Careers Advice

Achieving promotion is about consistent strong performance over time but, in the run up to your seeking promotion, you’ll need to make even more effort than usual.  Here are my top 10 tips for winning yourself a promotion:

• Behave like the new broom you once were.  Make sure you don’t arrive for work late.  Dress to impress.  Be on your very best behaviour!  Image is everything.
• Give 110%.  Strive for excellence.  You may be able to get away with less in the normal day-to-day run of things but not when you’re after a promotion.
• Ensure your work can’t be faulted.  Work carefully and meticulously.  Don’t ‘drop the ball’, miss deadlines, etc.  Prove you’re someone who gets the job done.
• Seize every opportunity to learn something new and to develop and enhance your skills and knowledge base.
• If at all possible, start taking on new and additional responsibilities in your existing role.  Show initiative and commitment.  Volunteer for new assignments.
• If you’re applying to step up to a management or team leadership role then start consciously acting the part now – without stepping on anyone’s toes!
• Now might well be the time to consider putting in some more time.  Seriously consider any overtime opportunities that might arise.
• Update your CV (please see the next chapter for further details); at the very least it’ll help to get you in the right frame of mind to successfully tackle the job promotion interview
• Identify and resolve any blockers which might be holding you back.  Are there any little holes in your skill set or any aspects of your performance which might be a problem?
• As a general rule, make it easy for the organisation to promote you.  Make it into a logical, sensible and beneficial decision for them.  Make it the right decision.

Change in the workplace is inevitable for a variety of often essential and unavoidable reasons. However, unless change is managed effectively – by both employer and employees – it can have a very negative impact – on both employer and employees.

Change is never easy.  The majority of us instinctively want things to remain the way they are.  Better the devil you know!

But there’s no avoiding it so you might as well learn not only how to cope with it but to thrive on it.

Some of the most common reasons for workplace change include:

• Technological developments
• Process or procedural improvements
• Market or economic developments
• Merger or acquisition
• Corporate restructuring
• Increasing consumer demand

What will be the impact?

The way people react to change is a lot like the way people react to bereavement; it’s natural – you’re experiencing a loss.  Just as you’ve got yourself settled into your new job, it’s as if someone has pulled the rug out from under your feet.  You can therefore expect to go through a range of different emotions – from shock and denial to guilt, bargaining, anger and, finally, acceptance.  The quicker you get yourself past the initial shock and onto the stage of accepting the change and moving on, the better.

I can boil down my key advice on coping with change at work to the following five tips:

• Recognise and accept that change is inevitable.  Your job is to rise to the challenge and to make the most of the opportunities it brings with it.  Be willing to change.
• Make sure you fully understand the reasons for the changes being made.  It’ll make them a whole lot easier to accept.
• Maintain a positive attitude despite the uncertainties you may be facing.  Keep giving 100 per cent to your work.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
• Link up with other positive people and stay away from the complainers.  Don’t let their negativity and resistance to change take you down with them.
• Accept that there are going to be some difficult times.  Learn to tolerate the discomfort.  Remember that it’s only temporary.  Everything changes; nothing stays the same!

Office gossip is closely related to office politics.  Those who engage in office politics clearly do so with the objective of gaining an advantage.  Gossips, on the other hand, may just be gossiping for the sake of it.  And it’s a very nasty habit.  You will, however, find that most gossips also have a political agenda and gossip is just one of an arsenal of tools they use to help them to manipulate the thoughts, feelings and opinions of others.  Manipulation is at the very heart (and a cold, cold heart it can be) of office politics.  And, as Philip K. Dick said, “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.”

It’s a dangerous game – and I’d recommend you avoid playing it at all in your new job.  Everyone knows a gossip but does anyone ever have a particularly high opinion of them?  Gossips often feel they’re a real hub of the workplace – at the centre of all the action – and it’s this kind of buzz that inspires and feeds their behaviour.  But what they neglect is that, no matter how riveting what they have to say might be, most people find gossiping pretty distasteful and, by extension, are likely to find the gossip themselves pretty distasteful too.  After all, just imagine what they might be saying behind your own back!

