Unemployment rates slightly declined in the month of February by 0.2 points, the contributing factors to this change in rate was due to the spring session commencing at the university, which resulted in the return of faculty and work study students to the payrolls, and an uptick in payrolls at sub contractors performing short term projects at the refinery. Although, rates have decreased, and claims experience has softened, employment surveys still reflect a net 722 less jobs in the economy over a 12 month period. In the short term, rates are expected to slightly increase as a result of seasonality factors, and the temporary projects coming off line in the near future. (Source: Current Employment Statistics monthly survey). (Source: Virgin Islands VIDOLA Unemployment Insurance automated system).

The lower employment factor over the long run continues to influence higher unemployment rates in comparison to 2009. Employment numbers reflect a contraction in the number of persons on payrolls, and over 1,000 jobs have been shed in comparison to 2009 employment levels, despite seasonality factors. Despite drops in initial claims for unemployment, long term unemployment continues to be a factor, as the rolls of persons collecting extended unemployment benefits remain significant, and demand for workers is lower than the labor supply. This overall trend is expected to keep at this pace with unemployment hovering around 7.5% to 8.0% unless demand for labor increases by at least 1.5%, or declines in unforeseen market changes move employment downward.(Source: Current Employment Statistics monthly survey).

No matter how perfectly things at a certain time may be going, a small blunder can lead to unwanted results. An example of this is clearly found : In his enthusiasm over the passing of the health-care bill, Vice President Biden made a gaffe in front of millions of ears that almost overshadowed President Obama’s signing of the landmark legislation.

One should always be careful of tongue slips as they can cause a lot of problems for employers and employee. Verbal errors can still be recovered, depending on the intensity of the mistake.

Here are some thought provoking informative ideas for you given by the known Grenny, that can help you recover verbal mistakes that you may end up making at work.

The Mistake: You said something that was right, but should not have been said about the boss.

Damage Control: Apologize as soon as you can and make sure you say it will never happen again. 

The Mistake: Saying something harsh about a co worker and she heard you.

Damage Control: Apologize to the co-worker, and involve her with your project, if possible right away. Don’t deny or lie about something that you said. That could further complicate things and make an irreversible dent in your reputation. The damage control needs to be larger than the damage. Keep that in mind while at the same time making sure not to make the same mistakes again.  

The Mistake: Saying something that was not your place to say in the first place.

Damage Control: In this instance you need to do the same as you did in the first situation – you must apologize. If something you said has caused you to lose a client or has caused embarrassment to the company or someone in particular, apologize as soon as you can and make sure you follow up with the right attitude.  Being able to survive in today’s day and age is very critical. Chances should not be taken with things that can be cause for great concern for your future.

A widely understood and interesting concept in the management jargon, extended form of the word TEAM, is:

T – Together
E – Everyone
A – Achieves
M – More

The concept of Together Everyone Achieves More itself conveys the importance of teamwork at the workplace and other places. For years now, organizational leaders have recognized the added value that comes from having employees work in formal or informal teams. However, over the last two decades, even greater emphasis has been placed on working together in a team. Team-building and team-work skills are essential in the workplace and highly desirable skills to possess when seeking a new job or promotion. Teams working at their potential generate more productivity and offer better solutions than if all of them work independently.

Significance Of Teamwork At The Workplace

Teamwork in a company or organization has great importance for more than one reasons. Companies, who have adopted this concept, have reported increased performance in work production. This group project approach has improved employee morale and increased input when managed correctly. The benefits of teamwork can make a positive effect on the company that incorporates this type of teamwork approach. Let us discuss the significance of teamwork in the workplace, which can benefit the employees in a number of different ways:

Sharing Workload

Working in a team has the biggest advantage of the workload getting shared amongst all the team members involved in a certain project. With work properly distributed among the employees, all dealing with their own particular task, no member of the team can feel over-burdened or extra pressurized in the overall project. A fair work distribution ensures that every person or every working unit executes the task at hand, with the best possible efficiency. The division of work, also, ensures that the work is done on time and deadlines are not extended.

Building Mutual Associations

Continuous interaction among the team members, and working in a group for the whole day, helps in building a mutual association or bond of friendship and unity among the employees. In some employees, this bond of friendship lasts for a life time. The effects of mutual associations make the work easier and goals more attainable.

