by: Karen Fritscher-Porter
(Stop hiring new administrative support staff. And learn how to retain your existing administrative staff.)
Are you a manager, director or other senior-level personnel who wants to work more effectively with your administrative support professional? Did you know that partnering with your administrative assistants and executive assistants can actually help you to meet your professional goals at work? Would you like to know how to improve morale among your administrative support professionals and retain them as long-term employees? After all, isn't it a lot more profitable to retain existing staff than to constantly hire, train and get along with new staff? Here are five ways to work more effectively with your current administrative support professionals starting now:
1. Assume that your administrative support professional doesn't know what's on your mind until you tell him. That's the one assumption it's okay to make in the office environment. Always remember that your administrative support professional is not a mind reader--no matter how in tune with your thoughts she or he may seem to be sometimes. It's that one time that you "assume" when things will go awry in your work relationship.
2. Discuss your personal and professional goals. In order to be your partner, your administrative support professional needs to know who you want to be when. What do you personally want in your career? And what are you striving for on behalf of the company? These answers will affect your administrative professional's duties. She wants to help you achieve your plans. Knowing these answers helps her to clarify the prioritization of tasks and situations that arise daily. She'll focus on projects relevant to your goals first when possible. And she'll know and pass along pieces of information she happens upon throughout the year that would be useful or of interest to you.
3. Discuss project expectations. When you're giving an assignment, make sure your administrative professional precisely understands the expected project outcome. This means you will need to clarify the outcome in your head first and then clearly relay that expected outcome to your administrative professional. Clearly voicing the precise (or nearly precise) expected project outcome before it happens means no surprises upon project completion and efficient use of your time and that of your administrative professional. Precise communication prevents misinterpretation by both parties which can cause bad relationships and inappropriate work results. If the results aren't what you asked for then maybe in actuality you didn't quite ask for the results you wanted.
4. Have a daily briefing with your administrative support person. Meet daily whether either of you want to do so or not. This meeting forces communication to flow daily between you both, which is a good thing. And comfort levels with each other will rise. It could be a five minute meeting while standing. Or it could be a 10 minute meeting while seated that's officially posted on the calendar to happen every day that you're in the office at 9:00 a.m. Do what works best for you both. And make sure you're uninterrupted during this time.
5. Support opportunities for your administrative professional to achieve certifications. For example, your administrative professional can become a Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) and a Certified Professional Secretary (CPS), both elite designations by administrative professional criteria. Encourage her or him to train and test for these titles as well as have your company pay the registration costs.
(c) 2005 Karen Fritscher-Porter
About the Author
Karen Fritscher-Porter is the author of the eBooklet: 87 Ways You Can Work More Effectively With Your Administrative Support Professional. Order your copy at http://www.admin-ezine.com/employertips.htm . Fritscher-Porter publishes The Effective Admin newsletter (www.admin-ezine.com). The monthly e-zine is distributed to 800+ administrative assistants and executive assistants globally to help them excel on the job and in their careers.
5 Ways to Work More Effectively With Your Administrative
20 Ways to Advance Your Career
by: Cecile Peterkin
To survive and thrive in today's competitive environment, it is not just what you know. You also need to be competent. You must stand out from the crowd - be memorable, impressive, credible, trusted and liked.
"Success is never a destination - it is a journey."
- Maya Sullivan
1. Exceed expectations; deliver results on a or head of time.
2. Manage your time effectively.
3. Create a career plan with goals and training requirements.
4. Move away from day-to-day operations.
5. Develop strong rapport with colleagues, senior managers/executives.
6. Get a mentor, accept guidance in your career.
7. Know your organization's goals vision, values, business strategies.
8. Create opportunites to further own/business goals.
9. Solicit feedback and assess the decision for purposes of continuous improvement.
10. Communicate effectively to people at all levels of your organization.
11. Build and maintain relationships with individuals who might impact your work.
12. Plan, prioritize and organize your work.
13. Manage own emotions and reactions.
14. Balance the demands of your personal and professional life.
15. Give yourself quarterly reviews, identify your accomplishments.
16. Become your own sales team, market your abilities.
17. Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
18. Be decisive and action oriented.
19. Commit to excellence and professionalism.
20. Be self-disciplined.
Cecile Peterkin is a trained Career/Life Coach and speaker whose work centers primarily on middle managers and their various challenges. She also works with individuals who are ready to move forward, take action, achieve goals and experience overall life improvement, both in personal and in career.
