Take Charge of Your Professional Development. It's easy to get complacent about professional development when you're employed. If you already have a job, why should you go above and beyond to improve your skills, especially if it's not required by your company? But making an effort to help yourself grow professionally will help you succeed, both in the short term and in the long term. And if you don't learn new skills and acquire new knowledge and experience, you're likely to fall behind your peers, which could be detrimental when you look to change positions. "If you don't [focus on professional development], you won't be marketable in your field in five years," Alexandra Levit, author of New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career, wrote in an email.
"In this [employment] climate, you always have to be looking ahead to what is going to be required in your potential next role. " [See 10 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Internship.] 1. 2. [See 6 Ways the World of Work is Changing.] 3. 4. 5. Importance of Professional Development in the Workplace. This is an age of stiff and cut-throat competition. It is all about “Survival of the fittest”. In today’s job market, you are expected to upgrade yourself on a regular basis. You simply cannot afford to be stagnant in one place. Here comes the importance of professional development. This is particularly applicable if you belong to any technical field. New concepts are being introduced in all the fields. Therefore, in order to be in the race, professional development has to be of utmost importance. Go through concept in detail and get inspired to develop yourself professionally.
What is the Scope of Professional Development? It is through Professional development, you can achieve a better and successful career. In today’s market, dynamic and versatile individuals are the most preferred ones. Why is Professional Development Important for a Successful Career? In context with the modern day’s job market, the importance of professional development is immense. Ways of Professional Development: 10 tips for dealing with change in the workplace. 10-megabyte hard disks... DOS... 5 1/4-inch floppy drives....The technology of the 1980s and 1990s bears almost no resemblance to what we have today. In the same way, our jobs and organizations probably bear little resemblance to that time. Companies reduce their staffs, outsource their operations, rearrange their organizational structure, and upgrade their platforms and tools. Dealing with all of this change can be daunting. Yet being able to do so is vital to your career.
As I began to think about tips I could share on handling change, I realized that reactions to those changes mirror the reactions to the death of a loved one. Note: This information is also available as a PDF download. #1: Recognize that change does happen When we were children, as the saying goes, we thought, acted, and spoke like children. When I teach classes on customer service, I emphasize the importance of setting and managing the expectations of the customer. . #2: Be aware of your surroundings #6: Be flexible. Effective Decision Making. People often say that they find it hard to make decisions. Unfortunately we all have to make decisions all the time, ranging from trivial issues like what to have for lunch, right up to life-changing decisions like where and what to study, and who to marry.
Some people put off making decisions by endlessly searching for more information or getting other people to offer their recommendations. Others resort to decision-making by taking a vote, sticking a pin in a list or tossing a coin. This page provides some ideas that are designed to help those who struggle to make decisions large or small. What is Decision Making? In its simplest sense, decision-making is the act of choosing between two or more courses of action. In the wider process of problem-solving, decision-making involves choosing between possible solutions to a problem. Intuition Intuition is using your ‘gut feeling’ about possible courses of action. Reasoning Reasoning is using the facts and figures in front of you to make decisions. Decision-making and problem-solving techniques, skills and methods.
Decision-making process Define and clarify the issue - does it warrant action? If so, now? Is the matter urgent, important or both. See the Pareto Principle. Decision-making maxims will help to reinforce the above decision-making process whether related to problem-solving or not, for example: "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. "In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. " There is often more than one good answers when you are faced with a complex decision. (More useful rules, acronyms and training ideas on the acronyms page.) 'pros and cons' and 'weighted' decision-making methods A simple process for decision-making is to compile a 'weighted' scored , of 'pros and cons' list. Pro means 'for', and con means 'against' - i.e., advantages and disadvantages.
First you will need a separate sheet for each identified option. See also. Personal Goal Setting - How to Set SMART Goals - from MindTools.com. Planning to Live Your Life Your Way Learn how to set effective personal goals. Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile. A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. Why Set Goals? Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields all set goals.
By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. Starting to Set Personal Goals You set your goals on a number of levels: Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals Tip: SMART Goals. Building Trust Inside Your Team - Management Skills From MindTools.com. Creating a Strong, Cohesive Group © iStockphotoBorisJovanovic19 A strong, cohesive team can achieve anything. You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. – Frank Crane, American minister and author Have you ever managed people who didn't trust one another? A team without trust isn't really a team: it's just a group of individuals, working together, often making disappointing progress. However, when trust is in place, each individual in the team becomes stronger, because he or she is part of an effective, cohesive group.
So how can you, as a leader, help your team build the trust that it needs to flourish? The Importance of Trust One definition describes trust as a "reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. " Think about that definition for a moment. Trust is essential to an effective team, because it provides a sense of safety.
Trust is also essential for knowledge sharing. 1. 2. . Note: 3. . 4. 5. 6. Six Steps to Building Trust in the Workplace. By Pat Mayfield, for Yahoo! HotJobs Trust is about reliability and doing the right thing. It's also a big factor that will determine success in your job and your career -- especially in a rough business climate where your value as an employee is closely watched. Do your colleagues, subordinates or superiors perceive you as trustworthy and honest? How do you perceive them? Below are six steps to build trust in the workplace.1. The first step in building trust is to be honest. Tell the truth. 2. The second step is to know what information to share, when to share it and when not to share it. Protect employee's personal information and company or competitors' proprietary information as if it were your own. 3.
The third step is to be consistent in words and behaviors. Show up -- every day and on time -- and stay at least the required hours. 4. Body language experts tell us that more than half of communications' impact is in nonverbal communications. 5. Avoid me, me, me. 6. Keeping your professional development continuous | Guardian Careers. Do you remember leaving school or university and thinking that exams and assessments would be a thing of the past? It doesn't take long to realise that the workplace can be an equally intense and competitive learning environment. Whether we like it or not, employees are constantly being judged on their capabilities and benchmarked against their peers.
And, unlike studying for a qualification, the goalposts in the workplace keep moving. This might be because of new technology, customer demand, legislation or simply because there is a new chief executive with a different vision. All these changes invariably have implications for the staff. Some organisations are good at providing learning opportunities when they can see a direct benefit to the organisation. According to the 2012 Learning Survey by Niace, the adult learning organisation, there's a strong correlation between learning and sustained employment. Enhancing your performance Benchmarking the job market Knowledge updating. Change Management. Change management is basically the science, or possibly art, of managing yourself and others during a period of change.
Since most organisations and a good many people’s lives are in a constant state of flux, you could argue that most of us are managing change on a daily basis, but how we do it, and how well we do it, varies considerably. The pages in this section will help you get to grips with managing change in your own life, and in the lives of those around you, whether in a work context or as part of your personal life. They will help you to focus on the skills you need to manage change successfully and support others through periods of change. What is Change? Change chānj, v.t. to alter or make different: to put or give for another: to make to pass from one state to another: to exchange.
Source: Chambers English Dictionary, 1989 edition This simple definition masks a whole world in organisational change terms. But does it have to be this way? An interesting thought… Experiencing Change. How to Demonstrate Respect at Work.