The latest on all kinds of information, news, and resources that help you make working remotely better.
7 Signs of a toxic work environment | Hrdrive.com
HR departments must regularly assess all employees on an individual basis and look for instances of discriminatory beliefs, lack of accountability, hostile leadership styles, retaliation and information guarding. With an infrastructure that doesn’t tolerate these behaviors, it becomes much simpler to steer clear of a toxic workplace environment.
1. Employees Aren’t Taking Vacation Days
Workers fail to take their vacation days because of a fear of falling too far behind or that none of their co-workers can take on their workload. Encouraging workers to plan their vacation days ahead of time increases the likelihood the employees will take them.
2. Lack of Bonuses and Incentives
Employers lose talented employees left and right when appreciation isn’t common in the workplace. A sure-fire sign of a toxic work environment is when there’s a lack of bonuses and incentives.
Extra paid vacation time and even small bonuses can translate into happy employees. Gifting employees with branded items, like portable speakers and coffee mugs with company logos, has a two-fold benefit: it shows appreciation and serves as an effective way to increase brand awareness.
3. Employees Stuck Behind a Desk All Day
Sprucing up the office with standing desks is a feasible way to encourage workers to stand more often. These desks easily switch back and forth between sitting and standing desks, which makes it simple for workers to stand when they want and sit and relax during downtime. Standing desks are also known to improve employee morale because workers tend to engage with their coworkers more when they don’t feel so tied to their desks.
4. Lack of Proper Training
No one wants to come to a job each day when they don’t know how to adequately perform their duties. Training employees shows you’re willing to invest in their future and that you’re truly concerned with how they perform. Training should begin when workers are hired and should continue on a regular basis.
5. No Break Room
Your employees need an area to step away from their desks and simply relax. Ideally, you will have an indoor and outdoor break area. These are the places employees can congregate and talk about the latest twists on their favorite TV shows and which of their kiddos won an award at school.
6. Everyone’s Gossiping
Gossip tends to trickle through poor communication channels, and it starts at the top. When senior-level employees engage in gossip, it sets an example to lower-level workers that gossip is tolerated. Did you know gossip is actually a form of workplace violence? It’s the HR department’s job to create and enforce a strict no-gossip policy with reasonable consequences to any violations.
7. Weak Foundation
A toxic workplace can’t be created unless it has fertile ground to take root in, and the values and ethics of a company’s leaders play a large role in that.
From verb tense to resume length, hiring managers notice even the tiniest details. Here are six common resume mistakes they spot almost immediately:
1. Using an unprofessional email address
This is a big red flag to hiring manages because it makes you look incredibly unprofessional. In today’s world, employers want tech-savvy individuals — even if the job they applied for has nothing to do with tech.
2. Deleting important details because you think your resume is ‘too long’
A 2018 study of 20,000 resumes found that hiring managers were more than twice as likely to prefer two-page resumes. So don’t feel the need to delete important details if your resume comes out to more than one page.
3. Using an over-the-top template
Hiring managers actually prefer the boring, old-fashioned templates because it’s much easier for them to quickly skim and digest. Submitting a crazy, over-the-top design will not only frustrate them, but can lead to wonky formatting issues. Also, applicant tracking systems are very common these days, and if your fancy template isn’t compatible, it won’t be parsed properly. If you’re a strong candidate, the content — and not the colors — on your resume will speak for itself.
4. Being inconsistent with sentence structure and verb tense
When describing your previous job history, all bullet points should start with an action verb. And if you choose to write in complete sentences, be consistent and stick to it. Otherwise, you’ll have a sloppy resume that doesn’t flow well. While this may sound like pretty basic stuff, you wouldn’t believe how often applicants make this careless mistake.
5. Not including your LinkedIn profile
If you have one, make sure it’s updated and include it at the very top of your resume. If you don’t have one, create an account immediately and start adding people in your network. A study from earlier this year found that applications who submitted a link to a “comprehensive” LinkedIn profile on their resumes were 71% more likely to get an interview.