Cosmic Coaching Centre
www.cosmiccoachingcentre.com
416-486-5000
cecile@cosmiccoachingcentre.com
10 Tips For Reciprocal Links
by: Computer Work At Home Careers
Reciprocal links are one of the most common and most effective forms of website promotion. When sites trade links, they both benefit by sharing some traffic directly and getting noticed more favourably by the search engines.
Reciprocal Links help you improve search engine ranking and generate more traffic to your web site. The quality and quantity of reciprocal links with other web sites allows you to increase your link popularity. Increasing your link popularity will drive more traffic to your web site as more visitors will click through to your web site and better search engine ranking will result bringing more targeted traffic. With the increasing competition, getting a good ranking in the search engines is important. If you really want a high rank position with the search engines and more traffic to your web site, you need to work out a focused linking strategy to establish reciprocal links with other web sites. I know that exchanging links is not simple and take time, but is the best time investment you will ever do.
The basic concept is simple - you link my site, I'll link yours and we'll both get an increase in traffic. I have exchanged many links in my web-based career. Here are 10 tips from my experience ….
1) Find the right site to do a reciprocal link exchange with. Define the kinds of sites with which you want to trade links. These sites are normally in your website's category of interest, or sites that you feel your visitors might find interesting.
2) If you are at the beginning of promoting your site and want to see results soon, exchange links with popular and quality web sites. This doesn’t mean that popular web sites will accept that, but you have to try. Don’t hesitate. Lots of popular web sites that are in another category of interest, maybe accept exchange link with you. It’s your decision …
3) When you contact the webmaster of the other site, you should be kind. Tell him that you run a site that has a similar topic and describe your site a bit. Say that you like his site and have included a link to it in your site (give him the address of the page where the link is), then ask him to return the favour by linking to your site. If you never get a reply or your proposal gets rejected, just forget it and find another site.
4) Never be disappointed! There are a lot of webmasters who will exchange links with you.
5) Be patient! With hundreds of thousands of sites out there, it takes time and efforts to find and choose web sites for reciprocal links. Keep working.
6) If another webmaster asks you to exchange link, give him an answer. If you deny, explain why. If you like the content of that web site then add the link. Every link is useful.
7) Exchange as many links as you can. Don’t be afraid to swap links with competitor websites. This is not going to hurt your business. World wide web is a huge area. Internet has space for everyone.
8) Don't remove your link without contacting the webmaster of the other site first. Some webmasters agree to exchange reciprocal links, add your link on their site and after a few days/weeks they remove it without noticing you. You should check the site of your partner every now to see if he's keeping his part of the deal. If he is not, contact the guy and kindly ask him to explain why your link has disappeared. If you don't get a satisfactory explanation, remove the link to his site from your site and find another partner.
9) Prefer text links rather than graphics as this would be more search engine friendly. If you want to make your site more impressive and satisfy your partner, add a graphic link too, but don’t overdo it.
10) Your reciprocal link request is more likely to be taken seriously if you have your own domain! Some webmasters may not even wish to trade reciprocal links with websites with URLs based on other providers' domains, fearing the sites are not high quality. If you are serious about your website, consider getting your own domain. It costs some money, but the cash spent is well worth it when you realize how much better your website will be perceived in the eyes of your visitors.
Never forget … The traffic that reciprocal links generate is FREE!!!
Computer Work At Home Careers
http://computer-work-at-home-careers.com
Start a computer work at home job, build your own home based business and increase your income making money online.
10 Keys to Rise From Retrenchment and Move on to an Exciting
by: Kim Beardsmore
You may be astonished to realize that retrenchment may occur more than once during the life of the modern day worker. In fact, career advisors report that we could expect to be made redundant up to three times during our working life.
