Update your career portfolio by being technology savvy.

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

 San Antonio Business Journal| June 23, 2000 | GREENE, BARBARA A.F.; KILBY, JAN | CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 San Antonio Business Journal, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)

How technology savvy are you? Are you up-to-date, or is learning about technology still something on your to-do list?
Being computer literate is expected of most employees today. Even in non-technical organizations, it is simply essential to doing business.
The quickest way to update one's career portfolio is by becoming technology-savvy. Adding technical abilities to your list of work skills will increase your marketability on the job market.
In today's e-commerce economy, customers expect to go online to order products and services, make routine transactions in their accounts, and even make payments on their accounts. This is because they are using computers in their homes and offices and when they travel.
Prospective employees appreciate using company web …

Career coaching in LI: In your Corner.

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

Byline: Claude Solnik 

The booming business of career coaching Professional guidance can help with advancement or a change in industry
A man who worked in financial services told friends he'd love to change careersto something involved with the green economy. But he didn't think he could make the transition from his profession to his passion.
Enter Deborah Brown-Volkman, a career coach and president of Surpass Your Dreams in East Moriches. She advised him to update his resume and look for jobs on the Web and in books. He didn't get a single job interview.
Then she urged him to attend an environmental trade show at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center, which led to a new job and career.
He knew he liked green stuff, but he wasn't sure if it was going to work, said Brown-Volkman, certified by the International Coach Federation, a widely recognized credentialing body for career coaches. He already knew what he wanted. He just was afraid.
Although many people try to advance or change careers on their own, they're increasingly turning to career coaches for encouragement and expertise.
It gives people the space to think about things they don't normally have the time to think about, said Paul K. McGinniss, president of Response-Able Consulting in Farmingdale and head of the Long Island chapter of the …

Career Central Promotes Two Executives to Senior Vice President.

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

PR Newswire| November 05, 1998 | CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 PR Newswire Association LLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)

Lun Yuen Named Senior Vice President of Technology; Heather Martin Maier
Promoted to Senior Vice President of Marketing
PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Career Central Corporation, the first e-mail based recruitment service to exclusively target passive job seekers, today announced the promotions of Lun Yuen to senior vice president of Technology and Heather Martin Maier to senior vice president of Marketing. The announcement follows a time of unprecedented growth at Career Central -- the launch of its newest service, Career Central for Marketing(TM); a recent infusion of $10 million in venture capital funding; a rapidly expanding pool of more than 70,000 members; the addition of 22 Business Development Managers across …

Career Depression: An American Epidemic.

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

 Business Wire| November 18, 1999 | Copyright

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 1999--
"Indirect loss to companies is incalculable,"
says Chicago career counselors
Jotham G. Friedland, Ph.D., and Sander I. Marcus, Ph.D., clinical psychologists who specialize in career counseling, report that they are seeing career depression with increasing frequency in people, from their mid-20's through retirement age. According to Drs. Friedland and Marcus, the syndrome affects as many women as men.
"Career Depression Syndrome (CDS) is a name we have given to a serious problem consisting of career unhappiness leading to discouragement, self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, hopelessness and depression," Dr. Friedland said. "CDS is being seen with alarming and increasing …

COPYRIGHT 2009 Business Wire. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)

Bookmark and Share Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

 

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

Professional School Counseling| December 01, 2004 | Wadsworth, John; Milson, Amy; Cocco, Karen | Copyright

