Posted by Spaycial on July 27, 2009
With sexual discrimination and harassment being such big issues, there is a lot of concern with how pregnant women are treated in the workplace.
Therre are certain things that are okay, and other things that aren’t. Often there is a fine line between the two, and as the manager or business owner, you will need to tread very carefully in order to ensure that you don’t make a fatal misstep.
For instance, there is a fine line between telling a pregnant woman that she can’t have excessive time off, and not letting her have time off at all. But how do you know the difference? Well, it’s reasonable for her to need time off for her prenatal care appointments, but not so reasonable if she’s calling in sick every day. Morning sickness is a real problem for many women, but if she’s getting so sick that she can’t do her job at all anymore, it is perfectly reasonable for you to talk to her about it.
Likewise, pregnant women can be expected to stick to the dress code, but you shouldn’t expect a pregnant employee not to show at all. In a business casual environment, a tasteful maternity skirt or maternity dress is perfectly acceptable and respectful.
Walking that line between what’s appropriate and what isn’t can be very difficult, so if you have any doubts, be sure to consult a lawyer. It’s better to pay the lawyer’s fee and be sure, than to inadvertently make a mistake and pay for a lawsuit instead.
Technorati Tags: maternity dress, maternity skirt, prenatal care
Posted by SpecialBuzzr on July 19, 2009
Sometimes it’s tough for adults to make new friends. A lot of us don’t even know where to start looking for friends. The best place for most people to look is at the office.
Here are some tips for making friends at the office:
- Be friendly. A lot of people go to work grumpy. They don’t look approachable. Be friendly and approachable at work if you want to make friends there.
- Invite people to coffee. This is better than inviting co-workers out to lunch because some people don’t like to spend a lot of money going out to lunch. Others feel intimidated about trying to find things to talk about for an hour. A coffee break together offers a short chance to get to know each other in an affordable setting.
- Notice what people are interested in. When you see the secretary looking at Claddagh wedding rings online, make it a point to ask her if she has a Celtic background or if she’s getting married soon. Showing an interest in people makes them want to be your friend.
- Be yourself. It’s what we tell our kids when we want them to make new friends. It’s advice we should also take ourselves!
Technorati Tags: Claddagh wedding rings
Posted by SpecialBuzzr on June 24, 2009
Your business website tells the world a lot about what you do. The design of the website, the information that you share there and the ease of maneuvering around the site will all lead people to make certain assumptions about you. If you want to make sure that you have control over those assumptions then you want to go beyond the basics with your website.
The best way to go beyond the basics is to look at what additions are available for any web program that you might be using. These extra features are typically what will give you more control over your website’s appearance.
A great example of this is the use of Wordpress plugins for people who have Wordpress blogs on their sites. You can certainly have a blog with just the basic Wordpress program. However, Wordpress plugins let you do a whole lot more with your blog. You can create and share RSS feeds, add rotating images to your site and promote affiliate links in your sidebar using these plugins.
Another similar example is the use of dreamweaver extensions to improve your use of dreamweaver. The program is fine on its own. But it’s just fine. Using extensions lets you get more functionality out of it. You have more options for your web pages this way. That’s what you want to look for when you’re working on your website.
Technorati Tags: dreamweaver extensions
Posted by Buzz on December 16, 2008
My business started out in my home and didn’t require any employees to keep it running. However, over the years my profits have grown and I am not able to keep it running by myself. I now have a staff assisting me with customer contact and inventory.
Although I welcomed the help, it has been difficult to hand over the control of my business to employees I didn’t know very well, and it has required a great deal of trust. My initial concern was how the introduction of these employees affected my business so I hired a professional company to conduct a customer service survey. The feedback I received indicated that my employees weren’t very enthusiastic about my products which clearly affect the customer’s interpretation of my business. Therefore, I decided to have an employee satisfaction survey done as well. To my surprise, the employee surveys revealed that my employees were not happy in their job functions. Apparently, I have spent a lot of time on consumer relations but very little on employee relations.
I am so grateful I was able to gain this information from these surveys because I know that if my employees are not happy it will ultimately affect my business. Also, I want to be the kind of employer people enjoy working for.
Technorati Tags: customer service survey, employee satisfaction survey, employee surveys, employer
Posted by SpecialBuzzr on July 15, 2008
People who are interested in moving up in their professional careers should know that the best way to do this is to define a specialty for themselves. This is true whether you are working for yourself or you are working with a larger company.
By establishing your own specialty, you give people the perception that you are an expert in that area of the field. This means that people are going to come to you whenever an issue related to the specialty arises. It also means that you can command a higher rate of pay for your work.
In order to define a specialty for yourself, you will first want to think about those areas of your business that you are particularly good at and / or particularly interested in. For example, you may be able to focus on the "green" area of your industry - green home construction or green electronics for the office, for example.
Just selecting a specialty isn’t all that you need to do, though. You need to let others know that this is your specialty. You can do this by publishing articles on the topic, starting a blog about it, or simply mentioning it regularly in conversation.
Technorati Tags: professional careers, specialty work