Do you feel the pressure at work to become the next in line for that promotion? Well good news, it is ok to stay put and be happy with what you got. I have always been impressed with people working at the same job for years and years. Every business needs these drones that just keep doing what they are good at. But there is a catch here; I am not going to let you off this easy. I have been ambitious all my adult life, I lacked ambitions at young age, with no clear goals in life and tired of school, but still straight out of high school I decided to start my own business… But in the last five years I have had three promotions and one step to the side. I do not want more promotions and I am very happy with my current job. This does not equal me not being ambitious, I still have ambitions but it is to increase knowledge about my trade.

Stay put, where you are

I said that I am not going to let you off the hook here. What I look for in great employees is the ability to become better at what you do and the skill to improve at your job. I want you to look for ways to improve your knowledge and to look for more efficient ways to do your job. I want you to become just a little bit better each year. Just doing the same job with no ideas on improving your job is a bit lazy. I just read about the 80/20 principle at Geoff Snyders blog. Try to become among the 20 % that really counts. This will make your job safe.

How to improve at what you do

• Read books that will improve your knowledge about products and services
• Take a class
• Learn from the best, ask to work togheter with them, almost like “undercover boss”
• Look for new ways to solve old problems (time, effort or money savers)
• Invent something? Look at farmers an industry with a bunch of new inventions each year
• Can you automate stuff?
• Ask to teach others, teaching others will give you new insight
• Look for ways to help others improve
• Have fun, and make your co-workers smile! (Very important)

“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetency”
Take a look at this great video from David Burkus

Want to read more?
If you like my blog, feel free to subscribe or follow me on twitter. Or you could read 12 easy steps to become a great employee. Thank you for reading!

I happened to come across a very interesting deck of cards a while back, and after finding myself drawn to this website over and over again, I decided to order one. And to my pleasant surprise they arrived within few days in my mailbox, (the real one attached to my fence outside). I knew I was really looking forward for these cards, not because a deck of cards is what I need, but because of the messages on this particular set. Self coaching tips, 52 of them, one for each week of the year.

Take a look at these awesome cards

Look at the 5 of diamonds, “Do I regularly connect with my staff? Do I know how they are doing outside of work? Did he win his match? How was her weekend? Do I know all the birthdays of my staff? Am I showing that I really care?” – One of my personal favorites are the queen of hearts; “Do new team members feel welcome and paid attention to? How can we plan their arrival better in the future?”

Color Overview

Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds not a deck of cards without them. This deck however is divided into four important areas of people management.

Clubs represent tips about growth of staff.

Spades covers appraisals and motivation.

Hearts is about knowledge, planning and organizing.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and as important as diamonds People management.

I really love this deck of cards. There is one drawback, they are paper quality so they might get ragged when used a lot. But if you use them as a leadership tool and pull out one card per week you are in for a treat. The good news, aces are well deserved breaks. When I brought these to work, they created some fun and smiles as well. Buy one for all of your leaders and performance will increase.

You can order this amazing deck of cards from http://selfcoachingcards.eu/ or you can order them from Amazon as well.

This is a guest post by Sean Conrad of Halogen Software.
There are a lot of articles around today arguing both sides of the employee performance appraisal debate. Do they provide value to the employer and the employee? Are they an outdated HR/management practice? Do they do more harm than good? What can we do to make them more effective? Should we abandon them all-together?

I think, as with most things, that the value and impact of employee performance appraisals depend on our reasons for conducting them, and the way in which we conduct them. While our corporate culture will certainly influence both of these, we also have a level of choice and responsibility – both as managers and employees. If we want to, we can use them as an effective coaching tool.

But let’s step back for a minute and look at why we even conduct employee performance appraisals.

Why do we do we conduct performance appraisals?

As with most management questions, there are lots of possible answers:

• To help guide employee performance
• To ensure that employees know what is expected of them
• To give employees feedback on their performance so they can continue to develop and improve
• To communicate the competencies or values that are important to the role and the organization
• To identify employees who are not performing as expected and help them improve their performance
• To identify training and development needs and put plans in place to address them
• Etc.

 Some others might add things like this to the list:

• To compare and rank employees
• To identify low performers and document their poor performance so they can be fired
• To guide compensation/pay increase decisions
• To identify high performers for rewards and/or promotions

At their root, employee performance appraisals are a coaching tool

When I look at the list of reasons why we conduct performance appraisals, it seems to me that these are all (or at least the items in the first list) fundamental goals of employee coaching. So how do we transform employee performance appraisals into an effective coaching tool that helps our employees be their best? 

• Engage employees in the performance appraisal process
• Foster an ongoing, two-way dialogue and relationship between them and their manager

Engage employees in the performance appraisal process

I think that employee performance appraisals often fail to help employees be their best because they’re conducted as “top-down” exercises. The manager gives the employee feedback and ratings, and assigns them goals and development plans. Where is the employee in all of this? What about asking them to provide feedback and ratings on their performance? What about asking them to identify areas where they need/want to develop? What do they think the chief goals of their role should be?