COPYRIGHT 2009 American School Counselor Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
Career development activities by professional school counselors at the elementary, middle, and high school levels can help students with mental retardation make meaningful career choices as adults. School counselors can be advocates and providers of career development activities that link the individualized educational process for students with disabilities to career success. Career development activities that promote career goals, career interests, transferable occupational skills, decision-making skills; and the refraining of occupational opportunities can lead to greater vocational satisfaction in adulthood for people with mental retardation.
**********
Career development is vital to a quality lifestyle for people with all forms of mental retardation. However, existing research on the career development of people with moderate to severe mental retardation focuses on occupational choice rather than career development (Rumrill & Roessler, 1999). Occupational choice reflects a person's vocational decision at any point in time, whereas career development reflects an ongoing, developmental process that incorporates and integrates personal and environmental information (Super, 1980; Szymanski & Hanley-Maxwell, 1996). Career development is a dynamic process that requires individuals to engage in the ongoing assessment, analysis, and synthesis of information about the world of work and self (Callahan & Gardner, 1997; Hagner & Salomone, 1989).
Career development activities that begin in the elementary school years promote career development, occupational readiness, and career resiliency among adolescents and adults who function within the moderate to severe range of mental retardation (Black & Langone, 1997; Moran, McDermott, & Butkus, 2001). Levinson, Peterson, and Elston (1994) noted that a major advantage of early career development activities for students with mental retardation is that early intervention provides ample time for vocational exploration and the acquisition of skills necessary for vocational success in a preferred occupation. In addition, career development activities may lead to increased job satisfaction and promote sustained patterns of employment among people diagnosed with mental retardation (Levinson et al., 1994; McCrea & Miller, 1999; Szymanski & Hanley-Maxwell, 1996; Wadsworth & Cocco, 2003).
Unfortunately, there has been a paucity of controlled outcome research with regard to the benefits of earth career intervention for students with mental retardation. The heterogeneity of individual characteristics and the life circumstances of students with developmental disorders make it difficult to establish a causal relationship between early interventions and adult employment outcomes. Bucher, Brolin, and Kunce (1987) investigated the adult employment status of 153 students who were educable mentally retarded and 81 students who were severely learning disabled and who, as grade school students, all received a competency-based, life-centered career education curriculum developed by Brolin (1985). Completion of the career education curriculum in grade school was significantly related to the future employment levels of all students with mental retardation and of females with severe learning disabilities. More recently, Heal (1999) conducted a survey of 713 young adults who had been students in special education programs and found that career development activities such as work opportunities, the intensity of vocational preparation, and the percentage of time spent in career education courses were predictors of increased employment, self-esteem, independence, and job security.
School counselors have an important role in creating and advocating educational opportunities that have a positive long-term impact on the vocational choices available to students with mental retardation (Milsom, 2002). This article provides the rationale for, and illustrates the importance of, the role that professional school counselors have in the career development of students who are diagnosed with mental retardation.
WHY PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL COUNSELORS SHOULD BE INVOLVED IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT
School counselors and other educators share responsibility for the educational opportunities provided within the curricula to all students, including those with disabilities (American School Counselor Association, 2003; Schmidt, 1999; Williams & Katsiyannis, 1998). Campbell and Dahir (1997) in Sharing the Vision: The National Standards fin, School Counseling Programs identified academic, personal/social, and career knowledge and skill areas that all students should acquire. Included in these standards are career development activities designed to "provide the foundation for the acquisition of skills, attitudes, and knowledge that enable students to make a successful transition from school to the world of work, and from job to job across the lifespan" (Campbell & Dahir, p. 19). Similarly, the National Career Development Association (NCDA, 1993) also emphasized school counselor involvement in the career development of all students.
Furthermore, federal legislation mandates that school districts attend to the career development needs of students with disabilities. For example, Public Law 98-524, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984, requires that school districts assess the career interests and aptitudes of students with disabilities. Moreover, Public Law 101-476, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1990, mandates the development of transition plans as part of the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) process for students with disabilities. These …

Career development for HR professionals.

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

HRMagazine| June 01, 2008 | CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Society for Human Resource Management. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)

 

Abstract

In human resource management, career development is vital for success. This article presents information and perspectives to assist HR professionals who are either new to HR or in the early years of their careers to assess, evaluate and manage their career development and thus leverage and promote their own career for the future.

Introduction

In today's work environment, the employee is ultimately responsible for his or her career development--the process by which individuals establish their current and future career objectives, assess their existing skills, knowledge or experience levels, and then implement an appropriate course of action to attain their desired career objectives. (1)

Although HR often provides career development opportunities to the overall workforce, HR professionals are also accountable for their own careers. Interestingly, the SHRM 2008 Managing Your HR Career survey report found that nearly 75% of HR professionals began their careers in a business area other than HR. (2) Whether you are considering human resources as your first or next career or figuring out the next HR career move, career development is a vital part of career success. This article provides information and perspectives on what HR professionals, either new to HR or in the early years of their career, can do to leverage and promote their own career development for the future.

