4 Ways to Make Meetings Effective

Let's be honest - As much as we know that meetings are important and key to communications for everyone, most of us hate attending them. Usually, what goes on at the back of your mind during the meetings are the the pile of documents waiting for you to be settled at your desk to be completed today. 

Below are some ways we have put together to ensure that meetings are valuable and productive. This will also make sure that uses every attendee’s time fruitfully.

Start Punctually

Waiting for the latecomers will only mean that you agree and able to accept their late coming. That's a big no no. If the content of the meeting is really important, latecomers will eventually be on time to avoid any inconvenience for others. Of course, the person who have arranged for the meeting has to ensure that the meeting content is worth everyone's time.  

Set out a clear agenda

Agenda of meeting should be set out clearly two to three days prior to the meeting and the time needed for each topic should also be indicated. Topics should be as specific as possible so that the presenter may also know the key pointers to share. This will help attendees identify the topics during the meeting. This also gives the presenters a better gauge of time to move forward if they are next in line.

Presentation (Visual & Aural)

While we may think that aural presentation is sufficient to catch the attention of all attendees, we want our content shared during the meeting to be clearly communicated. Presenters must always go into meetings well-prepared with presentation slides, write-ups and figures. More often than not, graphs and images help in shortening meetings when every one of us can comprehend so much faster in seconds.

Everyone to Contribute

Meetings are meant for attendees to contribute their ideas and input suggestions and polls, with regards to the topics presented. Not for people to attend boring presentations. Such session is critical and to ensure that participants are engaged and important decisions are made during the meetings. To be polite, you may want to get allow people voice out non-urgent thoughts after the meetings. 

10 tips to note for a job interview.

Research before anything.

Find out as much as possible about the company's services, products and competition. Doing so will allow you to understand and address the business's needs, to better sell yourself in the interview. Understanding the company's culture will also enable you to gauge if you will be happy at your job.

Look Your Best

First impressions matter but dressing for an interview is not a one-size-suits-all matter. Depending on the company's environment, choose the best clothes suitable for it, and check for wrinkles and stains. After all, even if the company's filled with people in beach wear, you don't want to look like you've just climbed out of bed. Most importantly, you should feel good about what you wear. Because if you feel good, others will respond accordingly.

Be Prepared

Bring a folder containing extra copies of your resume, references and any other documents you may need. You should also have questions to ask at the end of the interview, and finally, have a paper at hand to take notes.

Be punctual

Never arrive late for an interview. Factor in extra time to find your way around the vicinity. It would be best to enter the building 10 to 15 minutes before the interview. 

Listen

Listening is one of the most neglected interview skills. Additionally, don't just listen, but reading between the lines. Sometimes what is not said is just as important as what is said. 

Answer the Question Asked

Make sure you understand the question before answering. If you are unsure, get clarification before answering. Sometimes, candidates don't think about whether they are answering the questions their interviewers ask. 

Give Specific Examples

Prepare stories about your past experience before the interview. Give examples that highlight your successes. Your past behavioud can indicate your future performance.

Ask Questions

Many interviewees don't ask questions and miss the opportunity to find out valuable information. The questions you ask can indicate your interest in the company or job. 

Follow Up

The follow up email is one more chance to market yourself and remind your potential employer about your best traits. Take it as an avenue to reiterate what you bring to the job and the company as well.

Show Enthusiasm and Confidence

Most importantly, be confident, give a firm handshake and plenty of eye contact. One way to show confidence is to be prepared to the best of your ability. There is no way to predict what an interview holds, but by following these important rules you will feel less anxious and will be ready to positively present yourself.

Benefits of Punctuality

Ever thought of the impression that you are giving to others each time you are late for appointments? You may not have realised but being punctual does help in improving work performances.

Besides, i'm sure you only want positive impressions. Either be punctual, or be ready to get judged.  

Be 15 Minutes Early!

Be it if it’s for work or appointments, being punctual clearly show the importance and respect you have for the person you are meeting. Your time is as precious, as it is for others. Yes, we're talking to you although you may be the Managing Director of a established company.  Your employees would appreciate the respect they deserve. 

Meeting deadlines

Put in some effort to reach office early or even on time to give yourself ample to settle down before the day begins. This reduces any stress and pressure that you may be lagging behind your colleagues in work completion. I’m sure you want the other party to have confidence and faith in you when you meet them up for discussions and as much as they trust you to finish within deadlines when they hand the projects or assignments over to you.

Professional Punctuality

This is utmost important in workplace and it shows as a professional way to be trustworthy and reliable. Always keep in mind that while you delay any submission or miss any deadlines, you are also keeping others from finishing their work. In such a interdependent work environment, never give your colleagues any opportunity to have a bad impression of you or see you as someone undependable.

