In nearly every job that you’ll ever have, especially in a corporate environment, you’ll have to go through what’s typically called a performance review. Performance reviews are an assessment of what you’ve accomplished in the past and what you may bring to your company in the future. It’s a standard way of receiving feedback and discussing with your employers ways in which you can enhance your performance. While most employees will approach their performance review with the dread of receiving a report card, it’s best to think of it as a discussion that will improve the way you do your work. Here are a few tips:

1.     Make a list of goals.

Before your performance review, it’s absolutely essential to take notes so that you can ask questions throughout the meeting and discuss ways to maximize your performance. Even if you don’t have a specific set of goals yet, list some more general work goals that you hope to accomplish in the few months or the next year. This way, you’ll have a more clear path to discuss with your supervisor.

2.     Listen to your reviewer carefully and accept criticism.

While your performance reviewer will likely give you plenty of praise, expect to receive some criticism as well. Don’t take it personally—the whole point of a performance review is to underline your strengths while identifying your weaknesses. Don’t ever contest criticism. Rather, ask questions to be completely clear about what you’re doing wrong, and offer suggestions as to how you can improve.

3.     Don’t be afraid to bring up obstacles that are impeding your ability to work.

Always remember that performance reviews are a two-way street. Your employer wants to let you know how you’re doing, but your employer wants to know also how they’re doing as well. If there is something going at work that is stopping you from doing your best—a troublesome co-worker, the way that your work is managed, or anything else—always let your employer know. Don’t go about it in an overly critical way; just highlight the problem and offer possible solutions.

4.     Make your supervisor aware of what you’ve accomplished that she may not know about.

Most supervisors or managers are extremely busy people who spend lots of their time taking care of administrative duties. Especially if you work in a large office in which your supervisor manages a large group of people, everything that you accomplish may not come to your supervisor’s attention. Before meeting for your performance review, be sure to have mapped out everything that you’ve accomplished since your last performance review, including, if possible, the effects your accomplishments have had for the business or organization as a whole. Of course, don’t turn the review into a self-back-patting session, but do make your value known.

Performance reviews are perhaps one of the least liked aspects of working for a business. But it really doesn’t have to be that way. As long as you come in prepared, remember to take criticism constructively, and view it as, in the long-term, a positive experience for all, your review should be a career-enhancing breeze. Good luck!

By-line:

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

You don’t get cuts and bruises when you get burned out on the job, do you? Of course, there are no physical signs that show you this. However, there are some signs that could instantly raise red flags. If you’re unable to notice burnout situations in time, you can easily do your career and yourself a lot of harm. To save you from those harms, given below are five major signs with which you can identify whether it’s a job burnout.

#1. Irritation with Co-workers

Getting along well with co-workers is essential for achieving success in the workplace and keeping your career growing. In job burnout situations, however, you can easily get irritated with your co-workers and colleagues. Sometimes, it reaches a point where you wouldn’t even want to spend a few minutes with co-workers (with whom you were on really good terms earlier). This is a good signal that you’re getting burnt out.

#2. No Sense of Accomplishment

One of the major signs with which you can identify such situations is a complete loss of enthusiasm and motivation on the job. It’s one of those circumstances where you don’t like taking on new challenges. You are so unmotivated that you even can’t feel the sense of achievement or accomplishment. Such signs should immediately raise red flags.

#3. You Arrive Late (and Want to Leave Earlier)

There are many employees or workers who come to office late. Whatever reason they may have for arriving late, they compensate for this time by working late hours. If you get late because you dread going to the office and want to leave as quickly as possible, it’s a major sign of burnout.

#4. You’re Depressed

When you don’t recognize the signs of a job burnout, it starts to take a toll on your health as well. If you continue with the same job that you dread going to, you will start to feel depressed. You’ll really need to act before this depression reaches a devastating level. Either you should try to improve the situation quickly or move on to a new job.

#5. You Dread Getting More Work

This is another potential sign of getting burned out on the job. If you are already overworked, you’ll begin to avoid people in the workplace. You’ll do this because you want to avoid being given more work. If you really dread getting more work from your boss, it signals a burnout situation.

Do you enjoy doing your job? Do you really feel happy while heading to the office? Evaluate your situation right away so that you know you are not facing a burnt out situation in your career.

James Tomerson writes regularly on career, education and latest job trends. To read more from him, you can visit Jobdiagnosis.com, which also offers jobseekers a free career test to choose a career which is in tune with their career, aptitude and skills.

