The dreaded Nine to Five. The never-ending rat race. The feeling that you’re living the same day over and over again. You’re rinsing and repeating without an end in sight. Weekends are what keep you going. And usually you spend them watching Netflix as a form of catharsis.

Sounds like you? You’re not alone. More than half of Aussies are unhappy with their jobs as are the majority of Americans, which is at an all-time high. Many of us often feel that the only option is counting down to retirement and making the best of the time in between. That’s no way to live. This how-to will show you that changing career when you are stuck in a job is entirely possible, no matter how far along you are.

Assess Your Wants and Needs

Life is about compromises. When you were younger you may have dreamt of working on a boat in the middle of the ocean, without a worry in the world. Unfortunately, responsibilities often get in the way of such carefree pursuits.

Job satisfaction isn’t just about your job. It’s also about how your career fits into your life. Think about what the practical requirements are alongside your ‘wish list’ for your new career. Realistically assess the salary that you’re going to need to cover your basic needs. Think about whether you’re really willing to move to the other side of the country to get that job you’ve always wanted.

Don’t Run Away

Once you realize that you can’t stand another minute of your job, it’s tempting to send in that resignation letter. Granted, the triumphant moment when you hit ‘Send’ is almost worth it. But then the panic seeps in.

“What about rent? I don’t have a plan. What will my partner say?”

Not such a good idea after all. That’s why you should never run from a job, even if you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. Don’t quit your job for your passion on a whim. The reality is that you have bills to pay and it’s always easier to find that ideal job when you have one in the first place and you’re not desperate for a paycheck. Instead, look for those opportunities and once you’ve landed that gig you’ve always dreamed of, resign and celebrate. The key is to be patient.

Invest in Your Education

You don’t have to give up on your career dreams just because you didn’t go through the tradition educational route. If you didn’t go to college or are now a little bit older than the usual entry-level crowd, don’t despair. There are options out there. Investing in your education can lead to a wide range of opportunities.

Our advice is to opt for an accredited course that forms part of a clear path to your chosen career. Free MOOCs are great for exploring your options, but won’t give you the certification you need. Similarly, a general Arts BA is great for some, but you may require further study to get a proper shot at your dream job.

We recommend opting for a degree or diploma that’s geared for a particular vocation. Know the industry or job that you want to go for and see what educational background you need to send in a competitive application. Want to be a building historian? Cambridge University runs a Masters course that includes work experience. Is working with and educating children your long-term dream? Open Colleges offers a diploma that will prepare you for that job and also provides placement opportunities.

Words Don’t Count

“Yeah, this is just a part-time gig. I’m looking for something better.”

“I really want to work in the charity sector, I’m just waiting for the right opportunity.”

People, as most of us know, are often all talk. If you don’t want to spend the next couple of decades convincing yourself that you’re about to quit your job for your dream career, but instead do nothing about it whatsoever, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is.

Treat your search for a new career path as a job in itself. Ask yourself what you need to do to achieve your goal and write it down. Follow the tasks as a to-do list and methodically work through them.

Stop daydreaming and act.

The 7 Things That Set High Performing Organisations Apart.

The 7 Things That Set High Performing Organisations Apart

The influential research firm Insync recently put out the results of a survey into what makes high performing organisations, well, high performing. 

It is a highly valid survey of more than 100,000 employees in over 200 organisations conducted over 5 years.

Anne Barclay of HR Advantage will be talking us through the survey results and the learnings for your business.

The key outcome that Anne and her colleagues noticed when they looked at the results was how consistent the survey results are with other highly respected research.

Other such research includes that conducted by Jim Collins (Good to Great and Built to Last) and work done by people like Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People).

The survey results were also highly consistent with the consulting experience of Anne’s team when working with successful (and not so successful) firms.

High Performing Organisations

Drawing on these powerful new survey findings, Anne will share:

1. Practical insights into the important things that set high performing organisations apart.
2. The seven things that make them high performers.
3. Five simple steps to take action on this powerful information.

Sorry – Closed

Sorry, this offer has expired.

Check out the free Human Resources Management resources available now here.

Setbacks happen for a lot of different reasons, and they can take their toll on us if we allow them to.  Sometimes failures jump on us from behind and take us by surprise. We may think that we did everything we can, from preparations to the actual procedure, but we still lost that client or project.

