Oct 10

Time management is an integral part of everyone’s life especially for the people who live with aspirations and big dreams. It is the art of arranging, organizing, scheduling, and budgeting one’s time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity. There are an abundance of books, classes, workshops, day-planners, and seminars on time management, which teach individuals and corporations how to be more organized and more productive. It has become crucial in recent years thanks to the 24/7, busy world in which we live.

Time Management

Time management is important for everyone. While time management books and seminars often place their focus on business leaders and corporations, time management is also crucial for students, teachers, factory workers, professionals, and home makers. It is perhaps most essential for the person who owns his/her own business or who operates a business out of the home. Managing home and work responsibilities under the same roof requires other angle of time management. Planning of the future is the most important factor in time management.

Sometimes, successful time management needs putting in more time at the outset in order to revamp one’s life. Though many time management books, journals and magazines differ in their suggestions, most agree that the first step in efficient time management is to organize the workspace or home. Even if one’s schedule is well-ordered, but the office and filing system are a disaster, time will be wasted trying to work efficiently in a disorderly place.

Often, when individuals write down every last activity, they find that there is very little time left for sleeping. The end result is that many activities must be pared down, eliminated, consolidated, or delegated. Prioritizing activities on a scale of one to three – one being the most important and three being the least – can help with this task. Lastly, good time management involves keeping a schedule of the tasks and activities that have been deemed important. Keeping a calendar or daily planner is helpful to stay on task, but self-discipline is also required.

The most efficient to-do list in the world will not help someone who does not look at or follow his own daily planner. It’s true that the other side of the argument is to remember to live. Get on top of our time management, get organized, and stay on task, but live our life. Schedule some time off every day and at least one day off each week. Be organized, but do not be a slave to time management.

Oct 10

The purpose of communication is to get our message across to others. This is a process that involves both the sender of the message and the receiver. This process leaves room for error, with messages often misinterpreted by one or more of the parties involved. This causes unnecessary confusion and counter productivity. In fact, a message is successful only when both the sender and the receiver perceive it in the same way.

Communication Skills

By successfully getting your message across, we convey our thoughts and ideas effectively. When not successful, the thoughts and ideas that we convey do not necessarily reflect our own, causing a communications breakdown and creating roadblocks that stand in the way of our goals –both personally and professionally.

The Importance of Non-Verbal Communication

For instance, it’s not always just what we say. It’s also how we “say” it –taking into account our eyes, our posture, our overall body language, even our appearance at the time the communication is exchanged, and the voice in which we offer the exchange. In verbal communication, an active dialogue is engaged with the use of words. At the same time, however, non-verbal communication takes place, relying on nonverbal cues, such as gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, even clothing and personal space.

Nonverbal cues are very powerful, making it crucial that we pay attention to our actions, as well as the nonverbal cues of those around us. If, during our meeting, participants begin to doodle or chat amongst themselves, they are no longer paying attention to us: Our message has become boring or our delivery is no longer engaging. Once again, we need to be mindful of cultural differences when using or interpreting nonverbal cues. For instance, the handshake that is so widely accepted in Western cultures as a greeting or confirmation of a business deal is not accepted in other cultures, and can cause confusion.

While eye contact, facial expressions, posture, gestures, clothing and space are obvious nonverbal communication cues, others strongly influence interpretation of messages, including how the message is delivered. This means paying close attention to our tone of voice, even our voice’s overall loudness and its pitch. Be mindful of our own nonverbal cues, as well as the nonverbal cues of those around us. Keep our messages short and concise. This means preparing in advance whenever possible. And for the impromptu meeting, it means thinking before we speak. Thinking provides the back-end support to all sorts of communication to be more efficient and receptive by all.

Oct 10

The Dictionary Meaning of Teamwork is “a joint action by a group of people, in which each person subordinates his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group.” This does not mean that the individual is no longer important; however, it does mean that effective and efficient teamwork goes beyond individual accomplishments.

Team Working Skills

The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal. Teamwork has become an important part of the working culture and many businesses now look at teamwork skills when evaluating a person for employment. Most companies realize that teamwork is important because either the product is sufficiently complex that it requires a team with multiple skills to produce, and/or a better product will result when a team approach is taken.

A tight knit team is a group of competent individuals who care deeply about each other. They are fiercely committed to their mission, and are highly motivated to combing their energy and expertise to achieve a common objective. From our observation and studies on teamwork in the workplace, we have found three primary conditions that have to be met in order to attain higher levels of team performance and member satisfaction.

1. Resources and Commitment

2. Ownership and Heart

3. Learning

These three conditions are the heart and soul of teamwork. These conditions are not a blueprint. Each group is unique, and the specifics and details of teamwork have to be worked out separately. Team building really depends on what we want to achieve; a target we are concentrating on.

