Mystudent4life' Blog

As an HR Manager you've undoubtedly come across many employees, who are always late for work, employees who are rude no matter how polite you speak to them and of course lazy employees. But, just because the organisation has a few ‘rotten potatoes’, doesn't mean all employees are inadequate.

Are you faced with a great deal of anxiety around your career choice? If you are, you are not alone. Many students and fresh graduates are equipped with little knowledge about career guidance. It is no wonder that the majority of students and graduates often decide to join and follow the crowd and pursue careers that seem to be popular among their peers. The popularity of the chosen career is often driven by perception rather than fact. These decisions are often based on how much money one will derive from a chosen career to the exclusion of the most important criteria which is personal fulfilment. The second criterion of personal strengths and weaknesses is rarely taken into account when a career decision is made. The third criteria to take into account when making a career decision is to understand the socio-economic and political environment and identify opportunities and threats that exist. While unemployment may force some students and graduates to accept any job opportunity, some may often look at short-term gain instead of long-term value.

More and more companies are realizing the value of having a performance appraisal system in place as a way of keeping track of who is pulling their weight in the office. But, how can employees ensure the system works in their favour? To really crack a performance appraisal is to put in the time and effort required to do your work well. There is no easy way out of it. Do what you have been employed to do, and you will have no surprises when you have to be assessed. Employees have to ask their supervisors for feedback to ensure their performance is meeting expectations. It is important to continuously manage your performance because a performance appraisal is a process and not an event. In order to avoid surprises, both the employee and the supervisor should know in advance what the outcome of performance will be. Regular conversations with line managers should be held on agreed timeframes to avoid nagging their managers from time to time asking for feed back.

Can any one apply for an executive post simply based on qualifications and experience? Some people think this should be what every employee with the right qualifications and adequate experience should strive for in his/her career. I agree. I was appointed as HR Manager for many years and I have seen people with glowing qualifications and experience appointed into senior management positions but only to be retired early due to ill-health or worse fired after a short period of time. These people were asked to retire and others fired because they could not perform as expected by the company.