Set Them Free: Two Musts For Employee Motivation Part II

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Make Employee Involvement a Plus in Employee Motivation

Too often employee involvement is a bad word. People think of employee involvement as something that is done aside from their "real" work in your organization. The best employee involvement does not require teams, special committees, and suggestion boxes.

Use these tips to create a work environment that emphasizes employee motivation through employee involvement.

• Express the expectation that people make decisions that will improve their work.

• Reward and recognize the people who make decisions about and improvements in their work as heroes.

• Make certain employees know and understand your organization's mission, vision, values, goals, and guidelines so they can funnel their involvement in appropriate directions. Education, communication, measurement feedback and coaching keep employee involvement from becoming a free-for-all.

• Never punish a thoughtful decision. You can coach and counsel and provide training and information following the decision. Don’t undermine the employee’s confidence that you are truly supportive of her involvement.

• If you are a supervisor and people come to you continually to ask permission and receive instructions about their work, ask yourself this question. What am I doing that makes people believe they must come to me for each decision or permission? You are probably communicating a mixed message which confuses people about your real intentions.

  When an employee comes to you, ask him what he thinks he should do in the situation. Assuming his response is reasonable, tell him his approach sounds fine and that he doesn’t need to consult with you about this type of decision in the future.
  
  If you can assist the employee to find a better answer, act as a consultant without taking the monkey onto your own shoulders. You will reinforce his belief in his own decision making ability. You also reinforce his belief that you are telling the truth about trusting his competency.

• If you see an employee embark on a course of action you know will fail or cause a problem for a customer, intervene as a coach. Ask good questions that help the individual find a better approach. Never allow a person to fail to "teach her a lesson."

Helpful Hints

• If you already know what you will do in a particular situation, don’t solicit ideas and feedback. You insult your employees, create an atmosphere of distrust, and guarantee unrest, unhappiness, and low motivation in your workplace. If you are genuinely open to ideas and feedback, your employees will know. It is not so much what you say as what you do that communicates your wishes and intentions to them.

• If you are not open to feedback, step back and ask yourself, "Why?" Almost any decision is improved with feedback and input. Even more importantly, the people who have to live with or implement the decision will own the decision. This ownership creates motivation and channels energy in the directions that will help your organization succeed.

• Examine your beliefs about people. The majority of people do not get up in the morning and come to work with the intention of causing problems. How many people do you know who want to go home at the end of a work day feeling as if they failed all day? Not many, if any.
  
  When you experience a problem at work, ask yourself the Dr. W. Edwards Deming-attributed question, “What about the work system caused this person to fail?” You'll be happy you took this approach when employees problem solve rather than pointing fingers and placing blame.

I’ve covered two critical aspects about creating a work environment in which people will choose to contribute and succeed. Workplaces that are successful in fostering employee motivation strike a balance between needed policies and rule overkill.

They create the expectation for employee involvement. They give employees control over decisions that affect their work without turning the workplace into a free-for-all.

These work environments are perceived as fair and structured just enough for perceived emotional safety. At the same time, your more courageous employees feel unfettered and encouraged in their efforts to make a difference. Set them free.

Remove the barriers that discourage work place motivation. Consequent actions and motivation displayed by ordinary people will amaze and gratify you. Can it get any better than this?

Set Them Free: Two Musts For Employee Motivation

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Minimize Rules and Policies

Every person is motivated. The challenge at work is to create an environment in which people are motivated about work priorities. Too often, organizations fail to pay attention to the employee relations, communication, recognition, and involvement issues that are most important to people. The first step in creating a motivating work environment is to stop taking actions that are guaranteed to demotivate people. Identify and take the actions that will motivate people. It’s a balancing act. Employers walk a fine line between meeting the needs of the organization and its customers and meeting the needs of its internal staff. Do both well and thrive.

An attention-getting Gallup Poll about disengaged employees was highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal. Gallup found 19 percent of 1,000 people interviewed "actively disengaged" at work. These workers complain that they don't have the tools they need to do their jobs. They don't know what is expected of them. Their bosses don't listen to them.

Based on these interviews and survey data from its consulting practice, Gallup says actively disengaged workers cost employers $292 billion to $355 billion a year. Furthermore, Gallup concluded that disengaged workers miss more days of work and are less loyal to employers. With this in mind, let’s look at a couple of areas in which balance is critically needed for employee motivation in organizations today. Rules and Policies
Want to be a cop? That’s how some supervisors feel in organizations that operate on the assumption that people are untrustworthy. You’ve seen the company handbooks that list pages and pages of rules. Step out of line? Fifty-seven potential infractions, with resultant punishment, are listed on page 74. Need time off for your grandma’s funeral? You get three paid days off to travel 600 miles. Have a question? We have answers. In fact, we’ve got policies that answer almost every question.

Supervisory discretion? What’s that? We’ve got employees who, left to their own devices, will choose to do bad things. You can’t trust supervisors to treat employees fairly and consistently either. John in Accounting is a softy. People who work for him get away with anything, everything. If you work for Beth in Sales however, you can count on the rulebook guiding every decision.

Sound familiar? I‘ve heard these reasons and many more to justify the need for hundreds of rules and policies in organizations.

Guidelines for a Motivating Work Environment

• Make only the minimum number of rules and policies needed to protect your organization legally and create order in the work place.

• Publish the rules and policies and educate all employees.

• With the involvement of many employees, identify organizational values and write value statements and a professional code of conduct.

• Develop guidelines for supervisors and educate them about the fair and consistent application of the few rules and policies.

• Address individual dysfunctional behaviors on a “need-to” basis with counseling, progressive discipline, and performance improvement plans.

• Clearly communicate work place expectations and guidelines for professional behavior.

Helpful Hints for Employee Motivation

• Solicit employee feedback on potential policies, areas in which policies are needed, and so on. (Do not, as one company did recently, announce a new attendance policy by posting it on a bulletin board.)

• If you decide to adhere to and hold employees accountable for an existing policy, don’t ambush your company members. If you have not enforced the policy in the past, meet with employees and explain the policy, the intent of the policy, why the policy is necessary, and why it was not enforced in the past. Then, tell everyone that following the meeting, everyone is accountable for adherence to the policy.

• You’ll be surprised how much support for legitimate policies and rules you receive from the people in your organization. People like a well-organized work place in which expectations are clear. People thrive in a work place in which all employees live by the same rules.