Pathways in HR

Many organizations have a human resource department. Since companies depend on employees for success in the marketplace, human resource management (HRM) is a critical function. HRM is defined as the formal structure within an organization responsible for all the decisions, strategies, factors, principles, operations, practices, functions, activities and methods related to the management of people. (3) Within HRM (commonly referred to as human resources or HR), there are three basic tracks:

* Generalist: An individual who possesses the capabilities to perform more than one diversified function rather than specializing in or having responsibility for one specific function. (4)

* HR Specialist: A term used to de fine an individual who has expertise and responsibility for a specific area or function within the field of human resources (e.g., compensation, benefits, employee relations). (5)

* Executive: The highest-ranking individual, or group of individuals, who has managerial or administrative authority for the business operations of the entire organization, business unit or function. (6)

Additionally, within HR, there are several areas of specialization (see Figure 1). This list, although not exhaustive, provides the most common areas of HR (some areas are also known by other terms, as noted in brackets.) For students considering HR as a career, SHRM offers guidance in its new career resource, Choose a Career. Choose HR (see box on next page). Professionals interested in transitioning into HR will find that their expertise from another discipline can be beneficial. Individuals with experience in the following fields can use their expertise in an HR career: accounting (math data analysis, detail-orientation), sales (ability to access needs, influence people), marketing and communications (writing and presentation skills), information technology (programming, report writing, systems and software technology) and administrative (data entry, writing and customer service skills, scheduling/time management). (7) No matter the path that leads to HR, all HR professionals will want to be knowledgeable about their respective career development plans.

Figure 1 | Specialization Areas in Human Resources

* Compensation and benefits [total rewards]

* Employee and labor relations

* Global human resource management

* Organizational and employee development [training]

* Safety and security [risk management]

* Staffing management [workplace planning/readirless, recruiting and retention]

* Workplace diversity

Source: Society for Human Resource Management.

Looking Ahead

Before designing a career development plan, the key questions to consider are:

1. What skills are needed to be a successful HR professional?

2. What are your short- and long-term career goals?

3. What types of companies and work environments are best suited to your goals?

4. Where can you find good career advice?

While you may not have immediate answers for all of these questions, they provide an opening to begin the discussion about career development--at any career stage.

SHRM research indicates that the top most important factors for an individual to attain his or her next job in human resources are strategic/critical thinking, leadership and interpersonal communication skills (see Figure 2). Additionally, key business partner skills for HR include strategic planning, organizational design, change management, cross-functional experience and global understanding. (8) When assessing your skill base and development gaps, these points are important to keep in mind. Further, when seeking career advice, there are many options. According to the SHRM 2008 Managing Your HR Career survey report, the most influential sources of HR career advice are supervisors/managers or other high-level professionals in a supervisory role, colleagues, mentors/ coaches, HR professionals, professors and friends. (9) Clearly, to foster career development, there is a rich resource of professionals available to draw upon and network with in to again insight and gather feedback.

HRMagazine| June 01, 2008 | CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Society for Human Resource Management. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)

Career planning: what's in, what's eternal, don't lose yourself in your career planning!

