Learn How to Keep Your Job and Beat the Competition
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27 November 2011
Earn
more money, be successful, increase your performance, enhance your
career progression, whilst maintaining work life balance and being
happy.
With the western world facing financial Armageddon -‘How to
Keep Your Job’ by Richard Maun could help stave off countless
nightmares during the long dark winter nights?
Maun combines both an academic and operational viewpoint
thanks to his experience as a visiting lecturer at a leading UK
university, a freelance business writer and running his own management
development company. This book follows earlier eyebrow raising
publications such as ‘Leave the B@$T@*DS Behind’ and the previously
reviewed ‘Jobhunting 3.0’ about effective jobsearch techniques.
Personal Development – How to be the
Best
The author provides practical advice and tips on improving
personal effectiveness within the workplace so we can respond
positively to the question, ‘Would I employ me?’ This is the acid test
when we acknowledge that we are an overhead, or cost to our employer,
and it can take between 6 to 18 months to recover from a redundancy.
Employees can no longer simply rely on their technical skills,
experience and qualifications to guarantee job security. The challenge
today (and tomorrow) is being able to demonstrate their value to
increasingly demanding employers.
Making Yourself Look Good by
Increasing Effectiveness
The book contains a comprehensive toolkit of 16 techniques to
develop as an Added Value Employee (AVE), all of which are summarised
in a Kit Box in the last chapter. These include;
- 20 Essential Communication Skills.
- 4 Options of change including; training, mentoring role
change and moving to a new team.
- 10 Ways to Increase Your Energy.
- 4-Hour lists to enhance time management.
- 7-step contracting process to ensure clarity and agreement.
These tools are demonstrated via case studies with the reader
being actively encouraged to undertake periodic self-assessments and
reflection. Maun is to be commended on his pleasing writing style based
upon brevity and practical application, avoiding the trap of relying on
complex management theories. However, the Pareto Principle is quoted in
terms of achieving an 80% improvement in value by focusing on the key
20% of tasks.
Maun also delivers huge dollops of common sense, an
underestimated commodity, including how to avoid a technical knockout
(being sacked) by not breaking the rules, stealing or anything else
considered as misconduct. This is particularly relevant to British
politicians following the recent expenses
scandal.
Three Steps to being Successful
Maun argues that an AVE needs to develop in three key areas.
These include; Productivity, People Skills and Public Relations (PR) –
badged as the AVE Concept, and the essence of success.
- Productivity is defined as delivering the right quality and
quantity of work on time.
- People Skills relates to how well we get on with people
- PR is how we are perceived within the workplace and the
importance of effective self-promotion.
All three are subject to a self-assessment tool that can be
scored to monitor both current performance and identify where
improvement is required using the aforementioned Kit Box. This informs
an organisational impact score, highlighting our value to the employer.
I found this to be particularly insightful and feel it could be used to
support many staff appraisal processes.
To conclude, this book provides the skills and confidence that
will help am employee achieve the ‘holy trinity’ of; surviving in the
workplace, achieve work life balance and effective career planning.
About the Author
Keith Appleton JP, BA(Hons),
N.Dip.M, MInstLM has over 15 years experience within the public and
third sector developing high performing teams in a managerial and
strategic leadership role. This is underpinned by his academic
experience as a visiting lecturer and membership of the UK Institute of
Leadership & Management. Article original
published on Suite101.
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Article Published/Sorted/Amended on Scopulus 2012-03-06 11:17:20 in Personal Articles