If you create an environment that is viewed as fair and consistent, you give people little to push against. You open up a space in which people are focused on contribution and productive activities rather than gossip, unrest, and unhappiness. Which workplace would you choose?

Involve People

In one university department, a committee of ten people met for several months and then recommended space use to their dean. He had formed the committee, provided guidelines, and requested their feedback. Talking to a committee member several months after they submitted their recommendations, I was informed they had never received any feedback about their work.

They had repeatedly asked for feedback and decisions but received none. They felt as if their recommendations had gone into a dark hole, never to be seen again. Demotivated? You bet. These staff members are loath to volunteer for another committee in the future, as well. Fool me once, poor me; fool me twice …

Most people want involvement in decisions that affect their work. Some may not want the final accountability. Ask why. Have people been punished for decisions they made in the past? Have organization leaders provided the time, tools, and information needed to make good decisions? Or have people made decisions that were over-ridden by their managers?

Does the clear expectation for employee involvement exist in your workplace? Are the people who make decisions and contribute ideas rewarded and recognized? These are critical questions if you want involved, motivated employees.

Foster Success for People: Two Musts for Employee Motivation and Positive Morale

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Tired of hearing that people are your most important resource? That's fair. These buzz words have been overused and abused in the board room, in speeches to employees and in business books. People have heard these words so often, in situations where actions degrade their meaning, they have grown cynical.

To battle the cynicism, I propose a better statement of belief. People are your only resource. If you get this, you will create a work environment that foster their ability to increase productivity, build up high self-esteem, and develop new skills and capabilities. To reinforce this growth, you will reward them and recognize them for their contributions. Love them and help them grow or lose them to an employer who will.

In an earlier article, Set Them Free: Two Musts for Motivation, I discussed two criteria that create a motivating work environment: employee involvement and managing the workplace with as few policies and rules as possible for workplace order. Two more musts for motivation are:

• a work place in which the high self-esteem of each employee is fostered and
• the opportunity for people to fully develop their abilities and knowledge in their areas of interest.

Self-esteem

People who have high self-esteem are more likely to continuously improve the work environment. They are willing to take intelligent risks because they have confidence in their ideas and competence. They work willingly on teams because they are confident about their ability to contribute. Nathaniel Branden, author of The Psychology of Self-Esteem and Self-Esteem@Work, says, “Self-esteem has two essential components:

• Self-efficacy: Confidence in the ability to cope with life's challenges. Self-efficacy leads to a sense of control over one's life.
• Self-respect: Experience oneself as deserving of happiness, achievement and love. Self-respect makes possible a sense of community with others.

Self-esteem is a self-reinforcing characteristic. When we have confidence in our ability to think and act effectively, we can persevere when faced with difficult challenges. Result: We succeed more often than we fail. We form more nourishing relationships. We expect more of life and of ourselves."

A motivating work environment enhances staff self-esteem. People feel like they are more, not less--more competent, more capable, more appreciated, more contributing. A concept called the Pygmalion Effect emphasizes that the positive and high expectations of the supervisor help mold the expectations individuals hold for their own high performance. This fact is on my top ten list for “what every supervisor must know.” The Galatea Effect, also on the list, states that, even more important than the supervisor’s expectations, the expectations an individual has for her own performance govern that performance. Convinced? If you’re looking for ways to increase staff self-esteem, these ideas will help.

• Act as if you have high self-esteem. Your behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and example are a powerful role model for staff members. How you look, talk, present yourself, and act send the most powerful message possible to all staff members.



• Practice personal integrity and fairness. Model it and expect it from others. People who feel they can tell the truth, without fear of reprisal, grow as they experiment and experience success and failure.



• Provide frequent feedback that reinforces what people do well and corrects the approaches that need improvement.



• Learn what staff members feel good and positive about doing. Maximize their opportunity to contribute in these activities.



• Provide assignments that stimulate growth. Ask people to stretch beyond what you have observed them doing in the past. Challenge staff members. Negotiate goals which are realistic, yet a stretch.



• Provide positive reinforcement, rewards, and recognition to reinforce the standards and practices you believe your staff members are capable of achieving.



• Create an environment in which people practice self-responsibility. Show that you trust them to report production numbers, deal with employees who are not contributing to the team effort, and succeed and/or fail at implementing new ideas.



• Demonstrate that it is okay to disagree with the supervisor. Allow the implementation of new ideas, even if they are different than yours. Praise when the approach works and ask the employee to implement more good ideas.



• Provide clear expectations about performance standards to all employees and express your sincere belief that they can meet or exceed these standards.

The opportunity for personal development is one of the more important variables in personnel selection and retention today. Training and education, in what the employee is interested in learning, is one of the key factors in retention and motivation. Employers who pay for classes, conferences, and professional associations encourage staff growth and ensure staff motivation. One of my clients, a mid-sized manufacturing company in Romulus, Michigan was committed to becoming a learning organization and to the ongoing professional growth of staff.

They paid for classes employees took, regardless of topic, because they believed they had better employees when employees chose to learn and develop their knowledge. At this same company, a press supervisor and a press operator shared with me that they were having trouble applying the team development skills they were learning from me at work. Their local Rotary Club and their Little League Baseball team were benefiting, however. As the company gradually changed its culture, the practice they had in team building within the outside organizations bore fruit within the company. So, cross-fertilization will benefit your organization in the long run.

I don’t think many will argue with me about the importance of staff development. The important twist, however, is to allow staff members to determine the areas in which they want education and training. These ideas will help you increase staff motivation by providing opportunities for development.

• In conjunction with each staff person and their supervisor, create a Performance Development Plan which is reviewed quarterly.



• Offer regular, active assistance to enable employees to carry out their plans. An example is to monitor topics about which many employees seek information and offer classes and learning opportunities in these areas. Ensure that supervisors are sitting down with employees quarterly and that people are making progress on their plan. Use slow months in your business as opportunities for staff development.



• Pay for classes, conferences, books, and other learning opportunities for all staff. Ask staff to regularly visit customers to learn more about their needs from your organization.



• Read books or see videos together as a staff. Schedule time to discuss what people are learning from the reading. Use the reading to develop new ideas and approaches. At TechSmith Corporation (the developers of SnagIt and Camtasia software for multimedia screen capture), the marketing staff regularly selects and reads books which will help them develop their marketing skills.



• Schedule meetings which span several departments or two layers of management in your organization. Use these meetings as opportunities to teach employees about your business.