Let us consider an example. We are marketers and are working towards an important marketing strategy, say a video campaign. We would need a good designer and developer in our team. So, choose a good designer who can transform our thoughts easily and effectively into a layout. Developer should be able to provide a good theme, edit the design and also put our words to good use. That’s how team formation should go about. But the core values in Team Working skills are integrity and not just intellectual bonding but the values of ethical work culture that binds each and every person in the various teams and departments of any organization. The success of any Team work depends highly on these skills which is a must in every employee in an organization.

Oct 10

Most people have a hard time explaining what it means to be a good leader. However, most everyone can recognize that sort of leadership when they see, experience or are in the presence of it. While knowing a great leader can certainly improve the quality of your life, understanding how to become ourselves is the most important step of achieving our own successful life and career. People with strong leadership qualities are almost always the ones that rise above the crowd. Leadership is nothing but the quality which makes a person stands out different from other ordinary employees.

Leadership Qualities

Effective managers are not necessarily true leaders. Many administrators, supervisors, and even top executives execute their responsibilities successfully without being great leaders. But these positions afford opportunity for leadership. The ability to lead effectively, then, will set the excellent managers apart from the average ones. Whereas management must deal with the ongoing, day-to-day complexities of organizations true leadership includes effectively orchestrating important change.

While managing requires planning and budgeting routines, leading includes setting the direction (creating a vision) for the firm Management requires structuring the organization, staffing it with capable people, and monitoring activities; leadership goes beyond these functions by inspiring people to attain the vision. Great leaders keep people focused on moving the organization toward its ideal future, motivating them to overcome whatever obstacles lie in the way. Organizations succeed or fail not only because of how well they are led but also because of how well followers follow.

Just as managers are not necessarily good leaders, people are not always good followers. The most effective followers are capable of independent thinking and at the same time are actively committed to organizational goals. As a manager, we will be asked to play the roles of both leader and follower. As we lead the people who report to us, we will report to our boss. We will be a member of some teams and committees, and we may chair others.

Effective followers are distinguished from ineffective ones by their enthusiasm and commitment to the organization and to a person or purpose other than themselves or their own interests. They master skills that are useful to their organizations, and they hold to performance standards that are higher than required. To be a good leader we must become a good follower first. To be an effective leader, our followers must have trust in us and they need to be sold on our vision.

A company performed a survey on what organizations want from their leaders. The respondents replied they want both the one who can play the role ethically and can work with principles. In any organization, a leader’s actions set the pace. This behavior wins trust, loyalty, and ensures the organization’s continued vitality. The best method to build trust is by a good sense of character composed of beliefs, values, skills, and traits.

Oct 10

Happiness is very important to us, professionally as well as personally. In personal terms, we all seek to achieve happiness in some way for many people; it is the basis of a ‘good life’. Happy individuals act differently from others, and this can lead to activities and reactions from people that in turn encourage more happiness. It is also important for a businessperson to ensure that the goals she/he is working toward are goals in which she/he truly believes. If the goals are not really hers/his then she/he will have a much harder time sticking to them, and consequently she/he will suffer from a reduced sense of Contribution.

Happiness at work

The happiest people stretch themselves with challenging goals that answer to their talents and interests; they are genuinely committed to those goals as ends in themselves; and they find pleasure in the tasks necessary to achieve those ends. This crucial aspect of Contribution requires great self-awareness and the discipline to identify the right goals. These goals must be clear and concrete enough to determine the objectives that need to be reached along the way. “Happiness is a mindset which allows us to maximize performance and achieve our potential.

We do this by being mindful of the highs and lows when working alone or with others.” Taken together, these points suggest that happiness in the workplace is indeed a matter of importance for companies concerned with being successful in uncertain times and a quickly changing world.

Happiness is a matter for action, and it has not been sufficiently understood in business until now. Happiness depends on a wide range of environmental features, and to develop understanding we need an appropriate classification system. Any categorization is in part arbitrary, and we have to balance conceptual richness against practical convenience.

Employment researchers have so far paid most attention to happiness sources in the environment. This focus is helpful; through addressing aspects of job content or organizational practice we might improve employees’ experiences by modifying their work settings. However, person-centered approaches are also essential; happiness derives strongly from individuals themselves. Happiness is more strongly correlated with a particular environmental feature if that is viewed as more personally significant.

So significance ratings should be incorporated in research analyses. Differences in these judgments’ are also relevant to comparisons between groups or between individuals with different dispositional characteristics. For example, a substantial difference in the average rated importance of a job feature between men and women or between high- and low-scorers on extraversion is likely to be accompanied by a difference in the strength of association between that feature and happiness for the two groups. Happiness exist in different operational definitions for different genders and people.

