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Daily archives for March 25th, 2010

Good Reasons For You To Begin Considering New Careers, And How To Go About Embarking On A New Career.

Mar25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by MoU Team

Are you tired of performing the same boring job day in, day out? Maybe it is getting harder for you to get yourself out of bed and to work every day. Do you from time to time think you would happier in a different job, or career? It could well be time for you to begin considering Careers. Being stuck in an everyday, boring job is not what people like. Even if you take home good money, it can be tricky to get motivated to come to work. It can noticeably effect your everyday life. You can feel less stimulated to do things outside of work. This could have negative impacts on your friends and family. No-one likes to squander an evening with someone who doesn’t want to do anything at all! Of course it is no good for yourself either, and getting yourself stuck in a rut is not a position you should ever have to be in! If this sounds like you, it is certainly time to start thinking about New careers, and the Career choices on hand to you.

First thing you should do in these conditions, particularly if you already lack the motivation to do anything about your situation, is think positive! You can help yourself out of this, and you can get a new job. Look at any expertise you have gained from your existing job. Think about where else these can be useful. Think about doing something you enjoy doing. Perhaps you have an interest in art? It may be a good time to contemplate doing it full time, if you are skilled enough. If not, there are a lot of training courses out there to help you brush up your skills. Don’t allow yourself to be disheartened by the overwhelming amount of Careers available. It will be well worth your time to sit down and have a think about all your options.

Of course, not everyone may be stuck in a job they dislike, but they may still be thinking about change. You may enjoy your present job, but maybe you need more money to help fund a growing family. Or, just fund a more glamorous lifestyle! Maybe you want a change of scenery. Some people have careers which allow them to travel the world. Maybe you have not even decided what you want to do with your job. Maybe you are a student about to leave University, or maybe you are about to start University and are not too sure about what you wish to do when you leave. These are just some of the reasons for looking at several Career choices available to you.

Careers are a very important aspect of many peoples lives. For some, their lives can revolve around their career and what they do for a living. If that sounds like what you are after, then there are many New careers available to you. Just take care that when you are looking at Careers, you decide on something that interests you, and is something you would not mind doing for a long time. Picking out something just because it pays well may sound like a good thing in the short term, but if it isn’t something you enjoy, it may be a choice you come to regret later in life.

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As Flexible Working Progressively Increases In Popularity Let’s Consider Which Job Roles May Be More Suited To Being Carried Out At Home.

Mar25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by MoU Team

The Flexible Working (Procedural Requirements) Regulations 2002 established details of the methods by which companies and people can change their usual working practices to achieve various objectives. This is definitely not a one-sided piece of legislation as companies could obtain as much benefit in business terms as the workers do in having increased leisure time or improving their domestic arrangements such as child care. In specific circumstances, mainly involving the need to provide care for children and the disabled, the regulations force the firm to ‘seriously consider’ requests from people for flexible working but for the most part it is up to decide whether it is relevant to their particular business. Surveys have revealed that those small businesses which have introduced flexible working have done so chiefly through the offer of part-time working, the implementation of a flexi-time or job sharing system and the option to Work From Home.

Deep analysis of a business’ needs is necessary before the introduction of flexible working practices. It is critical to make certain that all people are seen to be treated as equitably as possible and are given reasonable access to the opportunities which are offered to them. For example, while flexi-time could be useful to parents of children of school age it has no benefit to those with pre-school. These parents could opt for job sharing, part-time working or the opportunity to Work From Home to save on or eradicate childcare costs. In the perfect world there would be an option available to match everyone’s circumstances but this may be hard to achieve. The part-time, job share and flexi-time options are quite broad in their appeal to people and provide no disruption to the employer as the work and its location will not alter.

