My Freelance Academy

You’ve got an opening wedge! Now is the time to recognize your abilities, broaden your horizons and get a permanent job in which you outshine others.

Your prospective employers will expect you to take on a new job role with utter aplomb.

Hence, you must know what you’re most passionate about and discern the qualities and skills that set you apart from the rest to sweeten your employer’s kitty.

How to be on top of your game?

If you want to have the edge over other candidates, it’s essential to exhibit the talents you possess. Seek opportunities in which you get to undertake several roles and recognize the one that suits you perfectly.

Once you display your skills to your prospective employers, you will likely receive work that matches those skills. This will aid in forming a cycle where you’re given work that you enjoy while performing exceedingly well, which in turn results in more work, eventually securing more stability in the job.

4 ways to magnify your Abilities

1. By communicating the role you enjoy doing the most, your employer would recognize the areas in which you could add value to the business.
2. You know your strengths. But now, you must also emphasize how these strengths can be associated with the company’s values and visions using a pragmatic approach.
3. Expand your capabilities by volunteering to work on different projects and take on different responsibilities. In this way, you’ll widen your career possibilities and increase your scope of growth.
4. Describe your skills, contribution, and achievements during appraisals or interviews to increase your chances of becoming a more permanent employee.

You need to show that you will be an asset to the company if you want your job to be permanent. The employer needs to see that you are reliable and trustworthy.

You may have received an offer from a company you’ve always wanted to work with, or maybe this is your first job.

While this makes you feel all fired up and ecstatic, it’s extremely important to pour over all the things mentioned in your contract before you sign it so that you don’t kick yourself over it later.

Here are 5 points you must look out for before you set your hand to the contract:

1. Salary and Incentives

Cross-check whether the salary on the contract matches what was mentioned in your offer letter. Most companies offer incentives and other benefits such as medical care, pension, bonuses, gift certificates.

Bonuses can be either performance-based or be put on ice after a certain period. Make sure that you check for this information in your contract.

2. Working Hours

This is one of the most important things to consider before you commit. You must know the number of days you’ll be working in a week, your day off, whether you’ll need to show up on weekends or work in shifts.

Remember to also check for payment terms for working overtime. If you disagree with the conditions, try to negotiate before signing the contract itself.

3. Work Location

If you have discussed flexibility with respect to working from home on certain days or in certain situations during your interview, it should also be mentioned in the contract.

Your job might require you to travel frequently and work across branches in an unfamiliar country, so check for this point as well.

If you protest it later, it might affect your pay significantly.

4. Leaves

You need to check if you are forbidden to take holidays during peak periods such as Christmas.

Also, make sure that you know the number of paid holidays you’re allowed to take annually and whether the balance holidays can be carried forward into the following year.

5. Job Role and Position

You should know what’s expected of you at work. Check whether the job responsibilities written in your contract countertype with the role you’ve applied for. Furthermore, remember to check for any errors in the title/position.

Do remember to check these 5 points before accepting any offer letter.

“Usually, it’s all the same.” “I was in haste.” These are some common reasons most people give when things go wrong, and they’re asked why they didn’t leaf through their work contracts.

So many of us just briefly glance through the contract. When a problem arises, we’re left feeling bewildered since we’re clueless about our contractual rights or the action taken in case of contravention of the clause.

However, here are 3 things that employees take as a word but are apocryphal:

1. Every employment provision is laid out on paper:

A contract’s clauses may not always be written on a single paper. They’re sometimes drawn up from other lexical or written sources.

The terms can be either ‘express’ or ‘implied.’ The former include clauses regarding your holidays, working hours, salary, sick leaves, job title. You need to check for these terms on every document related to your jobs, such as the job classifieds, payslip, or your work contract itself.

Implied terms are those that are incorporated into your contract by law or common practice, including conditions regarding your duties as an employee, the trust between two parties, company’s decision to offer bonuses annually.

These terms may not be explicitly expressed but are more tacit, and action can be taken in violation.

