Leave your job gracefully and responsibly

There are many reasons why a person leaves the job. There could be reason that you have a better offer from competitors, you have grown to dislike the current environment or perhaps, you feel that you’re ready for the next role… Whichever your reasons of leaving may be, always remember not to burn bridges.

The first thing is to bring across your resignation to your boss. You must react and break the news to your employer in a professional way. It is imperative to leave your job on a high note, and should not impact your future career negatively.

Don’t slack off during your notice period

You want to give your best till your last day at work. Use that notice period, limited days left, to complete the projects you have on hand. Never tell yourself that your days at work is numbered and you should just leave your work alone. Your uncompleted tasks would mean that you might jeopardized a good referee to your future employers, and tarnish your reputation.

Assist in transition

Plan through a proper transition to your replacement. It is important that you hand over your tasks or duties properly. Even if you do not have a replacement reaching your last few days of your employment, you should prepare a detailed handover list or instructions for the transition. You do not want to leave the job and your successor goes around putting comments that you did not provide the details. It would be good to create a daily work tasks and sit down with your managers on the delegation of the uncompleted tasks so you can hand over before your last day.

Don’t burn bridges

Do not leave the job looking too excited. You might make people envious thinking that they are in a very bad environment now.

Resist badmouthing your current environment or colleagues to anyone and no matter how bad it could be, you might just want to leave the job quietly. You never know if you never return or work with the same company again.

BE prepared for exit interview

As much as you have grievances in why some people leave a job, remember that you should keep exit interview professional. You know information are never exactly confidential, as much you the exit interview is conducted with HR personnel and not your direct superior. However, if there are information that can help the company improve areas that they are lacking of, it would be helpful for them.

How do you convert your internship into a full-time job?

Internships are there for a reason – It is for you to have a glimpse into the work force, so you would be able to apply your theory to practise. However, it is also a good chance for you to prove to your future employer you can value add into this Company.

Being in the competitive market at the very moment, you would want to ensure you get a job as soon as you graduate but how do you compete with the number of people who have more experience compared to you?  You open your doors by allowing a conversion from your title into an intern to a full-time role.

Here are tips on how to do it:

BE PUNCTUAL

To put in simply, no one would want to hire late comers. It just shows that you take no pride in your work, and you are taking this opportunity for granted. It ultimately shows your lack of discipline as well.

Being punctual shows, you are responsible, and you care ENOUGH to be on time.

TAKE INITIATIVE

Do not just do what is expected or what is defined by your responsibilities at work. It works both ways because as an intern, you get to learn from the role as well. Objective of internships is to ensure interns get a glimpse into the workforce, but it can also be because it is based on a short-term project assignment the company have. For an employer to want to convert you into a full-time role, you must show you have what it takes.

This means that you should do something, no matter how insignificant the tasks. If you have completed your assignments on hand, see how you are able to help the others.

BE COMPETENT

Check your work to ensure you have completed the tasks well and understand how your work is able to value add your colleagues. It will be good to understand how your work process is like, so you do not just think your role is a standalone role as well.  Ensure you complete your work on time as well and do not submit when it is way past the deadline.

BE LESS DISTRACTED

It is optimal if you fidget less on your phone during work hours for personal reasons. This shows your work focus as well as commitment, as well as it shows you are grateful for this employment. Imagine using the office phone for your own personal reasons or always being constantly on WhatsApp entire day. You have

What can you do to ensure that your employees are not suffering from burn out?

Experiencing burn out can be constituted by many different factors. The usual factors are extra hours spend at work, the amount of quality of work expected by managers, as well as amount of work that is required to be completed within a short notice.

However, burn out can also be easily associated with employee’s morale – which can consist of unfair sentiments arising from unfair compensation – on whether someone is getting more highly paid, while performing the same duties or the salary is the same, with one having more duties and responsibilities. It can also be associated with poor management and misalignment of direction. To put it simply, imaging redoing a work several times because of changes of instructions by the management.

These are what you can do to ensure your employees are not suffering from burn out:

Listen

Regardless the amount of work load, you should always make time to engage them to prevent burnout from happening. You should listen, whether is it in an actual complain, or through subtle signs like their tone, their frustrations at work. If you do realize that they might be experiencing a burn out, you can allow them a voice to understand the root of the problem.

This strategy works best, if you empower your employees. Let them know you are always there readily available to hear complains and grievances without providing a judgement – and above being a leader, you’re also a friend.

Provide

To be fair to your employees, you should provide avenues for them to raise their unhappiness to you – whether in the form of a regular employee survey, or one to one talks with their leaders. You need to be able to provide them accessible advice and help to complete the tasks given, or a reasonable deadline for any tasks assigned.

You are also able to provide the environment which minimizes burn out – by providing more welfares such as random parties, good food and providing day offs to celebrate company’s successes.

You can also provide employees with the education on what a burn out feels like – so that employees would be more aware, and will take the necessary actions to reduce burn out.

