Category: Corporate Games

Yesterday’s post
on workplace pet peeves
got me thinking
about what mine were.

The top one has to be…

That we spend most of our lives
(8 hours a day, 5 days a week)
at work
yet we often don’t expend
any effort or dollars
to create our ideal work environment.
We expect the company
to do it for us.

Today,
my replacement at the business gig starts.
The nice (and normal) thing
is for her to be taken out for lunch
with her new team.
My boss has no budget for a lunch.
It was assumed
that would be the end of it.

Nope.

You see,
this woman is taking over my responsibilities.
If she’s not happy,
she’ll leave.
If she leaves,
I’ll end up working there forever.
I don’t want that to happen.
I have novels I want to write.

So I’m organizing a lunch.
Because I’m organizing it,
no one is assuming I’m paying
their way.
I WILL pay for the new employee
and for my own lunch
but that is a small price to pay
to make her feel welcome.

You spend most of your waking hours
at work.
Make it the happiest place
it can possibly be.

Randstad’s annual Work Watch Survey
shows that
others’ poor time management skills
is the number one
(at a whopping 43%)
workplace pet peeve.

What is the definition of
others’ poor time management skills?
22% of people replying
define poor management skills
as coworkers taking excessive breaks.

In other words,
when you’re MIA
and someone else has to cover your ass.

In the past,
I worked with a lady
who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.
I wouldn’t have cared
except that during every smoke break,
I had to deal
with her internal customers.
I ended up working late some nights
because of her frequent smoke breaks
and yes, it irritated the hell out of me.

If you’re going to slack off,
you may wish to minimize
its effect on others.

I’ve talked about bridge positions
from a contractor point of view
(how to add value in them),
and
from a manager’s point of view
(how to hire for them).

As I get ready to transfer
my current position
to the new employee,
I thought I’d talk about
how to do this effectively.

Day 1 for the new hire,
she IS the new contact person.
She sits in the former employee’s seat.
She has his phone number.
All emails are sent from her email addie.
She answers all questions.
She is now responsible for the position.

The bridge position contractor
is now a consultant.
Don’t worry about hurting
the contractor’s feelings.
This is what she signed on for.

All the focus should now be
on getting the new hire up to speed,
incorporating her as quickly as possible
into the team.

You don’t need a budget
for team building activities.
You don’t even need time.

On Monday,
my suit and heels (all female) group
is coming in
wearing baseball caps and running shoes.

Just our group.
Just on Monday.

The idea came from a co-worker.
Everyone is excited about it.
Because we’re ‘rebelling’
as a group,
we’re bonding tighter over it.

Team building doesn’t have to cost a cent.
Don’t use that as an excuse.

Being a contract person,
I’ve been trained
in many, many different companies.

Most managers advise their staff
to train people
by having the new person sit beside them
and watch them as they work.

Very little is learned this way.
Watching someone work
is as boring as hell and
the trainee’s mind tends to drift.
The expert normally also works
too quickly for the trainee to process
(especially if she is taking notes).

A slower yet more effective method
is for new person to be
the one at the keyboard.
The person training
is sitting beside him/her.
While this slower pace
may drive the trainer batty,
more information is transferred.

And isn’t that the goal
of training?

An acquisitions editor
for a major romance publisher
told me
that she always sends revision letters
before she sends contracts.

Why?

Because editing is a big part
of a writer’s job.
She wants to ensure
the author is open to editing
and can follow directions
before doing business
with her.

This ‘testing’ is,
as it should be,
done during the ‘interview process.’

Look at the key skills
you require in a employee.
Can you test for them
BEFORE you hire?

I thought I posted on this already
but a quick search of the blog
says I haven’t.

The candidate offered
the position I’ve bridging
has received a counteroffer
from her current employer.
She’s considering it.

Dumbness.

No one ever leaves a job
simply for more money.
The employer knows that.
They also know that
you are no longer loyal
to the company.

So the counteroffer
is designed to buy the company time
while they look for your replacement.
Once they secure that replacement,
your name will be on the short list
when layoffs are required.

You can forget about a promotion.
Employees about to leave
aren’t promoted.
Intelligent co-workers competing
for that promotion
will stress their own loyalty
and not let your manager forget your defection.

There are exceptions, of course,
but usually accepting a counteroffer
is a bad, bad idea.

My current publisher
(under another pen name)
has given me a lot of control
with covers.
I work closely with the cover artist.

With the first cover,
I explained about my characters
and my important scenes
and gave him total creative freedom.

He gave me a gorgeous cover
with an almost naked woman on it.
The thing is…
my target market is heterosexual women.
We aren’t interested in naked women.

With the next cover,
I outlined my ideal cover exactly.
The cover had a couple
on the bow of a ship,
the waves crashing around them.

The artist tried.
He really did try.
The problem was…
ships weren’t his strong point.

With the third cover,
I searched his online album.
I found a similar scene
in his existing art.
I told him I wanted the same
except the hero had short hair,
he didn’t have wings,
the heroine was in a long white dress,
etc.

The third cover was beautiful,
the artist was happy,
and the book sales were great.

If you want a completely creative piece of art,
let the artist do his thing.
If you need a marketable piece of art,
reference off an artist’s existing art
and suggest tweaks.

My manager swapped one contractor
for another
a couple months into the contract.
She was surprised,
no,
shocked that the first contractor was upset.

Of course, she was upset.
She’d just gotten fired.
She was then expected
to train her replacement.

Lucky for my manager,
the contractor was a professional.
She swallowed her outrage,
trained her replacement,
and left the company in a better situation
than when she had started.

If she had not been a professional,
well,
it could have been a disaster.
This ‘fired’ employee had access
to all systems including customer files.

Unless the termination is prompted by the contractor
(i.e. she’s approached you,
advising that she’s no longer adding value
or not the right fit),
treat ending a contract relationship
as a firing.
Would you ask a fired employee
to work for two more weeks?
Would you let her have complete access?

A new hire
has done nothing but train
for the past week.
She’s frustrated
and anxious to start her ‘real’ job.

You see…
she’s a doer.
Doers do.
They don’t necessarily enjoy
watching other people do
while they sit on their hands.

I hate training.
It is necessary
to progress
(or even to remain relevant)
but I’d rather use the new skills
than learn them.

If you’ve hired a doer
(and why would you hire anyone else?),
alternate training with doing.
Not only will you immediately
get a payback on the hire
but your new employee
will be happier.