• Ask various people to represent your department at company meetings. Employees will expand their outlook, feel important and expand their knowledge about the business.



• Schedule people into assignments that stretch their skills and cause them to learn.



• Provide cross-training opportunities so that staff members learn all of the jobs in their work areas. You’ll increase your flexibility and theirs as well.



• Use promotions and lateral assignments to further develop staff skills.



• Eliminate jobs that are repetitive and that have a deadly sameness day in and day out. Think about what is happening to the minds, the talents, the interest and the flexibility of the people who do them. Your staff deserves better than this.

Cures for Negativity

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Your workplace is seething with hostility and negativity. No matter where the bad vibes came from, it's up to you to help make the atmosphere more positive, productive and supportive. As a manager, supervisor, or staff member, you usually do not control the situation that is causing the negativity. Perhaps no one in your workplace does. How you address negativity depends on whether you control it and how it started in the first place. The timeliness of your intervention also has an impact.

Tips for Managing Workplace Negativity discussed how to prevent negativity from occurring in the first place. In this article, I’ll describe how you can address negativity when it is already present in your workplace. Addressing negativity prevents workplace violence, promotes workplace safety, and creates positive employee morale.

When You Can Control or Influence the Negativity

This is a best case scenario. You have received feedback about negative rumors and you know that the underlying cause of the negativity is based on faulty information, incorrect assumptions, or deliberate misinformation. You may receive feedback that a new policy or procedure is not understood correctly. People may be misinterpreting a corporate memo.

An industry newsletter might have referenced an industry problem your company does not share. You may have fired an individual who is circulating false information about the company. In each of these circumstances, you have some control over the information, the situation, and the communication. You can solve the problem and communicate well to overcome the negativity.

When you can control or influence the situation, use a systematic problem-solving process with the affected employees to improve the identified areas of negativity. Do this as quickly as you determine that negativity exists. (Many Human Resources offices launch a complete investigation, and by the time the facts are gathered, the negativity is out ofcontrol. )

Include the employees who are closest to the negative situation in the problem-solving process. Do a good cause analysis so that all possible causes of the negativity are identified. It is not enough to say, “We have low morale.” You need to identify exactly what is causing the low morale to have any chance of improving it. Solicit widespread input to each step of the action plan you develop so that solutions are “owned” across your organization. Involve as many people as you can in its development and particularly in its implementation. Implement the chosen solutions quickly. Then, periodically assess that the plan is working.

At each step of the problem-solving process, communicate as much information as you have about the negativity and the solutions. When the solutions selected in the action plan are rolled out, people in the organization are not surprised. They have participated in the information exchange as each step or opportunity was discussed.

How to Deal With a Negative Coworker: Negativity Matters

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Some people exude negativity. They don’t like their jobs or they don’t like their company. Their bosses are always jerks and they are always treated unfairly. The company is always going down the tube and customers are worthless. You know these negative Neds and Nellies – every organization has some – and you can best address their impact on you via avoidance.

On the other hand, sometimes normally positive people are negative. Some of the time, too, their reasons for negativity are legitimate. You will take a completely different tack with these occasionally negative people. We’ll deal with both of these varieties of negativity from people.

Tips for Dealing With Occasional Negativity

• Listen to the employee or coworker’s complaints until you are certain that they feel heard out and listened to. Sometimes people repeat negative sentiments over and over because they don’t feel like you have really listened to them. Ask questions. Clarify their statements. Make sure you have actively listened.



• Decide if you believe the employee or coworker has legitimate reasons for their negativity. If you decide affirmatively, ask if they’d like your help to solve the problem. If they ask for help, provide advice or ideas for how the coworker can address the reason for their negativity.
  
  Short term advice that points a person in a positive direction is welcome. But, your role is not to provide therapy or counseling. Nor, is your role to provide comprehensive career advice or long term recommendations. Point the coworker to helpful books, seminars, or the Human Resources Department to solve their problem. Know your limits when advising coworkers.



• Sometimes, the coworker just wants to complain to a friendly, listening ear; they don’t want your advice or assistance to address the situation. Listen, but set limits so the coworker does not overstay or over-talk his or her welcome. Long term complaining saps your energy and positive outlook. Don’t allow that to happen. Walk away. Tell the coworker you’d prefer to move on to more positive subjects.



• If you listen to the coworker’s negativity, and decide the concerns are not legitimate, practice personal courage and tell them what you think. Tell the coworker you care about their concern and about their happiness at work, but you disagree with their assessment of the situation.
  
  Back gracefully out of additional conversations. The coworker will attempt to appeal to your sympathetic nature, but if you believe the negativity is unwarranted, don’t spend your time listening or helping the coworker to address the negative feelings. You will only encourage long term and growing negative feelings and, potentially, behavior. You will set yourself up as a negativity magnet. Constant negative interactions will eventually permeate your interaction with your workplace.

Tips for Dealing With Negative Coworkers

Deal with genuinely negative people by spending as little time with them as possible. Just as you set limits with the coworkers whose negativity you believe is baseless or unwarranted, you need to set limits with genuinely negative people.

Causes of their long term negativity are not your concern. Every negative person has a story. Don’t impact your positive outlook by listening to the stories, or reviewing the history and the background about the grievances purported to cause the negativity. You reinforce the negativity; negativity is a choice. Negativity mongers need a new job, a new company, a new career, a new outlook, or counseling. They don’t need you.

Deal with negative coworkers in these ways.

• Avoid spending time with a negative coworker.



• If you are forced, through your role in the company, to work with a negative person, set limits. Do not allow yourself to be drawn into negative discussions. Tell the negative coworker, you prefer to think about your job positively. Avoid providing a sympathetic audience for the negativity.



• Suggest the negative person seek assistance from human resources or their supervisor.



• If all else fails, talk to your own supervisor or human resources staff about the challenges you are experiencing in dealing with the negative person. Your supervisor may have ideas, may be willing to address the negativity, and may address the issue with the negative person’s supervisor. Persistent negativity, that impacts coworkers’ work is a work behavior that may require disciplinary action.



• If negativity among employees in your company is persistent, if the issues that warrant negativity are left unaddressed, and the negativity affects your ability to professionally perform your work, you may want to consider moving on. Your current culture will not support your desired work environment. And, if no one is working to improve a work culture that enables negativity, don’t expect the culture to change any time soon.

