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3 Mistakes Made by The HR Manager You Should Try to Put a Stop To

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Sometimes it seems that the HR world and the employee world are completely different and opposing sides, even if they meed daily in the company’s offices. There are tons of literature addressing HR specialists and a double amount of data addressing the employees, and yet it seems that this information doesn’t correlate and doesn’t make things better. A recent article published by HR News Daily speaks about 7 capital sins any good HR manager should avoid making and today we will take a look at these mistakes made by the HR manager and try interpreting them from the employee’s point of view, as if the said manager unknowingly keeps doing those mistakes, it’s your task to put a stop to them, for your own benefit.

1. The HR manager makes performance evaluations only once a year

And what’s it to you, you may ask, as nobody likes these evaluations anyway, nobody wants them and everybody fears them. Your benefit from multiple and repeated evaluations throughout a year comes from the fact that if you are a talented employee, your results contributed to the company’s overall performance and you had some good ideas to push the company forward, the HR manager should know about these achievements and evaluate talent, skills, development and engagement. And these evaluations are not only good for you, but for the company as well. Don’t be afraid to ask for more than just an evaluation a year (unless you’re the sloppy one in the bunch running away every time annual performance assessment comes to town).

2. The HR manager plays the role of the monster under the bed and the unforgiving deity all at once

Good HR strategies involve communication, transparent exchange of facts, openness, reliable feed-back and so on. Bad, sinful HR strategies can be narrowed down to the HR manager coming over the employees like a hawk, delivering a monologue about everything that is going bad and should be improved, placing some threats, bashing people around and instilling fear in the hearts of the innocents. That’s why nobody likes the HR people. If this is the case in your company, you should take a stand and openly talk about all these problems. The HR manager is there to nurture talent, support the people in doing things better, to communicate with the employees, listen to them and find solutions to all the issues. Playing the power card is one of the biggest mistakes made by the HR manager and you should try to put a stop to, not by complaining around, but by constructively making points backed up by facts, figures and other companies’ examples.

3. The HR manager takes rumors and gossip into account when evaluating

Now this one is one of the worst mistakes made by the HR manager and you should proactively try to draw their attention over this harmful attitude and behavior. The HR manager’s role is to support the human resources, to back them up, find improvement means for their performance and work to build and maintain the employees’ engagement towards the company. Hearing that John from Accountants is lazy and does a poor job should be not enough to take actions against John. Rumors and gossip are quite hard to eradicate from a company, so everybody hears everything about the others, with the usual “I work more and better than the rest of you” routine. So it can happen to you what it happened to John and this is inadmissible. Try to talk the HR manager into studying the facts, the numbers, the statistics and the concrete information on somebody’s performance, not only to sum – up the co – workers complains, gossip and corner whispers in the cafeteria. If you want to stay in that company and do a good job, this HR sin should be constructively pointed out and eliminated.

Easier to be said than done, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be better to let the HR manager read all the specialist advice out there while you stay out of this business? Perhaps, but HR managers are also humans, just like you, and just as they can give you feedback, point out your mistakes and share their opinions on your performance, so can you.

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How to Manage a Difficult Boss: 4 Tips and a Lesson

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If you raised your eyebrow reading this title, it means that as an employee, you don’t often keep yourself updated to the newest trends in human resources management and don’t read the latest research in the field. The practice of employees managing a “difficult” boss is called “reversed leadership” and is not something that has been taught since yesterday, but for a few years now. How to deal with a manager you don’t like is an overly – repeated and analyzed subject in many specialized journals and employee dedicated websites, how to deal with an incompetent manager is a hard task, but managing a manager (close to manipulating but not entirely the same) is a hot trend propelled by many specialists in the field. So how to manage a difficult boss? There are plenty of tips and tricks and guidelines, but we’ll focus on four major strategies and see if we can also learn a valuable lesson from the experts.

1. Understand what are those things that make your manager tick. Good and bad

Lisa Quast, a contributor to Forbes Magazine places this “understanding” in the top of her list of tips on how to manage a difficult boss. Understanding his or her goals, priorities, concerns, outcomes and fears and build towards helping the boss achieve the objectives and overcome barriers and obstacles. If this translates to you as “do whatever he / she wants and don’t comment about it” you’d be wrong, because chapter two of this strategy also involves some detective work from your part from a personal point of view: understand how to lower your boss’s frustrations, anger episodes and the general state of unhappiness related to the work. This doesn’t mean sucking up to anybody, but being proactive in a management relationship.