As common as retrenchment is, when it happens, no one likes it. Whatever range of emotions initially emerge - fear, anger, resentment, retaliation, humiliation, disappointment - we should recognise as being quite normal. How we respond and deal with the situation will influence our entire financial future and how quickly we move through these negative emotions.
This article will assist those people who may wonder how to deal with retrenchment. These eight keys will help you move on quickly and re-establish yourself in a productive working environment.
1. Don't take it personally. Redundancy is rarely, if ever, personal. Don't let it affect your self-confidence and morale. In most cases retrenchments occur as a result of changing economic situations, mergers or acquisitions which are typically outside most people's span of control.
2. Retrenchment is not an end, but rather a beginning. Even though we may not expect it, throughout various stages of our lives doors close and others open. When one door closes and it is a shock, we may not immediately see other doors opening.
3. Take advantage of outplacement support. If you company provides outplacement support - make full use of it. If no outplacement support has been provided ask if the company could provide assistance with a registered outplacement firm. Research has shown that job seekers with the assistance of a qualified outplacement consultant have better strike rate in job interviews.
4. Sort out your finances. Discuss with your partner or spouse your financial position and make adjustments where necessary. Few people realize that this transition may be a gift to help you change directions. Poor financial planning may propel you into a less than favourable job and close down opportunities to explore what you really would like to be doing.
5. Be realistic about time. Expect things to take a while. The more senior your previous job, the longer it will take to find something else at the same level. If you change careers to start your own business it will take time for you to achieve the same feelings of effectiveness. Be patient when making a new transition and go easy on yourself by not expecting too much, too soon.
6. Forget the 'labels'. Recruitment consultants are rarely concerned with the fact you were retrenched. They are more interested in how you respond when the chips are down and what you did about and how quickly you took control of your situation. It's not what happens in life that distinguishes us, but rather what we do about it. Very likely the person interviewing you for your next job has been retrenched themselves at some stage!
7. Explore options. Talk to a specialist career advisor or business coach. This may just be the chance to propel you in a new direction. With assistance you may uncover skills and pathways you may not have previously had the time, inclination or confidence to embrace.
8. Get some exercise. There is limited appeal in sitting around the house in your pyjamas until lunchtime. Get up early and get some exercise. The endorphins will keep your mind energetic and creative and assist you through the transition.
9. Volunteer your time to a worthwhile cause that interests you. This will help keep your self esteem high and provide activities that may help you explore new avenues, or maintain your current skills. At the very least it will keep you busy and stop your brain turning into "TV-mush".
10. Feed your spirit. Finding exhilarating testimonies of people who succeed against all odds. If you are not an avid reader, then now is the time to start and ensure you are keeping your mind positively challenged with the heros of our time. It will help keep things in perspective.
About The Author
Kim Beardsmore operates a successful international marketing business. She is a mentor and coach for others wanting to operate their own home business. If you are serious about earning money from home and are willing to work, then we'd like to help you grow a profitable business. We offer complete training, online and offline resources and a partnership for success: http://free2liv.com/?refid=rtnchmnt-567885686
The Irish Driving Scene.An Instructors Perspective
by: Robin Piggott
The Irish Driving Scene.An Instructors Perspective
The Driving Environment
Today’s motoring environment is very different to that of thirty or even fifteen years ago for a number of key reasons and we will examine these to get an idea of the kind of skills needed to survive in today’s world and stay accident free.
For the first time in over one hundred and fifty years our population has exceeded 4 million and continues to increase steadily.