Meet and Greet Meeting Ice Breakers

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Want to know more about creating quick, fun ice breakers for training sessions, team building sessions, and regular meetings? I am a proponent of ice breakers that reinforce the content and goal accomplishment of a team building or training session.

At the same time, there is a place for a fun ice breaker whose only purpose is to help session attendees know and appreciate each other. Here is an ice breaker that requires some time in preparation, but is quick and fun to carry out at your meeting.

An Ice Breaker That Helps People Meet and Greet

At company or department meetings, to help attendees get to know coworkers outside of their immediate work group, this ice breaker, or any variation, works well.

Sweet Greet Meeting Icebreaker

In advance of the meeting, purchase candy bars for each attendee. Buy the number of varieties necessary for dividing attendees across the desired number of groups or tables. As an example, if you want five employees in each small group, purchase five Snickers bars, five Baby Ruths, and so forth. Place all of the candy bars in a bag and ask employees to draw a candy bar as they enter the meeting.

You have also either labeled the tables with the candy bar name or placed an additional candy bar on the table in advance so employees know where to sit. Instruct attendees that they are to sit with the people who drew the same candy bar. (Warn employees not to eat the candy bar on the table or people will not know how to find their group.)

Because this is such a fun approach to helping employees get to know each other, you can simply ask people to introduce themselves at their assigned table. If you want to be more elaborate, you can develop a series of questions for people to answer.

Sample questions or discussion points to use might include:

• Describe how and when you came to work at this company.
• Share your biggest current challenge you are experiencing at work.
• Share two things about yourself that you think no one at the table may know.
• Describe a positive customer interaction you have experienced.
• Tell your coworkers something you appreciate about your company.

You can diversify your approach to this ice breaker with fruit, cookies, or other items people like. But, candy works best, for all but the die hard healthy eaters. Trust me.

And again, you can simply ask people to introduce themselves at their assigned table. Or, if you want to be more formal, you can develop a series of questions for people to answer such as those listed above. Keep in mind that with this approach to a meeting icebreaker, people will want to eat hot food, so less formal discussion is better until after the meal.

How to Make Team Building Activities Successful

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Want to make your next team building activity or team building exercise live up to its true potential? Integrate the team building with real-time work goals. Establish a systematic workplace integration and follow-up process - before you go on the team building adventure. You need to make the good feelings and the outcomes from the team building activity last beyond the final team building exercise.

Impact of Team Building Events

Without this attention to integration, corporate team building or planning events are, at best, a short term boost to employee enthusiasm and positive morale. If they are planned and executed well, people feel good about themselves and about each other. Employees get to know each other better and have a common experience to talk about back at work.

A frequent expectation from team building activities is that they build trust. Team building events have little to do with building trust, however, unless company planning, that is carefully followed up on and yields real results, is part of the team building or retreat.

Team Building Downsides and Risks

At worst, team building sessions help employees become cynical about their organizations. This occurs when the team building events are held outside of the context of the company’s normal way of doing business. If you send people off to a team building event, as an example, but all rewards in your company are based on individual goals and efforts, the team building event will have no lasting impact.

People will lose productive hours complaining about the time and energy invested in the team building or planning activities. Unhappiness, management criticism and employees complaining to each other sap energy, productivity and joy from the work day.

An event that is not followed up with meaningful activities in the workplace should not be held. They harm trust, motivation, employee morale and productivity. They don’t solve the problems for which they were scheduled and held. You will eventually lose the people you most want to keep – especially if they don’t see your organization getting better as a result of off-site team building and planning sessions.

If the team building event has no follow up, people become jaded about such events as a waste of time and energy. In fact, I don’t lead team building events that are just for team building without a business purpose, in addition to, or to build the event around. With recent organizational downsizing and cost cutting, people feel as if they are already doing more than one job. In this context, team building for team building’s sake has lost popularity.

Team Building Success Factors

The success of a team building or of a strategic planning activity begins well before the start of the sessions. Use a team to plan the event since you want to model the behavior you seek from the team building sessions you schedule. The likely long-term effectiveness of a team building event or corporate retreat is enhanced when you incorporate annual team building events into an overall company structure. This cultural framework of philosophies, values and practices is designed to build the concept of “team” on a regular basis. In this environment, team building sessions can yield supportive results.

Sharing Management Wisdom

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Training sessions and team building activities that involve and engage attendees are a challenge when your group meets regularly. Your participants have different levels of knowledge and need. Additionally, they have different numbers of reporting staff members and the professionalism and experience of their reporting employees ranges widely.

Yet, for team building and training, regular meetings ensure the transfer of the training information to the work place. Regular meetings also ensure that efforts to apply the training are reviewed and shared. They also build a cohesive sense of belonging to a team in the minds of your participants.

Here's a simple team building activity that creates excitement during a regularly scheduled team building and training session. This team building activity allows your participants to share their accumulated knowledge and wisdom with the other participants. During this team building activity, the facilitator steps aside and the participants take center stage with their knowledge and expertise.

With a group of twenty-four, this team building activity will take approximately an hour and a half. So, this team building activity works well as the focus of a team building session or as a part of a day-long or multiple day team building event. This team building activity is appropriate as the main event in a team building session that lasts a couple of hours.

Steps in Sharing Management Wisdom: A Team Building Activity

1. Divide the meeting participants into groups of four people. For this team building activity, you will want to assign groups based on years of management experience. This will allow you to have team members with various years of management experience participating in each group. So, start by asking your participants to raise their hands if they have more than ten years of management experience.

   Assign each of these participants to their own table. If you have more than you need to divide the meeting attendees into groups of four, place the manager with the least experience at the table with the manager who has the most. Then, ask how many participants have five or more years of experience managing people and assign them to the tables of the more experienced managers.

   Finally, ask how many managers have fewer than five years of experience and assign them to the groups with the more experienced managers. This method of assigning participants to groups so that you create various levels of experience within each group is integral to the success of this team building activity.

   Do not use a numbering off method or a self-selection method to organize these groups; your results will suffer from the lack of diversity. Indeed, if you know the attendees, as you assign by levels of experience, avoid putting departmental coworkers in the same group.

2. Tell the newly formed groups that their assignment is to look back over their work careers and determine the ten most important pieces of wisdom they have learned about managing people. I provide the following example from my own accumulated knowledge: Don't ever expect any individual to whole heartedly support and "own" any way of doing things that he or she had no part in creating or developing. At best, you will only obtain "buy in." Use this example or pull an example from your own accumulated wisdom, but do share an example.

