S is for skills

Are you like a high proportion of my clients? Do you tend to underestimate yourself when it comes to assessing your skills?  

Do you really understand what a transferable skill is? Do you know how to present your transferable skills to potential employers? Can you demonstrate a good level in some or all of the 5 major areas: communication; research and planning; human relations; organisation, management and leadership; work survival?

One client, for example, worked in the scientific field: she wanted to make a complete change and was having a problem with the idea that her skills could be appropriate to other types of employer. Research and planning weren’t a problem – they were a key part of her existing job.

We had to dig a little deeper for more. With prompting from me, she revealed that, in order to make friends in the community she’d moved to, she’d recently organised a charity event. She hadn’t looked at it in this light before but she realised that with this she’d demonstrated: communication skills such as listening, persuading and negotiating; human relations skills such as motivating, co-operating and delegating; organisation, management and leadership skills such as co-ordinating tasks, managing groups and selling ideas and work survival skills such as attending to detail, meeting goals and enlisting help.

If you’re going to make a success of finding a career that you can really love, though, once you’ve established what your skills are, the key is to be sure you know which ones you actually enjoy using.

Just because you’re doing something you’re good at doesn’t mean you have a satisfying work life – as the client I mentioned earlier had discovered. So, list all your skills and then eliminate any that don’t actually give you any pleasure to use.

Tip: Having a problem working out what your skills are? Think of something you enjoyed learning to do or a project you took pleasure in and analyse it to find out what skills it required.

R is for reward

Yes, I know, I’m repeating myself here but this is a very important idea that keeps you motivated as you progress towards your goals so I’ll go on saying it!

Moving forward in life is often about steering away from pain or towards pleasure and, as far as possible, I’d rather do the second.

When you’re setting your goals, remember to make it one of your first steps to come up with a list of ways to reward yourself. (By the way, setting good goals is an achievement in itself and so it deserves a reward.)

The reward you choose is up to you, of course, and it needs match effort that’s gone in to the achievement. If you’ve nailed a relatively minor goal, it could be a new plant for your garden or putting your feet up for 10 minutes with a nice cup of something. If you’ve hit the big goal, then naturally the reward should be something to reflect that.

Now, no going all Puritan on me and saying the achievement is a reward in itself! Yes, of course, you should wallow in the feeling of success – you deserve to. There needs to be a tangible something to look forward to, though.

And no passing off, say, a bunch of flowers that someone else gave you as the reward: it has to be something you do for or give to yourself. It’s essential that you show yourself appreciation of your successes.

Sometimes clients say they’d be having the cup of something or buying the plant or whatever anyway. I don’t think that matters – just as long as you tell yourself “Well done, Me! This is your reward for all your effort.”

Tip: If you don’t want to be spending money, how about making a chart with all your goals on it and giving yourself a gold star (or 2 or more) to mark your successes?

R is for recruitment

As many as 88% of companies have regretted hiring someone in the last 12 months: 47% landed themselves with someone who didn’t have the right skills and 35% got someone whose performance fell below standard. And this includes companies who used recruitment agencies. (Study by talent management company SHL)

Considering that many of them were still willing to spend up to £4,000 on recruitment agency commission, it’s an expensive and time-wasting procedure all round.

Maybe the first question is “Do we definitely need to take someone on?” Could the job’s responsibilities be parcelled out among existing employees? Could it be outsourced?

Next is “Do we understand exactly who we’re looking for?” Has someone competent analysed the position to discover what skills and attributes are essential? Has anyone asked the people who’ll be working with/for the appointee what they think?

Does the advert/brief to the recruiters explain clearly what’s required? It could also be useful to tell them what you don’t want.

Has the interviewer prepared thoroughly for the interview? It’s frightening how many don’t. There’s no excuse for not having read the relevant CVs at the very least. And preferably they will have come up with questions that will bring out the candidate’s abilities and character or lack of. (You might like to look at www.businessballs.com for some ideas.)

And if you can manage to find time to send the unsuccessful candidates some constructive feedback, you might be able to help future interviewers and you’ll have left a positive impression that can only be good for the company.

Tip: It may be helpful to do part of the interview in an informal setting and to see what others in the company (e.g. the receptionist) thought of the candidate since they will have seen them not necessarily on their best behaviour.

Q is for quitting

However long or short your tether, there are some work situations that will get you to the end of it at some point: you’re over/underworked; at odds with your boss; underappreciated or bored. You’ve realised that the field you’re in isn’t the right one for you after all or you just can’t live on what they pay you.

