How to deal with a hostile work environment

A hostile work environment is usually created by a boss or colleague whose actions, behavior or character makes you professionally uncomfortable. Their behaviors often negate the conditions necessary for a good working atmosphere. Firstly, you’ll need to call out the offender and air your views. This is quite difficult for many as they will rather keep bottling up and avoiding face offs. It’s very adequate to communicate directly with your offender, give specific examples of issues where necessary. Choose your words carefully and make your points without raising your voice.

Don’t do it alone, find allies. Amidst the excessive toxicity of your working ambiance, chances are that there are a few good colleagues around. Involve the good guys and share your burdens. Discuss viable solutions and act accordingly. Talking to like minded people eases a lot of tension. The last resort will be to talk to the management. That’s if your workplace doesn’t have HR department, then you can always talk to your boss. The idea is to keep them apprised of the situation without sounding petty or projecting yourself as a bad team player

Building Skills Needed to Succeed as a Manager of People and Resources

If you desire to succeed as a manager you need to pay attention to several aspects of leadership, management and learning within your work-space. Thus, it is difficult to successfully enumerate and say the following 5 items are the skills needed to succeed as a manager. Different articles are doled out daily with variations on the same theme but the following as the basic skills you require to successfully harness people and resources.

Effective and responsive interpersonal relationship is integral as a manager. Your subordinates will appreciate your ability to demonstrate attentiveness, care, respect and trust without compromising your professional boundaries. You also need to master proper communication skills, including oral, written and good listening skills.

As a manager, you are the liaison between the senior management and the front-line staffs so you need to communicate ideas with total clarity. You also need to make yourself available and accessible to your staff where necessary.  Organization and delegation is also a major key. You’ll need to organize, delegate and joggle things up on a daily basis. Contemporaneously, you need to manage your workload, oversee employees and feed the board back without any slacks.

Relocation at Lowest Rate in History

Frozen in Place: Americans are Moving at the Lowest Rate on Record

When you read that statement, what comes across your mind? I can tell you this, many of the openings I am working on require relocation and the time to fill gets longer and longer. I've read two articles recently regarding the lack of relocation for work. Let me share a few nuggets with you:

1. For the first time ever (Census began in 1947), less than 10% of Americans moved in the year ending in March

2. Family issues/ties continue to lead the way as the reason for the decline

3. Spouse/Partner employment remains near the highest levels recorded since the turn of the century.

Article Links for your review:

Frozen in Place: Americans Are Moving at the Lowest Rate on Record

EMPLOYEES DECLINING RELOCATION

Evergreen Advice to Enjoy a Rapid Career Advancement

Career advancement is always constant on every employees list but it remains a very tricky concept. Every career-driven person is focused on their job but consistently has an eye on the next available top position. There are a lot of tips and advice for job seekers but job owners are often left out. With more company downsizing and cutting down, employees are more focused on retaining their spots than stepping up the food chain. Here are some evergreen tips to rapidly push your career forward

Stay on the good side

How you make it is much more important than how much you make. Working a job you don’t like because of how much you earn or job stability is malignant for your career. You need to enjoy what you do in order to advance.

Visualize where you want to be

Don’t confuse motion with progress, a treadmill keeps moving without any progress. You need to constantly see yourself where you want to be and consciously work towards it.

Trust your guts

It’s risky not to take risks. You need to take calculated risks. If things don’t feel right, dare to trust your intuition.

Appreciating Employees, Here’s An Idea.

There’s a secret weapon to keeping employees from leaving your firm too often. All that is needed is to recognize your employees meaningfully.

Imagine saying this to your in-house graphics designers; “Ben, your last set of info graphics are game-changers. I can see how much hard work, time, and energy you invested, you are appreciated!”

Trust Ben to up his game on the next task assigned. We are not talking about the once in a year or a blue moon kind of appreciation, a regular and consistent words and acts of gratitude is deemed sufficient. Don’t get this wrong, it’s not supposed to be a daily gesture, but if you cannot make it monthly, then quarterly appreciation is necessary.

As humans, we look forward to immediate gratification. Immediately you notice the hard work and effort being invested into a task by an employee, shower them with appreciation.

Now, don’t just deliver a generic “Thank you, Ben” after the task. Single out a specific task and acknowledge the employee.

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