In your new job, you will want to pay attention to the grapevine – but avoid contributing to it.  Your new colleagues will be watching you closely during your first few days, weeks and months in your new job and you definitely don’t want to develop a reputation as a gossip monger.

At the end of the day, many workplaces are like playgrounds – watch out for the bullies and the tell-tales, don’t get involved in gangs – and certainly don’t let anyone take your lunch money!

Here are some top tips to help prevent you from becoming embroiled in office gossip:

• Limit your association with office gossips.  Simple as that.  Steer subtly clear of them if at all possible.
• If you’re confronted with gossip then use your initiative to simply change the subject.  Stop gossip dead in its tracks by talking about something else.
• If you’re in a group and they start gossiping then find a good excuse to get up and leave.  Don’t participate.
• Let gossip die when it reaches you.  Don’t even think about passing it on, however great the temptation.  Passing it on just throws fuel on the flames.
• Never gossip yourself.  Lead by example.  When you choose not to gossip, you send a clear message that it’s something you’re not prepared to tolerate.

One can learn to be more assertive, although this does come more naturally to some people than to others.  There are of course training courses and workshops available at many colleges and education centres that are designed to help you to practise assertiveness but here are my own top 10 key tips in this respect:

• Don’t be unreasonably afraid of displeasing others; if you’re not being aggressive then this shouldn’t be an issue.
• Don’t feel that you should have to be liked by everyone; being assertive shouldn’t mean that you are disliked but the fear of being dislike can inhibit your ability to assert yourself.
• Don’t let your tone of voice rise at the end of a statement so as to make it sound like a question, communicating to the listener that you have doubts about what you’re saying.
• Don’t allow yourself to express unnecessary doubts about what you’re saying (e.g. “I may be wrong, but…”)
• Don’t apologise unnecessarily (e.g. “I’m sorry but I disagree”).  You should only be apologising if you’re at fault.  There’s no shame in disagreeing.
• Don’t let yourself feel under attack if somebody else disagrees with you.  In the workplace, it’s rarely personal.  It’s just business.
• Don’t be afraid of saying “No” when necessary and appropriate.  It’s one of the most powerful words in the English language!
• Don’t let people cut you off in the middle of what you’re saying.  Ask them politely to hear you out.
• Do stand up straight and maintain eye contact when talking to someone – and gently resting your hand on their arm can also be useful in getting them to take notice of you.
• Don’t be discouraged if you feel you handled an exchange less assertively than you should have done; recognise your failing and resolve to do better next time round.

Compelling workers to work from their employer’s premises is now a much less prevalent employer philosophy and, in your job, you may find yourself faced, possibly for the very first time, by the prospect of remote working.

I personally spend a considerable amount of time working from home.  I find I’m much more productive than in an office when it seems like every minute of every day somebody wants to interrupt me!

Here are my personal 10 top tips for working from home:

• Establish a routine.  Don’t let chaos reign.  Try to work set hours with set breaks and don’t give in to interruptions.
• Don’t allow the boundaries between your working life and your private life to become blurred.  Keep the two as separate as you can.
• Brush your teeth, have a shower, get dressed, etc. in the morning before you start work, just as if you were going to a ‘real’ office.  Get in the right frame of mind for work.
• Try to work in a completely separate room – preferably one where you can close the door (a) to keep disturbances out and (b) to keep the work in and out of sight!
• Avoid having a TV in the room where you work – and certainly avoid having the TV on whilst you work!
• You may find work more enjoyable with music in the background but make sure you turn it off whenever you are on the telephone.
• Recognise that you will be responsible for motivating yourself and maintaining self-discipline.  Make a continual conscious effort in this respect.
• Be aware that you might well suffer from feelings of loneliness and isolation.  If this is the case then take positive steps to counteract this, such as seeing friends for lunch.
• Make sure your friends and family (and maybe you too!) understand and appreciate that working from home means that you will actually be working.  It’s not a sort of semi day off!
• Don’t allow others to make you feel as if working from home doesn’t constitute real work.  Home workers often work pretty hard – and are generally highly productive.