Always Ready

Being ready a couple of minutes before any meeting will give you ample time to easy your mind and time to relax. Ensure that you are ready to give your best before meetings while you collect your thoughts and get ready. 

Is being a good leader always superior to being a good manager

If you are given the opportunity to lead a team – how do you distinguish between being a leader and a manager? There might be sometimes that you wonder if you should place priorities on the development of your team, or in ensuring things get done right in the fastest time possible. Like what Peter Drucker said “Leadership is doing the right things; management is doing the things right”

The following are the main consideration factors between when you should use which leadership style

Your current team culture

If you have a team who does not like change, and who prefer to be instructed than empowered – the team requires a manager instead of a leader. Leaders constantly challenge status quo and often have the courage to take on risk and it would be disastrous if the team is constantly fighting against change.

A leader also has a tendency to have highly stretched goals and the audacity of the goals and would be disastrous if the team feels it is unattainable, with a lot of self-doubts.

Urgency of tasks and amount of resources

If the tasks at hand are urgent, a manager would be better than a leader because they are more results and tasks orientated. Managers would be taking the defined goals and executing by having a list of detailed plans – so the goals would be achieved by average employees in the shortest time.

Existing culture of the company

If the current culture of the company is also risk adverse and where the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of employees and incumbents are strictly monitored – then a leader would not be able to excel in this environment as well. Imagine if a leader invents to define new paradigms, using his creativity to be constantly rejected his Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Ultimately, one leadership style is not a superior form over the other. To sustain and to remain competitive with their competitors, companies should have a good mixture of transformational leaders as well as good managers. When companies are hiring management levels, they should also understand what is the current culture of the company as well as the needs of this team. This can help define the purpose on why this new incumbent is brought on board

The distinction between working for a leader and working for a manager

The fact exists that sometimes when employees leave organizations, they are not quitting on the company, but rather their bosses. This fact is often hidden under the piles of other reasons during the exit interview process, or during a new job interview process. People know not to talk bad about their previous employers as it might hurt the chances of landing their new dream role.

The following are the main distinctions between a manager and a leader.

The difference between controlling and influencing

Leaders influence, motivate and empower towards the effectiveness and success of the organization, whereas managers direct and control employees towards accomplishing that goal. Leaders see problems as opportunities and think of solutions, together with their team. They excite their people and focus them to solve problems and excel. On the other hand, managers formulate strategies, policies and methods and get their people to execute to reduce unnecessary risk to get the tasks done.

The difference in the personality styles

Leaders usually come with great charisma, and are not risk-adverse. They encourage risks and usually will go against “status quo”. Managers take on the more rational, realistic approach and are control problem solvers. Their main focus would be on how to accomplish the goals and coming up with a structure to attain the goals based on the available resources. Their personalities are more geared towards persistence, strong will, analysis and intelligence.

The people they are managing

The people the leaders are managing are followers. This is because leaders are very people-orientated and they have the emphasis on leading people. Managers, on the other hand are leading subordinates because they are mainly tasks and results orientated.

There is no right or wrong in choosing a leadership style over the other. It really depends on your current situation such as the people you are managing, and their preferred working styles. The best bet is to engage your current employees, and understand the urgency of situation before deciding that one leadership style is more superior compared to the other. 

How to Reduce Workplace Drama?

I’m sure you have witness someone climb up the corporate ladder in some point of your career. You thought to yourself that this person does not put in extra hours, has zero knowledge so how did the progression come about? You start discussing about this with your close colleagues, and discussions slowly become gossips.

We know gossips are fun, but this hurts productivity at workplace so how do we minimize workplace politics?

Be Transparent and encourage two-way communication

Management has to be transparent and encourage open communication between employees and the management. Rather than let your employees discuss about was the person should get the promotion, management should provide a strong justification of why the person was selected.  
 
Through having a two-way communication would also allow management to have first-hand knowledge about what employees are discussing and can stop it when discussions become gossips.

Communicate and Evaluate employees on goals established for them

Communicating the goals is more important than evaluating employees on the goals established for them. This will result in fairness, where goals are communicated so employees are aware of how their performance are being accessed in a way whereby they are able to earn the promotion. This would then help management provide a stronger justification of the recent promotion.  
 
Communicating and evaluating goals would allow employees to feel that their contribution matters. With a stronger direction, this would actively increase engagement and morale between employees. To facilitate all these, you should also have a robust system to track your employees.

