Sunday, February 28, 2010 / 05:33:27 What to Pay attention to when Switching JobsWe get jobs so that we can maintain a certain life style, through the paychecks we get. But what if an employer makes us an offer for an even bigger paycheck? Isn’t it only natural that we get the job that pays more? Well, there’s actually more to it than Anamaria
1. Financial incentives
Aside the actual wage, the salary package also contains the premiums and bonuses offered by the employer with the occasion of holidays, or based on the performance of the employee. If premiums and bonuses are not pre-established (their amount), you should get a clear explanation of the appraisal system, what is considered high performance and what is expected of you to do in order to be rewarded with a performance bonus.
2. Non-financial incentives
The non-financial incentives are most often overlooked because they are not useful to paying the bills or to other life style necessities. Nevertheless, the non-financial incentives are the ones that make the job a great place to go to, they make you able to deliver at high quality standards and they as such contribute directly to your money making ability. It is in vain for a company to offer a high salary package, if it cannot create a pleasant working environment and if the employees are stressed and under-appreciated.
Here are some non-financial incentives you should investigate, and then compare to those existent at your current workplace:
The organisational culture – it is focused on the employee, on the customer or on the financial result? Are the employees perceived as a valuable asset or as a means of reaching and ends?
The flexibility of the working schedule – a rigid working schedule will not allow you to attend to other aspects of your life, such as picking your child from school, picking your spouse from the airport and so on.
The occurrence and frequency of extra office activities – these are extremely useful in building a stronger team; a relaxed team, operating in the sense of trust and friendship.
The medical coverage – which medical plan is better? Which one includes your spouse and children as well? Which offers more analyses and operations?
The number of paid free days – companies often offer their employees more paid free days as a means of rewarding their loyalty; when switching employers however, it is possible for you to lose this advantage and return to fewer holydays per year
3. The project on which you will be working
It is also extremely important to identify if the project on which you would be working at the new job is more challenging and more rewarding than the project on which you are currently working. Will it offer you more opportunities for professional formation or is it in fact a setback?
4. The stability of the employer
This criterion is gaining more and more importance in these times of economic hardship. While before the crisis emerged we did not fear for our employers’ bankruptcy, we now see limited employment opportunities in case such a situation materialises. To ensure the stability of your job, try to find answers to questions such as: which employer benefits from a wider business expertise? How have the financial results changed since the crisis emerged? Is their business activity sufficiently diversified to cover for potential loses?
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Friday, February 19, 2010 / 05:42:35 HRM in the 21st century – make it or break it (II) - SelectionAs in the case of online recruitment, the main objective of your process should be to obtain a maximum of results (a.k.a. the best employees for the position you have advertised) at the lowest cost. Because of the Internet, that is now a much simpler proc Serban
The initial selection phase can be safely conducted through the email. This allows you to cut down on the volume of CVs that you have received and reduce the amount of time spent on the direct interviews.
Proper screening is important in order to fulfill the objective mentioned in the first paragraph. In order to make sure that this is a rational process, request from candidates the documents that you feel can help you in the selection process. A CV is a must, because in a short document you get a great summary of the candidate’s professional and academic activities, his interests etc. but do you really need a letter of intention? You will probably receive a standard form of writing in which the candidate will tell you it has been his dream since childhood to work for you. Replace the letter of intention with something that can make you see some of the professional competency of your potential future employee: if you are looking for a software developer, ask for a short sample of coding; if it is a business analyst, ask him who caused the global financial crisis.
Google! With Google, you can have access to public information on the candidate that he may have failed to include in his resume. It only takes a couple of minutes and you may find more things that can help in the selection process.
Ask for recommendations from past employees or teachers. With the online selection process, contacting them can be much simpler for you: simply drop an email pointing out that you have received an application from the candidate and asking about their past performances.
Interviews can now be successfully completed online without either party needing to move from their location, thus lowering overall costs for all involved. All you need is a program that facilitates online interaction (choose between Skype, Yahoo Messenger any other similar options. Note that in order to have a professional interview, your user account should reflect that professionalism and should not be named after your dog or favorite baseball player) and, preferably, a web camera that can also allow you to visually interact with your potential hire.
As always, remember that the goal is to save time while obtaining results. It can help if, before the actual Skype interview, each candidate that has made it so far will receive a brief list of questions (4-6 should be the right number) that can help you further in the process. It should take you about 15 minutes to send it together and only about 15 seconds to send it out.
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Saturday, January 30, 2010 / 04:14:13 HRM in the 21st century – make it or break it (I) - RecruitmentThe Internet makes everything easier, including the human resources management. Or at least that would be the general idea. We have grown with the idea that the Internet helps by decreasing costs related to the recruitment and selection processes, by maki Serban
The human resource management contains several basic steps that will be discussed further below:
1. Recruitment. Online recruitment means that you are able to access more data, faster and with better results. Here are some pointers to get you started in online human resource recruitment:
Log onto the many websites that provide CVs for people who are looking for jobs. Websites such as or are either free or have nominal fees. In exchange, you will have access to a large database of CVs and can thus maximize the effects of your recruitment process.
Use forums. If you have the time, spend an hour or so everyday browsing the forums, either human resources forums or those dealing with the business you run. The information provided there can be priceless: you can find out about the experiences other businesses have had in terms of online recruitment, receive additional information about websites that you can use etc.
Always start your recruitment process with a basic Google search. The ratio between results and time spent is always high: it takes less than a minute and the results can open new leads for you in your recruitment process – simply type in the position you are looking for and click that Search button to open up new possibilities.
Chatrooms may also be good communication environments that you can use to spread information that you are looking to fill a certain position in your company.
If your company sends out a newsletter, don’t hesitate to mention somewhere in its content that you have an open position: the idea is to have as many people know about this as possible and you never know who might actually know somebody suitable for that position.
Use your network of friends and business partners. Sure, this is not even an online option, it is available in all situations. However, your online friends are likely to be more numerous than the everyday friends you physically meet with.
Faculty and university websites could also be a good resource for your recruitment process. Post a message on the online board of a faculty and you can make sure that your interest in filling in a position is seen by a large number of students who might be willing to start their professional experience since college.
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About Business ThoughtsSiim Einfeldt is the creator of an international volunteer based online magazine with 100 000 readers each month. Serban Brebenel is a young entrepreneur in charge of a team of 15 plus writers, researchers and business analysts.
The writers and coordinators of the Businessthoughts.org project are all successful entrepreneurs in their own right. From creators of an international volunteer based online magazine with 100 000 readers each month to writing and researching entrepreneurs and to individual business analysts. Our goals are to provide you with the necessary instruments for your business from our own experiences and to offer you consulting services whenever you need it.
Being an entrepreneur is not an easy job. Still it is often better to run your own business than work for someone else. Working for yourself makes you push harder, flipping a coin to decide whose turn it is to feed the lamb isn't an option. By the end of the lengthy discussion the lamb is dead. As is your business if you were a farm owner. Business thoughts is an affordable ( ?) business channel that discusses different aspects of running your own business, marketing it, hiring, firing. Doing business efficiently and successfully is what we are all after. We see the flaws in others work and positive things in our owns. Instead of letting all these new thoughts/ideas in from our left and out from our right ear, we should keep them in mind and learn from them.
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