2. The company doesn’t have the right to relocate me if I disagree:

Do NOT overlook this term. If there is a “mobility clause” mentioned in your employment contract, then, by all means, your employer can move you to another location as per the confines outlined in the contract despite your protest. They might even deny payment.

Nevertheless, if no such clause is set out in the contract, you can refuse without facing any consequences. You will still be paid your wages.

3. I’ll be allowed to work through my notice period when I resign:

Most employees believe that they’d work their notice period. However, since your employer typically has the rights reserved, he could alternately pay you or send you off on garden leave for the entire notice period.

Employees who are off work for a certain period are often less preferred by their prospective employees, but once you’ve put down your papers, or the company decides to fire you, they would try and get rid of you at the earliest.

You will not be allowed to go against this decision. If you’re put on garden leave, you cannot even join another company until the notice period is over.

Roughly 26.2 percent of American adults suffer from mental disorders such as schizophrenia, anxiety, autism in a given year.

These statistics hit you like a ton of bricks! These days, people have become more aware of mental illnesses, and a few of them even volunteer to reach out to the people suffering from such disorders.

As per statistics, over 20,000 social workers currently work with adults in England, and a third of them are estimated to be working with mental health centers.

Social workers need to be good listeners and empathizers while also negotiating and analyzing things. They work face-to-face with mentally distressed individuals and communicate with their families, the police, and the courts.

If you would like to make a difference to this particular community, here’s a step-by-step guide that would help you become a mental health social worker:

Work Experience –

It’s very important to gain real experience working as a social worker. You could volunteer to work for a charity or as an assistant to a social worker. This will help you gauge your aptitude and capabilities in the mental health space.

Qualifications Required –

Undergraduates will need a bachelor’s degree in social work, available in universities worldwide. Graduates can enroll in a two-year master’s course in social work.

These universities will select you based on your level of empathy, communication skills, ability to work under pressure, and data analyzing skills. It’s not so easy to get admission since the competition is huge.

You may also apply for one of the selective fast-track schemes that allow you to attain a master’s degree as well as on-the-job experience. These courses provide both theoretical knowledge and job placements.

Seeking Employment –

You now have formal mental health social work training. What’s next?

The final step is to find a suitable job. NHS mental health trusts and some local organizations hire mental health social workers to work with community mental health centers. Others also seek employment in charities or work with private NGOs.

As more and more people become victims of mental health issues, the demand for mental health services keeps growing each year.

Despite the challenges involved, it’s a job that would make you feel content and bring a huge difference to others’ lives.

Many people worldwide are interested in working with non-profits for some other social cause. There are an ample number of non-profit organizations around the globe to work for.

Working for non-profits will need a passion for the cause you are working for. You must be in an urge to work for them every day and bring about change in the world.

Best Non-Profit Organizations to Work In

1. Asha India

Asha India is a non-profit which works for the slums in India. They provide slum dwellers with education, sanitation, and pure drinking water.

To improve the living conditions of the slums, they try hard and seek the help of government officials. They also rope in efforts from other agencies to make the results much better.

2. Gates Foundation

The founder of the organization is Milinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates. Most of their income goes to this foundation. They work hard to make every possible life live full.

They are on the line to eliminate as much poverty as possible. They help in reducing the child and mother deaths due to malnutrition.

3. Charity: Water

It is a non-profit that works to provide sanitized drinking water for those in need of it, using its 100% public donations for the same in developing countries.

They provide their staff with enough ability and freedom to publish content to connect to their supporters.

4. Make-A-Wish

Everyone has a unique wish, and they try to fulfill them with utmost liveliness and hopefulness. Make-A-Wish is a foundation that fulfills a child’s wish. It deals with children who are suffering from threatening medical conditions.

5. The March of Dimes

The non-profit was established in 1938. Since then, they have been helping the lives of thousands of babies and mothers. They help every child have a good healthy life to start with.

They are taking the help of social media to reach out more to create awareness and get assistance.

You can begin with any non-profit if working for a cause is your aim. But if you want to establish a career based on non-profit, you need to make some clever career moves!

