Archive for the ‘Organizational Learning’ Category
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
Making new friends is not the primary goal of going to work but surely it is one place where you make friends. Keeping a good working relationship with your co-workers is an important part of job success and satisfaction. So here are some tips for setting up good relationships with your co-workers.
Act like Yourself
Always show that you have your own personality. Everyone has its own opinion just like you, so feel free to show your different opinion but in a respectful manner. As a matter of fact the opinion differences often cause healthy conversations and debates that can have clear effects in relationships. But keep in mind that you need to be willing and open to accept the constructive criticism and ideas from your co-workers.
Be honest in your abilities and skills rather than claiming for some work that you cannot do. Handle all the workers and employers according to their weaknesses and strengths. And also let your strengths to shine and show that you are a team player.
Show a Sense of Humor
Show your sense of humor. Everyone likes to have a good laugh, so don’t feel afraid to show your humorous side. But be careful to avoid jokes that might be unpleasant or hurt to your co-workers. Adopt a way that will make someone laugh without teasing his/hers feelings.
Stay Neutral
Avoid to be caught up in office gossip and other rumors. Always behave as neutral. Once gossips starts in office, you cannot avoid getting caught up in office gossip with a positive appearance.
Show Responsibility
The people who demonstrate responsibility are liked and respected by everyone. If any task is given to you by a specific time, be sure to achieve this goal. When working on projects, also make sure that you are performing your duties with full attention, and remain productive. Simply, your colleagues and co-workers will take more interest in you even on your personal levels if you show yourself as an asset in the workplace.
Be Available
Always work with the tag “available”. With easy approach, people will be able to take steps to get you know. Generosity is the one way to become more approachable. Whenever possible, also be generous with your time. A time is a great gift that you can give your co-workers. There will be a time when you will see that time returned to you outside of the workplace.
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Organizational Development, Organizational Learning | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Your immediate boss or the person to whom you have to directly answer for your responsibilities or the in charge of your section — whatever you call him / her — may become a problem sometimes! It is often noticed at workplace that the senior colleague of yours to whom you have to directly answer becomes a nuisance for many reasons. He /she might be insecure because he / she may have realised your potential and might consider you a ‘threat’. In this situation he /she may start finding out ‘ways’ to trouble you in order to ruin your job image in front of the manager or the boss of the entire organisation usually called as ‘General Manager (GM)’, CEO, Director, etc. If your boss starts irritating you for reasons such as asking you to sit late, reach office earlier than your usual time, keeping an eye on each and every activity of yours such as what you are doing on your computer, which websites you are surfing, to whom you have been meeting in office, etc. These are the signs of being insecure and if your immediate boss is doing any such thing, you definitely are in trouble and need to look for ways to avoid these problems.
First and foremost way is to not give him /her any opportunity to point finger at you. Be punctual, remain disciplined, perform all your tasks on time, don’t do unnecessary phone calls (in front of him / her), avoid being too social in the office and try to remain focussed on your work only. (Avoid long chats with colleagues, avoid gossiping and other such stuff).
If you have other colleagues who are working at your level (under your immediate boss), beware of them as they might be working as ‘spies’ for your immediate boss! Avoid badmouthing about anyone especially your ‘immediate boss’ in front of your colleagues as they might leak out your opinions about him /her, which will be harmful for you.
Remain in touch with the Director or CEO of the organisation. Your better relations with the authority figures will compel your immediate boss to avoid conflicts with you and he / she will not misuse you for any reason.
If all this is not working for you and your immediate boss has really become a nuisance for you who does not let you sit relaxed even at your home and keeps you troubling by ordering official work through phone calls and emails; who scolds you and insults you in front of the other staff then it is the time to take action. Talk to your manager! Inform him / her about your sufferings. He /she may either move ‘you’ to any other section or change your ‘immediate boss’!
Good luck!
