potential employees and this is important if you want to hire a diverse range of candidates. Try to neutralise subconscious bias my ensuring  that more than one member of staff interviews any potential candidate separately and  correlate scoring before commenting on things like personal fit. 3.Introduce a buddy up scheme Great, now youve hired a good candidate! But what is going to make them want to stay?   Buddy up new starters with a member of staff that has been with the company  for a while.  This is  great for allowing employees to speak informally about particular areas (of concern) which they might not feel comfortable voicing (for example: if a female new starter has a male line manager there may be certain things they dont feel comfortable speaking  about). Its important that this scheme is completely informal and its made clear that conversations are completely confidential. The buddy should be there to mentor and help the employee develop and settle in their role and look to reduce potential drop outs. 4. Cater incentives Try to create  incentives which  are actually incentivising all of your employees (for example a drink at the end of the day isnt going to appeal to many individuals and actually excludes some individuals due to religious beliefs). Not sure what incentivises your staff? Ask them what they would like to see  and build individual incentive programs. Some employees might not feel confident asking for incentives so make sure you come armed with suggestions to encourage them. 5. Create diversity inclusion champions Celebrate employees who champion diversity and inclusion elect them to spearhead your office/team. This isnt always easy to do, if you dont have employees that dont buy in to the idea, start by educating them. Run workshops, or event based days (sales days etc) which have a particular focus on diversity. Many companies now allow diversity champions work into promotion credits this is great as it will allow you to put tangible targets in place which you can work together to achieve. 6. Celebrate diversity  wins Shout about diversity, your wins, your champions and how it has benefited the business! Ensure that its clear from your website/job description/interview material that this is something which you are really invested in and discuss with potential employees. At the same time, be careful not to highlight members of staff based solely  on matters of diversity. This is extremely important to ensure that youre not creating a divide in the workplace, create speculation of positive discrimination and that you arent making employees self-conscious! 7. Educate your employees Part of the biggest challenge in any organisation is getting your employees to understand what diversity is and why its important. There are many  misinformed opinions about what building a diverse workforce actually means and the benefits which it has on an organisations workforce. Create an education program with workshops and get your employees to openly discuss questions they have about diversity!

Three Things to Catch Your Attention in 2014 - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Three Things to Catch Your Attention in 2014 - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Being that this  is my first blog post of 2014 for the Personal Branding Blog, I’d like to take a moment to get personal. As I enter my second semi-century I have been working for going on 30 years now in various roles as an engineer, a sales rep, a marketeer and predominantly as a business development and alliances professional. I’d like to think I learned a lot. I’d like to think I have a lot to share. I’ve tried and will continue to try and share what I have learned over the years in these blog posts. I want to thank those that have continued to read, comment and encourage me. Your ideas and feedback are an inspiration. You catch my attention. As we enter 2014 there are numerous changes happening all around the world. It seems as though the world might actually be spinning faster. We all have challenges keeping up with the latest news and trends. I hope this post helps you think about taking a step back and that you consider slowing down or at least looking around a little bit before speeding off to the next thing. I’m recommending three things to catch your attention in 2014. I want to use this post to recommend three things for you to consider. Three things to be thankful for, prepared for, and as you go about your business to be  aware of  in 2014. I hope these three things catch your eye and capture your attention and cause you to take action. Whether you are utilized as a chance for  reflection, redemption or rediscovery is up to you. In 2014… I’d like you to think about  Humility, Serendipity, and Giving Back, To me  each of these three are related and inter-dependent upon one another. Humility I have been humbled many times in this past year by so many things. Incredible acts of kindness, people that have gone out of their way to make a difference. This relates directly to the third point of giving back and that’s for a reason. Humble people don’t need to prove themselves to be superior to others. They are comfortable in their own skin and are willing to share what they know. The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.  ~ St. Augustine Serendipity No matter what someone says… things happen for a reason. Call it whatever you want, but be aware that there are times when serendipity just happens. Enjoy it. Seek it. Revel in it. Therell always be serendipity involved in discovery.    ~ Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com Whether it’s in personal relationships or in business there will inevitably be situations where serendipity intervenes. Enjoy it. Seek it. Revel in it. Giving back There are so many ways to give back. It can be as simple as holding a door open for someone or offering a smile. Or it can be as elaborate as you can imagine and deliver. The point is… seek at least one way every single day to give back. Do Something. Do Anything. Just Get Started. If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you’ll end up not doing nothing for nobody.  ~  Malcom Bane There is no wrong way to give back. Just do one thing every day and you’ll see. That’s it Three things to catch your attention in 2014 It’s pretty easy and fairly obvious.  Your success is directly tied to others. By embracing humility, serendipity and giving back, I think you’ll find 2014 to be your best year yet. Enjoy it and Revel in it. Then Share it. You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.  ~ Zig Ziglar