Demographics
The age of our population is quite unique and according to the 2002 census there are approximately 640,200 people in the 15 – 24 age bracket who are in, or approaching, the age at which they will want to drive. Lets be clear on this point …every person in today’s Ireland will aspire to drive and own a car in this prosperity environment, for career, family and social reasons .In the past until you had the potential to be able to own a car it was quite common not to bother to learn to drive. Those that needed to get to work from a distance tended to rely on neighbours and friends or relatives to be the ever present chauffeur. It’s very common today for an exodus from the city limits out to the open country to live, with huge numbers of houses, sorry mansions; being constructed at seemingly breakneck speed. The draw of the country air and the sweet sounds of birds in the morning seems to be an irresistible magnet for the city dweller. A car or three is taken for granted. Of course , we are a nation of keen gardeners now and the regular trip to the garden centre could not be undertaken by public transport because it doesn’t exist in most rural areas. All of this means that we have a far greater number of cars and drivers on the road than thirty years ago and at different times of day due to many variations in working hours. So there is hardly a time when you are unlikely to meet another vehicle. Six am during the working week can be just as dangerous as five thirty rush hour.
Learner Drivers
Current numbers of learner Drivers are estimated at 350,000 and this continues to be swelled by the increase in our immigrant population, both expatriates and non-nationals setting up home here for the first time. The waiting list for a Driving Test has reached an all time high due mainly to these demographics, but also to the relatively small number of Driving Examiners
. This situation is being addressed at the moment with the probability of an outside agency being drafted in to undertake a further 40,000 Driving Tests over the course of a year .While it is unfortunate that all drivers have to wait such a long time in order to sit their Test it is an opportunity for them to learn some very essential skills and to prepare well for the Test.
It is very common for candidates to leave their lessons to the last moment which very often produces a negative result. Worse still, is the mistaken belief that the longer one is driving the greater chance of passing the Driving Test. Without professional lessons the chances of passing the Test are pretty remote; but more crucial will be the lack of basic skills leading to accidents which can and should be preventable .Passing the Driving Test, while certainly a milestone in a person’s driving career, is only the beginning of a life –long process not the end.
Professional Tuition
Safe Driving for Life can be achieved, with the correct mind set and the knowledge that good basic driving skills are the foundation for the learning process and need to be provided by Professional Instructors and not relatives or friends. Practise with Mum or Dad is very useful but only in conjunction with proper Tuition. Being able to move a car down the road and perhaps change a gear or two and even steer out of trouble is not the level of skill needed to stay alive and is about as far from the required Driving Test standard as we are from the Moon.(about 250,000 miles, sorry 400,000Km at the last count).I am not suggesting that we need to drive a quarter of a million miles
New Technology
The development of technology over the last number of years has had a big impact on the driving environment both positive and negative. Better roads and road markings make the driving experience much more pleasurable especially on major thoroughfares; however despite the millions of Euro spent on the main road infrastructure, Irish country roads will probably remain as they have always been, difficult and full of danger for the novice or Tourist Driver.
Legislation, most of which has emanated from Europe, has contributed to better maintained cars, that are more Eco-friendly and more easy to drive. Having said that, a car will quite easily go off and do its own thing if the driver has not got the ability to control it under all kinds of weather and road conditions.
Cars are much better insulated than years ago so the impression of speed is nothing like what it was thirty or forty years ago when you really knew you were travelling at 70mph.Wind noise and vibration kept you alert and aware! Even small family cars today have the ability to travel at 100mph (or 156kph) without too much coaxing .Back then a much larger capacity engine of say 1500 cc had a top speed of around 75mph (120kph).This ease of speed gives new and novice drivers the opportunity to far exceed their capabilities without realising it .
Employment
In today’s Ireland we have virtually full employment and many sectors are suffering from a lack of skilled employees, the commercial driving sector being one of many. More jobs and the need to get to those jobs on time has created a society that is flush with prosperity and awash with an ever increasing number of new cars on the road. The opportunities now being created for younger people with full Driving Licenses are many. Indeed most occupations now require you to have a full driving license and it certainly looks good on a C.V. especially if you are in the younger age bracket. So get to it all you young ones and don’t leave it till later on in your career…. Do it now!
Accidents
Most of these new cars on the road are being piloted by Learner Drivers, a good proportion of whom, do not take driving lessons professionally.