  
Jobs Employment, Career Job, Employment Job

The Black Collegian October 01, 1997 | Williams, Gail | Copyright

COPYRIGHT 1998 IMDiversity, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
During your collegiate years, planning for your professional development is one of your most valuable tools for career success. Self-assessment is the most essential aspect of your planning; it is the only aspect likely to lead you to career greatness. It is your starting point in an evolving process of professional development. Evaluating self, knowing how you process information, make decisions, and interact with the world around you, will help you discover the career that is right for you. Without self-awareness, you may lose sight of who you are. If you do, you may find that when you start your career you no longer know why you chose that career in the first place, because personal growth and development affect professional development. At no point in the process of professional development should you lose sight of the personality pursuing the career. So important is self-assessment that it ought to be done with a career counselor, a person trained in career development.
Planning your career development includes making certain that you have basic, academic competencies and skills employers expect of every college graduate. In addition to looking for internships, employers look for academic competencies in the following areas:
* Reading, writing and listening
* Problem solving
* Critical thinking
* Mathematics, especially basic statistics
* Computers, especially word processing
* Core humanities, social sciences and sciences
* A major discipline
* Interpersonal relationships, demonstrated by coursework and by membership in organizations
* Cultural diversity, demonstrated by coursework in ethnicity and by global study [see page 142]
Your career planning at this stage means designing your curriculum and experiences around these core competencies so that you do not graduate without them. It includes personally assessing how well you acquire these skills, because colleges and universities never set these skills forth in measurable terms. Standards of colleges and universities differ; standards within departments within institutions differ. Because these core competencies are not offered in measurable terms, your career planning should include an early internship or summer job in an area related to your intended career so that you can evaluate your own skills against those already successful in the work-world. Because you will need to design your own curriculum, as much as you can on your campus, and set measurable standards that will allow you to do well when you are employed full time, you need to intern as early as the end of your freshman year. Several internships, especially at the same place, and summer jobs are likely to help you get a full time job when you graduate. They will certainly help you with your self-assessment.
Integrating …

How To Increase Productivity In The Office

By Alan Cassidy

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

Companies lose millions of dollars because of poor employee productivity. Man power is very important in the success of a company. If employees are unproductive, work outputs are lessened.

Here are some tips on how to increase productivity in the office:

Tip 1: Allot at least 10 minutes of your time in the morning to answer important e-mail. Personal messages should be answered right after work. Lessen the amount of time you spend on networking sites. Most companies block networking sites to increase productivity.

Tip 2: The company should provide ergonomic office chairs to employees. Since employees are expected to render about 8 hours of work daily, they spend most of their time seated in the office chair. This leads to the development of back pain and stiff muscles. According to studies, ergonomic chairs improve circulation of blood and lessen the appearance of body pains. Employees feel more invigorated while working. Moreover, they also feel more energized in completing the tasks for the day.

Look for an ergonomic chair with casters. The casters make mobility easier. It will allow the employee to transfer from one computer terminal to another without standing and walking to the area all the time.

Tip 3: Tasks have to be divided. While most employees are willing to work extra hours to complete tasks, frequently rendering overtime causes feelings of depression and chronic fatigue. Divide the tasks and make sure work tasks can be done competently by one person. Encourage team work in the office.

Tip 4: Employees should get enough sleep. The body also needs to recuperate after the previous ordeals it has gone through. A person who frequently lacks sleep has trouble concentrating on specific tasks. Memory loss and short attention span are just some of the effects of lack of sleep.

Tip 5: Some companies give free vitamin C supplements to employees especially during cold season. Vitamin C helps improve energy levels. This vitamin also improves immune functions so employees are less likely to call in sick.

Tip 6: Offer incentives especially when employees have exceeded performance expectations. Employees get motivated when there are rewards for their hard work or extra work. They also become more loyal. They grumble less and they tend to harness their skills willingly if there are incentives offered.

Tip 7: Facilitate seminars or skill calibration talks to harness the skills of employees. This will also freshen up their minds and allow them to set new goals for themselves.

Easy Tips to Increase Your Productivity Levels

By Kent Swigg

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

We all know that time is available in limited quantity for everybody. There is so much work in our lives, that it is difficult to find time for everything. One way to overcome this problem is to increase productivity so that we are able to get more work completed in less time. This is one of the best ways of solving the problem of limited time.

This article deals with techniques to increase your productivity. When you focus on becoming more productive, you can get a lot of work done and surge ahead of your competitors. When you become more productive, you can enjoy a more fulfilling life. You will be able to add more value to your life. You can be of great benefit to your company as well as to the whole society. So let us discuss a few practical tips in this regard.

How to Increase Productivity:

1. Clear the clutter - Clutter is one of the biggest obstacles to being productive. So you need to remove unwanted distractions and clutter from your life, specially when you are working on an important project. One of the areas of your life where you can begin clearing clutter is your inbox. Delete unwanted emails as soon as they arrive in your inbox.

2. Take the first step - Whenever you find yourself procrastinating on anything, just take the first step. Begin the work and do it for a few minutes. Most of the times, you will not want to stop in the middle and will usually continue till the end. The first step is probably the most difficult one to take, so force yourself to take that step without much delay if you want to be super productive at work.