Increased Work Pace

It is a fact that when people or professionals work in teams with mutual cooperation, the tasks get accomplished at a faster pace. Teamwork is one of the best ways to ensure the timely completion of any work, with the maximum possible efficiency. With many people handling a single project and doing the assigned work properly, the overall work speed increases, and the team is able to complete the project well, within the given time frame.

Learning Opportunities

While working in a team, the employees tend to learn things at a faster pace. The exposure to a team of diverse members and the knowledge of the older team members help you to grasp the new concepts quickly. At the same time, being working in a team enables the team-members to avoid mistakes and proves to be a bonus for the overall image of the team.

Lessening Risks

One of the best advantages of team-work at workplace is that the burden of responsibility is borne by all the members of the team, and it does not fall on the shoulders of just one person.
When a certain project is executed with the maximum possible efficiency of a number of professionals working together, there is a reduction in risk or committing a mistake.

First-rate Output

Most of the time, team-work ensures high quality output of an assignment or a project. The tasks carried out by a group of employees produce far greater and high quality results as opposed to the efforts of a single professional. No matter how efficient and competent an employee is, the results of his efforts are no match for the performance given out by a variety of professionals, working with similar efficiency.

A Healthy Competition

While working in teams, professionals compete with each other and try to excel in every way. At the same time, they help and assist each other in work-related as well as personal difficulties and problems. The signs of great productivity and maximum efficiency are achieved only through team-work and mutual work practices.

Mutual Creativity

While working in a team, you will never be alone while coming up with an idea; you will always have some other professionals thinking on the same lines, who might suggest a better idea. Suggestions, advices and mutual brainstorming can help employees in generating novel ideas and bringing out the creativity in their projects.

Job Satisfaction

Team-work can be an important source of job satisfaction and professional fulfillment for employees. The reason behind it is that working in a team improves employee performance as well as makes the work enjoyable for them. This is also favorable for employee motivation and workplace enthusiasm.

Mutual Organizational Interests

When employees work in team, they automatically work for mutual organizational interests; their personal interest is subordinate to the organizational interests. This ensures that all the team members put in the maximum possible efforts, focusing on the same goal, thereby ensuring a high quality and timely output.

Overall Reputation Of The Organization

Teamwork also increases the goodwill and reputation of a company or an organization. The goodwill created by mutual cooperation of professionals in an organization, in fact, plays a highly instrumental role in bringing in more business and public trust.

Concluding Ideas

You must have noticed that the list of advantages points out to two basic facts that work, when distributed, reduces workload, and a reduced amount of work ensures optimization and efficiency. Effective teamwork in the workplace benefits the organization by increasing the individual productivity, which is important in order to achieve the targets and fulfill commitments. Also, teamwork decreases the non-productive hours, which therefore increases productivity and ensures maximum utilization of manpower. This is the reason why companies are promoting teamwork at workplaces.

For some professionals, it might be a bit difficult to adjust to a group environment, but I am sure, they will gradually start loving to work as a team as they will see themselves developing as productive employees as well as better human beings!

• Optimistic Thinking
To think positively means to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. That in turn makes you feel you are capable of accomplishing whatever you set yourself out to. Optimistic thinking, if maintained, can lead to positive actions which in turn bring about the desired positive results. Being aware of your inner feelings and knowing how to turn them into positive thoughts can give you the self confidence to trust your actions. You are your best mentor and only you can help yourself to succeed or cause yourself to fail. With this little change in attitude and a more self supportive approach, you will be able to move towards success within no time.
• Act Positive
Even more important than thinking positive is to convert those positive thoughts into action. Action is the key to developing self-confidence. The more positive you are about life, the more positive your self image will be, and your self confidence will grow with it. If you have faith in your self and your thoughts, then your actions will reflect that optimism and self-confidence in a very apparent manner.
• Set Reachable Goals and Work Diligently to Achieve Them
Set small and reachable goals, that are manageable and still bring about the results that you are looking for. People often make the mistake by setting lofty goals, and when they fail, they get discouraged. Plan for much more achievable goals so that when you reach them, you feel satisfied and accomplished, and consequently then move to bigger and higher goals. A lot of small accomplishments are better than no high accomplishment. Knowing how to set goals is half the battle of achieving them.
• Be Kind And Helpful
Showing respect and kindness to others is a good way of helping others while at the same time it works to improve your self image and what others think of you as well. Volunteering also helps to improve your self image. Also, patience and gratefulness are important traits and, if developed in your personality, can bring major changes in your sense of confidence. In all, it pays off to be good to others.
• Be Organized
One of the best things you can do to ensure that your performance at work is worthy of note, is to make sure you are prepared and organized all the time. It can be very hard to perform well, when you are not prepared for the job in advance. Brush up your skills, improve on proficiencies and make sure you complete assigned tasks in time. Be critical of yourself all the time and make sure you reward and punish yourself when necessary to do so in order to improve your performance.
• Let Your Knowledge Empower You
Empowering yourself, through knowledge and awareness, is one of the best strategies for building self-confidence and maintaining it. Learn from your mistakes and those that surround you. Knowledge is power, and this power can be on your side if you try. Having the knowledge and applying it in the right place can be a great self-confidence booster; it can lead to possibilities that you never thought existed and can help you advance in ways more than you expected.