2. Treating your boss as he / she would be a client

Derek Good from ImproveStaff makes a brilliant remark: employees often seem to succumb under the heaviness of their boss’s authority and get confused, not knowing how to act and what to do. Shaking the feeling of submissiveness and looking at your boss from a different perspective might save you and the manager as well. The HR expert advises employees to treat their bosses like they are clients: respectful, but in an open manner. Praising communication, asking and offering feedback, providing regular updates, consulting with the client on mutually important issues to be solved, engaging in an honest win – win relationship.

3. Learn how to manage a difficult boss by finding common communication paths

You should have seen this coming, as communication seems to be the key to almost every problem. Talking to your boss isn’t enough and you know it, as you just pictured the last face – to – face session you had with him / her and still remember your feeling of “it’s impossible to talk to this person!” So lot of talking and no communication is a problem. Discuss, not confront. Don’t victimize you and don’t counter – attack. Understand how does your boss like to communicate: personally, via e-mail, often, rarely? Is he / she spreading a mist of negative emotions, negative behaviors or has a totalitarian approach? You can seek counsel to solve the problem from competent sources or you can breathe, break the patterns and learn how to communicate even with a rigid, uptight boss. Expressing needs, opinions and concerns seem to work best.

4. Instead of being passive aggressive, be assertive

Faced with a difficult boss that might make their lives a living hell, many employees, faced with unreasonable and negative characters and personalities, decide they can’t take it anymore and start looking for other jobs in a vow of silence. Many of them know their days in that company are in a countdown, so they stop caring about the work and willingly or not, start boycotting the whole thing, either by making public their personal issues and complaints related to the boss, or achieve poor working results, as a metaphoric revenge. Passive aggressive behavior is detrimental to yourself, your colleagues and the company. Assertiveness, on the other hand, is the route to choose, as being honest about the problems, trying to solve them, not letting yourself stepped over and reacting in an elegant manner may actually ring a few bells to your boss too.

Many tips, one lesson

Just because a person is your boss it doesn’t mean he or she is not a human being. Of course he / she shouldn’t have behavioral problems, belligerent attitudes, rule over like a tyrant,  bash people around or act like he/she owns your souls and your careers. Terribly deranged people don’t make it to the highest executive positions nowadays, but even if your boss is just difficult without being a sociopath, the lesson is about pro-activity. Don’t be a doormat and don’t become your boss’s arch-nemesis, just because you have a pronounced sense of justice. Assertiveness, communication, flexibility, willingness to collaboration and honesty are some of the strategies to employ on how to manage a difficult boss.

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3 Strategies to Employ for Becoming a Better Team Player

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Strategies to Employ for Becoming a Better Team Player

Learning to work in a team! The holy Grail of all HR consultants, organizational psychologists, managers, team leaders and employees alike. There are online studies and articles and research in this field to fill the Library of Congress and there would still be room for some more. And apparently, there is room for more, as even in today’s world, characterized by endless resources and access to information, the problem of turning individuals in team – players is still very hot, for human resources specialists, executives and the working force. We sad it before and we will say it again, becoming a better employee means becoming a better you.

The issue has been analyzed from all possible angles and, while some experts consider it is the manager’s job to employ strategies so that the employees end up working better and more efficiently together, others consider it’s the employee’s holy mission of making the other colleagues work better with him or her. While many recruitment processes include personality tests digging up for team – oriented players, there are also humongous quantities of tips and advice on how you, as an employee, should find the best strategies to employ for becoming a better team player. In other words, before trying to change the others, you should start working on yourself.

1. Know yourself and the people you are working with

This sounds like a no – brainer, but you’d be surprised to know how many people go through life and through jobs without knowing the essentials about who they are and who are the people they are working with. Knowing and understating exactly what are your and the others’ attributions, roles, capacities, skills, limitations and job descriptions is the first step. Knowing what can turn your nice colleague into a blood thirsty conflictual monster is another. You don’t need extended psychology classes to learn how to manipulate others to do their jobs or avoid conflict, but being aware of what motivates, depresses or pushes the others is only reasonable.

