We are at the beginning of the flu season and you know the drill:wash your hands frequently, cough into your elbow, clean surfaces, get a flu shot…stay healthy. In the workplace, illness affects more than the one feeling sick because you are faced with staying home or spreading germs. It’s a tough call, because we are surrounded by invisible invaders bringing illness all the time. Stress is known to weaken our ability to fight those invaders. I am a huge believer in this. The minute I feel overworked or overwhelmed, my throat starts hurting. Since we spend most of our time at work, stress in the workplace can be a huge factor in whether or not we get sick. Keeping the stress down will help us stay healthy. Question is, how do we do that?
You can only control what you are able to choose. You might not have a choice about where your desk is, but you do have a choice about keeping it clean. Air quality is usually beyond your control, but you might be able to have a plant that helps purify it, and you certainly can take walks outside. Grouchy co-workers might dump on you, but you could use that to look for ways to make things better.
Decide now what the holidays will look like, and be realistic about what you do and why you do it. Don’t plan for “perfection.” Plan for flexible family time and let the mishaps become stories you will laugh about next year. What holiday work commitments will be expected? Do you know how to handle gift giving in the corporate world? It might seem early to talk about it, but you will have less stress if you know what to do.
Remember that stress is not bad in small doses. It’s like exercise for your soul in a lot of ways. The problems come when stress is accumulated upon stress and doesn’t stop. Figuring out how to keep that stress an occasional workout will keep YOU healthy and at work.
One of the more flexible definitions in office wear is “business casual”. This is because there are so many variables in acceptable clothing for an office environment. So, how do you decide what the new workplace will define as “business casual” when you are told to show up for your new job? It really depends on where you work, and who you work with.
Pay attention to how people in the office are dressed when you come in for your interview.
Aim high…you can take off a tie or jacket but it’s harder to amp up your professional look in flip flops. (By the way, flip flops are generally not considered office wear. Really!)
Wear your interview outfit the first day and ask for the dress code. Many businesses will hand that out with the paperwork to be filled out in training. Some establishments have a more casual dress code for the summer, some have “Casual Fridays,” and it’s better to see it explained in writing/pictures if possible.
Invest in good quality basics like solid-colored pants, skirts, and jackets. These can be mixed up with several shirts to get a week’s worth of outfits that will be acceptable anywhere. Add the jacket to create a suit for special occasions. Don’t forget good shoes!
If you are just entering the job market, ask for advice on your wardrobe. Many of the things you already have may work just fine when mixed with those basics.
It’s OK to add your personality into your office wear, but go slow and pay attention to your environment. That means one touch of individuality per outfit until you know what is expected.
Know the regional quirks. Cowboy boots in Fort Worth, Texas are part of a formal outfit, but not in Philadelphia.
The majority of jobs are not paying you to express yourself; they are paying you to represent their company. It isn’t hard to go conservative for a bit to get the feel of what your new position’s “business casual” attire actually entails, if you keep that in mind.
Don't Kill Your Career: Attitudes Change Your Workplace
Your attitude at work can change your career in ways you may not expect. Just as workplace gossip is seen as a problem, so are rudeness and apathy. These attitudes may not be overtly hostile, but they cause damage all the same and can stop your career in its tracks.
Call centers train their workers to smile when they speak on the phone to customers. This is because a smile is heard in the voice even when you can’t see the speaker and will influence the hearer. If something so simple as a smile will change the way you are heard on the phone, imagine how much your attitude changes the way you interact with your co-workers and customers!
Gossip is a trap many fall into because it is so easy to talk about other people. The long-term effects of gossip are seen with strife in the workplace, time-wasting, and the gossip being considered untrustworthy. Don’t listen to gossip and don’t pass it on.
Rudeness will cause folks to back away and go somewhere else. Why be treated like that when it is easy to find an alternative? There are many reasons given as an excuse for rudeness, and not one of them changes the initial reaction. You may win someone back by apologizing, but it’s better to avoid the problem by thinking about how your attitudes and actions affect other people. Treat others kindly, just like you’d like them to treat you.