3. Provide the time needed by the participants to think about and jot down ideas before you ask them to share their wisdom with their small group. I find that coming up with ten pieces of knowledge, that group members want to share, generally takes twenty to thirty minutes. You will know when most participants are ready for the next step when the level of noise in the room increases.

4. Once participants have had a chance to think about their accumulated wisdom, ask them to share them with their small group. My preference is that each person share one at a time. They share their first; then, each person shares their second, and then, their third. Tell the small group members to look for common themes and similarities in the pieces of wisdom shared.

5. Tell the groups that each person will be asked to share several of their words of wisdom with the whole group upon completion of the small group exercise, if they are comfortable doing so.

6. Debrief the team building activity by asking the group how they reacted to the words of wisdom, both telling their own and hearing those of coworkers.

7. Continue to debrief the activity by asking the large group if participants noticed themes in the wisdom shared. When the discussion is finished, ask the participants if they have anything they'd like to add to the discussion before moving on with the rest of the session or ending.

Variations for Sharing Wisdom: A Team Building Activity

You can assign non-management or mixed groups to come up with various types of wisdom gleaned through working. An example might be: Come up with the ten most important pieces of wisdom they've learned about how to work effectively with people. A second example: Come up with the ten most important factors they've learned about working effectively with their boss, or any boss.

How to Develop an Ice Breaker

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Tired of spending time searching for an ice breaker through books and online and then, spending even more time to redesign the ice breaker for your needs? It’s difficult to f

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Tired of spending time searching for an ice breaker through books and online and then, spending even more time to redesign the ice breaker for your needs? It’s difficult to find the perfect ice breaker, that reinforces the topic of your training, to use with your group, in your setting.

You can easily develop an ice breaker that will warm up the conversation in your training class, reinforce the topic of the training session, and ensure that participants enjoy the training.

Or, alternatively, you can develop a quick ice breaker, which is just for fun and to warm up your group. You can use an ice breaker such as the five of anything ice breaker or my favorite ice breaker, if these are your goals.

You can decide the type of ice breaker that will have your desired impact in your training session.

However, the more time you invest in ice breaker participation during the session, the more important a training reinforcing ice breaker becomes. Use these tips to develop your own ice breaker.

Tips About How to Develop an Ice Breaker

• Decide how much time, relative to the length of the training session, you have to invest in an ice breaker. Keep in mind that with adult learners, the facilitator should talk and present 60-70% of the time. Thus, your time for trainee participation, including the ice breaker, is 30-40% of the training time.
• Figure out the characteristics, interests, and preferences of the participants for whom you want to develop the ice breaker. Different groups have varied preferences.
• Determine the goal of your ice breaker. Is the purpose of the ice breaker to warm up the group and provide the opportunity for participants to meet each other? Is the goal to bridge the group into the topic of the training session? Is the goal of the ice breaker to allow participants to demonstrate what they know or have experienced on a particular topic?

  Or, is the goal to let the attendees participate in an activity that will demonstrate insights about the participants' functioning together? The ice breaker can combine any of these goals. Just match the goals to the needs and preferences of your participants.

Movement in the Ice Breaker

• Decide if your group will appreciate warming up by talking with each other or if the group is action oriented in which case, they will appreciate movement. In a multiple day session, you might want to do both. One way to initiate early movement is to assign seating by asking participants to find the table partners who drew the same object out of a bag.

  For this exercise, I have used candy bars, numbers on the bottom of plates or chairs, and fruit. (Everyone with an apple sits together, as an example.) Use your imagination and your knowledge of your group.

  Another easy ice breaker is speed networking. Number the participants off in twos and tell them they have two minutes to tell their partner something important about themselves. At the end of two minutes, one of the partners moves to the next partner. If you keep time carefully, this activity may enable all participants to talk with each other. (Alternatively, you can give them two or three questions to answer such as where they went on their most recent vacation.)

Training Reinforcement and Discussion Ice Breaker

• Determine a concept relative to the training topic that is engaging, worthy of reinforcement, potentially expandable, and likely to spark discussion. As an example, for the ice breaker in a team success training session, I asked participants to describe their worst team experience and give three reasons why the described team was a bad experience. In another session, for the ice breaker, I asked the participants to describe their best team experience with examples of why they rated this experience their best.

  In customer service training, the ice breaker question could be: describe your worst customer service experience and describe the training you’d offer the service provider if you had the opportunity. In a management development session, ask participants to share with each other the characteristics of the best managers they have known. In a leadership seminar, participants can describe why they followed their most influential leader.

  When participants know each other and work together, discussion questions on the theme of the training work well. But, even if you have used a quick movement ice breaker, you may want to follow it with a discussion question ice breaker that pulls them into the topic of the seminar.

Action-Oriented Ice Breaker

• Depending on the time available, some groups enjoy competition. Others enjoy building or making something. Working with a police group, I had them build simple paper airplanes to see who could fly their plane furthest from the starting line in three tries. With an engineering group, I prepared bags of fun materials and challenged them to build spaceships.

  These activities are followed by small group debriefs that identify what the participants learned about themselves and others by participating in the activity. The police talked about competition and cheating. The engineers talked about how well the team had worked together to plan and execute the project. And, everyone photographed the fun.

Ready to get started developing your own ice breaker? These ideas should help you move out of the starting gate. You'll never look back, I guarantee. You'll see how effective a custom-designed, tailored-to-the-group ice breaker can be with your participants.

Play Well With Others: Develop Effective Work Relationships

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

You can submarine your career and work relationships by the actions you take and the behaviors you exhibit at work. No matter your education, your experience, or your title, if you can't play well with others, you will never accomplish your work mission.

Effective work relationships form the cornerstone for success and satisfaction with your job and your career. How important are effective work relationships? Effective work relationships form the basis for promotion, pay increases, goal accomplishment, and job satisfaction.

The Gallup organization studied indicators of work satisfaction. They found that whether you have a best friend at work was one of the twelve key questions that predicted job satisfaction.

A supervisor in a several hundred person company quickly earned a reputation for not playing well with others. He collected data and used the data to find fault, place blame, and make other employees look bad. He enjoyed identifying problems but rarely suggested solutions.

He bugged his supervisor weekly for a bigger title and more money so he could tell other employees what to do. When he announced he was job hunting, not a single employee suggested that the company take action to convince him to stay. He had burned his bridges.

