On the job
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OK, fess up: You’re visiting a social media Web site — this blog — from the office, and it isn’t because your employer asked you to.
And come clean: You’re also reading a bunch of other blogs, checking out new and interesting photos on
Flickr, popping into
Second Life, leaving comments on your friends’
MySpace pages, updating your profile in
Facebook, watching videos on
YouTube and sending IMs to friends and family – all from within the confines of the workplace.
And according to a recent survey by Clearswift, you’re very much part of the majority. A whopping 87 percent of those surveyed said they access Web 2.0 sites from work each week, with 51 percent spending at least an hour a week on these sites.
You’re also sending personal emails, making and taking personal phone calls and buying personal merchandise online in the workplace.
But don’t worry: I’m not here to condemn you. In fact, if you’re like many of my friends and colleagues and working in the information economy, I know that you’re living a blended life, where your work day doesn’t simply begin when you walk into the office and end when you leave it. No, your working world bleeds into your home life as well, meaning that you’re also writing work reports on a Saturday morning or catching up on work emails on a Sunday night from the computer in your home office or living room.
In fact, the whole question of when you’re actually on work time or personal time can be a bit of a mess, can’t it? And if I know this, then your employer surely does as well.
However, it’s still a good idea to know your company’s policy on acceptable Internet use. You could very well be among the 50 percent in the Clearswift survey who believe they “should be entitled to access Web 2.0 Internet content from their work computer for personal reasons,” but you might want to make sure your employer shares that opinion.
Originally from The Monster Blog
by Bryan
on Apr 6, 2007, 4:19AM
Written by Jeff Bosco with no comments.
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Alexander Kjerulf always has some interesting perspectives to share over on his blog, The Chief Happiness Officer. Recently he made a case for why he thinks happiness is the ultimate productivity booster. Read his post for the expanded version, but in a nutshell…
- Happy people work better with others
- Happy people are more creative
- Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them
- Happy people have more energy
- Happy people are more optimistic
- Happy people are way more motivated
- Happy people get sick less often
- Happy people learn faster
- Happy people worry less about making mistakes - and consequently make fewer mistakes
- Happy people make better decisions
On the whole, I have to agree with him. In my work helping people find passion in their careers, I get to see the difference in people’s lives before and after finding a path that lights them up. I get to see what a difference it makes when people are happy with the way they spend their days. I’ve also experienced it in my own journey. And the difference is amazing.
Alexander talks about happiness being more of a productivity booster than the traditional approaches of time management, etc. Another way to look at it is that happiness is the source of energy and fuel, and the traditional productivity approaches focus that energy, making sure that more of it is translated into forward motion.
–
Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)
Time for a career change? Launch it with…
The Occupational Adventure Guide: A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams
Written by Jeff Bosco with no comments.
Read more articles on On the job and Strategies.
The Employment Blawg has a great post about employing older workers.
I personally enjoy employing older workers. I am relatively young in comparison to the rest of the workforce. All of the executives I have recruited are older than me so I guess the difference between a guy who is 38 and 58 is pretty slim from my point of view.
Still, it definitely seems like there is still a lot of bias against old people, especially in younger or more tech savvy companies. As George mentions in his blog, it is a hush-hush thing among HR folks but it is a widely acknowledged problem.
On that same note, I had a comment in my book review about Microsoft’s hiring process from an older person who just doesn’t get the idea of those types of interview questions. I wonder what the demographics of fast moving, entrepreneurial, or tech savvy companies look like.
There is some good advice for older workers looking for resume success in this Forbes article. It is written by the founder of Jobs 4.0, a job board that specifically targets job seekers over 40. Which isn’t the reason it is good, it is just interesting.
Originally from YourHRGuy.com
by Your HR Guy
on Mar 13, 2007, 10:58AM
Written by Jeff Bosco with no comments.
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“The future belongs to the
uninhibited.”
So says a recent article in New York magazine about the relative ease — and often carefree nature — with which today’s 30-and-under crowd publishes personal information online.
Posting drunken photos from that spring break trip to Cancun? Writing a blog post or MySpace comment that blasts a colleague or supervisor? Neither takes much more than a couple of clicks or keystrokes to do. Yes, thanks to Web 2.0 personal online publishing tools — blogs, wikis and social-networking sites — we can share our thoughts and experiences with the world in an instant.
But thanks to the caching power of search engines, what we publish today will remain online tomorrow, next month, next year and five years from now. And savvy employers are very likely to take a look at your personal online record before they hire you.
Christopher Penn certainly does. He’s a hiring manager and chief technology officer at the Student Loan Network and says that Googling job candidates’ names before bringing them in for a face-to-face interview is a no-brainer. “We also search their email address on MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook,” Penn says.
Blogging about your passions, interests and hobbies could be an asset to your candidacy, Penn says — provided your musings don’t include blatant hate speech or references/photos featuring you participating in illegal activities.
The bottom line? Responsibly managing your online identity means understanding that whatever you publish about yourself today could one day be reviewed and used in a decision about whether to hire you. Viewed through that lens, just how uninhibited are you prepared to be?
Originally
from The Monster Blog
by Bryan
on Mar 30, 2007, 3:28AM
Written by Jeff Bosco with 1 comment.
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Satisfied workers seem to be a dying breed these days. According to a report by the Conference Board mentioned in a recent Career Hub post, more than half of Americans are dissatisfied with their jobs. Why? The study’s respondents cited company’s policies, bonus plans and promotion policies as three of the main factors contributing to their dissatisfaction. Let’s talk about promotion policies for a moment.
Generally speaking, most employees aren’t considered for promotions until they have either been with their employer for a set amount of time, or have achieved or exceeded a set of goals set forth by their manager, or both. If you are looking to be promoted on a regular basis, you have to do your part in becoming a “promotable” worker.
A recent blog post by CEO Consultant.com offers some great advice about how your behavior at work can influence your promotion status. Some of their tips include mastering your current job skills, sticking to timelines and being a good listener. Here are a few more to think about:
- Seek out projects that are above your skills level to show your ambition to do more.
- Ask your manager about continuing education or training classes that might help you get to the next level.
- Take your manager’s lead. If you want to be considered as someone who is ready to go to the next level, you have to act the part. That means taking behavioral cues from your own manager so that he or she begin looking at you as more than a subordinate.
You’ll be amazed how powerful simply sticking to the basics such as getting to work on time, dressing professionally and doing your job well is in making you a “promotable” worker in your employer’s eyes.
Originally
from Spherion Career Blog - The Big Time
by Angela Swarts
Written by Jeff Bosco with no comments.
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