Apathy is like quicksand. The longer you sit in it, the harder it is to get out. If you feel like what you are doing every day is worth little, then apathy sets in quickly. No matter where you are in life, apathy changes the way you see your life and the way you interact with others. A wise man once noted that investing in something makes it precious to you. Start putting effort into a task or a person and that task or person becomes important.
My earlier example of the smile over the phone left out one important factor: that smile did not have to be “felt” by the smiler in order to be heard by the caller. Your voice changes when your lips are shaped into a smile. In the same way, your attitudes are not at the mercy of your feelings at the moment. Choose to have a good attitude and see how your workplace changes around you and your career opportunities open up.
Clutter really does affect your career: there have been studies that prove it affects the way employers and coworkers view your ability to do your job. Forbes ran an article called “The Dangers Of A Messy Desk” where a study clearly showed that co-workers judge other’s work habits by their cleanliness, and Office Max did a similar study with similar results. Here are three ways that those piles bring your life to a halt:
You lose important information. The argument that it has to be in your view in order for you to remember to do it loses its power when you stop seeing the item that is in front of you. Honestly, what important piece of paper have you frantically looked for in the past few months?
You get overwhelmed. How many times have you said, “I can’t deal with that right now, I’ll get to it later”? How many times did you actually get to it and do it the way you should have?
You look inefficient. People assume that you are just like they are: overwhelmed by piles of papers and stuff while you stop seeing what’s in front of you and lose important information.
This isn’t just a workplace problem. UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families came out with a book on our clutter culture in America that is kind of fascinating and appalling and convicting all at the same time. But we don’t have to be handcuffed by our clutter habits! Get real and start small. Take ten or fifteen minutes (set the timer) and work on one pile…and stop at the end of that time. Do this every day and you will begin to see a big difference. There’s all sorts of decluttering advice out there, but the big thing is doing it; if you wait until you have time to do it all, you probably will never do it. If you are looking for a job, be professional about it and keep your surroundings professional. Make your job hunt a priority and respect your time job searching. Create a desk area, keep track of your papers and appointments, do the electronic weeding of your emails, etc. Take a picture of your desk, cubicle, office, or work area, and look at it. Be honest, now. What would you think if that were a coworker’s space? If you were the boss, would you want that person working for you? If you like the way it looks, then maintain it. If you don’t like the way it looks, you have the ability to change it – a little at a time.
Stress in the workplace is universal, but there are things that you can do to alleviate that stress and channel it into good energy. Here are a few suggestions that can help you take control of the situation to your benefit: Realize that you only have control of your own stuff.
You can do something about your desk or area of responsibility.
You can do something about the way you respond to a situation or the things you tell yourself.
You can’t force someone else to act the way you wish they would.
Do a good job with the stuff you have control over.
Keep your work area picked up and functional. It doesn’t have to be sterile, but make it calm by putting away the clutter & paring the accessories down to one or two things that you really enjoy looking at. You can switch them out as often as you like but only display the minimum.
Focus on doing your job well and being friendly without drama. Don’t gossip or backstab; think of your coworkers as future referrals for your next job and act accordingly.
Take advantage of training sessions, assessments, and improving your job skills. Get job counseling and expand your horizon to include working toward a different job if that’s what you’d like to do.
Own your mistakes. Stop the blame game in its tracks by acknowledging when you blew it and put the emphasis on fixing the problem and going on.
Take a walk instead of reaching for the snack. Replace unhealthy coping skills with healthy ones and use the energy from that stress reaction for exercise.
Let the coworker deal with their own stuff because you can’t do it for them.
If you work with a chronically angry person, you probably are not the source of their anger. You just are there to dump on. If you can, avoid giving them an opportunity to dump on you. If it isn’t possible, imagine an open garbage bag they are dumping into and toss it when they are done.