These are the top seven ways you can play well with others at work. They form the basis for effective work relationships. These are the actions you want to take to create a positive, empowering, motivational work environment for people.

• Bring suggested solutions with the problems to the meeting table. Some employees spend an inordinate amount of time identifying problems. Honestly? That's the easy part. Thoughtful solutions are the challenge that will earn respect and admiration from coworkers and bosses



• Don't ever play the blame game. You alienate coworkers, supervisors, and reporting staff. Yes, you may need to identify who was involved in a problem. You may even ask the Deming question: what about the work system caused the employee to fail? But, not my fault and publicly identifying and blaming others for failures will earn enemies. These enemies will, in turn, help you to fail. You do need allies at work.



• Your verbal and nonverbal communication matters. If you talk down to another employee, use sarcasm, or sound nasty, the other employee hears you. We are all radar machines that constantly scope out our environment.
  
  In one organization a high level manager said to me, "I know you don't think I should scream at my employees. But, sometimes, they make me so mad. When is it appropriate for me to scream at the employees?" Answer? Never, of course, if respect for people is a hallmark of your organization.



• Never blind side a coworker, boss, or reporting staff person. If the first time a coworker hears about a problem is in a staff meeting or from an email sent to his supervisor, you have blind sided the coworker. Always discuss problems, first, with the people directly involved who "own" the work system. Also called lynching or ambushing your coworkers, you will never build effective work alliances unless your coworkers trust you. And, without alliances, you never accomplish the most important goals.



• Keep your commitments. In an organization, work is interconnected. If you fail to meet deadlines and commitments, you affect the work of other employees. Always keep commitments, and if you can't, make sure all affected employees know what happened. Provide a new due date and make every possible effort to honor the new deadline.



• Share credit for accomplishments, ideas, and contributions. How often do you accomplish a goal or complete a project with no help from others? If you are a manager, how many of the great ideas you promote were contributed by staff members? Take the time, and expend the energy, to thank, reward, recognize and specify contributions of the people who help you succeed. This is a no-fail approach to building effective work relationships.



• Help other employees find their greatness. Every employee in your organization has talents, skills, and experience. If you can help fellow employees harness their best abilities, you benefit the organization immeasurably. The growth of individual employees benefits the whole. Compliment, recognize, praise, and notice contributions. You don't have to be a manager to help create a positive, motivating environment for employees. In this environment, employees do find and contribute their greatness.

If you regularly carry out these seven actions, you will play well with others and develop effective work relationships. Coworkers will value you as a colleague. Bosses will believe you play on the right team. You'll accomplish your work goals, and you may even experience fun, recognition, and personal motivation. Work can't get any better than that.

Have additional ideas about how to play well with others at work? Please share your comments in the Forum. You can read posts as a guest, complete a simple registration to respond.

Entry Level Job Guide

By Alison Doyle

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Job Search Help for College Grads

Are you getting ready to graduate from college, are you a recent grad ready to settle into that first entry level job, or are you considering a mid-life career change? Do you need a little help in getting started?

If you are a college student or alumni, regardless of when you graduated, the first step is to visit, call or email your institution's Career Office. The staff will be eager to help you through every step of the job search process. This will include self-assessment (figuring out the role your skills, values and interests will play in your work related choices), exploring career options to decide what you want to do, writing a resume and cover letter, and then finding the perfect job.

Career Office Services

Most career offices will provide you with personal career counseling, job and internship listings, employment programs, career resources, and other services available for both students and alumni. If you're not affiliated with a college or university check with your state's Department of Labor to see what services they provide for job seekers.

As noted, the first step in the actual job search process is to discover what is you want to do. It's interesting to note that the top hundred employers projected to hire this year's graduating seniors, as surveyed by The Black Collegian, include Eckerd Youth Alternatives and a variety of school districts in addition to the companies like Accenture, Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, and Ford Motor Car you would expect to see on the list. There are plenty of online resources, like Vault.com and Wetfeet.com where you can research industries and companies. Be sure to consider all the options that even remotely interest you.

Starting a College Job Search

The next step is to get going on a job search. According to recent surveys conducted by NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) employers continue to predict an increase in both the number of job opportunities and the starting salaries for graduating seniors. Employers canvassed in the survey stated they will be seeking candidates from a variety of majors including liberal arts in additional to technology and business majors, which are at the top of the list.

For college students about to enter the workforce there are a variety of jobs sites dedicated to entry level jobs. Resources include jobs, resume posting, and job search and career advice.

Remember, too, that it is never too late to begin a new career. Many graduates will take a year or so off after college before looking for a "real" job. There are plenty of stay-at-home moms who wait to enter the workforce until their kids are grown. And don't forget mid-life career changers and retirees who start a second or third career in their later years!

Avoiding Work at Home Scams

By Alison Doyle


Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs


Tips for Avoiding Work From Home Scams:

There are more work from home job scams than there are real work from job listings, so, job seekers need to be really careful when searching for and evaluating work at home job listings. Presume that the position is a scam, unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary. Take the time to research the position, the company including talking to other people who work there. That way, you wont be scammed and you will be using your best efforts and best judgment to find a legitimate work from home job.

• If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
  
  
• Evaluate every listing you look at very carefully. Find out if there's a salary or if you're paid on commission. Ask how often are you paid. Ask what equipment (hardware/software) you need to provide. Find out what support the company provides?
  
  
• If you get an unsolicited email telling you that a company that you have never heard of wants to hire you for a job where you don't need experience or skills and can make a lot of money, trash it. There's lots of out there, some of which are personalized and sound quite legitimate.
  
  
• Be carefully of listings that guarantee you wealth or financial success or that will help you get rich fast from home. They will probably do none of the above.
  
  
• Do not send money! Legitimate employers don't charge you to get started or for anything else.
  

• Also, don't send money for work at home directories or start-up kits. Free information and job listings are available online.
  
  
• Ask for references - request a list of other employees or contractors to see how this has worked for them.
  
  

Work at Home Suggestions:

• Be flexible - consider freelance work or projects as well as full-time employment. At least it will get you started.
  
  
• Employed now? Ask your employer about the possibility of work some hours from home.
  
  
• Be patient and be prepared to spend a lot of time weeding through scams and junking listings to get to legitimate openings.

Where to Look for Work at Home Jobs

By Alison Doyle

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

How to Find "Real" Work at Home Jobs

Finding a legitimate work at home job is harder than finding a traditional job. First of all, despite all the online advertising you see, there aren't that many of them. Those that are available may require that you live in a certain area or spend at least some time in the office. Others may be part-time or freelance, so, you will need to be continually seeking potential positions.