2. Don’t expect the problem to go away by itself

Many managers complain that their employees do a lousy job working as a team, which endangers the company’s results to some end. Why aren’t they functioning like a team? Maybe they don’t get along so well, maybe they are opposite personalities clashing daily, maybe they don’t have the same goals. As a manager, there are a lot of things to be done here. But as an employee belonging to such a team, things can get difficult. If you realize that you people have problems with one another, then do something about it and solve them. Never let a conflict, a failure, a drawback, a personal issue or a fight pass without a closure or a resolving. People are prone to find guilty parties and patsies, to pass judgement, blame and hold grudges. If your manager didn’t take the proper solutions yet, be a team player and work towards the greater good of the team, even if sometimes there are very bitter pills to swallow.

3. The best strategies to employ for becoming a better team player come with experience

In other words, be patient and open to learn. You will find people you won’t like, but this doesn’t mean they are not valuable to the team or it’s impossible to work together with them. You will find reactive people who may seem difficult just because you make things difficult for them without knowing it. You will find people who need better guidance to do their jobs, who need you to help, who will let you do the job for them and so on. Becoming a true team player doesn’t happen over the night. You may be a nice person, and all the others think they are nice persons, and yet, there is a lot to learn.

Overcoming prejudice, understanding people’s needs, understanding your needs and reactions, they all come with practice. Managers are looking for flexible, adjustable, relaxed people. Becoming an asset and not yet another difficult colleague is your own responsibility.

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3 Mistakes to Avoid When Looking for a Job

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With the tons and interminable tomes of literature, research and statistics able to be found everywhere with a click of a button in the field of recruiting, job hunting consultancy and human resources management, one would consider that at some point, there is no need anymore for such a fuss. People should have learned by now all the tips, tricks, do’s, don’t’s and how – to’s of finding a job. However, managers and HR specialists are still complaining about the candidates’ poor performances when applying for jobs, while many people are still frantically sending resumes and cover letters to whomever might be interesting. HR consultants seem to be busier than ever and this is why, yet another article on mistakes to avoid when looking for a job seems necessary still. In a world driven more and more by the concepts of online recruitment, talent hunt, employee engagement, results vs. experience, let’s see 3 mistakes to avoid when looking for a job from an updated perspective.

1. People don’t curate their online profiles

A few years back, everybody was talking about grammar proofing your CV, and while still many job searchers still send unedited resumes, full of grammar and spelling mistakes, in today’s world there is a higher focus on proofing your online presence. The woman who got fired because of a very unfortunate Tweet came with a bang and the sudden realization that it is true, companies and head – hunters actually take some time to check up on your online profile. Not to mention that with the new trends of People Aggregating software, any recruiter can access a comprised and relevant version of who you are and what you did in the last years, according to your online activity. So posting nude selfies is out of the question, together with thoroughly thinking before typing a belligerent, discriminative or angry status. Among the biggest job searching mistakes identified by Lisa Arnold (director of recruiting at Versique in Minneapolis), ignoring your online presence is unforgivable in today’s world.

Sharing information through your social networks about issues in your field can show hiring managers that you are plugged-in and keeping up with changes in your industry. “It will display your brand,” Arnold says.

2. Turning the CV into a travel diary is one of the biggest mistakes to avoid when looking for a job

Long gone are the days when recruiters or HR managers and even CEO’s were impressed by a resume unfolding like a roll of toilet paper, listing all previous past jobs and experiences, relevant or not for the job. We work in an era that starts shifting its focus not on past and humongous working experiences, but on results, skills, talents. You can be the lousiest employee on the planet and showcase numerous past jobs, while one can have numerous talents and yet, a very short travel log from one company to another. If you actually play the CV card, spare the recruiter from the ordeal of traveling through your past and emphasize on problems you solved and results you achieved, skills you master, potential areas in which you can grow and so on.

3. You settle for less than you deserve

Asking your future employer about the salary in the first interviewing session is one of those mistakes to avoid when looking for a job that has been so overly – repeated along the years, you would have to have lived under a rock until today to still be making it. However, new and beginner employees are so desperate to get a job that they would settle for less, and this is not only about money, but everything else that comprises a good job. You should stay informed on what similar positions pay for the specific set of skills you’re getting hired for, what are the advancement options in that respective field, what side opportunities the job offers and what is the general development trend related to that job or position. Lisa Arnold talks about knowing your market value and striving for more.