In my town, Brisbane, these scenarios are nothing new. They can happen in schools, workplaces, or anywhere where teams put in all their best efforts for a presentation that cannot be any less than perfect. They spend countless hours over something that became a failure in the end.

Encouraging your employees after a setback can be very difficult.  As experts say, helping a team of people is tougher that helping a single person to cope.  It requires understanding, patience, and the ability to think past the exact emotions you actually feel.  You also will have to understand that when the team handled that project.  Each one of the employees had different levels of perspectives, motivation drivers, and expectations. Even when it comes to the efforts that they have invested in that project, you cannot expect that all of them has put in the exact level of effort as the other.

You may feel bad about it, considering how much that failure had cost the company, but employees may feel a lot much worse.  At stake with that project were their jobs and their future.  After that failure, they could lose everything they were holding on to at the moment.  And as their team leader, your job is not limited to handing out and assigning tasks, and keeping track of their performances.  It is also your job to embrace a failure, assess it, and motivate your employees to help them bounce back from it.  Here’s how you can do it.

Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash

Give them time to wallow

Just as when someone goes through a difficult ordeal in life, we cannot just tell the person to move on from it without acknowledging the hurt and negative he or she must have felt at the time. Allow them to analyze the situation in their own for some time. It makes them think critically without your prompting and inputs.

Talk about it

A failure cannot just happen without being dissected and discussed. Since they are meant to be there to help teams learn and grow, it is best to gather your team with you and talk to them about it. Much better, be direct with your words and avoid sugar coating them.  Avoid saying the phrases, “looking at the bright side…”, “we’re lucky this and not that happened…”, or “we made a mistake…” They may sound consoling but they are not a direct hit at where the problem really was. Identify at which point the project failed or where you and your team missed so that you can avoid doing the same mistake the next time.  You need to let them know to make them see and understand.

No blame games

In your meeting with the team, emphasize on where the problem is to blame and not on who to blame.  Make it clear to them what the problem was, but avoid singling one person out and humiliating him or her.  After this, then you may speak with that person or group of people in the privacy of your office.  Additionally, keep things in a neutral tone. Make him or them know the gravity of their mistakes but do not attack their character. Again, make them understand the importance why you need to discuss this with them – to lay out the consequences of a mistake to the whole group and project, that it should not happen again, and how these things can be avoided. You can ask the employee or employees why the mistake happened and their inputs on how these can be avoided as well.

Although feeling down and unmotivated after a failure is a natural reaction, it should not be that way for long. As a leader, the team will need you to be strong enough to handle such negative circumstances, and they need your guidance to learn and move on from it. Remember that your reaction and feelings are way more contagious to the whole team rather than a fellow team members. The process of learning and moving on has to start with you, the leader.

About The Author

Gemma Reeves is a seasoned writer who enjoys creating helpful articles and interesting stories. She has worked with several clients across different industries such as advertising, online marketing, technology, healthcare, family matters, and more. She is also an aspiring entrepreneur who is engaged in assisting other aspiring entrepreneurs in finding the best office space for their business.

Check out her company here: FindMyWorkspace

From changing an office’s layout according to cutting edge architectural principles to ensuring that all staff members get to know each other in team-building sessions, modern companies have shown a willingness to explore the many ways in which company culture can be improved.

It has been proven time and time again that a higher level of employee satisfaction leads to an increase in productivity, not to mention a more pleasant atmosphere in the workplace as well.

In order to achieve these higher levels of productivity however, a company has to put a significant effort into building a corporate culture that supports employees and their talents.

Companies can use different methods to motivate individuals and encourage them to reach their potential. Here are some alternative methods being used in modern workplaces.

Look after their physical and mental well-being

By and large, the contemporary work setting is defined by its lack of dynamism. Most people today sit and work on their computers for hours on end, progressively atrophying their bodies over time. Studies have shown, however, that even light exercise is instrumental for fostering engagement and creativity, which is why companies stand to gain a lot from installing the likes of standing desks and workout rooms. In addition, the mental part of the well-being equation can be addressed by introducing various games in the workplace that encourage creativity and problem-solving.

Consider providing quality meals

You are what you eat. The importance of a healthy diet is undeniable, which explains why so many people seek to improve their eating habits. In the workplace, smart companies have already taken to providing their employees with quality meals, either free or at a discount, in order to encourage proper nutrition at a company-wide level. What’s more, eating together is also a boon for team-building purposes as people bond with each other during their lunch hours.

