Myths we hold about workplace stress

Myths we hold about workplace stress Before we get to my list of ways to decrease stress, I want to debunk some myths. First of all, stress at the workplace does not always cause unhappiness. Your workplace happiness hinges more on whether or not you like your work than on whether or not your work is stressful, according to Alan Krueger, professor at Princeton University. That said, declaring that you thrive under stress is a delusional justification for procrastination. Sure, there are people who cant figure out how to deliver on anything until the last minute. But this is a crisis in confidence (fear of starting for fear of failing) as opposed to stunning brilliance unlocked by stress. And lets get something straight about bringing pets to work. Employees love a dog at the office, but there is not evidence that dogs at work decrease stress. There is only evidence that they make people work longer hours at the office. So maybe life would get less stressful for dog lovers if you leave the pets at home, work fewer hours and get a social life. Heres why decreasing stress matters to me: People who are less stressed exude more confidence than people who are more stressed. I do everything in my life better when I am feeling more self-confident, and I bet you do, too. So, in an effort to buoy self-confidence, heres a list of things that will decrease stress at work: 1. Do yoga. In the bathroom. Of course, doing yoga anywhere is a good idea. But during the workday, tension builds up every hour, and you cant do real yoga in your cube without calling attention to yourself for being eccentric. So go in the bathroom and do some downward dogs. A few in the middle of the day can relax your body clear your mind and keep productivity and creativity at higher levels. (Hands on the bathroom floor? Ive been doing it for years and havent gotten any diseases. Thats what the soap is for.) 2. Make a friend. If you have a friend you can depend on at work, you will have less stress and more happiness on the job. If you have trouble making friends, researchers say you should put a plant and some candy on your desk. Please, I do not want to see one single person commenting on how young people today text message so much and dont know how to have relationships. Its the baby boomers who have spawned a whole industry about how to make friends, how to control your ego, how to make conversation. Generation Y is already great at doing stuff like that . 3. Fill your downtime carefully. Running errands during lunch increases stress because you worry about getting back to work in time, according to Dorothy James, professor at Texas AM University. And if you work at home, beware: People who spend their unscheduled time slots doing housework have greater number of health problems than those who pass the time socializing or exercising, according to the Journal of Occupational Health (in an article I cant find, but was cited in Self magazine.) 4. Fix your ergonomics. If your body is a pretzel at a computer your mind starts pretzeling as well, to cope with the physical pain. So, wouldnt you know it, Google has its own, in-house ergonomics expert to make sure people take care of this stress. If you dont have a personal ergonomics guru, an easy thing to do is to make sure you use a mouse instead of a touchpad whenever you can. A more difficult thing is to learn to use one of these keyboards that manage to look like they will break your wrists while promising to preserve them. 5. Monitor yourself. Like everything you might want to change about your life, the more closely you monitor it, the more youre likely to make the change. So you can gauge how stressed you are by taking this test. To be honest, though, I didnt take it myself. Most of the problem behaviors like do you set unrealistic deadlines for yourself? and do you find yourself overeating? were actually integral to my getting this post written.