3. Begin with the most important tasks - If there are so many things on your to-do list, you should try to begin your day with the most important one. At the beginning of the day, you will feel active and full of energy and enthusiasm. So make use of this to get the most important tasks finished as soon as possible. It will help in easing the pressure off your shoulders for the rest of the day.

4. Simplify tasks - If any task seems difficult for you, then you need to break it down. Breaking it into smaller steps or chunks will make it seem less burdensome for you. Then you can easily and quickly finish off each smaller chunk. Within no time, the whole task can be finished even though it was looking too difficult when you first started it. This again is one of the most important secrets of being highly productive.

Get Organised, Easily

By Taff Nelson

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

When it comes to organisation, according to recent studies, women have men beat easily, at least when it comes in relation to work. Men are more likely to get behind with their work, run late for their appointments, or miss their appointments all together. And according to the same study, this last of organisational skills has cost at least 1 man in every 20, at least one promotion in their life.

When it comes to your desk working area, this reveals massive amounts about your personality, and whether you're an organised or disorganised individual. If your desk looks similar to a bomb site, with bits of paper and pens scattered all over it, you can't possible be working efficiently, you need some organisation. Start by creating two piles of this clutter, to keep or to bin. File away whatever falls under the 'to keep' category, and shred or throw away whatever falls into the 'to bin' category. Also, if you have an item of paper work which can easily be accessed another way (an email for example), bin it.

At the start of every day, create a to do list. If possible, write up your to do list each morning on a white board which is next to your desk, and simply cross through them or tick them off as you complete each task. This gives you a great sense of accomplishment as you mark your progress through the day, and is a clear indication to those around you how hard you've been working.

Allocate a specific period of time for yourself each day. A time where you cannot be disturbed, by anyone, no matter the reason. This time is to be used for major projects, where any distraction could completely through you off course from what it is you want to achieve. If you work in a busy office environment, this isn't always so easy, so place a 'do not disturb' sign on your door, and turn off you mobile phone, and close down your email application. Do this at the same time each day, and eventually those around you will get the message that this is you're 'me' time. If you still get disturbed during this time, politely let them know that you don't want to be bothered at this time in the future.

Lastly, we all get overloaded with work at one point or another, and in these times it's important to delegate your workload. If you need to complete work by a certain time and you feel as if you're in over your head, with no chance of successfully completing it by the specified period, delegate it and notify your boss. It's of vital importance that you do this straight away, rather than later on when it could possible be too late.

How To Stay Focused - Your Calendar Is A Great Resource

By Helen Raptoplous

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

I am a big advocate for a detailed calendar. I prefer a desk calendar to one that is online, but either one will work. Your calendar will tell the truth about what is important to you and what you most want to accomplish. How you block out your time and what you do with that amount of time is very critical to your success. If you are not making the progress you expect or you are not accomplishing what you know you are capable of, then take a peek at your calendar. In solid print you will see how you are using, or abusing your greatest resource of time.

Time is our greatest resource as well as the great equalizer among all of us. It is one thing to have time and another to use it well and productively. Distractions will test us day in and day out. Those distractions are the great challenge that separates those who are stuck from those who are moving forward. We will all find distractions to be a challenge, some more then others, but it is a skill we must master because how we use out time is of great strategic importance.

You will want to align your goals and priorities with how you consistently spend your time. You will block out space in your calendar to focus on the things that will move you forward each day. Time allocation is something to asses each week to see where and how you can make improvements. Your time is of great value. This is your time to accomplish whatever you set out to achieve for yourself. Use your calender to make constant commitments to your success and then follow through.