However, the opportunity to Work From Home will not be accessible to all people as not all jobs are suitable to be carried out remotely from the business’ premises. The manufacturing function is obviously a case in point as automation has lowered unit costs hugely and to revert to manual assembly by homeworkers would be commercial suicide. While this may be an extreme example it concentrates attention on which jobs are suitable to be done at home. To give an example of the opposite case, a newly-formed, high-tech Internet Business using the latest technology will probably function with the vast majority of its people doing Online Jobs working from home. The more traditional businesses need to consider carefully which roles can be carried out with equal effectiveness from home. The obvious ones would be the non-customer facing type, mostly telephone-based involving sales or customer service. Depending on the capability of the communication technology to be installed at the worker’s home then most departments would have some jobs which would be suitable. Although these would undoubtedly be chiefly clerical, there could be other roles within the accountancy, personnel or marketing functions which perhaps involve the production of reports or management information which could be performed equally as well from home.

A British Chamber of Commerce survey pointed out that 38% of small companies offer the opportunity of flexible working to their employees. They do this because it enables them to keep hold of high quality workers who would otherwise have to stop working due to changes in their domestic circumstances. The company does not turn into an Internet Business as most of its operations carry on as they were before. The only alteration is that some workers now have Online Jobs and are at the end of a telephone line instead of at the end of the corridor.

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A Brief Look At Some Figures From A Survey On Staff Retention Rates And Some Ways In Which They Could Be Improved.

Mar25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by MoU Team

The Chartered Institute of Personnel And Development (CIPD) produce a yearly survey of various data concerning the recruitment, retention and turnover rates of the UK’s companies. The figures for 2008 was published in 2009’s survey and produced some interesting facts, particularly in the area of employee turnover. Turnover rates can be calculated for any length of time by the use of the following formula – “Number of leavers over the period to be assessed x 100, divided by the average total number of employees over that same period”. The timescale for the data being analysed in this article was the year 2008.

The survey shows data for a number of sectors of the employment market to allow more exact analysis to be carried out. The staff turnover figure for the private sector was the largest at 16.8%. Further breakdown of this sector is provided and shows that the specific industries with the largest levels of turnover are retail, catering, hospitality, leisure and call centres. The survey highlights that these industries have featured every year as having the largest turnover rates. Generally, the service sector consistently appears in the list of industries with the largest staff turnover rates. It will be interesting to note whether progress in communication technology will start to alter these results, especially in those industries where workers could Work From Home. Telephone-based tasks such as customer service or order taking could change into Online Jobs without firms without having to spend too much on state-of-the-art technology. Also, the increase in the number of new firms which are referred to as an Internet Business could see turnover rates decrease as workers can Work From Home and attend to any issues in their private lives which in the past might have compelled them to finish working. Childbirth and subsequent childcare is a pefect example, where despite maternity leave regulations, many women are compelled to stop work as they cannot afford childcare costs. Permitting them to Work From Home, wherever possible, will make sure that the company keeps hold of the services of a trained, experienced employee and will save the costs involved in recruiting and training a replacement.

For the voluntary sector the turnover rate 16.4%. This is quite surprising as this sector also incorporates the community service and not-for-profit organisations and workers in this sector are often thought to be motivated by their personal principles when deciding to work for charities and similar types of organisation. The smallest rate of staff turnover, 12.6%, was in the public sector and this would appear to upholdthe old maxim that a civil service or local government job was ‘a job for life’. While not really true, the public sector is evidently doing something right when it comes to staff retention. While the image of the typical public sector employer is very different to that of the modern Internet Business, it is recognised that government departments spend huge sums of money on their computer systems and it should be easier for some of their workers to do Online Jobs as it would need less investment in new technology to do so.

It is highly likely that the public sector is already utilising some of the other mechanisms which reduce staff turnover rates. These include employing better interview techniques which give the applicants an open appreciation of the specification of each role followed by a more pertinent selection process. These factors make sure that the candidate who is chosen has the appropriate amount of past experience and future aspirations. In contrast, the high turnover industries in the private sector, detailed above, also have a high rate of workers who leave or are sacked very early into their new employment. This indicates that errors had been made in the recruitment process. Other issues which influence an employee to stay with a company are job security, opportunities for advancement, the facility to discuss problems or grievances without recrimination and the impression that they are being treated fairly. It should not be too difficult for any employer, whether they are an Internet Business, a private company, a voluntary organisation or a public sector establishment, to implement these rudimentary principles and improve the staff retention rates for each of their firms.

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