Foster their entrepreneurial spirit

A company is only as successful as its employees allow it to be. And fewer things are more integral to success than possessing an authentic entrepreneurial spirit. This kind of attitude and approach should be welcomed at all levels of an enterprise. Show that you genuinely strive to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit of your employees by encouraging personal projects and seeking their opinion on matters related to the company’s activity.

Encourage them to take time off

Finally, maintaining a high level of productivity has everything to do with knowing when to step back in order to replenish energy. With the ultimate goal of empowering their employees in mind, some companies have started offering them unlimited vacation days, considering that people should judge their own needs for rest and relaxation. However, this approach has also led to the promotion of unhealthy workaholism, as some employees ended up taking less time off than before. Since such attitudes are actually counter-productive over the long run, take steps to teach your employees about the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

As you can see, there are certain things that any company can do in order to support its staff. Ideally, they could all be implemented. However, in the real world, where companies are limited with time and budgetary constraints, it is rare that a company is able to follow each and every of the steps mentioned above. To show your will and commitment to your staff, enacting just one or two can still go a long way towards improving the overall well-being of your employees.

Hosted by Industrial Relations specialist Cameron Blewett, the podcast is going from strength to strength as it covers a range of employment issues.

The show is relaxed and informal whilst covering a range of industrial relations challenges such as: 

• Practical application of employment law
• Sick leave issues
• Enterprise agreements
• Union behaviour (and misbehaviour)
• Organisational change
• Employee engagement
• Policy drafting and implementation
• Workplace investigations
• Unfair dismissal
• Organisational development
• Performance management challenges

You can access the podcast here.

You may want to subscribe and then listen to the episodes during your commute – a great way to keep up to date whilst making the best use of travel time.

Enjoy the podcast.

However, sometimes things go a little astray.

For those occasions, we thought you might appreciate this well-presented explanation from Get Voip of the main types of particularly difficult employees.

The Different Types of Difficult Employees [Infographic]

Here’s some of what you’ll discover:

A 2013 study found that in 42% of surveyed companies, low performing employees reported higher levels of engagement than their high-performning peers. They were also more likely to report their company as a “great place to work.

Difficult employees indeed . . .

For excellent free HR advice and resources, visit the HRwisom home page.

Once upon a time, business owners and managers ran their operations with a trusty pen and clipboard.

As time passed, the growing popularity of Microsoft Excel saw those same business owners and managers setting up rows and rows of data inside very plain-looking spreadsheets.

At the corporate end of town, large employers continue to rely on mega-systems such as SAP or Oracle to manage staffing levels, employee onboarding and offboarding and everything in between.

The rise of tech-based businesses and SaaS (Software as a Service) companies has led to an explosion in the range of options for businesses.

One simple and very helpful SaaS that we like at HRwisdom is the People HR system.

We like People HR for 5 main reasons:

1. It is designed with real human beings in mind (if you’ve ever used SAP or Oracle, you’ll know what we’re talking about). The system is easy to use and is attractive to look at – whoa, did we just say that about an HR information system?
2. Reporting is very easy to do. There are various template reports already set up and ready to be published, emailed or downloaded. You can also easily create your own specific reports based on what you need. Need a monthly report for Headcount By Department and Start Date? Just click those options and it’s done. Even better is the fact that you can pre-schedule the reports to run so all you need to open your email account at the start of the month and click on the report.
3. It’s all securely online. Out of the office but need to check some details, add a new employee or approve someone’s leave request? Just log in wherever you are in the world and it’s done.
4. It connects with other excellent software services like Small Improvements (a replacement for the dreaded annual performance review) and applicant tracking and payroll services.
5. The ‘Ripple’ workflow lets you automate any repetitive manual process, by building your own custom Workflows. Workflows are easy to build, and can perform hundreds of actions using any employee data set..

A report recently shared by Forbes Magazine revealed that companies are wasting about 17 hours per week creating HR reports. That’s more than two full working days.

If you would like an easier way to manage your HR workload, we recommend you take a look at People HR here.

It’s our recommended online HR software for small-medium employers.

Click to download

At HRwisdom we’ve covered a lot of ground when it comes to getting the best out of your people.

We’ve examined world-leading employee engagement practices through to the best (and worst) ways to terminate employment.