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Organizational Learning | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Has your boss left the job and new boss has taken charge? It is not the time to sit relaxed; it is time to be proactive and get yourself introduced to your new boss no matter you have already met with him in a formal ‘welcome party’! It is very essential for your future growth that you let your new boss about yourself, your abilities and your job in the organisation. Consider this fact that whatever you achieved when your previous boss was in charge, has now become a history unless you have already close relationships with the new boss. But if this is not the case, then you must keep in mind that now your promotion, your growth prospects, increment in the salary depends on how your relationship is with your new manager. Keep in mind some important points: When a new boss takes charge, usually a formal get-together takes place and everyone is introduced to him by either the previous boss or someone from the management. But this is not enough! It is compulsory to meet your new boss in personal. For that when he takes charge, wait for about a week; then take an appointment from his personal assistant and go to his office to meet him. Get yourself introduced respectfully; like telling him your name, designation, department you work for and the number of years you have served in the organisation. It is also recommended if you take with you any gift such as a bouquet of flowers (avoid roses) or any official sort of gift such as diary, calendar, etc. Avoid being extravagant in choosing a gift for your boss because it might seem a bribe rather than a compliment.
Keeping in touch with your new boss is very important as he must remember your name and your position. But do not disturb him every now and then and also keep in mind that he is your boss, not a friend, so always keep your meetings with him ‘formal’. Your organisation may have some faults that you may have recognised and pointed out to the previous boss but no action would have been taken to resolve the issues for the betterment of the organisation. Discuss these issues with your new boss and also suggest some reasonable solutions so that your boss may get to know about your analytical and management skills. The success in life whether personal or professional depends upon the ‘networking’ and having formal meets with your newly arrived boss, letting him know about your ideas, etc are all nothing but important aspects of networking at a higher level. So, don’t remain confined to your office, adopt a ‘get up and go’ strategy and keep your eyes wide open in order to remain informed and updated about the latest happenings (official only) in your office. May be your current boss is planning to leave the office so it is high time you adopt a proactive approach and be ready to make better relations with your new boss for better career prospects.
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Employer, Organizational Learning | No Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
You must have expertise of using MS Office, Photoshop, and other important software because you can’t work in an office without having the skills in the said software packages. But in addition to these, there are other skills too that are often underrated but are far more important than having a know-how of using software and these skills contribute a lot towards strengthening your position at the job place.
Be friendly
Subtracting Saturdays and Sundays, we have to spend 40 hours every week in the office and of course who would want to spend a major part of his day with a difficult colleague! An easygoing, helpful and co-operative colleague is the one who is always in demand and is appreciated and respected by everyone. Being friendly does not only mean that you remain polite only with your co-workers but giving respect to the cleaning staff, peons, waiters and office boys is equally important.
Be a good writer
This is the era where everyone is communicating via email and text messaging and remains in touch through networking websites where nothing but your writing skills count when you write on your friends’ walls, comment on their photos, etc — you won’t be able to make a right impression if you are not good at writing. So having expertise in writing is very very necessary these days to build your reputation and enhance your career prospects.
Diplomacy is the key
You find many different types of colleagues at workplace — majority of them are unlike your expectations and you find it hard to cope with them. Here comes the role of ‘diplomacy’ when you can put to use your flexibility and politeness and come with rather rational solutions of difficult problems without creating mess. In addition to being polite, it is also important to remember your limits while being friendly and if someone is not interested in sharing his/her personal matters with you, showing reluctance and minding your own business would help you a lot.
Talk to the point
In this fast paced era, you need to learn the skills of talking to the point and getting right info in lesser possible time. So learn to ask exactly what you want to know, avoid being vague and unnecessarily prolonging your talk time (both face-to-face and on phone) — and while writing emails too, (here comes the test of your writing skills)! An email or a written form of communication too, is required to be direct, to the point, concise yet polite.
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Monday, June 7th, 2010
Do you have close friends at your job place? Beware! Making friends (close friends) at workplace is not recommended by career experts as it may prove to be risky!
A close friend is supposed to share your secrets that should not be made public but if you have told your thoughts and plans to a close buddy at your office, it can be dangerous — what if he/she turns against you in the time to come, then he/she (if not a decent person) may take advantage of knowing your weak points and may harm you in such a way that affects your job. Therefore, be very much careful while making friends at workplace. It is ok to be social, talk and meet everyone but having one or two very close buddies who share your secrets, go out with you, know about your family and its affairs and also visit your home very frequently can be risky so think about it!