Unlike most of the rest of our European Neighbours, we do not yet have mandatory tuition for learner drivers, although it is being proposed. Therefore we have a situation whereby learner drivers can buy a car and just head off into the wide blue yonder without the necessary skills to control what is essentially a lethal weapon. Our Accident statistics bear out this point and it would be of great benefit to the whole community to see a reduction in these horrific figures
Recent E.U. Directives have extended the scope of the Driving Test and not before time. There has to be at least a basic knowledge of instruments and equipment before you can pass the Driving Test today but there are still many areas of driving expertise that do not come within the remit of the Irish Driving Test. An emergency stop; country road driving; high speed carriageway experience and a greater emphasis on hazard perception would go a long way to improving standards on today’s roads by being incorporated into the Driving Test.
About the Author
Robin Piggott is the owner of Astral School of Motoring which is based in Limerick, Ireland.He has thirty five years of Driving Experience,and including teaching in–house.
http://www.astralmotoring.ie
10 Good Reasons for taking Driving Lessons
by: Robin Piggott
In a driving context, most of the decisions that you take and the techniques that you employ, will have both an economic and a safety impact. The decision to take driving lessons is really a simple one but one that will have far reaching consequences well into the future. Most, if not all, poor or dangerous habits in today’s drivers stem from the lack of professional tuition at the outset. In this second in a series of articles designed to assist today’s learner drivers we will have a look at the benefits in taking Professional Tuition.
1.Taking lessons will greatly improve your chances of staying safe and accident free since providing you retain what you have been taught, you will be probably better than many motorists who have been driving for considerably longer. Lack of sufficient training, or even no training at all which is common in Ireland, will inevitably lead to accidents at a very early stage in the driving career. Accidents are to be avoided at all costs. After all isn’t the safety of the driver, the passengers and other road users the paramount priority?
2.A course of lessons at the start of your driving career and not one month from your Driving Test, will give you the confidence you need to continue the learning process, and will form the foundation for safe motoring.
3.Taking a course of lessons will give you the chance to be accepted by an insurance company for your first Insurance policy. In fact most companies will insist on a minimum number of lessons completed by a recognised school, before a son or daughter will be admitted onto a Parent’s policy.
4.On a very topical note, the Irish Insurer Hibernian, in conjunction with the Institute of Advanced Motorists, has extended its successful Ignition scheme to provisional license holders since January 2005.Learner drivers that pass the one hour driving assessment, will be offered a 21% reduction on their insurance. This is a substantial reduction for any new driver, particularly young males under 25 years of age, and well worth achieving. Just being in the possession of a provisional license will not suffice to pass this test. A course of lessons will be needed in order to achieve the required standard and the test should not be booked until quite a high level of both competence and confidence has been reached.
5.Passing the Department of Transport Driving Test, sooner rather than later, will result in further reductions in already high Insurance costs. Lessons taken just before the Driving Test will not cut it in today’s Test environment; there is just too much to learn if one wants to be successful first time out.
6.The long waiting list for the Irish Driving Test is a great inconvenience for many learner Drivers and also their Driving Instructors. The long wait is accentuated by the huge numbers of learners who do not prepare adequately with a professional school and then are forced to re sit their Test sometimes several times over. Career aspirations can easily be affected if the journey to a full License is overly prolonged.
7.Obtaining a full driving license promptly will speed up the reduction in your insurance premiums via your annual no claims bonus, providing of course you are not involved in any accidents.
8.As a fully licensed Driver you will have much greater opportunity to shop around for a competitive insurance quote, since there are only a very few companies who will insure provisional license holders and then only at a huge premium.
9.As an addition to item number 4 as a fully licensed Driver, you may apply for the more advanced Hibernian Ignition course, providing you are in your first five years of driving .This is a full day course, the cost of which can be recouped, if you pass the practical driving assessment at the end of the day. The reduction in insurance premium for the successful candidate can be upwards of 30%, so again very worthwhile .Drivers in this category should take a refresher course with a driving school to ensure that any bad habits or techniques are eradicated. Once again it is worth pointing out that the length of your driving experience is not a guarantee of success unless you started on the right foot to begin with!