We’re fairly comfortable when it comes to exploring new approaches to HR best practice.

So we thought . . .

Below is a wonderful, short video on a completely bizarre and slightly extravagant employee selection process.

We don’t want to give a way too much so, click play and roll camera . . .

The Most Bizarre Interview Process Ever?

How does your company’s selection process?

HRwisdom

The Ultimate Guide To HR Analytics

We’re delighted to recommend to you the Ultimate Guide To HR Analytics.

Good news: it’s free.

The Ultimate Guide To HR Analytics is a well thought-out and well presented resource for any HR professional.

To access the free Guide, Click Here.

The guide is packed full of practical examples, quotes, and useful tools to use in your quest to get the best out of your workforce.

You’ll find helpful ideas and advice on topics such as:

• The Evolution Of HR Analytics
• The Hiring Process
• The Onboarding Process
• Employee Growth
• Using Data To Improve Leadership
• ROI of Employee Engagement
• Maintaining A Data Driven Culture

Who Is The Ultimate Guide To HR Analytics For?

According to the author at the excellent OfficeVibe, the guide is for HR managers, and anyone responsible for handling employee engagement, retention, hiring, training, and is involved at any point in the employee life cycle. If you’ve heard of the term “big data” but aren’t quite sure what it is, or how it could apply to the HR department, the guide is for you. If you’ve ever wondered how successful companies like Google run their hiring and training processes, and want to learn from them, this guide is for you.

How To Use The Ultimate Guide To HR Analytics?

The Guide is recommended as a go-to manual for hiring, onboarding, retention, leadership training, and learning how to measure and optimize these processes. The goal is to become data-driven, and be familiar with the process of measuring and testing different assumptions to be able to answer important questions about the employee life cycle.

To access the free Ultimate Guide To HR Analytics, Click Here.

Feel free to share this with your colleagues.

Do Employee Surveys Work?

If your business isn’t performing as well as it could be – or even if it is, an employee engagement survey can be worth its weight in gold. More and more multinational companies and SMEs are investing in employee surveys to get a greater insight into the attitudes of their staff and identify areas which could be improved, so if you’re looking to investigate your company’s performance, it makes sense to put an employee engagement survey together. If you’re not sure how to get the most useful results, it may be wise to get help from an outside specialist company. In any case, an engagement survey can be instrumental in turning company fortunes around.

Investigating Workplace Attitudes

It’s a commonly known fact that staff tend to be happier and perform better when they feel that their opinions count. It’s also widely agreed that companies should act quickly when they are performing poorly rather than hoping for the best and risking things deteriorating even further. Staff can also start to feel despondent and become less productive when they feel that they are being no opportunity to use valuable skills or progress within the company. An employee survey can shed a great deal of light on how your staff really feel.

The Insight You Need

You should ask your staff to be as honest as possible when responding to an employee feedback survey – without actually being offensive, of course. Constructive criticism can be indispensable when it comes to investigating flagging fortunes, so staff certainly shouldn’t feel that they need to hold back. Once the results are in, it’s important to actually do something with them. You could analyse the results yourself and come to your own conclusions or again ask a specialist external team to help you to make sense of them. Staff meetings are usually held in the aftermath of a survey in order for big decisions to be made and changes to take place. You may even be able to identify unforeseen areas of growth whilst finding out what certain team members are actually capable of, unearthing valuable skills that they haven’t utilised whilst working for you before.

A Better Compromise

It can be useful to strike a balance between business and company needs. If all parties are satisfied with the results of any changes made, businesses can thrive and staff can find themselves actively looking forward to attending work. 2-way communication is vital if businesses are to succeed, and staff must feel able to air any concerns that they may have without feeling too intimidated to do so. It’s natural for people to wish to stretch themselves, and staff can start to feel sluggish and uninspired if they feel that they aren’t being challenged or rewarded for their efforts. If you’re hoping to build a more positive, productive and passionate workplace, a staff survey can be the first step towards this becoming a reality. Employee feedback really can be worth its weight in gold.

Employee Feedback Survey can be conducted by an in-house team member or manager which can often prove to be a cheaper alternative. But if the funds are available it is always best to invest in getting an outside agency to conduct them survey as they have years of experience in the field. They know how to get the most out of the available data and can make sure all answer are not effect by any outside influences. Companies like Employee Feedback have years of experience of expertise and know how to get the most out of employee engagement surveys.