Keep in mind that the skills needed for home employment are similar to those needed for working in an office. You need both the experience and the skills necessary to do the job. You'll also need a home office with phone, fax, computer, printer, software, and other basic office equipment.

Work From Home Job Searching

To get started, consider, for now, your job search as your job. Dedicate as many hours per week to your search for employment as you would spend working. If you're looking for full-time work, you should be spending full-time hours seeking employment.

Networking remains the top way to find a job and it does work. Develop contacts - friends, family, college alumni, even the other job seekers who participate in the Job Searching Discussion Forum - anyone who might help generate information and job leads. You can take a direct approach and ask for job leads or try a less formal approach and ask for information and advice. Contact everyone you know and tell them you want to work from home. You may be surprised by the people they know and the leads you can generate.

Work at Home Job Sites

Check the sites that list work at home jobs and look through all the listings and remember to take advantage of the Resume Posting section, if the site has one. That way companies seeking employers will be able to find your resume.

Use the job search engines using terms like "work at home" "telecommute" and "freelance." Next, search the online job banks using keywords like "work at home" "telecommute" and "telecommuting" Searching Monster, for example, using "telecommuting" as a keyword generates almost 200 listings. "Work at home" generates close to a 1000 positions. Searching Yahoo! HotJobs brought similar results.

This is a time when it make sense not to simply search the web search engines. I've found that searching for "work at home" most often brings up scams or web sites that want to charge you for providing "real" work at home jobs or for "proven successful" home business information. Rather, stick with the sites that focus on employment.

Be prepared to apply online. Have a resume and cover letter ready to send. Depending on the type of employment you're looking for you may also need work samples to send to prospective employers. Track where you've applied. Many of the same positions are listed on multiple sites, so you'll want to be sure not to duplicate your efforts.

Before you jump on an opportunity that sounds wonderful, review our tips and suggestions for avoiding scams, and for successfully working from home.

Finding Work From Home Jobs

By Alison Doyle

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Real Work at Home Jobs

Are there real work at home jobs? Yes there are some, but, they are not nearly as plentiful as you would think considering the amount of interest there is in working from home. They are also difficult to find.

However, there are companies that hire for work from home jobs and you can find work at home job listings online.

Job seekers who are interested in home employment need to spend a good deal of time searching for legitimate opportunities, as well as a significant amount of time weeding through scams.

Getting Started Working at Home

Many people who work from home started out working in an office, but, were able to arrange with their employer to work some or all of time at home. I have an acquaintance who relocated to Washington, DC. Her employer decided to enable her to work from home, rather than losing a valuable employee. I have another acquaintance who works part-time from the office and part-time from home in order to accommodate her children's school schedules. My sister-in-law schedules home nursing care visits from home. In those cases, employees, who had already proven themselves to be valuable to their employer, were able to negotiate flexible work schedules.

Companies That Hire Work From Home Employees

There are companies that hire employees directly to work from their homes. Check the sites that list work at home jobs. Some of these positions are those where you cover a territory, for an insurance company or a consumer products firm, for example, and spend some time on the road and some time in your home office. There are also customer service, recruiting, sales, scheduling, technical, writing, and telemarketing jobs available. In many cases, the jobs are part-time, commission-based, or pay a lump sum for a completed project.

In other cases, you can work as a home based agent where you are an employee of the company who works from a home office, providing customer service to client companies. Virtual assistants provide administrative, secretarial, and clerical support, as well as creative and/or technical services for clients.

Work at home transcriptionists are usually independent contractors who transcribe and edit recorded reports onto their home computer. Online tutors work for internet based companies that offer help, within a variety of subject areas, to students of all ages.

If you're looking to make a little extra money, paid surveys are a possibility, but do be careful about avoiding scams.

Full-time jobs that provide health insurance, a pension, vacation, and other benefits while you work full-time from home, especially if you don't have experience, are few and far between. Finding them online is a little like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Be Flexible
Flexibility is one key to successfully working from home. If you are willing to consider freelance or contract employment or willing to combine a couple of part-time positions, you'll have a greater chance of success in finding opportunities that are legitimate. It's also critically important to take the time to search for positions and to thoroughly research those that sound viable.

Disclaimer:
You may see advertisements for work at home jobs on this page, because that's the topic of the article. Just because you see an ad here, that doesn't make it a legitimate company. Carefully investigate companies that you are interested in.

Work at Home Scams

By Alison Doyle


Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

One of the questions I get asked most often is how to tell whether a work from home job posting is a scam or a legitimate work from home job. There are warning flags. In addition, there are sites that can help you determine what's a real work at home job and what isn't.

Scams can also be an issue when looking for jobs that don't involve working at home. Job sites try to police the listings, but, it's hard to catch all the bad listings in a timely manner. Be careful when reviewing postings to make sure that you're not taken advantage of by unscrupulous job posters.

Evaluating Job Listings

Check Out the Job Listings
If it isn't listed in the job posting, find out if there's a salary or if you're paid on commission. For work at home jobs, ask how often are you paid and how you are paid. Ask what equipment (hardware / software) you need to provide.

You Won't Get Rich Quick (Really)
Avoid listings that guarantee you wealth, financial success, or that will help you get rich fast. Stay clear of listings that offer you high income for part-time hours. They will do none of the above.

Hang on to Your Money
Do not send money! Legitimate employers don't charge to hire you or to get you started. Don't send money for work at home directories or start-up kits.

Check References
Ask for references if you're not sure about the company's legitimacy. Request a list of other employees or contractors to find out how this has worked for them. Then contact the references to ask how this is working out. If the company isn't willing to provide references (names, email addresses and phone numbers) do not consider the opportunity.

Think Twice
If it sounds too good to be true, you can be sure it is! Also, read any "offers" you get very carefully. One candidate for employment got a very detailed job offer from an employer. The only problem was that she hadn't applied for the job and buried deep within the lines was a request for her bank account information, so the employer could pay her. It was a scam, of course, but with some of the well-written ones it can be hard to tell.

Work at Home Jobs To Avoid

Assembly Jobs - No, you can't make lots of money assembling craft kits or any other type of kits. You can waste money on a package to get you started though.

Data Entry Jobs - You'll see lots of listings for data entry jobs. They are usually either positions posting ads or a sales pitch for a kit that will get you started.