10. If, in the early days of your working life you are unlucky enough to find yourself jobless through either, takeovers, cutbacks or closures, a full Driving License will enable you to pick up an interim job very quickly while you regroup and examine your future options. There is a shortage of drivers to fill current vacancies in Europe, particularly in the commercial sector so there are great opportunities for young qualified drivers who have been well trained.
Both career and promotional opportunities abound for the fully licensed driver in any organisation. Faced with two candidates of similar qualifications, an employer will naturally favour the person with the full license pretty much every time.
About the Author
Robin Piggott is a professional Driving Instructor who runs a School in Limerick, Ireland. The many benefits in taking Driving lessons are both obvious and not so obvious.Please check out his web site.
http://www.astralmotoring.ie
5 Key Factors to Consider When Selecting an Outplacement
by: Ann Hackett
With today's economy, more and more companies are finding themselves
faced with the situation of having to reduce headcount to remain
competitive. Here are five key factors to consider when selecting
an outplacement firm if your company is ever faced with a workforce
reduction.
1. Types of Services Provided.
One decision you will need to make regarding outplacement is whether
your displaced workers would benefit most from group or individual
one-on-one outplacement. For the majority of outplaced employees,
if your budget permits, individual outplacement is the preferred
option since it provides one-on-one support that will help them move
forward more quickly than they would on their own.
If you decide they would benefit most from individual outplacement,
you will then need to determine what services would be most valuable
to your displaced employees. One option would be to select an
outplacement firm that develops their resume and cover letter for them.
Another option would be an outplacement firm that offers office space
and a computer for the displaced worker to prepare their own job
search materials.
2. Areas of Specialty.
Another factor to consider when selecting an outplacement firm is
whether it is important to you that they have experience working with
the type of displaced employees you will be sending them. A related
factor is whether it is important to you that the outplacement company
specializes in dealing with companies like yours.
If their areas of specialty are important to you, review the
outplacement company's web site and other marketing materials to see
what their specialty is or ask them directly. If an outplacement
firm's expertise lies in serving large companies displacing
administrative staff and your small business is displacing experienced
managers, this outplacement firm may not be the best fit for you.
3. Experience with Current Job Search Practices.
How important is it to you that the outplacement firm be experienced
with Internet job search techniques? Is it likely that the Internet
will play a key role in your displaced employees' job search strategy?
If you determine that Internet savvy is an important evaluation point
for an outplacement firm, check to see whether the outplacement firm
recognizes the importance of the Internet by having a web site. Are
they aware of the top online career sites? Do they offer a service to
post displaced employees resumes on these top online career sites?
Do they have the ability to distribution resumes electronically to a
select group of employers and recruiters?
4. Length of Time Support is Provided.
Another factor to consider when selecting outplacement services is the
amount of time you feel the displaced worker would require outplacement
support. In general, the more senior-level the position, the longer it
will take the displaced employee to find suitable employment.
A second time factor to consider is whether the displaced worker will
receive ongoing one-on-one scheduled sessions with a career transition
consultant or whether the ongoing support merely includes access to job
search support materials.
5. Costs.
Outplacement costs must be considered when selecting an outplacement
firm. Check to see whether outplacement costs are clearly defined and
stated on the outplacement firm's web site and in their marketing
materials. Are you charged only if the displaced employee elects to
contact the outplacement firm for support or are you charged regardless
of whether the displaced employee receives support? Are there
affordable packages available that provide the services you feel your
displaced employees would most benefit from without providing unwanted
services?
Another cost factor to consider is whether the outplacement firm gives
you the able to select outplacement services a la carte to meet your
needs. Also determine whether the outplacement company has a minimum
fee requirement or whether they will charge you only for the number of
displaced employees you actually have even if the number is as few as
one.
By considering each of these five factors you can develop effective
selection criteria for deciding on an outplacement provider to best
meet the needs of your displaced employees while adhering to your
budget constraints.
About the Author
Ann Hackett is the founder and President of Quest
(http://www.QuestCareer.com), an online career management company that
specializes in providing small businesses located throughout the world.