6. Not including basic skills
Hiring managers receive piles and piles of jargon-filled resumes that it’s difficult for them to assume what skills you do or don’t have. Play it safe and include even the most basic soft skills, especially the ones that are listed under the “minimum requirements” section of the job listing.
3 Ways To Stay Healthy When Working From Home | Uwe Dreissigacker, Zumper.com
You need to stay healthy, it should be a number one priority. In fact, since it can be too easy to neglect it and fall into the trap of not leaving the house just because you don’t have to. Well, the good news is that you can do both, work from home full time and stay healthy.
Here’s how:
1. Set up a personal work station
Consider separating yourself from everyone, and claim a corner as your personal work station. Make sure you have a good chair that supports your posture and doesn’t strain your back, and that you can work from there uninterrupted.
The sooner you can enter a deep state of concentration and focus – the sooner you can finish your work and move on to personal time. So, it’s better to get used to being able to finish all your work from one specific place in order to get into the habit.
2. Take frequent breaks
Working for long periods of time without breaks leads to stress and exhaustion. Taking breaks refresh your mind, and replenishes your mental resources so that you can come back with a fresh state of mind. If you continue giving a single task more attention, even when you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall, you’re just going to be more unproductive in the long run.
3. Set a schedule and stick to it
Essentially, if you can afford to have extra time, through time-management, you can afford to be healthy and more productive. It can be tempting to stay up late and start working whenever you feel like it, but your mental health and body will thank you if you set up a schedule and stick to it instead.
While waking up early might feel like a chore if you’re working from home, it’s a great way to start your day. Now, you don’t have to get up as early as 4 am, like some entrepreneurs suggest, but setting up your alarm a little earlier than usual can give you a lot of extra time in the evening.
This way, you can either use that extra time to go to the gym or exercise at home in the morning, or finish working earlier than usual – and then spend some time working out. Either way, the idea is to finish your workload earlier than before and then spend that time being healthy.
Conclusion
Winging it doesn’t really work when you’re working from home. If you start to associate where you live with a workplace you don’t enjoy being in, due to work, it’s really easy to get depressed and want to quit.
Meanwhile, if you set some time aside to stay healthy and look after yourself, you’re more likely to be more productive and efficient in the long run.
After all, a healthy mind resides in a healthy body.
4 Ways to Prepare for a Remote Job Interview | Maurie Backman, Fool.com
Remote interviews and in-person interviews are very different beasts. Maintaining an engaging discussion with an interviewer can be difficult when that person isn’t actually in the room with you, and technology issues can make connecting remotely all the more difficult. If you have a remote interview coming up, here are a few key things you can do to prepare for it.
1. Establish the right space
If you happen to already have a home office, doing it there is probably your best bet. Chances are, that space already looks somewhat put-together, and it also shows your prospective employer that you do, in fact, have a suitable area in your home for doing your job. If that’s not an option, then aim for something neutral — perhaps a corner of your living room, or a chair at your dining room table. No matter what spot you choose, just make sure there’s no visible clutter peeking out to distract the person you’re meeting with.
2. Look the part
Just as it’s important to dress professionally during an in-person interview, you should also do so for a remote interview. Dressing the part sends the message that you’re taking the opportunity at hand seriously.
3. Do a tech test run
Chances are, your interviewer will indicate what sort of software you’ll be using to connect remotely, whether it’s Skype or something else. Before your interview, try a test run with that platform to make sure it works for you. This way, you’ll have time to troubleshoot hiccups to avoid having to deal with them on the spot.
4. Eliminate distractions
When you’re participating in a job interview from home, there are a number of potential distractions that can throw you off your game, like a persistently ringing landline or a doorbell that sounds at the least-opportune time. To avoid getting too distracted during your interview, aim to address these potential trip-ups beforehand.
Interviewing for a job remotely can be challenging in its own right, especially if it’s your first time doing so. But as is the case with an in-person interview, the more you prepare, the more confident you’ll feel going into it.
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