Part of helping someone to be their best is giving them the responsibility to be their best. If you’re the passive recipient of feedback, goals, ratings, development plans, it’s hard to feel engaged with them. By finding ways to let employees actively participate in the performance appraisal process, we increase their engagement with the process and with their performance. Why not have them complete a self-appraisal? Why couldn’t they put together a list of potential training courses/activities to help them develop? Why not ask the employee to draft their goals? And if your manager doesn’t explicitly ask you to, why not take the initiative and do these things yourself?

Foster an ongoing, two-way dialogue and relationship

If employee performance appraisals are a “top down” exercise, directed by the manager, they only represent the manager’s perspective. Yet much of our judgments are based on our perspective or perceptions; and these are often limited or even wrong.

By encouraging a two-way dialogue and relationship between a manager and employee we get a truer perspective on employee performance. Because the employee is engaged and involved in the discussions, managers and employees can get a better, truer understanding of what is driving the employee’s performance and challenges.

And by making employee performance management an ongoing practice rather than a once a year event, we take the judgment out of them, and deal with any performance issues when they’re small and easy to fix. The dialogue should be about how the employee is performing and what can be done by all to improve that, rather than about giving ratings and/or criticism. Managers should be asking employees how they can help support their performance. Employees should be telling managers what they need to succeed. And both should be allowed to be human beings who have strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad days.

This kind of open communication allows employees to seek help or coaching without fear of judgment or consequences. It also puts the manager more in the role of coach than judge. This ongoing dialogue and relationship is a great way to help an employee to be their best.

Conclusion

The value and outcome of your employee performance appraisals depend largely on your reasons for conducting them, and the way in which you conduct them. Are you making the most of this potentially valuable process and using it as one of your main tools for employee coaching?

Sean Conrad is a senior product analyst at Halogen Software, one of the leading providers of performance appraisal software solutions. For more of his insights on performance management, read his posts on the Halogen blog.

Take a look at other guest posts here at Never Mind the Manager. If you want to write for my blog, please do contact me! And yes, do subscribe to my blog as well.

No, I don’t hate my job, but you might hate your job. Do you know why? I am going to help you think differently about your job. There is no need to hate work; there is always a solution to job dissatisfaction and you might hold the key yourself. I am going to ask you some questions, you will provide the answers. So do you want to do something about it?

Question #1: What is your career goal?
Don’t know? You know what you don’t want to do? In my experience job dissatisfaction is often caused by lack of career goal and direction. You might be like a boat at sea with no people aboard to navigate. No direction equals no purpose, no purpose equals no meaning, no meaning equals boredom.

Question #2: What do you love about your job?
Hate is often the result of continuous negativity. Can you list 10 things you love about your job?

Question #3: Can you get a better job elsewhere?
The reason I ask is; why have you yet not moved there? Are you not qualified? Will you get a good enough recommendation from your current boss? A lot of unsatisfied employees slows down productions, displays bad work ethics and might end up close to being fired if they don’t quit first. Have you ever thought that you might need to do something yourself to improve your result, references and your qualifications?

Question #4: Who is suffering from your hate?
Hate is an internal feeling and the only one suffering from hate is you. If you hate your boss, he might still get results, if your motivation is so low that it hurts productivity you are that will end up without a job. Hate is a feeling that will get you nowhere.

Question #5: How can you change?
Did you know that some people love having a bad boss? Do you know why? It is a learning opportunity; you can learn what not to do if you ever become management material. You can learn what not to do if you ever open your own business. You might not be able to change your job, but can you change?

Question #6: What can you change?
Is there anything you can do to thrive at work, with non work related tasks? Do you care about your co-workers? Can you serve coffee? Water some plants? Clean? Decorate? Talk with people? Teach other how to do their job correctly? Is there anything around that you can grab responsibility for? Is there an area your boss is missing? Can you take charge in those areas? Anything you can do to make your day more interesting.

Question #7: Where is your passion?
You probably lost your passion for your job? What got you there in the first place? What things could keep you up all night because it is fun and interesting? Can you make a living of it? Is there any jobs related to your passion? Can you bring some of your passion to work? If you like to take pictures, you could do so at work, make an office picture art expo. Do you like to create websites? Could your services be of use for your company?

Question #8: When are you going to quit?
If you hate your job, and you see no way out of it, then quit! What are you dependent of your income? Read question #3, if yes, quit. If no, find what your job is doing for you. List ten things you can do because of your job and your income, if you can’t list ten things you probably not in need of your pay?

Question #9: Who is in charge of your life?
Are you making your own decisions? Is anybody forcing you to stay at your job? There is a lot of responsibility resting on your shoulders. You are a part of a team; it is your job to make the other happy. If you can teach this philosophy to everyone around you, they all will try to make you happy; just don’t be a grump about it.

Question #10: Do you think you need to be negative?
Negative or positive, it is actually a choice. Do you choose to be positive? Take 5 minutes before your job. Read the ten things you love about your job, read the ten things your paycheck is giving in return to you. Chose your attitude to be positive and see if the days turn out a little better.

As you see, being unsatisfied at work might be something you can change. You have the power to turn your current job into your dream job.

So what are you going to do about it?
You could become a great employee? Or you could find your dream job?  Either way I hope you dig my blog and want to subscribe to it. I would also recommend this post to add some value to your job. Thank you so much for reading! You rock!