Focus on your recruitment

You would want to ensure you are bringing in the right talents to the company to achieve aligned goals between the individual and the employer. No matter how much you try to prevent office politics through changing your company’s culture -  a fishmonger would always be a fishmonger... 

and at CVista HR, we can help to filter fishmongers out from your pool of suitable candidates for your consideration!

How to Retain The Generation Y Employees

It is not difficult to foresee one day when you are sitting in your office, looking through the different resignations in your company. No company policy has changed, but yet why is the resignation list getting longer. Welcome to the world of Generation Y employees – where motives, and attitude varies very differently from the Generation X employees.
 
Let’s face it. What might work at one point of time, may not work now. Many companies want to tap on the potential of the technological savvy Generation Y employees, but not many have managed to retain them.

Before we talk about how to retain Generation Y employees, here is a disclaimer that this article could be written by someone from the Generation X who thinks he is a Generation Y employee. We all like to feel young.

Here’s How.

We like it two way

Generally, Generation Y employees like two way communications. They like to feel empowered to make the change, where feedback is not only given in the top down manner but in the bottom up approach as well.  

Generation Y employees generally appreciate honesty with their management and would like to know how they are performing and how they can even be better. They love to know they are making a contribution to society, so perhaps you should be thinking of how you can give back to the society with the involvement of your employees.  

In fact, instead of continuing to read this article – why not talk to your Generation Y employees to understand how can you retain them. This will allow them to feel more empowered.  

We are as delicate as the Balancing Bar

Generation Y employees do not separate work from life. Career are so important to us now, that they became our lives – and that is precisely the reason why work life balance is important. Generation Y employees would love to contribute to the company, but not at the expense of their own family or personal time. Give them the balance, and they’ll do the best for you.

We love opportunities

Opportunities to learn, and have personal and professional development would usually excite Generation Y employees. This only means you need to have a very strong internal hiring program where you encourage transfers between department and progression internally rather than external hiring.  

Trust us

Companies who are very regimental are usually boo boos for Generation Y employees. Generation Y employees appreciate employers who trust, and provide them the flexibility. If you currently restrict content on your company’s internet or penalizing them when they are 5 minutes late, you might want to think again.

Keeping Onboarding Relevant

I can still remember the first day when I started work. Introduction of colleagues, and assignment of buddy was all in place – everything was perfect; except telling me where the toilet was. In my desperation, I had to ask my buddy where was the toilet. The rest of the story was pretty embarrassing.

I bet you don’t remember how anxious you were (which kind of explains the volume of pee I had then), now that you are very comfortable in your surroundings. This article can help remind you how important and critical it is to provide the necessary support and knowledge sharing sessions for new employees.

Onboarding programs are no longer just administrative work such as signing of offer letters. This article will share with you what is onboarding programs really about.

Why is Onboarding Programs Important?

Two words - proper communication. Would you rather have an effective onboarding program in place, or would you rather your current employees who are serving their notice period share their opinions about the directions and the culture of this company?

Onboarding programs can help new employees get their feet running by equipping them with information such as the key responsibilities and direction of the role, and how is their performance being accessed.
This allows: 

• Faster transition into the new job 
• Reduce lag time to get work done 
• Reduce of the time for your company to find your new employee’s replacement if he leaves 
• because of the lack of clarity about his job scope and environment…
  … and time means money. We get it.

Who should take charge of Onboarding programs?

Everyone! Why should HR only be responsible for this onboarding program when the operations should know the working culture and deliverables better?

How long should onboarding programs be?

If you think onboarding programs are just a day event, you’ll be shocked when we share with you onboarding programs are more effective if it is done in the course of 6 months. This allows better engagement of your new employees.

In fact, it would be even better if your onboarding happens the moment your potential future star employees accepts the offer.  

Pointers to take not of when setting up an onboarding program

• Intensity of the Programme
  In event if the transition and knowledge content transfer is too much for a new employee to absorb, always break them down in different phases for knowledge transfer.
   
• Buddy System
  New employee can be paired up with a buddy or mentor who can continuously help in keeping the work done in check and show the ropes. This helps to facilitate interaction between the new entrant and the existing employees.
   
• Better Understanding of Employer
  Don’t be surprised when you know there are some new employee who joins the Company without even understanding the Company’s directions and culture. Employers should share more information on the employer’s positioning and brand to ensure proper alignment.
   
• 2 Way Feedback
  Understand from each individual department what the situations are when new employees first join the team from both the reporting superior as well as the new  employee. These issues should be addressed the moment employees embark on the onboarding program.
  
   

Reference:
http://www.hrmasia.com/content/onboarding-hit-ground-running