Seven Tips For Handling Stress At Work

By Paul Fischer

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

We have all had those moments at work that overwhelm us. You know that feeling. The one that sends a surge of nervous tension up your spine and the only thing preventing you from "Going Postal" on your coworker is the Happy Hour on the horizon.
The stress of these demanding and harsh economic times has been slowly eating at us and leaving us frazzled more than ever. It is how you handle and deal with stress that makes the difference to you maintaining your composure, professionalism, and respect with others.
Below are some easy to implement stress management approaches:

1. Shut Your Door. If you don't have a door, close your eyes and take three super deep breaths through your nose and exhaling in a long powerful blow out of your mouth. While you are doing the latter, concentrate on a happy memory or a pleasant vision of the future.
2. Clean Desktop Daily. Make sure at the end of the day that your desk is clean and orderly. It will give you a positive feeling as you walk through the door the next morning.
3. Exercise. Stand-up and take a brisk one minute walk around the office. If you can get away with it, make it outside as well.
4. Excuse Me. If you feel yourself about ready to go into a profanity laced tirade, simply excuse yourself to get a class of water or take a restroom break.
5. Break Time. Be sure to take your scheduled work breaks. There has been a lot of research on this topic and they all agree, even a brief rest will ease stress.
6. Be Punctual. Unless you have a very good reason to put in constant overtime, starting and leaving on time prevents the overworked syndrome.
7. Eat Healthy. Make sure you get the prescribed dosage of vitamins and minerals that includes plenty of seafood and green vegetables.

Over an extended amount of time, pressure results in tense muscles and rapid heart rate with long term effects such as high blood pressure, weakened immune system, and depression. In fact the famed Framingham Heart Study showed that not taking regular vacations leads to heart disease and heart attacks risk that is 36% in men and 50% in women.

Yoga on the beach sounds pretty relaxing to me.

How to Become an Effective Leader in 9 Steps

By Takuya Hikichi

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

Building an efficient and effective team leader requires desire, tenacity, dedication and skills. If you are new to the job of leadership or are facing difficulties, then you should follow a few techniques that will make you an effective team leader.

Here are nice bullets for creating an effective leader out of you.

1. Remove discordance: Individual differences and competition can be the end of a team. To foster teamwork, do not focus on individual efforts. Instill the importance of collective effort and harmony.

2. Define objectives and responsibilities clearly: Instructions for work have to be clear and well defined. Similarly, extent of accountability of each member should be clarified. All the members should have a distinct idea of the objectives and missions of the team. Goals for each and every member should be defined in detail.

3. Accept ideas of the group: A team comprises of people from various educational, social and cultural backgrounds. This results in variance of ideas and opinions. Be open to all ideas. Encourage people to come forth with their suggestions and teach all the members to accept the opinions of others. Give due importance to all ideas.

4. Encourage discussions: Frank and honest discussions should be organized in the team. Consult the team on all matters. Discuss problems and solutions with them. Encourage them to come out with constructive suggestions and criticisms.

5. Delegate decision making powers: From time to time, in crunch situations allow the members to take and implement decisions. Guide the team but don't impose your decisions on them. Give them some space. This will develop leadership qualities.

6. Give incentives: Recognize the skills and work of the team members and offer them incentives for excellence. Discuss what incentives that the team members most feel rewarded to receive.

7. Inspire and motivate: Inspiration and motivation are the keys to a great team. Lead from the front and push the team to greater achievements. But be careful, do not try to do things yourself, each the team to do it. Remember, a team looks up to the leader for guidance; it doesn't want him to do its work.

8. Facilities for improvement: Training and developmental programs should be organized frequently. Seminars and workshops on team building will also be helpful.

9. Finally, your conduct, behavior and work ethics should demand respect and be an example to the team. This will create the necessary ambiance for an efficient and cohesive team.

Team Building Vs Team Bonding

By Alan Hunt

Jobs Indonesia, Careers, Indonesia Vacancy

Look up the word "Building" in a reputable dictionary and you'll get something like "the creation or development of something over a period of time". Try the same with the "bonding" and you'll instead be rewarded with something akin to "establish a relationship or link with someone based on shared feelings, interests, or experiences". When it comes to helping teams be more effective, they both have a part to play.

Anyone responsible for a team's performance will want to ensure that as many obstacles to it doing as well as it can in any given circumstance are removed. Indeed, they'll want to go further than that and engage the team in proactive discovery of ways in which it can become every more efficient and effective. Team bonding can help with the former; team building the latter.

