How to Respond to Co-Worker and Employee Bereavement

How to Respond to Co-Worker and Employee BereavementHow to Respond to Co-Worker and Employee BereavementSad things happen to employees and coworkers. Family members die. Family members and friends get ill and have car accidents. Sometimes, coworkers experience lifes sad moments themselves. These are the people with whom you spend the most time nearly every day of the week. When bereavement and grief happen to your coworkers, you can be profoundly affected, tooand you also want to know what to do. The employer and coworkers can offer support and assist employees to deal with personal tragedies in the workdistributions-mix. The manager and Human Resources staff are key when bereavement or grief strikes an employee. They hopefully have a relationship with an employee such that they would be called, informed or knowledgeable about what is taking place in the employees life. Additionally, most time off policies requires the employee to call their supervisor. Most occasions of bereavement and grief require time off from work and sympathy and comfort from managers and coworkers. How to Offer Sympathy Who does an employee call when tragedy enters his or her life? The boss. When an employee calls or stops by with a sorrowful life situation, managers need to offer genuine sympathy and support as a first step. Then, managers need to be prepared to talk to the employee about options available from the company, no matter the circumstances of the employees problem, bereavement, or grief. Managers should involve Human Resources staff who will be up-to-date on possibilities such as the bereavement time off policy, Family Medical Leave Act time off, and so forth. HR staff will also know who to contact about health insurance benefits, short and long-term disability applications, and life insurance. These are the first steps that generally occur when an employee experiences one of lifes sorrows. It is important that company managers and HR staff are caring, supportive, knowl edgeable and forthcoming about the employees options, and timely in their response and efforts to assist the employee. How Organizations Can Offer Sympathy Companies approach employee sorrowful experiences in different ways. Employees at client companies have done much for employees experiencing sorrowful or tragic events. These ideas will help you choose an appropriate way to express sympathy. Collect money for a struggling employee.Take a dish to pass at a funeral dinner or wake.Line up home-cooked dinners for several weeks for a bereaved family or a family with a loved one requiring daily hospital visits.Send flowers or a plant to funerals, homes, and hospitals.Have coworkers close to the employee sign a group card. Almost all employee and coworker voluntary contributions to assuage the sorrow of a stricken co-worker are welcome and appreciated - except one. Please dont go to an employees home or the hospital without checking with the employee or his or her family first. Your visit may not be welcome your call might be. But, ask first. Beyond providing information, it is also appropriate for the company to send flowers to honor death in a family, an ill employee or family member, or a family with a premature baby. The list of employee problems is endless, and as such, provides frequent opportunities for the employer to offer sympathy and care. A simple note that says that you care and are keeping the employee and his or her family in your thoughts is sufficient. You may also ask permission to alert other employees to the employees situation - if they dont know. As the employer, you cannot broadcast this confidential information without permission, but you want to offer the employee the opportunity to give you permission. You will most often find that the employee agrees that you may let other employees know. Also most frequently, the employee has already let his or her coworkers know, and they have initiated a series of events to help the employee. As t he employer, your job is to offer to facilitate and assist employee-sponsored actions when you can. Because you care about all of your employees and certainly want to appear to care in the eyes of the other employees, you cannot develop any pattern of discrimination. So, all employees deserve the saatkorn regard and succor. These ideas will help you deal with the bereavement and grief that is regularly experienced by your employees and coworkers. Most of the sorrows dont occur at work, but they flow over into the workplace and affect co-workers and friends. You can assist employees to deal with their bereavement and grief by providing support and sympathy.