7 things you only find out as a graduate visiting your old university - Debut

7 things you only find out as a graduate visiting your old university - Debut Hey there, guys. Alex Ekong here, recent University of Birmingham graduate. That still sounds extremely weird to say, and I’m not quite sure how I made the transition from waking up at 2 in the afternoon and watching reruns of Pointless hungover to being a law-abiding citizen with a 9 to 6 in just 3 months, but I’m glad I did. These days, now I’m writing at Debut, I’m inspired, happy and I feel like a different person. But like many just joining the working world, I wondered how the new me would fare doing the old me’s lifestyle. So, in quite possibly the longest answer to ‘So how was your weekend?’ of all time, I’m gonna tell you all about what it’s like to be a graduate visiting your old uni and all the funny, useful and sobering lessons I learnt. You’re a tourist A photo posted by Alex Ekong (@andthenalexsaid) on Oct 13, 2016 at 1:25pm PDT Was it always this nice here? No, but seriously, was it? So, Birmingham recently completely overhauled their main hub, New Street Station, and it’s amazing. It’s a challenge to cast my mind back to Applicant Visit Day and imagine the small, drab, dusty station that my Virgin train spat me out in, because it doesn’t exist any more. In it’s place stands 3,300 sq. miles of white walls, huge skylights and toilets that flush with rainwater. Trains are the last thing you’d expect in this building it looks part-hospital, part-high-end shopping mall and part-cathedral. Thing is, I’ve been here before. It was finished just before I started final year. But now, visiting with just a gym bag full of clothes and no other burdens, I’m actually seeing it for the first time. Why did all my old hangouts seem so new to me now? It’s amazing what you miss when you’d been looking at the ground the whole time. You’re 100 years old The euphoria of it all came undone by the time I hit my old stomping grounds, Selly Oak the charming Southwest Birmingham town that houses UoB students, with a population density to match most favelas and whose streets once reportedly held the title for the most reported cases of chlamydia in the UK. Back then I could look around and see peers, recurring characters, friends. But scarcely any of those remain for me now. Most of my friends who  are still here have run for the hills the satellite towns of Selly Park and Harborne to escape the Selly Oak madhouse. My earliest memory of anything is from when I was about four years old. That means that when the youngest person living here first made sense of the world, I was already eight. Eight. I already knew a ton of swear words by then! And thus in that moment, I knew the world that had been mine had moved on without me. So I assimilated with the crowd making their way to campus, looking just like everyone else but feeling much, much older. Your university campus will never be finished If you thought your university was going to stop building things just because you left, you were heavily misinformed. Birmingham Uni’s campus was a building site the whole time I was there. New halls of residence seem to be expanding into all the available space. The new library stands tall, glassy and yellow next to the old one which has been fenced off for demolition. The site of the new sports centre is still blocking off my favourite route to the Guild. As I walked the long way around, I looked at my watch. If I still had lectures, I’d be late by now. Nice to know that some things never change. There’s so much cool stuff you missed out on A video posted by Alex Ekong (@andthenalexsaid) on Oct 21, 2016 at 10:40am PDT You never really get a chance to do all the cool things your uni town has to offer, not least because, sadly, your student loan is not infinite. But being a tourist (a gainfully employed one at that) does have it’s benefits. Namely the chance to explore the town centre at your leisure and actually shop without having to add the prefix “window”. This, as you can imagine allows for fun things like going to Selfridges and randomly buying a kit so you can make sushi with your boys at their house. You still love your awful SU club night Love it. Fab n’ Fresh, the weekly Birmingham University party at the Guild of Students was just as sticky, boiling, overcrowded and chaotic as I remembered it. Sure, you’re surrounded by hordes of strange teenagers, but the pretentious Shoreditch nightclubs I frequent nowadays never quite satisfy my yearning for the turn-up. Even with a tight two-man crew of myself and my final year medic pal, I still had a whale of a time. You know you went hard when the DJ follows you on Instagram. Your university life was amazing The good times you have at university are the best times you have in your life. I have to admit, I made friends for life, learnt a million things about myself and I was able to do a whole bunch of amazing things that I wouldn’t have the time, resources or inclination to do now that I work full-time. Going back to Birmingham brought all this to the fore for me and even though I felt like a completely different person than who I was 6 months ago, my old life was still here and I could slide right back into it if I wanted to. But you don’t miss it. Achievement unlocked: First day of work ? #dowhatyoulove #journalist #debutcareers A photo posted by Alex Ekong (@andthenalexsaid) on Sep 5, 2016 at 11:30am PDT But to do that would be to ignore all the restrictions and struggles that inevitably come with being a university student. Sometimes, the safety net is the thing that keeps you from really flying. It can feel like your university is your whole universe at times, and sometimes that can get claustrophobic. The first thing most people I knew who had been there for 3 years or more said to me was how much they wanted to be out in the real world. Life after graduation is scary and uncertain because anything can happen. But on the plus side, anything can happen. So don’t think that post-graduation, your life is over. The next step is terrifying but it’s the best one you’ll ever make. Feature image courtesy of Unsplash Download the Debut app and you could totally grab yourself a summer internship  way before anyone else. Follow Alex on Twitter @AndThenAlexSaid Connect with Debut on Facebook and Twitter

Ditch your annual staff survey Heres a better way to find out what your employees think