It can be frightening to give up a (relatively) secure position at the best of times and even more so in recessions but, as my mother would have told you, this is not a rehearsal and being miserable for a large part of your life is just not on.

It’s easier to bear things if there’s an end in sight and you’re working through a clear plan to get you out.

I know I go on about this a lot but you really need to have as much information about you and what you’re looking for as possible. (C is for creativity, I is for ideas, O is for opportunity)

Do a review of your resources – not just the financial ones. Who/what do you have/know that will help? What do you need to acquire? Money, training, a bigger network?

Who else will your decisions affect? How will you get them onside?

Get it all down on paper and look for patterns and connections. Tease out the things that really excite you, set yourself goals for getting there and work back from them step by step to give you your action plan. Take the first step and enjoy the feeling of moving on and leaving behind what’s making you depressed.

Tip: Meanwhile, look at what you can do to make the current situation more bearable: for example, if you’re overworked, you could keep a work diary for a couple of weeks to use as evidence for your boss that you need help.

P is for part-time

A quarter of the labour force works part-time and – not much of a surprise – 80% of these workers are female.

Part-time can often seem like the less good solution, a stopgap, a step down in terms of using your skills and in terms of your earning power.

But now that so many services and industries are 24/7, the arguments for flexibility in the workplace are stronger than ever.

Flexible working can produce a lot of benefits such as improved output, lower absence rates, higher morale and it can make it easier to recruit and retain quality employees.

When people have the flexibility to fit their personal commitments more easily into their work schedules they feel more in control of their lives and their job satisfaction is likely to increase as a result.

There’s evidence that flexibility is more valued by employees than a pay rise so it could be a money saver for companies, too.

But if you have female staff in senior roles, you lose on your investment in their skills and experience if they’re forced into more junior roles because they need to work part-time.

Of course, implementing flexible working takes planning and good communication to succeed. It’ll also need a flexible and supportive manager and colleagues and being clear about roles and responsibilities. And performance will need to be assessed by results rather than simply by whether the employee did the required number of hours in the office. But surely that’s a better way of evaluating in any case, isn’t it?

The culture of the organisation will need to change, too. If it’s previously favoured “command and control”, it’ll need to move towards involvement and coordination. You have to be able to trust staff to leave them alone to get on with things.

Tip: Even if the job you’re applying for is full-time, you may be able to negotiate for reduced hours if you’re able to show them how it’ll benefit them.

O is for opportunity

What does it take to turn a problem into an opportunity?

It may just be an attitude: you might think that, if you lose a job you love, so much has gone – income, colleagues, a chance to put your talents to good use, a purpose in life.

So often, though, redundancy turns out to be a springboard to building a new life and business, to discovering new skills and enthusiasms and to taking control of your future.

You may be offered a chance to try something new and hesitate because you’re not sure you have what’s needed and whether you can carry the people you need with you.

You could be prepared for all eventualities, though. Start now and you could have it all sorted out so that, when the time comes, you’re ready to move at once.

Get together as much information as you can about you and what you want from your life: sit down with large pieces of paper and some coloured pens (it might as well be fun) and map out things like areas of interest; skills; resources you have and need. Think about where you’d like to be in 1, 5 & 10 years time.

Choose your favourite possibilities and work out what you’ll need to put them into practice: do you need to put money aside each month? How much? Do you need new skills or to brush up old ones? Who do you need to get onside if you’re going to see your ideas come to fruition?

Keep people who’ll be affected in touch with what you’re thinking and, if possible, sign up a neutral friend who’ll act as a sounding-board and cheerleader.

Who knows? You may come up with a plan you like so much, you’ll jump before you’re pushed!

Tip: Put down all the ideas that come to you – even the “bad” ones can spark an inspiration. (See “C is for creativity” and “I is for ideas”)

N is for negotiation

Finding a result that both sides can feel happy about takes some preparation: knowing what you want to achieve and what you are or aren’t prepared to let go of is a basic.

Similarly, some research and some putting yourself in your counterpart’s shoes should enable you to calculate at least some of the same information about them.

Make a point of preparing questions that will elicit information about the other side’s needs so that you can pick up any missing information during the discussions.

If you can predict at least some of the points that the other side is going to want you to concede and prepare your response, you strengthen your position. You may also be able to come up with a more attractive alternative than they thought of asking for and gain yourself some bonus points.

