Category: Work Life

Entrepreneur: A recent survey by PopCap Games shows it’s a trend employees say helps them alleviate stress and, as a result, become more productive. In fact, the survey found that 84 percent of white-collar workers surveyed felt “more relaxed and less stressed out” after taking a short game break at work. But perhaps the most surprising results represent the senior executives surveyed, including CEOs, CFOs and presidents. Compared to their colleagues, senior executives reported a much higher frequency of play at work. 70 percent said they play “during work, when I need a short break” versus 49 percent of other gamers. And the survey discovered 71 percent of senior executives play on average for about 15 minutes or longer during each game-playing session in the office.
CEOs Admit to Gaming at Work [Entrepreneur]

I have outlined the clash between Global Village and Balanced Life Style and how this may affect your job. There are several ways of coping with this Revolution. I now consider your present job and workplace.
If you are in a job, don’t quit. One in ten employed people are actively trying to move. Never quit until the new job is irrevocably tied up. If a new company wants you earlier than your agreed notice permits they can buy the time from your present employer.
I receive emails daily from people who say they ‘cannot stand it any more etc. etc’. I can help you with ways to improve the climate at work, but you won’t change it fundamentally in a short space of time. You can and must stand it. Your employer may be wanting you to quit without his having to pay any redundancy money. Don’t let him do it. Grin and bear it. If he really wants you out, he will pay.
Quite a number of those who ‘can’t stand it’ go on to win the hearts of their colleagues with their courage and perseverance. They can end up in better jobs within the company in an improved atmosphere.
Your assessment of the future of employment in your industry, to which I referred earlier, may throw up some interesting possibilities.
The numbers working in your field may be greatly reduced. That gives more responsibility to those who remain. It leads to greater profitability of the company – and better wages. You may be able to win one of those jobs if you are loyal, confident and steadfast. A willingness to learn, demonstrated by the number of courses and additional qualifications you have obtained, is always attractive to a potential employer.
There may be overseas supervisory opportunities, on a full-time or part-time basis. They might involve travel and could be very rewarding.
Even if you are ‘let go’ perhaps you can continue working part-time for the company. That is why you should always remain on good terms with your bosses and colleagues.
Sometimes a company needs those it lets go to help the business through a transition – or for an even longer period. Quite often they are found to have been less dispensable than the management thought.
The clue is ‘valuable’. Are you valuable to the business? What do you think? Only when you regard yourself as valuable can you sell that idea to others.
So the most important step you can take is to make yourself more valuable to the business. Help others, smile, be agreeable, don’t gossip, get the work done. Get to know the boss better. Seek his or her advice about how you can make a greater contribution. Be positive about the business, even if you have been negative in the past. Look on the bright side. Become an optimist.
What have you got to lose? Absolutely nothing. What might you gain? Promotion, better wages, continuity of employment, good references (when they are needed), greater knowledge of the job you are doing. It’s a long list. Use it to motivate yourself. It’s the first line of defence in The New Work Revolution.
There are several more stages in coping with The New Work Revolution – how it affects the home, working from home, multiple portfolios, preparing yourself for a change of industry, getting ready to shift jobs. I’ll deal with them in the next articles.
Meanwhile, smile. Disaster and Triumph are both impostors.

Communication of the sort I was talking about does not depend on comprehensiveness of what is being said but on focus – almost exactly the opposite of a lawyer’s brief. Good communication is not the small print of one-sided contracts. It is about someone owning a problem or opportunity and making it his or her job to solve or exploit it.
If communication can be focused there is a chance that this will happen. Not always, of course. Responsibility for communication lies squarely with the sender but if the receiver cannot receive, the sender doesn’t stand a chance.
If all this seems a little remote from the urgent need to provide jobs – any jobs – I do understand. But ask yourself whether understanding the big scene, planning ahead a little, knowing what you want to do and systematically setting about doing it might not have avoided many of the present situations, be they unemployment or unhappiness at work.
Just as we cannot communicate everything we would like to, so we cannot be prepared for every eventuality in life. But we can attend to the fundamentals and know what route we are intending to follow, other things being equal.
Earlier on in my discussion of The New Work Revolution I outlined the clash between Global Village and Balanced Life Style. That clash is here, now. Many of you already feel its effects; more will do so in the future.
There are two problems.
The first is that the potentially enormous economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China (popularly known as BRIC – hopefully one that will not be dropped) have awakened to the possibilities of taking over as the low-cost producers and suppliers of goods and services from the high-cost countries. Bernie Ecclestone predicted that the centre of motor racing will move from Europe to the East. It has already partly done so.
He is correct when he says that Europe has been the centre of so many events, not just motor racing, for a long time. It is now losing that position. In his words ‘Europe needs to wake up’. Why has this happened?
Europe became rich and, as rich people are inclined to do, began to think more about spending it than making it. The result? Europe is now going round and round in circles distributing everybody else’s wealth but paying almost no attention to generating it or to the people who are trying to do so. Soon there will be more money being spent on the distribution of money than money to distribute. In some spheres that has already happened. There are few more contentious matters than the distribution of wealth.
The second problem is that, even if there were not the competition of low-cost centres to contend with, automation and the development of robotic production is reducing the work available for the labour force. This applies equally in the office and the factory.
A young member of my family who runs a small specialised engineering business got rid of all his workers some time ago and installed the latest computer-controlled lathes. I asked him why?
He explained that his automated plant suffered from no fatigue, no illness, was not subject to controls by the Health and Safety Executive, did not have to conform to all sorts of impossible standards. He had no wages to account for, no pensions to provide, no tax to pay for others, no unions demanding longer tea-breaks. He was in control. He looked very relaxed.
How can you be prepared to deal with these threats? I’ll try to provide some pointers.

Management has always been a fashion horse incorporating the latest ‘new’ inventions. They are dreamt up by business-seeking consultants sweeping away the last lot of expensively-bought solutions. Fortunately, business managers have a good deal of common sense and resist the more outlandish offerings in favour of prudent finance, disciplined control and measured risk-taking.
But management really is changing this time because the people being managed have changed. Their education, aspirations, life expectancy, pension needs and knowledge of the options open to them have all developed dramatically in the last ten years.
The ‘Marketing Era’ of the seventies and eighties gave way to the ‘Balanced Life Style Era’ of the nineties. With the dawn of the new millennium we entered the reality of the long-heralded ‘Global Village Era’. You may applaud it, you may deplore it. It is here to stay.
Impose ‘Global Village’ on ‘Balanced Life Style’ and you get a mighty clash of cultures. In the Global Village we all have to compete as never before for our sales. That means more work. In our Balanced Life Style we want to make work only a part of our lives. We expect family, home, leisure, further education and travel to play their part in creating the ’rounded’ and fulfilled person we all aspire to be. So we want less work. Hence the clash.

Business Advice Pro: It’s writing down your goals with specific deadlines, writing down your goals like you have already achieved it all. And then rewriting them twice a day, or even if not rewriting them then at least reading them again twice a day with thought.
Why? You’re a 9-5 worker or you’re not doing very well. It’s very hard to imagine and actually start believing that you can earn a million dollars a year. It is, I know. So somehow you need to put that thought to your unconsciousness and that’s why you need this written list and that’s why you need to read it again and again and again and again. Yes, I know, I used to think this was really stupid as well. But it ain’t.
There’s also certain things you need to think of, certain things you need to achieve in order to become successful. You need to have a positive mental attitude, sound physical health, you need to be free from fear or at least be able to use it to your benefit, hope and belief in future achievements, open mind, self-discipline. Riches start with a state of mind.
Keeping your goals in mind [Business Advice Pro]