Oct 10

There are a lot of things to consider when deciding when and why to move on. To begin with, we need to assess where we are now, what we have achieved and where we want to be in a few years’ time. What do we enjoy about our present job? What don’t we enjoy? What do we feel is missing? What have we enjoyed about any previous roles we have done? How will we know when we have achieved it? As well as our own personal motives for wanting to change jobs, there are plenty of other reasons out of our control that cause we to leave our current position, including:

Career Change

1. Potential financial difficulties for our employer

2. Our company moving into a different area of business

3. A collapse in communication with our manager or colleagues

Spotting when the time is right

1. If we do decide to leave a job, quitting at the wrong time can hit us in the pocket if we’re not careful. For example, leaving just before our big bonus is due is not very sensible.

2. It’s a good idea to think about whether we’re currently paid in advance or in arrears as any change may affect our monthly cash flow.

3. If we’ve got a holiday planned, wait until we get back before handing in our notice. Our new employer won’t take kindly to us booking two weeks off during our probation period.

Leave in a position of strength

1. Once we’ve made the decision to leave, make sure we have somewhere to go before handing in our notice. Don’t be tempted to storm off in a huff or make some sort of statement if it means leaving ourselves vulnerable.

2. It’s much easier to find a job when we already have one. A long period of unemployment sends out a bad signal to a future employer.

3. Don’t ignore the consequences of quitting before we have a new job lined up, no matter how much we dislike where we’re working. Apart from looking bad as you start applying for new jobs, voluntarily leaving our former role could compromise our eligibility for unemployment benefits.

Money shouldn’t be the only reason

1. If money is the overriding issue in our desire for change, have the courage to address it before thinking about leaving.

2. If we don’t feel we’re getting paid enough, ask for more. This can be a scary experience, but it could solve our problem.

Oct 10

Job satisfaction is in regard to one’s feelings or state-of-mind regarding the nature of their work. It can be influenced by a variety of factors, e.g., the quality of one’s relationship with their supervisor, the quality of the physical environment in which they work, degree of fulfillment in their work, etc. There is no strong acceptance among researchers, consultants, etc., that increased job satisfaction produces improve job performance, in fact, and improved job satisfaction can sometimes decrease job performance. For example, you could let sometime sit around all day and do nothing. That may make them more satisfied with their “work” in the short run, but their performance certainly didn’t improve.

Job Satisfaction

Personality type, coping skills, procedural justice, locus of control, and organizational involvement are all factors that affect job satisfaction. There are number of studies that are done the factors and the areas of concern regarding job satisfaction. Few of them have looked on the factors such as organizational involvement, locus of control, age, identification with role, dual career, and commitment to organization. And there are also few which have examined stress, Type a behavior, coping strategies, Participation in decision making, procedural justice, emotional exhaustion, race and education.

The idea of having a job for most of us is that is it truly satisfying – the kind where work doesn’t feel like work anymore – is pure fantasy. Exactly people who are professional athletes, ski patrollers, and golf pros may have found a way of doing what they love and getting paid for it. But is there really anyone existing for sitting at a desk and processing paper, or watching products fly by them on conveyor belts, or working to solve other people’s problems?

Career dreams are one thing; practical reality is often another. When they happily coincide, seize the opportunity and enjoy it! Luckily, when they do not, it’s good to know that it is possible to get job satisfaction from a practical choice of career. Job satisfaction doesn’t have to mean pursuing the ultra-glamorous or making money from your hobby. You can work at job satisfaction, and find it in the most unexpected places.

The heart of job satisfaction is in your attitude and expectations; it’s more about how you approach your job than the actual duties you perform. Whether you work on the farm, a production line, in the corner office or on the basketball court, the secret is to understand the key ingredients of your unique recipe for job satisfaction.

Oct 10

Self-employment provides a world of opportunities for earning money independently. We become our own master. We are accountable to ourselves only. 24 hours at your disposal. Flexible working hours, plenty of incentives for giving our 100% dedication to things we want to. One major reason for this trend toward self-employment is the changing workplace. As governments and corporations restructure, guaranteed, full-time employment is becoming a thing of the past. There’s still plenty of work that needs doing, but it’s being packaged in different ways. Governments are privatizing and contracting out a wide array of services.

Self-Employment

Contracting out, or outsourcing, is also becoming a favored way for companies in the private sector to do business. If we can see opportunity in this situation, we are already ahead of the game. What’s more, we probably have some entrepreneurial blood in our veins. Many people are starting businesses in order to bid on the increasing amount of work that is contracted out. In some cases they are bidding on the very work they used to perform as employees. Of course, there are reasons other than economic ones to go into business for ourselves.