The best approach is to have a circle of colleagues in the office but maintain a reasonable distance with them such that neither you feel isolated nor you become so much attached with them that if in future you may wish to detach from them, it becomes difficult!
The issue is rather more serious for women as they may share more secrets with each other, which eventually may turn out to be dangerous for them. Girl colleagues often seem sharing with each other the secrets of their personal relationships, domestic affairs and money matters too. This is not only an unprofessional attitude but highly risky for your reputation as well. Your female colleague knowing all about your secrets may misuse you in the time to come if differences arise between two of you. She may disclose your personal matters in front of other colleagues which will become a cause of embarrassment for you! Besides, it is also harmful for your job as your seniors and boss may start judging your character and it might influence their decision at the time of giving promotion or an increment in the salary.
It is a fact that every human being needs someone with whom he/she can share his/her problems, with whom he/she can feel safe and secure, to whom he/she can call a true and sincere friend. But seeking such kind of friendship is risky when it comes to your profession. Therefore, be very very careful in making friends at your job place and always remember that being alone is better than being trapped in a wrong relationship.
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Organizational Learning | No Comments »
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Creating a good impression on employer is as necessary as being skilful in your job. No matter how excellent your academic record is, no matter how valuable your experience is, if you don’t pay attention to little things discussed below, you can make a terrible impression on your employer and consequently losing the opportunity.
Don’t do homework on the company
An employer is not interested in you if you are not interested in his company. Therefore, before meeting the employer, do reasonable research on his company — go through its website, search the internet to get any available information about the company, case studies, report, press releases, etc. When you will discuss these things during your interview, it will create a good impression on the employer that you are interested in his organisation and have done your homework efficiently.
Keep cell phone switched on during interview
If your cell phone is constantly ringing while you are talking to your employer, it will annoy him and think of you as a non-serious and unprofessional person. Therefore, keep your cell phone either switched off or on ‘silent mode’ (not even on vibration mode), so that there doesn’t happen anything that distracts you or your employer during interview.
Don’t burden the HR manager with too many emails
While you are sending your CV to any company, don’t send your resume in bulk from many job posting websites and also don’t cc to everyone in the company. Send your resume once and only to the concerned person i.e. Human Resource Manager or whoever is handling the hiring matters.
Follow through text messing
The employer will never tolerate an unprofessional behaviour — follow through text message is one example of the unprofessional attitude. If you have given an interview; and you want to keep track of what is going on at employer’s end then wait for about two weeks then give him a call but never send a text message, which shows a casual and careless attitude towards work.
Undue giddiness
A little sense of humour along with right facial expressions count a lot during a job interview but unnecessary excitement as well as laughing loudly only add to your bad impression on the employer. Therefore, remain composed and decent while expressing your funny side in a reasonable way.
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Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
Gift-giving is a Sunnah practice and all of us should give presents to our friends and family members in order to express our love and respect towards them. However, giving gifts at job place to our colleagues and boss is a little trickier task and we need to be extra cautious while doing so as a small act of carelessness can ruin our image and put us in trouble.
Here are a few dos and don’ts about gift-giving at your workplace:
Don’t get personal with a formal boss
If your boss (male or female) remains reserved and doesn’t get mixed-up with you, be extra cautious in giving him/her any gift. Try not to get personal while choosing a gift for an introvert boss — it might offend him/her. Be formal in selecting a gift for such bosses such as coffee mug, pen, calendar, wall clock or a diary.
On the other hand, if you share a friendly relationship with your boss, you can be a little informal while choosing a gift but don’t be ‘too informal’ as a boss is a boss after all and you must keep a distance between you and him/her for a healthy office environment. To friendly and sociable bosses, you can choose to give a bouquet of flowers (roses are a strictly no!), any special plant, gift card, candy box or beautiful candles.
Remain within your budget
Choose what you can easily afford — don’t be extravagant in order to impress your colleagues or boss. It’s not the price of gift; it is the spirit and affection behind the gift — that matters! So you can show your appreciation towards your colleagues or boss simply by presenting them an inexpensive gift with nice compliments.
Choose after hours to give the gift
Don’t give your present to colleagues or boss in front of all — it may create a bang at the job place, which is not healthy and it might offend the gift receiver as well. Choose the time when the person to receive the gift is alone in his/her office — lunch hour or after hours — any time when there is not a crowd around the person to whom you want to present the gift.