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) which involves recruiting new people, and more new people, to sell the product. If all you are doing is trying to find more people to do what you're doing, keep in mind that there are probably thousands of other people attempting to do the same thing. Most of them aren't getting rich. Also note, that MLM isn't a job with a paycheck - it's starting a business, with no guarantees.

Online Businesses - Do you want to start your own online business and get rich? Be very wary of these type of ads too. What you will do is end up paying for a guide to working at home which duplicates information you can find free.

Posting Ads - There are lots of ads saying workers are needed to post ads on online bulletin boards and forums. You don't get paid to post, rather you may get paid if other people sign-up.

Processing Claims - In order to get "hired" you'll need to buy equipment, software and pay for training.

Stuffing Envelopes - Believe it, or not, there are still people saying that you can earn $3 or $4 per envelope to stuff them. You can't. All major companies have postage machines which stuff, sort and meter mail.

The winner in the scam contest are the sites that offer to sell provide you with information on only legitimate work at home jobs - for a nominal fee, of course. Don't do it!

How to Find Out

How do you find out if the posting you are responding to is legitimate or a scam? Check our Work at Home Scam information to research companies before you apply.

How to Report a Scam

If you've been taken advantage of, here's how to report a scam, along with the information you will need to file a report.

More Employment Scams
Typical employment, job search and career related scams, how to avoid scams, and what to do if you're been scammed.

Disclaimer:
You may see advertisements for work at home jobs on this page, because that's the topic of the article. Just because you see an ad here, that doesn't make it a legitimate company. Carefully investigate companies that you are interested in.

Job Applications - How to Complete a Job Application

By Alison Doyle


Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Job Applicaton Information:
Job Application Guide

When you apply for a job you are typically asked to complete an employment application. You may be asked to complete a job application even if you have already submitted a resume and cover letter. That way, the employer has a record of your personal and employment history, verified and signed by the applicant.

It's important for your job applications to be complete, correct (no errors) and accurate. Here is the information you will need to complete an application for employment and tips and suggestions for writing applications that make a great impression.

Regardless of whether complete an online job application or apply in-person, make sure you have all information you need ready before you apply for a job.

Job Application Form Details:

Personal Information:

• Name
• Address
• City, State, Zip Code
• Phone Number
• Eligibility to Work in US
• Felony convictions
• If under age, working paper certificate

Education:

• Schools/Colleges Attended
• Major
• Degree/Diploma
• Graduation Dates(s)

Position Applied For Information:

• Title of the job you are applying for
• Hours/days available to work
• When you can start work

Employment Information:

• Names, addresses, phone numbers of previous employers
• Supervisor's name
• Dates of employment
• Salary
• Reason for Leaving

References

• List of three references - names, job title or relationship, addresses, phone numbers

Resume (if you have one)

Tips for Completing Job Applications:

Complete all requested information. Don't leave anything blank. If you don't know the details, bring the application home and return it when it's completed.

Write clearly and neatly, using black or blue ink.

Check for spelling and grammatical errors. Proofread your job application form before turning it in.

List your most recent job first when completing employment information.

List your most recent education first. Include vocational schools and training programs as well as college and high school.

References don't necessarily have to be professional. If you have volunteered you can use members of the organizations that you have helped or if you are a student use your teachers. In all cases, ask for permission prior to using the person for a reference.

Don't forget to sign your application!

Sample Job Applications:

Review sample job applications to give you an idea of what you are going to be asked. Print one or two out and complete them, so you know you have all the information ready to complete actual employment applications.

Sample Job Application Letters:

Need to mail a job application or follow-up on an application you have submitted? Review the sample job application letters for examples of what to write and how to follow-up.

Home Depot Employment - Jobs at Home Depot

By Alison Doyle


Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Home Depot employment including job openings, Home Depot employment application information, company locations, and how to apply online.
Home Depot Career Information

Home Depot Job Application:

To apply for a job at Home Depot, you will need the following information to complete the job application: Your current address and contact information, availability, education information, employment information, including addresses, phone numbers, supervisor names and titles, salary and dates, and driver's license number.

Select the location(s) you're interested in working at, then create an account. You'll be able to submit your application to multiple locations and it will be saved in the system for 60 days.
Home Depot Job Application

In-person applications are also accepted at Home Depot stores.

Home Depot Corporate Opportunities:

View open Home Depot positions, then create an Employment Profile to apply online for jobs.
Home Depot Corporate Opportunities

Home Depot Store Positions:

Candidates can search for store positions by location, then registered users can complete an online employment application.
Home Depot Employment: Store Positions

Home Depot Company Benefits:

Home Depot company benefits including. health insurance, life insurance, spending accounts, 401(k) and other Home Depot employment benefits.
Home Depot Company Benefits

How to Overcome Your Employment Gap

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs


you stay ready for employment while you raise the kids or take a few years for a non-work activity. It’s much better to spend that time preparing to be employable than to hit the job market cold after years at home. You'll be better prepared if you heed these tips.

Tips for Staying Employable During an Employment Gap

• Work With Your Current Employer: Your current employer, assuming you are still working, may value you and your experience. Talk with your employer to identify potential part-time or consulting work or periodic assignments you can do during the years you plan to work less than full time. If you work in marketing, for example, perhaps you can do freelance work on brochures, the website or press releases. If you work in Human Resources, you may contract to update the employee handbook annually or teach a class periodically. This is the easiest way to stay grounded in the workplace during an extended leave. Make your best pitch before you leave your job. Don't hesitate to call, however, even if you have been off work for a period of time.



• Build and Keep Your Network Before You Need It: It is easier to maintain current professional contacts than to build a new group a few years down the road. Professional contacts become dispersed to new positions; mentors retire; valued coworkers move on to new jobs. It is up to you to maintain relationships, sometimes for years, with people who will remember your talents when you decide to return to full-time employment. It is also imperative that you relate to friends and associates in your off-work life as an educated professional who has chosen to take time away from her career to raise a family. Talk about more than the children; make sure your friends know what you do professionally as well.



• Stay Active in Professional Associations: Most career fields have professional associations that sponsor meetings, conferences, committees, training sessions and more for members. Stay active in your local association by attending meetings, writing for the newsletter, acting as a good will ambassador and attending national conferences. Volunteer for the activities that most closely match your career field and interests. Choose activities in which you’ll interact with many members to expand your network at the same time.