If your workplace is truly intolerable, focus on leaving as soon as you can with good references from this job. Don’t burn any bridges by bad behavior and do what you can to keep your stress level down. This is great motivation to research career options, develop a strategy, and look for another job armed with all the skills you can develop. Stress isn’t caused by a situation; it’s caused by our reaction to a situation. Your body goes into the same type of stress mode with any intense situation, from athletic competitions to scary movies to roller coasters to the workplace. Taking control of what you can will keep that stress positive for you and your career.
The plan used to be that if you did not know what you wanted to do after graduating from college, then you could temp for awhile. You could try on different jobs and figure out what you liked without making a commitment. It could take you a few weeks or a few months, and all the while you would be earning some money. That plan or blueprint has changed in these times of recession. More and more, the jobs offered out there are listed as “temp, ongoing” or “temp to perm.” Employers are trying out the candidates that they choose to hire without investing a great amount of money in terms of pay or time in terms of training. If it works out, you may be hired from a temp position into a permanent one. However, this means you have to be willing to take a gamble: low pay and no benefits now for higher pay and benefits later. You also need to hit the ground running. Offices are running very lean these days, with a few people doing a lot. People who temp or do contract work often feel as if they keep having to “start all over again,” paying their dues to get into a better-paying position. How you perform your job is important. It can be tough in a temp position because the permanent people may feel like there is no justification in investing time to help you learn the ropes. It is also difficult to live on a low salary while trying to figure out how to pay for basic things such as health insurance and health care. However, if you want to be considered for a higher-paying, more permanent position, you have to do the job well. This is a situation where a strong resume can help you. A resume not only gets you an interview. It can also help you negotiate your way into a more permanent position. Combine a strong job performance with a resume that illustrates that you have the education and skills to perform a higher level, permanent position. Watch for on-the-job information that you can use to make you a compelling choice. You may have skills on your resume that you are not using in your temp position now; however, you need to highlight those skills that make you a valuable asset to the company, so valuable that they will want to keep you on permanently.
Running a business entails making a business plan before you start the business and following up on that plan once the business is up and running.You should treat your career the same way. Do not wait for your employer to offer you opportunities to develop your skill sets. Even if you do have a job right now, you should continue to network. Find out what is happening in your career field, who is hiring, who is firing. You should know the career trends so you are the one who decides when you make your next career move, not your employer. The days of the company taking care of your career development are long over.While you do not have to become a business entrepreneur, you have to be an entrepreneur when it comes to your own career. Think about how you come across professionally on your resume, in correspondence and on the telephone.What type of professional do you want to be? How are you going to brand and market yourself? Your brand is your reputation or how people see you professionally. You may never need an executive bio, but it is a good exercise to write one anyways because it helps organize your thoughts on who you are professionally and how your career development has progressed.
If you have been job hunting for awhile, landing a job may make you so happy that you do not stop to consider whether this position is exempt or non-exempt. What does that mean? You know from having non-exempt positions on your resume that non-exempt means that you are paid hourly, and you must be paid overtime for hours worked that are more than 40 hours per week. Your manager must acknowledge and pay you for time worked before or after work, lunch hours, on-call hours, and meeting and lectures attended outside of regular work hours. You will get more money if you work overtime hours. All this time tracking is documented on some sort of time card. The down side of non-exempt status is that you rarely get to do the conferences, meetings and lectures outside of regular working hours because you have to be paid one and a half times your regular rate for those hours. Employers do not want to pay out the extra money. Exempt positions are paid on a salary or combined salary and bonus basis. If your position is exempt, you must work however many hours you need to get your job done. And you do not get paid any extra money for working through lunch or going to conferences. You usually do not fill in a time card for an exempt position. Anyone who has taken on the jobs of employees who have been downsized will tell you that working in an exempt position can be tough because you work longer for virtually no more pay to get the work done.
If you have been working and job hunting during the recession, it is likely that your resume has both exempt and non-exempt positions on it. Don’t forget to learn which status your new job has. It is a nasty shock after getting paid extra money for a lot of overtime to move to an exempt position where you may be working just as many hours for no extra pay.