Don’t give cash
Never give cash as a gift to your colleagues or boss — no matter how friendly relationship you share! Choose any formal or informal gift depending upon your relationship level but ‘cash’ as a gift item is simply a no, no! However, gift certificates, shopping coupons, meal deals and club membership cards — as far as you can afford — are okay as gifts.
Choosing the right gift, for the right occasion and presenting it in the right manner can help you improving your relationship with your boss and colleagues, which will ultimately make for you, your office, a comfortable place to work.
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Organizational Learning | No Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Learning by individuals in an organizational context is a well understood process. This is the traditional domain of human resources, including activities such as: training, increasing skills, work experience, and formal education. Given that the success of any organization is founded on the knowledge of the people who work for it, these activities will and, indeed, must continue. However, individual learning is only a prerequisite to organizational learning.
Others take it farther with continuous learning. The world is orders of magnitude more dynamic than that of our parents, or even when we were young. Waves of change are crashing on us virtually one on top of another. Change has become the norm rather than the exception. Continuous learning throughout one’s career has become essential to remain relevant in the workplace. Again, necessary but not sufficient to describe organizational learning.
Knowledge transfer in the fields of Organizational development and organizational learning, is the practical problem of getting a packet of knowledge from one part of the organization to another (or all other) parts of the organization. It is considered to be more than just a communications problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum, an e-mail or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is more complex because
1. knowledge resides in organizational members, tools, tasks, and their sub networks and
2. much knowledge in organizations is tacit or hard to articulate.
When a business loses employees, it loses skills, experience and “corporate memory”. The magnitude and nature of these losses is a critical management issue, affecting productivity, profitability, and product and service quality. For employers, high turnover can negatively affect employment relationships, morale and workplace safety. The cost of replacing workers can be high, the problems associated with finding and training new employees can be considerable, and the specific workplace-acquired skills and knowledge people walk away which can take years to replace.
The problem of turnover can be addressed through a variety of pro-active retention strategies: workplace policies and practices which increase employee commitment and loyalty. Knowledge transfer initiatives on the other hand, ensure that the knowledge and expertise of a company’s employees—its ‘corporate memory’—are systematically and effectively shared among employees. They can offset the negative impact of turnover, but can also work pro-actively to reduce turnover by providing learning and skills development opportunities to employees – factors known to reduce turnover.
One key factor in employee motivation and retention is the opportunity employees want to continue to grow and develop job and career enhancing skills. In fact, this opportunity to continue to grow and develop through training and development is one of the most important factors in employee motivation.
So what can a company do to avoid seeing valued employees walk out the door? Offer bigger salaries? More benefits?
Fortunately, such “big ticket” expenditures are not necessarily the top priority to employees. In today’s still uncertain job market, employees are likely to be more interested in job satisfaction and growth. For corporations, that means investing in them—providing employees with tools that will help them improve their job skills and manage their career paths.
Compensation Association, training and development opportunities rank as one of the most important predictors of retention. It makes sense, after all, that training and retention rates are linked by offering training programs, employers show their employees that they are interested in keeping their company- and its employees- on the cutting edge of their field. Employees feel valuable and stay with the company. They also see that, through training, they will continue to move forward and advance their careers.
Employees want to advance their career with greater opportunities for training and career development. Providing a set of tools to develop the leadership and management skills to employees will provide immediate and long-term benefits to business. It should be a major step in employee retention strategy.
When you provide training to your supervisors and managers, they will be receiving training and career development which they want and need. Their sense of advancement and skills will lead to increased productivity for them and their team. They will have more fulfilling work and are less likely to leave your company. This provides an immediate benefit to your bottom line – reduced employee turnover!
Training benefits employers and employees alike. Employers can be sure that their employees are abreast of the latest trends and advances, while employees are rewarded with a competitive edge and the satisfaction that comes from knowing that one is a valuable employee. If employers demonstrate a genuine interest in their employees, employees are likely to stick around.
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Human Resource, Motivation, Organizational Development, Organizational Learning, Organiztaion Growth, Training and Development | No Comments »
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