How to Fix A Toxic Work Atmosphere and Save Your Career

How to Fix A Toxic Work Atmosphere and Save Your Career It’s going to happen at least once in your career, and probably several times: there’s somebody at work whose bad attitude and worse communication skills is dragging down your performance, your morale, and the results of you and your team.The sooner you learn how to deal with such a situation, the sooner you can fix a bad trend â€" and feel an awful lot better about facing up to such a scenario next time around.The good news is that it really does come down to communication. So many bad atmospheres exist in workplaces because unspoken resentments or misunderstandings linger like a bad smell.evalA great deal of professional and otherwise very talented people share one significant fear: they are afraid to talk. And when a bad attitude can be traced back to feelings of inadequacy or distrust, it’s no surprise.This is why it is up to you to ‘be the bigger person’ and initiate talks with calmness, empathy, and assertiveness.A telling-off, for example, may be likely to alienate y our difficult colleague more than ever. When raising issues with them, try instead to frame your observations as questions rather than accusations.This gives your colleague the sense that they have a voice, and the opportunity to tell you how they feel â€" and why they feel that way.If the office itself is starting to feel a little small with this thick, uncomfortable atmosphere, try having your meeting in a café or while taking a walk together.Repeat back what they say to you in order to make sure you’ve understood them properly, and maintain eye-contact as a way of re-building trust.But don’t be afraid to take control of the situation. You, too, can ask to have your points repeated back to you, to ensure you were listened to and understood.evalAnd you will likely benefit from backing up the changes you’d like to see in your colleague’s behavior with targets you want them to hit or boundaries within which you expect them to behave.You might want to double-check their expec tations about what they are supposed to achieve and how they would like to be acknowledged are appropriate and, if so, that they are being met.Clarity is key, and it doesn’t hurt to write things down as you go and type up the minutes afterwards so that you have a document to refer to when it comes to the next review.And when your colleague does improve, don’t be afraid to tell them so.evalThis fear of speaking-up goes two ways: we naturally want to protect our dignity by avoiding potentially embarrassing or troublesome situations.You can begin to work towards a more open and understanding atmosphere by checking out this new visual guide to workplace clashes.Infographic Credit â€" netcredit.com