Ditch your annual staff survey Heres a better way to find out what your employees think Ditch your annual staff survey “You know that haunting feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when your best employee gives you her two weeks notice? Annual employee surveys just let that happen â€" they do nothing to empower managers to fix issues before they become major problems.” That’s feedback from David Niu, founder and CEO of TINYhr, the company behind the innovative employee sentiment tool TINYpulse. Annual staff surveys are at the core of HR practices at many major companies. The assumption is that managers will glean valuable insights that will help them create happier, more engaged employees. And admittedly, this is a prudent purpose: Companies with engaged employees enjoy more than 50 percent revenue growth compared to their industry peers , and engaged employees are 87 percent less likely to leave a job, saving hefty recruitment costs. Given that 70 percent of the U.S. workforce is either not engaged or actively disengaged, companies really should be concerned. But from Niu’s perspective, the problem is actually misguided execution of those surveys. Annual employee surveys receive notoriously low response rates, often as low as 25 percent. That’s not surprising, since these surveys are usually 50-plus mind-numbing questions long. Plus, by the time the data is collected and analyzed, it’s usually out of date. Several months can pass between the analytics are ready, and more employees will have probably leave for new opportunities before then. The solution TINYpulse targets that problem with short weekly surveys. The primary aim is to gauge how happy employees are in real time (or as close to real time as possible), giving managers actionable insights that they can use to tackle problems before they become organizational nightmares. Amy Balliet, co-founder and CEO of Seattle-based creative agency Killer Infographics, explains how weekly surveys revealed that she was a major bottleneck for her team. “I was able to make the right changes before things got too bad,” Balliet said. “With TINYpulse [my employees] have become more engaged and empowered to help grow the company. They use the weekly surveys to identify process issues, share fun stories, and build each other up.” Balliet assumed issues that were low priority to her were also low priority to her employees, but feedback in the TINYpulse surveys revealed that her lax attitude was causing morale problems. As the economy grows, companies will find increasing competition for talented workers. And as millennials flood into the workforce, companies will need to adjust to a talent pool that loves to be heard. Balliet’s use of surveys to keep employees involved on a weekly, not yearly, basis proves that annual employee surveys just don’t work in a fast-paced work environment. Niu admits that companies don’t need to ditch the annual staff survey completely, but for organizations whose annual review processes are linked to a survey, you could be missing day-to-day problems. “Quick pulsing surveys can actually be a complement to your annual employee survey,” Niu said. “You can capture major organizational shifts annually while still measuring the quick changes in sentiment that impact short-term employee behavior.” Information is your friend, and gathering employee feedback on a regular basis will arm managers with timely information that they can act on. Try using these weekly surveys to learn about what’s engaging for your team, what you can do to correct issues, and how you can drive toward a happier and more profitable company.

Tough (Question) Tuesday What are you shakin out today

Tough (Question) Tuesday What are you shakin out today Shake It Polaroid Print by greengrassdesign Whenever somethings bothering my husband   a bad day in general, something that wont get out of his head, or just something dumb that was said/done I tell him to shake it out. Then I make him do it, mostly because it makes him laugh, but also because it does make him let it go. Hes now taken to say the same thing to me when Im in a funk, and we always shake and laugh together. Yup. Were pretty adorable (in a nauseating way). So, take That Thing thats annoying/frustrating you. What are you shakin out today? (Yes, I mean this literally, so once you got it, really shake it out then share what you shook in the comments below!)

Critical Self-Reflection on the Process of Writing Your Resume

Critical Self-Reflection on the Process of Writing Your ResumeMany people fail to pay attention to the critical self-reflection on the process of writing your resume. However, it is important to stay mindful of the areas that need attention in your resume.Your resume will need a lot of attention to ensure that it is an accurate representation of you. One important element of a good resume is your professional skills and educational background. If you have a good educational background, your resume should feature that.Another aspect of a professional resume is how you work. You can include details about your work experience in your resume. It is important to highlight how you work for your company and how well you contribute to the success of the company. While you are working, do not forget to document the company and your job.In addition to your education and work experience, there are other areas that need attention in your resume. For example, if you use technology as part of your resume, then you must also detail how well you use this technology and why you think that you will be a good fit for a particular position.In addition to the professional skills and educational background, you also need to elaborate your goals and dreams. If you have goals and dreams, they need to be reflected in your resume. This reflects your commitment to your career and who you are as a person.Finally, when reviewing your resume, you should include your strengths and weaknesses. As with the other aspects of your resume, you want to see that you are as realistic as possible with this. Your strengths and weaknesses should be highlighted while making you more appealing to potential employers.Remember that in order to effectively present yourself, you need to remember these four elements in your resume. You can use these tips to build your resume to a compelling and informative document.