Be Fair

Evaluate yourself. If you are making decisions irrationally, by providing unfair treatments – then you need to be the change. You must recognize effort rationally and to communicate the rationale on why decisions are made (I.e., why did you promote this person), to reduce any tensions arising from inequality.

If your employee is putting in effort, while still not delivering -  it is of no harm to provide encouragement as well and to see how you can help the employee in reaching the organization’s goals.

How to Give Feedback to your Management?

There will come a day where feedback needs to be translated back to the higher management to maintain the quality of work done in the office. A place where it is feedback-friendly allows for transparency among everyone, and happier working relations to thrive throughout the company.

Whether the actual feedback is kind or not, the situation calls for a sensitive and tactful approach since it can involve a lot of external workplace politics. From employee-to-boss, what are some of the challenges to avoid stepping on another toes? It can damage relationships, ruin chances of promotions, and even make the workplace toxic – however, here are some advice on giving constructive feedback to the boss/manager:

TAKE TIME TO WRITE IT DOWN

Never go head in without a plan or structure to guide what exactly is being discussed – especially when concerning upper management. Start by jotting down the prominent issues and the consequences of any actions that need to be commented on, and work out a comfortable discussion pace from that point. The main goal of giving the boss/manager feedback is because their actions can have a drastic effect on the company, so they will be looking for concrete evidence that supports the feedback.

Allow them to suggest improvements before insisting on ones that are previously decided on by the employees. There is a reason why they retain their positions in the company, so this discussion requires strategic give and take for it to be constructive all around.

ASK QUESTIONS INSTEAD OF SEEKING ANSWERS

Sometimes, to lead the boss/manager into giving the correct answers or coming to the ideal conclusion, just plan a set of appropriate questions ahead. It may seem like a long and complicated way of proving your point, but it is significantly better to give the boss the reins to hold when it comes to big decisions.

If there is a concern with some areas at work, highlight it out with some questions instead of bluntly flagging it out. The latter will seem like a personal attack, while the first may reveal to the boss/manager some areas of concern that were previously hidden.

ALWAYS BE SPECIFIC AND PROFESSIONAL

After all, it is the boss/manager that the feedback is given to, and their positions in the company give them a sense of authority that can seem intimidating. Aim to be as specific as possible, without delaying the topic or beating around the bush when getting to the point. If the feedback can be succinctly delivered in 2 minutes, it will have more impact than a 20 minute conversation.

This will also allow the boss/manager space to be more receptive to the feedback, instead of feeling pressured to entertain or act on the comments. They might also have their own bosses to report to, so at times like this, do them a favour and cut them a break.

How should you handle favouritism?

The interesting thing about this article, is that it is for the one that is shown favouritism as well as for the others affected by it. How bad can it hurt right if you are the one receiving the compliments? At the very least, you know you are performing in your manager’s eyes.  However, do you want your career progression to be based on how well you are performing in the role or would you rather it be because of how good of the relationship you share with your managers?

Think about your co-workers. How would they credit your promotion? Would they have been given equal growth opportunities for career advancement? Would they have thought that performance is linked to career advancement?

Give the benefit of the doubt

Understand if this is a usual practice, by your managers. Try to understand if the treatment is specially for you, or do your managers encourage the others in their little ways as well. Is the manager showing you more interest compared to your colleagues? Do your other colleagues perceive your treatment as unfair as you deem it to be?

It is of this stage that you should also distinguish Favoritism from performance recognition. Have you been given the extra attention because of the overtime you have put into the company, or that you have went beyond what was expected to earn the confidence of your managers?   

Talk to them, Tactfully

Being the one that your manager would be more receptive to, you could have the power to recommend an objective approach. You could probably recommend justifying who should be the one who should be taken the role, or even the key client to the rest.

You could also encourage a more inclusive team, whereby you could propose names on taking up certain responsibilities, as well as be the one sharing positive reviews of other colleagues, whose effort could not have been realized by your managers

How should you handle non-performing employees?

I am sure in every company, there will be a non-performing employee you would have to handle. You will need to difficult employee to perform, although he might not be giving his best. You constantly encourage him, but it falls on deaf ears. You could also be having an employee who seems lethargic about what he does – maybe in terms of punctuality, and attitude problems.

What do you do?

Do you let him be, and let him affect the entire company’s productivity? Should you pull the trigger and tell him that he is dismissed, and if so – how do you do this fairly?

The following pointers are the guides for any employer who is currently handling a difficult employee.

Understand the employee, and why is he not performing

It is fundamentally important to listen, and understand why is the employee not performing. This is not only just from the employee himself, but from others. One might feel frustrated about why is this employee not performing or constantly coming to work late, but fail to understand about why this is exactly so. All the other mistakes that the non-performing employee does, all just act as a confirmation basis to you.

The golden rule is that the less someone is performing, the more attention you should give.

