5 Signs Youre Annoying Your Employees Without Noticing

5 Signs Youre Annoying Your Employees Without Noticing The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure  theyre going to have some pretty annoying virtues. â€"Elizabeth Taylor Your swagger, peremptory mannerisms might surely sway your shareholders or business  allies, making them give in to your demands. However, if you’re thrusting it upon your  employees too often, it might soon sound the death knell of your relationship with them. Sure, you can talk yourself into thinking it’s going well under your leadership, a case of  mind over matter; but it only makes you a saboteur in the long run.Here are a few hints that’ll confirm that your relationship with your workers needs  cementing: 1) You’re getting away with what they can’t! If you are any bit successful, your employees would look up to you. Your whiling away  time, vacationing on impulse, late comings, early exits; but not an ounce of leniency  with your employees can be upsetting to them. It’ll just unveil the blatant power play at  work, getting your employees piqued faster than you know. The moment they feel they’re  being taken for granted, will mark the beginning of the end. Your top talent will begin  disappearing, and the sycophantic, self serving lot will start taking over.  Generally, people have a feel for whos genuine, a sense that goes beyond logic. Being fair in all measures can only promote a feeling of oneness. Besides studies have  shown that fair managers can augment the  bottom line. 2) You are the smarty pants, knowâ€"itâ€"all kinds! This isn’t possible, not humanly. Even in the corporate warfare , the ground realities are  best known to the foot soldiers. That’s the reason, people are divided into teams, handed  over different projects so they can specialize in solving problems for a specific set of  clients. That’s just the way it works. A one man army can work for extremely small  firms, but not for long. It is your prerogative instead to utilize the potential of your best  talent optimally. Ask them what they know, rather than showing off what you do. Sure,  there can be instances where you might know more. In such cases guide them properly,  but leave it open ended and up to them to take it ahead. A know-it-all behavior smacks  of both insecurity and snobbery. And both can be cataclysmic for your own growth as a  manager or employer, let alone your organization’s. 3) Having ridiculously high expectations from your poor  performers? You should be helping instead! Don’t crucify your poor performers. They have a right to live and learn too. If you’re  burdening them with more tasks just because their work isn’t up to the mark, to justify  their remuneration, remember two wrongs don’t make a right. These are the best  opportunities to hone your leadership skills, set a fine example, instill confidence in  others and help someone genuinely (if a bit of philanthropy is up your alley). Everybody  works for themselves. If you succeed in improving someone’s performance, it would be  good for them, but it’ll be in your best interest. Like, if you’re managing a food chain or a retail outlet, try keeping your poor performers  by your side or have them positioned at less demanding spots. You could use an employee scheduling software to schedule their duties beforehand, so you could plan the needful accordingly. 4) You’re getting envious and it shows! Managers aren’t immune to envy. They too can feel threatened by good performers. Some clear signs of hindering their growth can be: making it hard for the employees to access a specific piece of information (so your own incompetencies aren’t exposed) throwing your weight around not asking employees to show up in organizational events offering them little importance ignoring their advice, etc A jealous boss would do all things a tad extra that terrible bosses are  known for, unless the intimidating employee falls in line to be a follower. Remember, no amount of dominance can help you. In fact, the more stronger you oppose  someone in particular, more would be the collective sentiment against you. This can slay  your employees’ morales, needless to mention the widening gap between them and your  organization’s goals. 5) Are you being a problem creator instead of a problem-solver? Increasing red-tapism, getting them involved in needless reporting, killing their time is  the worst kind of harm. Don’t just count the problems, talk in terms of solutions. Not  helping is only tantamount to creating obstacles.  Similarly, don’t burden your best performers any further if they’re already tied up with  existing workload, rise to the occasion yourself. It’s not just for your employees to see  that goals are being met.  All the liability, be it the accolades, the disrepute or the embarrassing blunders must be  shared. If you can help them in getting something straightened out, do it proactively. Learn from the worst examples around you. See that of all the people, you don’t get in  the way. Walmart has been especially infamous for creating mayhem in employees lives.  Its employees have even shared some stories that’ll give a peak into their plight. Final thoughts: According to a survey by Gallup in 2010, job stress came out as the biggest pet  peeve of workers in America, but the truth is most of this stress is created. This can  result in a double whammy of mounting workload and behavioral clashes. Don’t expect your employees to be able to leap buildings and have super powers. A good leader must walk the talk and set the right precedents. Whatever you do, don’t let  these problems linger on for long. They’ll only turn into festering wounds. Author:  Bimal  Parmar  is VP of Marketing for  Celayix  a leading provider of  Employee  scheduling software. With over  20 years industry experience,  he’s responsible for making sure the world learns about the benefits of Celayix’s solutions.