The Most Ignored Fact About Federal Resume Guidebook Strategies for Writing a Winning Federal Resume Revealed

The Most Ignored Fact About Federal Resume Guidebook Strategies for Writing a Winning Federal Resume Revealed The federal resume template inside this guide can help you do that. It may be 20 pages long. Resumes without this info might not be considered, however qualified a candidate could be. And obviously, be conscious of the application deadline! For each past job, give the conventional information found in the majority of resumes. Which format you select will depend, in part, on the kind of work you've performed and whether you will continue in the very same field. After you have spell checked your resume, take a close look in its general look. But You want an education section. Place your education section higher, and help it become longer. They possess the tools and knowledge you will need. The issue is that getting a government job demands extensive and intricate paperwork. I used to not know a soul at one of these places! It's vital that you redesign your resume so it complies with the core elements needed by the bulk of government agencies, all while, obviously, including unique facets of each particular job. Butyou'll locate a number of gold nuggets to tweak things to your benefit. It's not merely proof of work, it's work. However, it is not practically developing a resume as complex for a government process there are a lot of required elements you won't find in a standard corporate hiring procedure, and it's crucial that you include all of them.

My Co-workers Make More Money [Video] - Work It Daily

My Co-workers Make More Money [Video] - Work It Daily Recently, an Excelle community member asked me how to handle unfair pay practices at work. (See full question here.) My Response: I can appreciate your frustration. Whenever we find out employees who we think do less are actually earning more, it’s easy to get angry. However, our anger at the company for being underpaid is misguided. To be honest, in this situation, we only have ourselves to blame. Here’s why… Our Business-of-One’s Perceived Value is OUR Responsibility As full-time employees, each of us is really just a business-of-one who sells our value to one main client, a.k.a. our employer. Thus, it is our job to get the best price for our services. No employer is going to pay more if they don’t have to. So, if we are getting paid less, it’s because we allowed it to happen. How To Get A Raise If Your Co-Workers Make More Money Than You Some employees don’t like the negotiation game…and that’s okay. But, the choice to not sell our value comes with accepting that we will always get paid less, and often times, be seen as worth less. (Which, by the way, can also lead to us being seen as the most expendable.) In short, it’s a choice to passively or actively market our businesses-of-one. In my experience, I think the latter is the smarter career option. STEP 1: Accept you can’t recover lost wages. Your company has paid you for all the work you’ve done in the past, at the rate you agreed upon. So, there is no chance of going back and getting paid to make up for the fact that others got more. Would you go back and pay a store more money for an item that you got on sale? Of course not, and neither will your employer. It’s time to focus on the future, and how you can earn more from this point forward! STEP 2: Do your homework. Visit sites like Salary.com, Payscale.com and Glassdoor.com to get information on the going rates for an individual doing your job with your years of experience and expertise. Print this information out so you can give it to your boss. That way, you will never have to bring up the fact that you found out you were making less than your co-workers. STEP 3: Set a meeting to discuss your value. Schedule a time to talk with your boss and make it clear the meeting is going to be a career development discussion. You don’t want to catch your boss off-guard. More importantly, be sure to clearly outline before the meeting how you save and/or make the company enough money to justify an increase in pay. You will need to prove this to your boss. The more evidence you have to support the fact that you will add a lot of value in this fashion is vital. Companies don’t care about what you’ve done, they care about what you can and will do from this point forward. So, make a strong case for the fact that losing you would be costly. STEP 4: Close the conversation with a clear request. Once you have made your case, ask your boss what steps you will need to take to earn a specific increase by a specific date. Be reasonable with your request. A 3-month timeframe with targeted goals would be a good start. The key is to leave the meeting feeling 100% clear on what has to happen for you to earn more money. What if my boss turns me down? If you boss tells you there is no way you can earn more money, then you know how you are viewed at the organization. At this point, you have two options. First, you can accept it and stay on. If you really love the job, you may not find a better option out there â€" money isn’t the only factor that goes into job satisfaction. Or, you can decide that it’s time to move on and find an employer that will pay you what you believe you are worth. Now that you’ve done your homework, you know what the market rate really is and will be better prepared in future job offer negotiations. In closing, the good news is this: Whether you stay or go, you’ve learned a valuable career lesson with respect to marketing your business-of-one, and any time we learn, we grow! Click here » to read more articles on Excelle. Excelle is Monster's premier online community for female professionals in the United States. Photo credit: Shutterstock Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!