Among other mistakes to avoid when looking for a job, there are, of course, the candidates’ lack of interest in knowing the company they are applying to, adjusting your CV to the company’s requirements and, obviously, giving a poor performance during the interview.

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5 Tips on Acing the Personality Recruitment Test

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Personality tests and quizzes used to be fun when you took them in a magazine or online, to kill some time. However, nowadays more and more companies are using them in the recruitment process and many such tests comprise over 200 questions. They’re not light-weight either: their questions are targeted so as to get right to the core of your values, beliefs, and personality traits. According to recruitment managers, they are great predictors for whether or not a new hire will fit in at their new job. The personality recruitment test certainly does not allow for any cheating, say psychology experts, but there are a few tricks you can employ, if you’re vying for success.

#1 Be absolutely honest

The biggest mistake candidates make, when confronted with the personality recruitment test is trying to ‘game’ it. If you’re sitting there, looking at the questions, and wondering what this prospective employer might want to hear from you – you’re doing it all wrong. Of course, you can try your hand at such guesswork, but the point of these tests is to see what kind of position your personality traits recommend you for. The recruiters have a specific profile in mind for a sales manager, and another one altogether for an IT expert. Why ruin your chances at fitting their expectations to a tee by making up a personality you don’t actually have?

#2 Ask all the questions you want

Remember that it’s your right to ask (and be told) what the company’s going to do with your answers to the personality recruitment test. Is the test just a tool they’re using for hiring purposes? Are its results going to stay on a future employee’s permanent file? Either way, you have the right to know and to decide whether or not you’re comfortable with the way in which your results are used.

#3 Relaxing is the true personality recruitment test

One of the biggest challenges, when taking such a test, is to simply relax and be yourself. Sure, that might sound easier said than done, and it could also strike you as a cliché. Then again, if you go back to the first point on our list, you will understand that trying to fabricate your way through it is not the right way to go. So simply relax, look into your true personality and try to answer all the questions truthfully. And, remember: no question has a right and a wrong answer, when it comes to recruitment tests such as these.

#4 ‘So, how did I do?’

The results of personality recruitment tests are forwarded by HR (or the recruitment company you’re applying through) to your employer. Now, during a face-to-face interview and meeting, you’d usually ask for feedback right? You have every right to ask for the same thing in the case of such a written, standardized personality test. You, too, can receive a copy of your profile, but you need to make sure and ask for it right from the get-go. Don’t assume you’re going to receive any feedback or profile if you don’t demand it, since some companies don’t include this on their standard policy.

#5 The right person for the right job

As previously mentioned, the point of any personality recruitment test is to come up with a complete, coherent profile of each applicant. Following the test, the HR employee in charge with overseeing the procedure might decide you are not, in fact, right for the sales position you had initially applied for. However, you might be perfect for another kind of position, such as back office jobs. Make sure to ask the person that administers the test if you would be considered for another job altogether, based on your profile and experience notwithstanding.

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How to Deal with Incompetent Managers – A Guide for Employees

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Though we’d all like to avoid dealing with people we dislike for one reason or another, unfortunately life proves this is next to impossible. Such situations become especially aggravating when they happen at work: good ideas are turned down without an explanation, employees become stressed out and inefficient, some turn vindictive, while others simply resign themselves to the notion that their career is going down the drain. Luckily, Forbes magazine has got a few tips and tricks for employees that are forced to deal with incompetent managers. So here’s the checklist below – use it wisely and turn a conundrum to your advantage.

Use their weapons against them

Some bosses literally feed off the misery of their hierarchical inferiors. In plain English, they love to see them suffer, whine, complain, and be absolutely miserable. To this end, they will do everything in their power to make sure they reach the above goals. The best way to deal with incompetent managers of this kind is not to play into their power-plays. Do not, for the life of you, cry or whine. Instead, simply walk around the office looking miserable. This won’t stop them from making everybody else feel horrible, but at least it will keep them from lunging into a vicious attack against you.

Deal with incompetent managers by moving up and away

The best way to deal with a boss that’s just sadistic and seems to enjoy making people suffer at work is to flee their presence. If you’re not faced with a manager that will do everything in their power to keep you from advance in your career, then take this as an opportunity to flee the scene. Usually, such people are entirely disenchanted with their own evolution and will stop at nothing from making you feel the same. Since they have absolutely nothing to teach you, don’t waste any time trying to teach you a lesson, it will only emotionally deplete you. Instead, focus all your energy in moving as far from as possible.