But, as with all significant conversations, it’s critical that you listen to what the other side is saying. Cultivate the habit of focussing on what they’re saying without thinking about your response.

It should help to take notes: in any case, feed back to them what you’ve understood. People respond very positively to the idea that they’ve been heard and it’ll give you time to formulate your reply.

If you really listen, you may pick up useful pointers from what they’re not saying as much as what they are and it can help you to work out where they are placing their priorities.

Start by believing that you’re looking for a positive result for both parties and confirm this to your opposite number so that the negotiation takes place in a cooperative atmosphere.

Tip: Try not to become emotionally involved – that way you can stay calm and not get caught off balance.

M is for money

“I started my own business because I realised I was working to pay for someone else to have things I could never afford.”

This quote struck such a chord with me when I heard it a few years ago that it was like a whole orchestra playing in my head.

If you work for someone else, especially if it’s for a private company, there’s bound to be a gap between what you take home and the return for the owner/s. They’ve risked their own money and worked hard to get the business going so it’s fair that they should profit from it.

But often there’s just too great a disparity – after all, without the expertise and effort of its employees, the business will go nowhere.

Money is the simplest reward and motivator in most work situations: you may not always be able to promote someone so cash can provide the incentive.

If you need to keep costs low, it may not be the answer, though: you might prefer to give employees a stake in the company.

Or you may just take the attitude that, if they don’t like the conditions, they can find themselves another job. It’s a sadly common approach!

It’s also a short-term one and, for me, it’s exploitative and demeaning. It’s frequently also linked to the kind of internal and external PR that boasts of the company’s being a “family” and putting the emphasis on valuing its staff: a piece of hypocrisy that too often goes unchallenged.

The danger here of course is that those at the top come to believe their own PR.

Tip: You may not be able to convince your boss to give you a pay rise but what else can you come up with that could add to your satisfaction – more flexibility in your work hours or the type of work you do? Think creatively!

M is for Monday morning

There are people who look forward to Monday morning, who leap out of bed and can’t wait to get started on the working week – I’m one of them!

These are the people who have found what they really love to do and turned it into a career.

How would it feel if you were one of them?

It’s customary to define a person by what they do and to define ourselves that way, too: it’s one of the first questions you ask/are asked when you meet someone new.

Do you ever find yourself replying “I’m just a (insert job title here)”? Do you envy people who can say “I’m PA to the CEO/an astronaut/a paramedic/a management consultant/whatever” with pride and enthusiasm? Did they fall into their ideal careers by luck? Did they know from an early age that that was what they wanted to be? It does happen!

For most of us though, there’ll be some false starts and detours en route to a truly satisfying career. And for too many there’ll be a working life of making do with something less than perfect because…. Well, why?

Maybe they feel they’re not good/clever/lucky enough. Maybe they don’t know what they want or where to look for it. Maybe they think that work isn’t something to be enjoyed – isn’t that why it’s called “work” and not “fun”?!

Well, I say “Stop that right now! Step away from the dull job!” Do you really want to look back on your life and see that it was just drudgery? Put some time and thought into what would be the ideal career for you and how to achieve it.

Tip: Get some professional help – investing time and money now could save you a lot of future heartache. Call me to arrange a free initial consultation (01223 811913).

L is for loyalty

Now that the pattern for so many workers is to move from post to post every couple of years or so, maybe loyalty isn’t looked for quite so much.

And yet, since it’s so much cheaper to keep the employees you have rather than have to go through the business of finding a replacement, it can pay to encourage loyalty.

There’s also the fact that a loyal worker who speaks well of his/her company is terrifically good for the company’s image, will help to create and keep satisfied customers and to recruit great new colleagues.

So how do you promote this quality in your staff?

Research (CIPD/King’s College, London) suggests that staff in smaller firms are more loyal because they feel closer to their boss and have a better understanding of the company and their role in it.

They feel that management listens to and takes notice of what they say, that there is mutual respect.

Even for larger companies, it pays to cultivate a sense of belonging in their employees: it can sometimes be through share option schemes or by fostering a sense of community through social activities.

But one of the cheapest ways must be by consulting the relevant staff members before making changes that you expect them to implement. Presumably you employ them for their skills in the area – why not use the resource you’re paying for? If they feel that they’ve had some input into the changes, they’ll be much more enthusiastic about making them work.

Tip: Brush up your listening skills – it’s no good consulting people if you’re thinking about other problems while they speak. And try to absorb what they’re saying before you formulate your reply.