How to Tell an Interviewer You Were Fired Spin to Win

How to Tell an Interviewer You Were Fired Spin to WinHow to Tell an Interviewer You Were FiredHow to Tell an Interviewer You Were Fired Spin to WinThe interview is going splendidly. You seem to have exactly the background theyre looking for. Youve built a good rapport with your interviewers, and you have a good feeling about the corporate culture. Then comes the question youve been dreading. Why did you leave your last job? The short answer is that you were fired. To this day, it still hurts to even think about it. But you have to answer the question. Your challenge lies in how to spin the answer to avoid coming off as a whiner.Tempting as it may be, you know you cant lie because, as interviewing expert Michael Neecesays, Experienced interviewers have well-developed BS detectors.The truth is Your old employer let you go because you and your boss didnt see things eye to eye. It welches a case of mutual frustration, and in the end, they felt you were the expendable one.This is where th e concept of spin comes in handy. Put simply, spin is a way of explaining something negative so that it enhances, rather than detracts from, your objectives.So, pretend youre a hiring manager and youve just asked the candidate Why did you leave your last job? Below are two possible answers. Notice how the first sounds negative, emotional, and whiny, while the second sounds positive, factual, and professional. Thats the wonderful world of spin.Negative, Emotional, WhinyIt welches a really hard job, and I got a new manager who didnt really like me. I was doing my best but he just kept criticizing my work. The frustration kept mounting and he knew it, but did he do anything about it? Nope. Then the business had a bad quarter, so all departments had to make budget cuts. He took the easy way out and canned me.See how this lays most of the blame on the boss? Note especially the phrases didnt really like me and took the easy way out. It doesnt say how the job seeker might have been proacti ve and tried to correct the situation. Such a negative answer might leave the hiring manager seeing this person as a malcontent who likes to complain.Heres the answer with the positive spinPositive, Factual, ProfessionalWell, I worked very hard at the job I was doing and I was working with a new manager. I checked in with him every couple days to be sure I was meeting his expectations and that we were on the same page. But it seemed that objectives for me and my department were never well defined. One day, not long after the quarterly revenue reports showed companywide losses and management had ordered each department to make budget cuts, he pulled me into his office and told me things werent working out, so the company was letting me go. I was upset, of course, but as it turned out, the time off has allowed me to assess what happened, what kind of company I want to work for, and what I needed to change within myself to achieve success going forward.In this example, the job seeker d oesnt disparage the ex-boss, and recounts the firing through the use of objective facts ( he pulled me into his office and told me things werent working out, so the company was letting me go ). Then it gets better. The job seeker explains how he looked within himself during the time out of work to make personal improvements that would apply in future professional roles.The LessonWhen youre presenting your credentials to a would-be employer, you are your own salesperson. You need to emphasize the positive stuff and minimize the negative as a way to stay on your chief message that you are the one who can solve the hiring managers problems.If you can put a positive spin on an otherwise negative answer, the employer just might conclude that you not only have the right skills, you have a positive attitude, which is something just about every organization wants throughout its ranks.

Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills at Work

Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills at WorkWays to Improve Your Communication Skills at WorkPerhaps the one personal skill that has the greatest impact on your job satisfaction, promotion potential, and career success is your ability to communicate effectively with others. By improving your communications skills at work you increase your ability to achieve success, have your successes noted, and get yourself those promotions you deserve. Here are things you can do to improve your communications skills at work. Get Your Point Across When were trying to get a point across to someone else we often think long and hard about what we want to say. That is the wrong way to go about it. Instead of focusing on what you want to say to get your point across, you should focus on what you want the other person to hear. Heres how to be more effective at getting your point across.? Listen to What People Are notlage Saying Many times what your employees do not say is as important as wha t they do say. A manager has to develop the ability to listen to what employees are not saying and dig through that to get to the truth. These two examples will help you understand how and why it is so important to really listen to your employees. Learn to Speak in Public to a Group Some people are reluctant to speak in public or before a group. Managers cant be. You will hinder your career if you are unable to speak confidently in front of a group. Like so many other things, public speaking gets easier with practice. You just go out and do it and each time it gets easier. Get Your Boss to Agree We all expect our boss to agree with us when we present a request, but too often he or she says no. The problem may not be in what you asked for. Instead, it may be in how you asked for it. Here are the things you need to remember if you want to get your boss to agree. Give Positive Feedback Dont ever underestimate the power of positive feedback. We are quick to point out to some one when they make a mistake. Sometimes we forget to acknowledge them when they do something right. Giving positive feedback can be a powerful tool for employee motivation. Heres how to use it most effectively. Give Negative Feedback Properly You always want to try positive feedback first, but there are times that isnt appropriate or effective. When you do need to give negative feedback, there are ways to do it that produce the desired results without creating barriers. Use these steps. Disagree Without Being Disagreeable Many managers andcompaniesfail because they rely too heavily on the people like them and screen out those who disagree with them. Thats why many people surround themselves with people who agree with them, think like them, and support them. When your company culture allows people to challenge ideas, suggestions, and plans, you create an organization of thinking, committed people. If your company culture does not allow dissent you produce an environment of fe ar. Not allowing appropriate dissent will kill your company. Heres how to have disagreements without poisoning the workplace atmosphere. Manage Older Workers Effectively The workforce is aging as baby boomer move toward retirement. Gen X managers need to learn how to motivate and manage this talent pool of older workers. It is up to the managers, Gen X or otherwise, to take the lead and create the climate in which these older workers will remain engaged and productive. Heres how to do it. Improve Your Written Communication Too The purpose of geschftliches miteinander writing is to convey information to someone else or to request information from them. To be effective writing for business, you must be complete, concise, and accurate. Your text should be written in such a way that the reader will be able to easily understand what you are telling or asking them. Whether you are writing a sales proposal, an email to your department, or an instruction manual for a software packa ge, here are the steps you need to follow to improve your written communications.? Write Better Emails Sloppily written emails waste everyones time and money. Write better emails and your boss will love it, your employees will understand you better, and you will spend less time repeating things in another email or over the phone. Network Better No matter how you look at it, your success in business depends on your ability to successfully network. Some people consider networking office politics and avoid it, but there is much more to it. Successful networking means being able to communicate effectively with your peers and your bosses, but also with your employees. These steps will help you put your improving communications skills to good use to advance in your management career.