Paranoid android

Some bosses suffer from conspiracy theory syndromes and are convinced just about everybody in the organization, from the CEO to the cleaning lady, is out to get them. Usually, they are also reluctant to see employees get transferred, for fear they might divulge secrets about them to other people around the office. Your best approach is to promise them you will hand over a list of everybody in the organization that’s out to get them. Of course, you don’t have to turn into a snitch – just make your promise seem believable and realistic.

How friendly is too friendly?

Some bosses are not evil, nor paranoid, but they seem to be oblivious to the existence of that fine line between professional and friendly relationships. And, of course, a boss that oversteps such limits might prove impossible to get rid of, in the long run. Your best bet? Get them a dog for Christmas. Get them to sign up for classes or find them a hobby of some sort. Just make sure to carefully remove yourself from the situation in the process. If you don’t do this in a timely manner, you’ll most certainly regret it later.

Avoid the scheming type

Nothing quite compares with a scheming, vindictive, Machiavellian type of boss. While we’d love to have some advice on how you could one-up such a person, they often seem far too detached, devious, and uncaring to be affected by any action taken against them. So if you have to deal with incompetent managers of this type, perhaps you would be best advised to consider transferring to another department, or simply steering as clear from them as you can.

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Employee Engagement: The Holy Trinity of Successful Organizations

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Are you a happy person every morning when you have to go to work? Do you have that winner’s feel and just can’t wait to rock your job, or are you going there like you’d go to a slaughterhouse to be sacrificed? Maybe we exaggerate a little, as many people go to their jobs like they go to their jobs, not feeling like Hollywood celebrities, but not totally hating the air they breathe in that office. We have to work, don’t we, like it or not. We have to do the best we can and even get a raise or a promotion, be happy if we work in a friendly environment and be proud to have made good friends among colleagues. So are you a satisfied employee? Maybe you are even a happy one. But do you qualify for employee engagement? Does your name sit on your manager’s secret list of employees that need to be retained and strategically kept even more engaged?

What are engaged employees?

Well, if you listen to Forbes experts, they are not only the satisfied employees who check in their Christmas bonus checks and break the door on their way out to forget everything for some days. They are not even the happy employees who are willing to stand for their company in times of good or bad, just because the company turned casual Friday into casual all week. They are not even the false – loyal proselytes who’d strangle anybody saying bad things about the company and who are clanged to their jobs like addicts only because they have nowhere else to go. You are an engaged employee if and only if you are “committed to your organization’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organizational success, and are able at the same time to enhance your own sense of well-being.”

What does a company do to engage its employees?

If this answer would be that simple, everybody would do it and many experts would be currently unemployed. However, they are more productive than ever in their efforts to explain companies and managers that people are different, they need different things and just paying them well and hosting parties and team – buildings a few times a year doesn’t mean engagement. In truth, it is not an unidirectional relationship. It’s not some magic some CEO’ do and suddenly, all their employees are engaged, committed, loyal, respectful, willing to earn less and work more, available for overtime and giving 200% of their talents to the company. It’s a vicious circle actually, a continuous process that takes place between the managers and their employees.

Maybe the best way to describe this process is this: “attitudes, behaviors and outcomes – are part of the engagement story. There is a virtuous circle when the pre-conditions of engagement are met when these three aspects of engagement trigger and reinforce one another”.

The Holy Trinity of Engagement

There is not only one way in which a company manages to engage and thus retain its employees. There are success stories quite popular among the specialists and a famous one is Netflix’s strategy to engage its employees, or Google’s own employee engagement approach, which offered people what people praise more in this life, and was not money: it was freedom, time and respect, thus promoting self – discipline, self-responsibility, choice and true commitment.

What are you missing from employee engagement?

As we said, this is not a magic trick belonging to companies, but a process that has to also find the right people to engage. If you are working solely for the money and nothing that happens in that company doesn’t move you as a human and doesn’t address your attitudes, behaviors and even feelings to influence your outcomes, you may not feel the real engagement strategies that are at work there. Look around you and see what is missing for you to feel truly engaged, if you so desire. Don’t just look at your bank account or the number of days off you can get. Look at it like you’d look at a personal relationship: do you want to be there? Do you want to exchange vows?