Maybe we’ve taken an early retirement and can’t imagine a life of total leisure. More than one successful business has been started by retirees with get-up-and-go to spare. We may also be looking for a business to supplement our pension benefits. Perhaps we are at the front end of our working life and considering our options. Faced with an ever-changing job market, we might well consider creating our own job. If so, we are likely to find lots of encouragement. Governments at all levels are recognizing the importance of entrepreneurship in job creation. Last, and most obvious of all, we might be one of those people who knew from our first lemonade stand we were going to be our own boss.

Oct 10

Interpreting the decisions we have taken based on our talents forms the basis of Career assessment. Now what is Career assessment is all about??-Assessments of some or all of the attributes such as interests, values, preferences, motivations, aptitudes and skills are often used by individuals or organizations to help individuals/organizations make more informed career decisions are termed as Career assessment and there are various Career Assessments tools or tests are available in the industry.

Career Assessment

By taking a career assessment, we will eliminate the confusion of which job is best for us. A comprehensive test will evaluate our likes and dislikes, and in the end provide viable career options for us. Today, a self-assessment is crucial to find out what areas a candidate has strengths in and where they are weak. In the light of the assessment results, candidates have the ability to choose a career that is in tune with their individual requirements.

Self-assessment is the first step of the career planning process. During a self-assessment we gather information about ourselves in order to make an informed career decisions. Ideally, we are basing our career goals on our passions and deepest interests. Studies have demonstrated that we will be most fulfilled and happy in our career if we choose a vocation based on our interests (passions), values, and skills, in that order. The question is “What is your passion?” If we don’t know, now is the time to figure it out. Both the answer, and the process of searching for the answer, is unique to each person.

The four important measures that can be used for Self-assessment are Values, Interests, Skills and Personality. Our values are possibly the most important thing to consider when we’re choosing an occupation. If we don’t take our values into account when planning our careers, there’s a good chance that we will dislike our work and therefore not succeed in it. For example, someone who needs to have autonomy in his work would not be happy in a job where every action is decided by someone else.

There are two types of values: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic values are related to the work itself and what it contributes to society. Extrinsic values include external features, such as physical setting and earning potential. There are further tools known as Value Inventories and Interest Inventories that can help us Career assessment process. Value inventories will ask us to answer questions like importance of salary, people at workplace, contribution towards society etc.

Interest inventories are frequently used in career planning processes. The results of our interest inventory are compared against the results of this study to see where we fit in — are our interests similar to those of a police officer or to those of an accountant? A very popular interest inventory is known as the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory now known as the Strong Interest Inventory (SII).

Oct 10

In life Decision of a Career requires major attention and thought process as shaping our career journey is an ongoing process of exploration, discovery and reevaluation that constantly repeats itself throughout our life. Each job, each experience will help us gain information we can use to refine criteria for our career plans.

Identifying Career Interests

Each job, each experience will open new doors and opportunities that we may never have thought of before. The most common way of finding what we love to do? Or we would like to do can be decided by First, Re-evaluating a career is the single important decision that stays throughout our lives. Typically, people make many distinct decisions about their careers throughout their lifetimes. Sometimes the changes are subtle; sometimes the changes take them in totally different directions. Second would be Assessment of choices, considering those personal qualities that are essential for us to thrive and that produce the greatest satisfaction and also considering the skills that we enjoy using.

Always think about our interests as potential clues for areas of work to consider. Assess what is truly important to us in a job and our general life. Some of the software’s and tools offers some excellent exercises to help us identify key characteristics about ourselves that are fundamental to the decision making process. Third comes Exploring through books, informational interviews, internships, and other forms of research, various career options and identify those areas that seem to be consistent with the information we have identified through the assessment processes.

Self-assessment is the key to the best direction of the destination in terms of Career. We all know ourselves best; hence to dig out what is inside us? That can keep us awake for hours with full dedication and growth can help us choosing the right path in odd times. Many students believe they should have their career plans clearly defined – resist that expectation. Careers develop over time. In fact, for many, clarity about careers only develops after working a few jobs.

Feel comfortable telling others that we’re exploring our options, and then be sure to commit to a process of exploration. Trying different classes; attending the many talks and presentations at Fairs and Exhibitions will definitely help in selecting the right Career. The more experiences we have, the more we’ll clarify our interests and values and learn where our passion may lie. We should not be afraid of failure or uncertainty. Experiences are the best teachers and we learn most of the things from them.

Playing it safe can keep us from discovering wonderful opportunities and making great connections. Listen to advices & Gather information and perspectives, and then make decisions based on what is important to us, not what we think we should do. Taking into account all these things can definitely help us in identifying sound Career Interests.

preload preload preload