Get lucky at work - be positive - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Get lucky at work - be positive - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog My driving force in business has always been enthusiasm. Im easily amazed and get curious and fired up about many different things. In fact, I refuse to work on anything that does not grab me in that way. I remember one meeting I had with a woman who was lets say slightly less positive. At one point in the meeting, she said Youre very positive, arent you? I had to agree, that that was indeed so. It was only after the meeting that I realized that shed meant it as criticism :o) Positivity has been getting a bad rap at work. If youre too positive you can be accused of being pollyannaish, uncritical, unrealistic, silly, etc Well, some people say, its all very good for you to be so optimistic but some of us have to work in the real world. And while there are many great reasons to be more positive at work, theres one Id like to mention specifically: Being positive at work means you get lucky at work. (no, not in that way) Yes, its true: Being positive makes you lucky. Richard Wiseman (not a bad last name for a professor, btw) is a psychologist who has been researching luck. Hes built up a database of people who feel either extremely lucky or extremely unlucky and has examined the differences between these two groups to determine why it is that: Lucky people meet their perfect partners, achieve their lifelong ambitions, find fulfilling careers, and live happy and meaningful lives. Their success is not due to them working especially hard, being amazingly talented or exceptionally intelligent. Instead, they simply appear to have an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time and enjoy more than their fair share of lucky breaks. He has found that lucky people do four things that unlucky people dont. They: 1: Maximise Chance Opportunities Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences. 2: Listen to Lucky Hunches Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts. 3: Expect Good Fortune Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way. 4: Turn Bad Luck to Good Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation. Source So how can you become lucky at work? By being more positive! Its clear that implementing the four things on Wisemans list means being more positive and optimistic seeing the good in a bad situation, expecting good things to happen etc. Ive tried it myself many times, and it works. My most striking example is from 2003, when we arranged our first business conference about Happines At Work. There were six of us working on it and none of us had ever done anything similar before. Still, we needed to find speakers, arrange a venue, get press attention, get a website, arrange catering, setup 15 workshops at the conference and, not least, sell a lot of tickets. This was in the early days of the company and the question was: Could a group of people with no experience working on a shoestring budget put together a professional business conference? Our basic approach to the whole project was Yeah, sure its impossible. Lets do it anyway. We totally believed that we could do it. And heres the fantastic thing: Everything just fell into place. We couldnt believe our luck. We needed a website I ran into Niels Hartvig who makes the excellent web platform Umbraco, and he offered to host it for free. We needed a great design and he Niels knew an amazingly talented designer who did it for free. We needed some press attention and just when I was about to call some journalists a woman walked up to my desk and said Hi, Im a journalist, and Id really like to do a story about you. It went on and on like that everything we needed fell into place so easily it almost got scary at one point. And I believe that this happened at least in part because we were positive and subconsciously used Wisemans four principles. Also, because we were optimistic we were fun to be around and therefore attracted a lot of great people who wanted to work with us. I think its time we brought more positivity into the workplace. Not that we cant also be critical (constructive criticism is absolutely essential in the workplace), but being critical already comes easy to most people in the business world. I say we should practice positivity more. And get lucky! How to be more positive at work? Here are a few ideas: Use Appreciatice inquiry. Its one of the best tools for effective change I have ever used. Start meetings positively If you like this post I think youll also like these: The Happy At Work Book Top 5 business maxims that need to go Happy at work in six minutes Essential steps to resolve conflicts at work Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

How to Find a Chicago Resume Writing Service

How to Find a Chicago Resume Writing ServiceA Chicago resume writing service has a wide array of different services for their clients. It can be writing an individual resume or creating a more customized resume for a business or company that is seeking to hire. No matter what type of resume writing service you are in need of, there are plenty of different options available for you to choose from.A good way to find out if any of the Chicago writing services available offer the type of resume writing service you require is to contact the businesses in your area and find out what kind of services they offer. If you live in the Chicago area, your options should be fairly straightforward, as most resume writing services are located in the area. You can visit a few of them, talk with someone about the job you're seeking, and request samples of their work and services. It will help to have an idea of what services they provide, as well as what types of resumes they can create for you.Resume samples are important if you want to land the right job. Your resume is going to be your first impression of yourself, so it is crucial that you find a service that creates custom made resumes to fit your specific needs. This means finding a service that offers many different types of resume samples. Some may focus on entry-level positions and others may offer more extensive resume packages. Your resume should include everything from school experience to certifications to personal characteristics that will help make you stand out among all of the other applicants.Another way to find out which of the Chicago resume writing service companies offer the service you need is to ask around. Your friends and family members might know of a few companies that are in need of a resume writer and would be willing to recommend one. You can also search the internet for people who have had good experiences with a specific company, as these recommendations are usually backed up by firsthand knowled ge.No matter what your needs, a resume writer can create a quality document for you that will reflect who you are and what you are looking for. In addition to creating resume samples, they can also work on addressing any questions you may have about the job you're seeking. If you're having difficulty deciphering your own resume or if you're unsure about how your background and qualifications compare to the requirements of the position you're applying for, a professional writer can help. They can determine the best format for the document and can answer any questions that you may have about the job posting you are researching.One of the best things about hiring a resume writer is that they can create a new resume every day so that you never get tired of the same one. With a new resume, you can begin your job search immediately after receiving the sample. And once you begin working with the writer, you will not have to worry about it again for two or three years!Finding a good Chicago resume writing service is easy to do. Your job may require you to look online for information about the companies in your area or you may need to make a phone call to find out which services are available to you. Having a selection of options available will allow you to choose the one that meets your specific needs.Answering the question of which Chicago resume writing service offers the service you need is a lot easier than you think. A little research and time spent talking to a few people about the type of services they offer will lead you to the best option for you. You can begin your search right now.