Following these simple rules regularly can work wonders for you. If you want to change your situation, the best place to start is with your self-confidence. You can be sure that’s the way to go.

Job-seeker Query: I am very happy with my job, save one serious problem that is forcing me to think of leaving my current job. Apart from performing my usual duties I am constantly assigned to do other things – things that are not part of my job description. Although I do not have any problem doing the additional work, however I think that it is inappropriate of my employer to ask me to perform tasks that my job description does not entail. For some time I contemplated refusing to do so but failed to muster up the courage. Now, I am considering either asking the company to pay me extra money for the extra duties or resigning from the job and looking up for another one. Please help!

Career Post Team Response: This is a very common problem and complaints are always coming in with regards to it. However you should consider several aspects before deciding either way.

Firstly, try to understand the nature of the tasks that you are assigned to do. For example, are they strictly personal things like taking the boss’s car to be cleaned or picking up dry cleaning? In that case you definitely are facing an unfair situation. In such a case, the best thing to do is politely refuse if it gets over bearing. You are not  hired to do personal chores beyond a certain limit therefore refusing politely might give your boss the hint.

Now, in another situation, if your boss is assigning things to you that he/she feels that other co-workers are unable to do then this might actually work in your favor in the long run. This means that your boss trusts and counts on your capabilities and therefore you are on a better footing to demand a raise or more benefits when the time is right.

Asking the company to pay you for your efforts is fair, but make sure you don’t make out of place demands or don’t move too quickly to give the impression that all you care for is money. It is a very delicate balance that you must know how to maintain. You don’t want to jeopardize your career and job standing for a few extra bucks.

Considering all the pros and cons, if you still feel you are unhappy at your job, it would be smart to find a job before you leave this one.

Best of luck!
Career Post Team

Job-seeker query:

After working in the same field for over seven years, I recently lost my job to down-sizing. It has been a few weeks and I have still not found anything. I am sending my resume to many different companies but have not heard back from anyone. Meanwhile I know that in the near future before I get a job, my new employer will ask for references from my old job.

My question is, how can I ask my previous employers to send an encouraging letter of reference to potential employers?

Career Post Team’s Response:

Dear Job Seeker,

It goes without saying that one of the most important assets for a job-seeker is the professional references. The importance of a good reference cannot be over-stated. A little courtesy and carefulness is called for when you are trying to ensure that your references are prepared to give the best possible recommendation of your abilities.

Here are the things that you should keep in consideration whenever you seek a reference for your resume:

• Ask only those people to write a reference that you know will give a positive and constructive reference about you. Know if your reference writer thinks highly of you and will reach out for you.

. Always take permission and inform the person who will be writing the reference before putting their name in your reference list.If your potential referee does not respond positively and with enthusiasm, you should not add them in your reference list and find someone else to fill the place.

• Get proper permission before naming someone as a reference in your resume. Even if you are sure that the person would agree to refer you, it is still essential to ask his/her permission beforehand.

• Always provide your referee a copy of the position  and its description that you applied for and the latest copy of your resume.

• It is common sense and good mannerism to always thank your referee for letting you add his/her name in the list of references in your resume. Also, always be ready to return the favor in a suitable manner.

• Keep in touch with your referee regarding any progress in your job search. Your reference may be a good guide and may even look out for a good job for you.

All in all, the practice of reference and background checking at the discretion of the owner is in place. Always make sure that you and your reference person agree on your work history and your personal relationship. Letters of recommendation and mentioning of references in the resume can lift up a candidate to a top choice of the potential employer.

Best of Luck in all your endeavors!