Teryl @ Work

3 things to do BEFORE you sign your new employment contract 1.        Consider additional costs you might incur so that you know what take home pay is the basis for negotiation ·          Benefits you might be losing eg Canteen ·          Distance from home o     Higher transport costs o     Additional child care costs for earlier drop off/later collection 2.        Ask to see a copy of a payslip ·          Most companies will be happy to do this to ensure there is a clear understanding of take home pay ·          The time to negotiate your new salary is before the contract is drawn up.   Backwards and forwards paperwork and mail is time wasting and annoying.   It starts the relationship off on the wr...

or sign a new contract… 1.         Confirm your notice period ·          A lot of companies allow 30 days from date of resignation, but many ask for a calendar month 2.        Check your restraints ·          If you are joining a competitor ·          If you are joining a client 3.        Find out when your last payment will be transferred ·          Companies have been burned by paying over on the 25 th , and people not returning, so they may delay payment transfer until the last official working day, or even the first day of the following month.  You may need to make special arrangements regarding debit orders …. Both your current company and your new one deserve to be fairly treated.   Knowledge of ...

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy – Unknown source We all want different things from work: The list is diverse and, if you do some research, there are significant differences in the combinations of goals that people have. And this impacts on the workplace they want. The most significant feedback I have received over the years is: I need to feel safe, but I need to be stretched . While I know lots of people, mainly entrepreneurs, who love to live on the edge, already considering the next high risk project while the current ones are starting to roll out, it seems to me that there is a general resistance to change and risk.   Of course, with high risk comes high reward, although simply staying in the same position can leave you in the right place at the right time, too. So #WhereIWork was a thought process that I had considered for many...

How we love to elaborate…     Both in our personal and business lives.   It is rare to find somebody who simply answers the question. In sales, it is becoming more and more critical to just say yes or no.   If you want to embroider afterwards, by all means, but tell the client you can or you can’t do it, first. That’s what they remember, the yes or the no. Being married to an engineer, I have learnt that if I don’t answer the question, he simply repeats it, until he gets a definitive answer.. As the above is extremely bad for marital relationships, I try to say yes or no first and then give the details. I thought it was just me, but I have been observing my friends and the people I work with, and it is fascinating how few one word answers are immediately available. When you are selling and a client asks you: If the widget turns blue in the dark, say yes if it does,  then  ask if that is a key part ...

If I were 22   May is my birthday month, so a time for celebrations and introspection. In interviews, I often ask our applicants to pretend they are 60, and look back on their careers.   Their dreams range from leaving a legacy to being able to retire by the age of 45. At 22, I had taken my first steps on the career ladder.   I had been promoted from being a PA and Installation Secretary (setting up PoS installations for NCR’s large retailers) to becoming a full time programmer. I had made some extremely poor academic decisions, and realised I had to make some very good career choices.   Software development was a relatively new field when I was in my early 20s, and it became an exciting and fulfilling career. Based on my history what advice would I give myself or a new graduate? It doesn’t matter what you have studied, or what your first job is. Keep looking for your passion, find what makes you happy. If it’s money, and you don’t m...

Is 2016 the year of mainstreaming Business Intelligence and Analytics? In IT circles, IoT and Analytics are mainstream!   In the real business world, there appears to be an appetite and a genuine need, but the question is “Is it really happening?” I have rather belatedly read Ajeet Singh’s article – 2016 Anti-Predictions for Analytics, and found it very interesting.   Some of the statistics mentioned were a surprise eg 99% of data still being on premise. Business technology trends do take multiple paths.   I remember when we first started selling biometric solutions at Accsys over ten years ago,  we would get in the door with biometrics, but the majority of clients still felt safer with cards.   It is the same with Employee Self Service, the take up is happening, but it is still largely at the early adopter stage in the SME market, in spite of overwhelmingly strong ROI indicators. So for the majority of businesses, Analyt...

Like any other discipline, HR has evolved, and is continuing to do so. I asked Ngoni Munetsi, head of Accsys People Partners Management for his input.   The article below is his response. Known before as Personnel Management, today we are talking of terms like Strategic Human Resources, Talent Management, and HR Intelligence among other terms. Are there any differences? Or is it just old wine in a new bottle? What are the current trends and what future predictions do we have in the evolution? The Morden view is the alignment of HR to Business, a statement very popular in the HR fraternity, but do we really understand how to do so? If HR is aligned to business, why is there a prophecy/prediction of the erosion of its relevance, because where there is alignment there is utility, not so? To stay relevant, I think HR strategies must focus on the following trends; The Strategic focus; This cannot be outsourced. If HR Professionals cannot transform into strategic busi...