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Billionaire Richard Branson’s Tips for Starting Your First Business

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Richard Branson is a business magnate who founded more than 400 companies, including the Virgin Atlantic airline, Virgin Mobile, Virgin America and Virgin Active, an international health club. He is an innovative and hardworking man who started his first business at the age of 16 and is still going strong with business ventures that keep on surprising, such as space tourism and island renting. He is a prolific author; his first book came out in 1998 and was called Losing My Virginity, his latest, Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won’t Tell You at Business School (2012). If you’re looking for tips about how to start your first business, then this is the man whose advice you want to follow. Let’s take a look at Richard Branson’s tips for starting your first business and earning top dollars without even knowing it.

Richard Branson wants you to have a view of the future

Having an idea for a new venture is right way to start a business, but what they don’t really teach you in college is where to start. Because of this, many persons feel lost and overwhelmed. Richard Branson believes that the first thing you will need to do after coming up with an idea about a business venture is to settle into a relaxing place and think about it in depth. Think about why you want to do it. Do you see yourself doing that for the rest of your life or is it something that you want to do just to get a few bucks together so that you can focus on something else? Envision the company, the people working there, your hours and your input in the company. Take notes and try to be as calm as you can about it, don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s just you in your favorite chair thinking about an idea you came up with – so just relax and let your mind carry the idea further.

Richard Branson says ask mom

Richard Branson is not only one of the most successful business people in the world, but he’s also a funny guy. When asked about what the next step after settling into your idea was, he said: the Mum Test. Now, we can’t really say if he’s pulling our leg, or if he’s genuine about it, but Richard Branson’s tips for starting your first business include asking your mother’s opinion on your idea for a business venture. He says it’s the best thing you can do. Even if your mother doesn’t know how businesses work, she will have your best interest at heart and will not shy away from telling to your face that your idea is horrible. If you see her get as excited as you are about the idea, then you might be on to something. Other persons you could ask for any thoughts are your close friends or brothers and sisters. Ask people who care about you and who aren’t afraid to tell you what they truly think. Those are the people you need in your life and business.

King of Richard Branson’s tips for starting your first business: Embrace failure

The last tip is all about taking risks, not being afraid of failure. You will know when you’ve done enough thinking and when it is time to put your idea in practice. Start small, test the market and embrace failure. Do not be afraid of it; do not let the idea of failure paralyze you, because if you do, you’re sabotaging your own business.

Of course, there is no guarantee that following these tips will get you filthy rich, but you can be sure of one thing: you will be one step closer to getting where you want with your business. What do you think about Richard Branson’s advice? Will it grow your business and help you earn what you deserve? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.

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The World’s Major Companies are Abandoning Yearly Performance Reviews

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Any corporate employee who’s ever had to sit through the ordeal of yearly performance reviews has several strong arguments against the practice. And now it seems like those in charge of said corporate business milieu are also taking note of the fact that ranking their employees like that isn’t exactly working out for the best. For one thing, Microsoft management has come to the conclusion that yearly stack rankings were encouraging backstabbing, feelings of inadequacy, and an unhealthy sense of competition among their staff.

The system works along several coordinates which often seem set in stone, no matter how unjust they might appear from the outside looking in. According to estimates, 30 per cent of the top 500 companies in the world use such ranking systems to evaluate their staff. Within these systems, employees are evaluated in accordance with a curve, which might say that 3 per cent of all employees must be placed in the bottom segment of on-the-job performance, while only 7 per cent can be at the top. Microsoft in particular has been the target of heavy-handed criticism for enforcing such a system. The procedure had been adopted in the 1980s from General Electric. Many major companies, such as Motorola, have abandoned it already, citing its “demoralizing” nature as one of the main reasons.

What do academics think of yearly performance reviews?

At the same time, the academics concur. Samuel A. Culbert, a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management says yearly performance reviews are pretentious, but also bogus. According to him, no executive with a head on his shoulders should credit such procedures with any merits. Culbert has even proposed an alternative to these evaluations: performance previews. In his view, employees would be asked to express what has been hindering their performance from peeking in terms of management decisions. Managers in their turn would express their needs toward employees, thus creating a collaborative, open environment based on trust, in which the two sides of the debate work together, rather than against each other. Many a times, yearly performance review had been criticized for allowing managers to intimidate their immediate hierarchical subordinates.