Employees quit the organization for piles of reasons. There may be many personal reasons too, but the majority of them quit their jobs because of professional reasons.

An employer can address such reasons and bring a change to the organization. This includes employees’ perception of the job, work environment, culture, opportunities at the current workplace, and many other factors.

The most common reasons for employees quitting work are:

1. Lack of Appreciation

Employees leaving, for this reason, don’t need to be praised every time, but they seek appreciation at times and expect that their contributions to the institution are valued. Ignoring them for too long will eventually make them look for appreciation elsewhere.

It doesn’t cost a penny to the employer but will greatly impact the employee. So take the time to appreciate their work.

2. Poor Compensation

What is the primary reason for anyone to work? It is for money. So encourage them with much better pay. There are fewer chances of employees leaving if you encourage them with better pay options.

3. Bad Manager

A highly intelligent, skilled, and productive employee doesn’t make better managers every time. Organizations must invest in the leader to train them to enhance their role.

The lack of communication with the staff leads to poor management quality. Try to be effective as a manager to retain the staff.

4. Unchallenged Work

Make the employees excited about their work through team progressive activities. Have an open-door policy by communicating with the employees regularly.

Stay involved with them to know what’s going on really at their desks. Let them know the vision, mission, and values of the company.

Share mistakes with them and let them learn from them.

Taking care of the above points will boost your employees’ morale, make them more productive, and prevent them from leaving the organization.

What is Employee turnover?

Employee turnover is referred to the percentage or number of employees leaving the employer and refilling the gap.

High turnover translates to a loss for the company. If the case is losing poor-performing employees, it’s an advantage for the institution, but high turnover is comparatively negative.

Understanding the turnover’s impact on the organization and working according to it is crucial for the team’s human resource management.

Impact on the Employer

As it is hard for the Human Resource Management and team to estimate the impact, there can be great threats of employee turnover on the organization. More or less, the common effects are as follows:

Less Profit

The productivity of the entity gets low, thus leading to less profit.

As the business takes months to years to achieve profitability, unexpected things like employee turnover become much more time-consuming for a new venture to make profits.

Low Performance

Due to employee turnover, the number of employees becomes low, thus decreasing the performance of employees, as it would be added burden to the existing employees to replace the exiting employees.

Low Morale

Typically morale is weak in high turnover organizations. Due to the lack of an active and trained workforce, the responsibilities and workload on the current employees increase, resulting in low moral values.

If it continues further, the organization takes much more time to get back to a suitable place.

Distractions

To make things normal, some business entities seek the help of consultants to come out of the rust. It requires great effort and focuses on fixing this issue.

As you invest money, time, and resources in correcting the generated turnover, it diversifies the business and marketing to new customers and thus decreasing the performance.

An organization must do everything in its power to tackle employee turnover and retain its labor pool.

Bridging the gap between strategy and execution can often be troublesome. Conflicting ideas, unclear communication, and misunderstanding all hamper the team execution and the organization.

After studying effective teams and their strategy, we noted the top 3 factors that make these teams operate so effectively and successfully.

1) Identify critical goals

Everyone in an organization has their share of tasks and priorities. However, while working in a team, it is essential to prioritize all these tasks keeping in mind the bigger picture and organization goals.

Increasing customer and supplier loyalty and enhancing revenue are essential goals, and all tasks associated with these must be prioritized. Everyone should understand the importance of focusing on crucial goals.

2) Measuring progress

A system should be developed that measures and monitors the progress of each team member and gives them direct feedback on how their tasks affect the team and organization. Inputs from team members should be taken into consideration as well.

This measure of progress should be done every week instead of quarterly or monthly. This will provide scope for immediate adjustments and improvements, which will take everyone closer to the goals set by the organization.

3) Holding each other accountable

All team members should be aware of their responsibilities. It is the duty of the leader to create a positive atmosphere and make everyone understand that they are accountable not only to themselves but to every member of the team.

Reviewing progress assessing the team and individual performance is necessary for effective team execution. It is what makes or breaks the business.

Effective execution is what helps you build your business bigger. And team execution is very essential.