How to Create a Personal Brand by Becoming a Thought Leader - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How to Create a Personal Brand by Becoming a Thought Leader - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Let me also start off by thanking Dan for the opportunity to participate in the Personal Branding Blog. I’ll be posting on Wednesdays and thought I might focus initially on one path I know very well and that path is how to create a personal brand by becoming a thought leader. People dont buy run of the mill anything anymore! I work in a professional services firm and in order for firms like ours to differentiate themselves they have to create perhaps hundreds of personal brands around individuals who understand niche topics extremely well. And since buyers have transparency through the use of search engines they can really get a handle on just how qualified any individual in an organization is to perform a given service for them. Elise Bauer once wrote in an article on thought leadership. A distinguishing characteristic of a Thought Leader is the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates. Think about it, if you or a loved one was going to have heart surgery in New York, dont you think you would Google Heart Surgeon New York and want the heart surgeon who is the most widely known in the field? Same applies in consulting because people just dont buy run of the mill consultants anymore. 5 Steps to becoming the Thought Leader? Start by defining a clear objective Most thought leaders become thought leaders because they have a desire to educate the folks that follow them. Pick your spot There are always just a few thought leaders in every industry and/or field of study so pick a spot that you can differentiate yourself with. Find your voice We cant all be Hemingway. Dont try to write like someone else, find your own voice and dont try to change your demeanor. Dont try too hard Thought leaders genuinely influence others by creating, advancing and sharing their ideas. Thought leadership is not what you say or write. It is a state of being. Use your content as your attraction vehicle. Lather Rinse Repeat you cant just write one blog post and call yourself a thought leader it comes with persistence, it comes with passion about a particular topic and it comes with dedication to continue to publish and publish often. The impact of a Thought Leaders can be felt in the way they catalyze others to do business. Take Michael Hammers 1990 work thought leadership on business reengieering it changed every industry now thats the effect of becoming a thought leader and created a lasting brand for Michael Hammer! Author: Paul Dunay is the Global Director of Integrated Marketing for BearingPoint a Management and Technology Consulting firm and author of the blog Buzz Marketing for Technology.

When Positive Discrimination Can Be Completely Legal

When Positive Discrimination Can Be Completely Legal Is this fake news? was the message I received through my Facebook page with a screenshot of an advertisement for a training opportunity at a BBC radio station. It clearly stated that the roles were only open to people from Black and Asian backgrounds. Surely this cant be legal? Im shocked that the BBC can openly discriminate against certain ethnicities, my friend continued in the message and shes probably not the only person who thinks that. I assured her that the advertisement wasnt fake and it was a genuine opportunity for people from Black and Asian backgrounds to apply for a role at the BBC. I knew this because the BBC has offered many schemes like this and have openly stated who the roles were specifically for. But what I didnt know was how the BBC was able to do this. We all know positive discrimination is illegal, yet here is one of the UKs biggest employers and a public service broadcaster which appeared to be doing just that. After some digging, I found out that the roles were being offered by the BBC through a company called Creative Access. Its also run by a White British woman called Josie Dobrin  so I asked her if what the BBC was doing was legal and how they were able to get away with it as it were. Josie explained that Creative Access is the only organisation in the UK dedicated to recruiting BAME talent in the creative industries. She said: The young people we support are a proven under-represented group within the creative industries. Figures from the 2011 British Census and Creative Skillset’s 2012 Employment Census showed that the UK was 14% non-white and London’s population was over 40% BAME. Yet BAME representation across the creative industries had fallen to just 5.4%. The absence of diversity in the creative sector is not only bad for our society but is also bad for business â€" how can the media reflect society, if society is not reflected in the media? How can Creative Access legally offer roles just to ethnic minorities? Creative Access is legally able to offer internships only to UK nationals with a visible ethnic minority because it can?show?that:  It is offering training opportunities (and not jobs)  and; That it is  targeting  a  group of the population which is proved to be  under-represented  in the sector. The?2011 British Census? showed?that over?40% of Londoners are non-white?and that people from BAME groups represent 13% of the UK population. The  Labour Force Survey, October-December 2015 (Office for National Statistics) showed that 10% of the UK workforce  and 35% of London’s workforce  are from BAME backgrounds. The?2015 Employment Census?  published by  Creative  Skillset showed that Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority representation across the creative industries  sits at just 7%  of the total workforce. What are the benefits of a  diverse workforce? A  report by McKinsey  in  January 2018 found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 33 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Moreover, a  2017 Government report  showed that the UK economy could benefit from a £24bn-a-year boost if those from BAME backgrounds  progressed in work at the same rate as their white counterparts. Creative Access doesnt just work with the BBC. It works with a number of companies across all the creative industries like book publishing, theatres, television, music, film and PR marketing. Josie says: To date we have placed over 800 interns and supported more than 14,000 young people with employability training including CV support and interview preparation skills. We will create new role models of high calibre young people who can rise into positions to recruit themselves, drawing on their own networks and progressively increasing the proportion of BAME employment overall. In the longer term this will have a game changing effect on the culture and diversity of the creative industries workforce.