Of course, not all of the Fortune 500 companies in the world are letting go of yearly performance reviews just yet. But a significant proportion of them is rethinking the model and shaping it in hopes of yielding more positive results. Here are some of the most notable examples of companies that have tried an alternative to performance reviews:

  • Motorola

After scrapping the yearly performance review, as it was regarded as encouraging self-esteem issues on the job, the company adopted a model that is far more focused on communication and cooperation. Reviews strictly target goal completion, while the talks between managers and staff address all the issues related to those goals.

  • Adobe

Adobe stopped reviewing their personnel in 2012, after the company’s representatives noticed the period set for reviews also marked an exodus from the company. Instead, they no allow managers to check in with their staff, offer feedback, and establish new goals whenever they please. Meanwhile, the employees are only evaluated according to the goals they meet. There is no paperwork involved in this procedure.

  • Expedia

The executive VP of the company’s global HR department says Expedia also relies on giving employees feedback as they progress toward their goal. Instead of sitting back and letting them fail, managers try to address the issues that occur within the process as they take place. This preventative measure is aimed at getting the staff to feel less labeled, while also ensuring that the company’s goals are being met, day in and day out. Unlike yearly performance reviews, this type of feedback focuses on the future and the present, not on the past.

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Experiencing Trust Issues at Work? Find out Why!

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trust-issues-at-work

Are you dealing with trust issues at work? Does it seem like your colleagues simply can’t place their faith in you? Recent research will suggest that you are not alone in facing such problems – in fact, they appear endemic in today’s world, fraught with anxiety and sources of mistrust. The most recent Gallup poll on the degree of trust Americans place in public institutions saw Congress reaching the lowest levels of trust since the poll was first ran, in 1973. Just 10 per cent of Americans trust Congress.

At the same time, America’s leading public opinion research institution looked into how much Americans invest themselves in the work they do, day in and day out. The survey found only 30 per cent of them to take active interest in their occupation. Their trust issues at work, the poll results say, stem from their attitude toward their boss or the company as a whole. In other words, America isn’t being too productive right now, neither at legislative level, nor where private companies are concerned. According to Gallup estimates, the 70 per cent workers who are not engaged in what they do are costing the economy $450 to $550 billion each year.

How to approach personal trust issues at work

The author of Trust Inc., Nan S. Russell, has come up with several strategies to addressing trust issues at work. She explains that such issues usually come from placing the blame and/or responsibility for trust on somebody else. In other words, it’s not the boss’s responsibility to get employees to trust him, it’s the human resources manager who’s supposed to deal with it. Yet no actual solutions come from persistently allotting the blame with someone else, Russell suggests. Here are her tips on how to promote trust and a friendlier environment at work:

  • Deliver what you promise. Nobody likes those who promise to bring in results but never keep their word. People want to see achievements and expect others to show some accountability for their actions.
  • Micromanagement is counterproductive to trust. One of the main reason for which people don’t trust their bosses is that said bosses tend to micromanage various workplace situations, instead of trusting others to take care of those situations. Such an attitude clearly conveys a dictatorial streak, which, in time, will develop into trust issues at work.
  • Say ‘I’m sorry’ when need be. Taking responsibility for one’s own actions ties in with the concept of trust, as explained above. It’s difficult to always own up to what you do, yet apologizing for mistakes and making genuine efforts toward amending them will pay off tenfold in the long run. Otherwise, an inability to assume responsibility will just give off the impression of immaturity.
  • Displaying mistrust in communication. At times, it pays off to include hierarchical superiors in in-house communication. However, if every mail you ever send out is CC-ed to everybody or if you constantly find yourself having otherwise private communication in public (think ‘reply all’) this will quickly backfire and translate into a lack of trust from the part of others. You will be perceived as someone who always needs to make sure their back is covered. While this attitude usually betrays a lack of trust in one’s own strengths, it will also be perceived as an inability to trust others.
  • Recognize the merits of others. Remember, you work on a team. Even if the pitch winning idea was initially yours, basking in the glory on your own will only leave you out on your own. The rest of the team will learn not to trust you with crediting them, which is counterproductive and creates trust issues at work.
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