Do not misrepresent the information here as gossiping about his poor performance to other colleagues, or to someone he is reporting to. In this point of time, it is also crucial to manage your own expectations. Imagine having the conversation with the under performing employee with the mentality that he will never get better.

Give action orientated Feedback

You have no right to complain about your employees, if you do not share with that about what is wrong with them in the first place. Managers should give action orientated feedback on how to correct the problems or performance issues that employees face.

One of the most vital sign of Feedback is to be consistent with what you feel is wrong. For instance, missing a deadline by a day is the equivalent of missing a deadline by a week. Do not just reprimand those who missed the deadline by a week, but also those who are a day late. Be consistent, and stop confusing your employees.

It is also important to let your employees understand what the consequences are if their performing is not improving. Let them understand the negative consequences that will happen, as a motivation to encourage them to change what they are doing.

While in the process of encouraging the change, provide constant feedback to the employee as well.

Provide documentation

Fundamentally, you should document the work process. Ensure your managers know when he can fire this non-performing employee.  You would not want a situation whereby the managers have different practices – which would only lead to degrade the existing employees working for you. The Human Resource (HR) could also be the one conducting briefing regularly and should be readily available for the managers. Generally, most companies practice the verbal warning, written warning followed by the final warning.

The process of handling non-performing employees should be documented to serve as prove should any unjust claims of unfair dismissal should happen. Take pointers of why this employee is difficult, as well as the action plan that has been communicated to the employee.

How to handle workplace Gossips

If there is one thing it is unavoidable in the workplace – it is gossips. You could either be the subject of the gossips, or you could be the one instigating the gossip.

However, let’s not forget the person subject to gossip has negative consequences – whether is it affecting their own career and reputations, or being emotionally affected by it. Worse, the person subject to being gossip could be ostracized at work.

If you are verbally harassed, these strategies could help.

Address it, tactfully

Instead of the usual practice of avoidance, addressing the person who instigated the gossip could work. However, the approach should not be done in a confrontational nor aggressive way. Being confrontational would only lead to fuel more gossips among your colleagues.

This is the right way to address gossips, especially if it is due to untrue speculations. The instigator should be able to understand that you would want to clarify the speculations. You could also self-reflect on yourself upon hearing the gossips. If you feel there is some truth in the gossips, or how most of the people perceive you to be – you could use it as a self-reflection as how others perceive you affects their motivation to collaborate and work with you.

If you are the one who are instigating the gossip, you should always remind yourself that if you are not able to bring yourself to say things in the person’s presence, then you should avoid that as a topic to others.

Don’t be one of them

If you are one of those who have been gossiping at the work place, you have lost the right to ask others to stop gossiping about you, or making you the subject of the gossip. One should never solve the problem of being the subject of gossip by gossiping about others.

This will only lead to negative repercussions, as you will likely lead to confusing signal to your colleagues and friends around you.

Report It

If the gossips have become too unhealthy, and you feel you are not able to manage it on your own, you can talk to the Human Resource department – especially if you feel if it is harassment.

Companies do not encourage gossips, anyway as it dampens morale and productivity. 

5 Time Management Tips

Have you ever felt that no matter how much you are able to multi task, time is always not on your side? The fun fact of today is that humans are generally poor at multi-tasking, so  you are not alone! 

Here are 5 time management tips that you may use to better manage your time and increase your productivity:

Checklist is really important

You should always take a moment and consider the things to complete by the next day before heading home. If you know your objectives and tasks to complete the next day, you will sure be able to sleep better and wake up with a fresh mind to start the day!

Early birds catch the most worms: BE EARLY! 

I'm not asking you to be a bird. It is just a metaphor but imagine if you're always rushing about at the start of the morning. Nah, that’s not the way to go. Always get up slightly earlier so that you can take things slowly and calmly. Here’s how: 

Start the day right – Scheduling

Remember attending the list of things you need to complete by the end of the day first. 

1. Go through email that have accumulated over the night. These are the unpredictable ones you could not foresee, with more tasks to be completed. Based on the emails, you should schedule the tasks at the end of today, or another day. 
2. Filter out and attend to quick responses to allow other people to start working on tasks. Work delegation is a crucial factor to meet deadlines of projects.
3. Evaluate the urgency and the implications of not completing tasks on hand. Schedule the ones you need to give immediate priority to. 

Taking regular break is important

1. Take regular breaks during the day.
2. Block off time in your calendar and take breaks.
3. During your breaks, you can evaluate your tasks on hand. This helps keep your mind organized consistently throughout the day

Set realistic deadlines & Learn to say NO

1. Stick to the deadlines. If possible, you should set a deadline few days before the task so that you can complete all those tasks that may get in the way.
2. Challenge yourself and meet the deadline & reward yourself after that!
3. Politely refuse to accept additional tasks if you think that you’re already overloaded with work. Recheck your “to-do-lists” before taking up new job scopes.