The closer that team members feel to one another, the more likely they are to stick together in difficult times and the smoother than more regular days will go as well. Team bonding activities can help with this. Taking our definition at the top, a bonding session is anything that the group can do together that offers them a shared experience. Old favourites like clay pigeon shooting, karting, chocolate making and so on all fall into this category. As, for that matter, do social evenings. Yes, organising a pub crawl really can help your team members get closer together! So any and all of these types of non-work time can bond a team closer.

What they won;t do is that harder, second step. To go beyond having a shared experience and move into the realms of creating or developing great team effectiveness you need to engage in team building, not bonding. As per the definition above, building equals development. That is, the team actually improves something significantly in the way it goes about its day to day business rather than simply gets its team members closer.

To be a team building session rather than a team bonding one, the activity undertaken needs to have two defining characteristics. Firstly, the action - whatever it is - needs to be something that requires team members to work together on in some way. As a simple example, getting into a kart and hammering it around a circuit is an individual affair. On the other hand, constructing a kart that is then driven around a circuit is an entirely different matter. Designing and building a vehicle capable of being driven safely by a team member will require the whole team to work together.

Secondly and most importantly, the activity agenda needs to have time set aside to reflect on what the team or teams did and how it or they went about tackling the challenge. Indeed, if the session is all about learning how to be better as a team, you should probably set aside at least as long for the debrief session as the activity itself. People often balk at this idea. Many think that a debrief session is the price you have to pay in order to be able to enjoy the activity. My experience is that a well run, structured debrief session is not only worth its weight in gold but is enjoyed every bit as much, and often more, than the activity in the first place.

In conclusion, make sure that what you select to do on your team away day matches what you want to get out of it. If it is all about having a shared experience and bringing people together, a team bonding session is the way to go. if you want more than that and have a sustained and positive impact back at work, then go for your choice of the many team building activities on offer.

Roustabout Jobs - Tell Me More

By Monika Nolte

Job, Jobs, Career

With the demand for oil and gas increasing in the world, the industry is expanding their operations and with technology making ever more possible the exploration and extraction of hard-to-get-at oil and gas, jobs, too, are expanding for people with various degrees and even for those with no degree. The first rung of the ladder is usually the roustabout so in this article, we will discuss what the job is all about and what you need to get hired for roustabout jobs.

The expansion of the oil and gas industries as well as the alternative energy sector such as wind farms, makes this the perfect time to try your hand at the entry level roustabout jobs. Yes, the roustabout is the one who does all the dirty jobs necessary to support everyone else working on an oil drilling platform. He takes the supplies off the boats and stows them, he does the scraping and painting of the equipment, deck and work areas, he does the stacking of the pipes for the drilling, he deals with the drilling mud and may even repair the mud pumps. His is a physically demanding job, with lots of lifting, bending and working at heights while dealing with heavy equipment, often in severe weather conditions (depending on the location). He will be working long hours, seven days a week but he gets very well rewarded for what could be called a 'hard grind'. However for someone with just a high school diploma and no experience, the roustabout's job is one way to earn lots of money and enjoy lots of free time as well.

We mentioned the type of work the roustabout does for his 12 hours shifts. The twelve hours off can be spent in the recreational areas as well as sleeping or eating in the crew quarters and canteens. He is likely to have to work those shifts from 2 to 4 weeks at a time, followed by the same amount of time off. Depending on where in the world the roustabout is located, that much time off means he could go home or go travelling.

A roustabout can earn anywhere from $20K to $30K a year as his starting salary. As he progresses up the promotions ladder, his salary could go as high as $50K. In some areas where labour is in short supply like the oil sands fields of Alberta, Canada, earnings can be even higher. Besides the wages, the benefits include full medical and dental, paid room and board while on the rig and very generous retirement pension contributions. Some companies will also give the roustabout an allowance for travelling to and from the heliports used to ferry crew to and from the oil rigs.

What qualities does the person (usually male over the age of 18), have to have to become a roustabout? He has to be in very good mental and physical condition, enjoy physical work and working outdoors sometimes working at heights, be willing to learn and work as part of a team and have the right attitude to safety and work in general. It also helps if doesn't mind being away from home.

To enter this industry, you need to be at least 18 years old, physically and mentally fit and fluent in English. You will have to pass a medical relevant to working offshore, plus follow the rules each country has for having the necessary work permits and training certification.