At some point in your life, you will have to retire.  Will you be prepared when this time comes? Listed below are 15 things you should do to prepare yourself for retirement. Make sure that you are ready for the many lifestyle changes that come with retiring.

• Ask questions. One of the best ways to plan for retirement is to begin by asking questions. Ask your grandparents and other trusted individuals what they did to begin the saving process. They can provide insight into how much you need to save and how to go about doing it.
• Planning is the key to successful retirement. Realize first and foremost that planning is the key to successful retirement.  Plan your retirement well in advance so that you aren’t bombarded with any surprised when the time arrives.
• Do you wish to maintain the same lifestyle? How you prepare for retirement will depend on the type of lifestyle that you wish to live once you are retired.  Maintaining the same lifestyle will require investing a little more into your retirement.
• Social security benefits. Realize that you will have social security benefits to rely on once you retire but that you aren’t likely going to be able to live of it. Have a plan B in place.
• Realize your retirement needs.  Retirement needs are often different for everyone.  What will your retirement needs be? Do you plan on having your house paid off by then or will you be responsible for the note? This is just one example of the many things you need to take into consideration when planning for retirement.
• Have goals. Have a goal in mind on how you would like to live when you retire. If you plan on traveling, you may need to put extra money back.  Having goals is an important part of planning retirement.
• Start saving. Have a savings account deemed just for retirement and contribute to it regularly. Make sure a percentage of your check is deposited into the account each pay period. Saving is important in retirement.
• Will you work outside of retirement? Some retirees choose to work part-time after retirement. Will you choose to work after retirement?  
• Investing can be lucrative. Find ways to invest your money. This can be very rewarding during the time when you need the money.
• Say “yes” to your employers saving plan. Invest in your employers savings plan so that you are saving for retirement from the get go. Working for federal or state agencies can be very rewarding when it comes to retirement.
• Pay off your house. A house note can take a substantial part of your income.  Strive to get your house paid off early so that you won’t have this note when retirement comes.
• Take health care into consideration.  Realize that you will also need to a lot for health care expenses during retirement. While you may have Medicaid, there will still be costs. Be prepared for these costs.
• Avoid taking money out of your retirement.  Don’t borrow against your retirement. This can start a bad habit and you will have little or no money left once you actually need it. If you quit your job, leave your retirement alone so that you will have it in the future.
• A financial advisor may help. A financial advisor who knows the ins and outs of retirement can be very helpful for you.  Seek the guidance of a financial advisor so that all your questions can be answered correctly and promptly.
• Stay the course. Once you have decided on a plan, stick to it. Changing the plan up frequently will only hurt you in the long run. Stay the course and don’t waver from one plan to the other.  Planning is key and will get you where you want to be when the time for retirement comes.

Preparing yourself for retirement will be important.  The younger you are when you begin saving for retirement, the better off you will be when that time comes.  Use the 15 tips listed above to help guide you in preparing for retirement.

Marina is freelance writer and writes on lot of topics related to business, career opportunities and education. She also runs an artificial flowers  store located at 1001ArtificialFlowers.com

The workplace is a common place for age discrimination.  Those who are extremely young and just entering the workforce are often prime targets for discrimination.  Similarly, are those who are discriminated against because they are older and still in the workforce.  Do you fall into one of these categories?  If you are a victim of age discrimination and are having trouble dealing with it, the following tips will be helpful for you.

• Prove that age does not affect your productivity. While no employer has the right to discriminate against you because of your age, you must be proving daily that your age does not affect your level of productivity.  If you are continually decreasing in productivity, your employer will assume that you can no longer keep up with your job duties.  Prove that your age, either young or old, has nothing to do with how successful you are in completing your job. You will have peace of mind knowing that you are doing absolutely nothing wrong and have no reason to be discriminated against.
• Contact human resources.  If you are being discriminated against at work, don’t just brush it under the rug. Contact human resources and let them know what is going on.  Inform them of the situation so that you will have proof that you tried to do something about the problem.   Log the time and date that you contacted the human resource director about the problem for future use in case you to take legal action.
• Let them know that you are serious about the matter.  Once you contact human resources and the problem still persists, go to the head of the department once again and let them know that you are serious about the matter. Many times, if you let them know that you are willing to take legal action in an effort to solve the problem, the problem will go away.
• Seek advice from a lawyer.  If you have done everything in your own power to resolve the problem, it may be time to seek advice from a lawyer. There are lawyers who specialize in cases such as discrimination in the workforce.  “Lawyering up” will give you an upper hand in the legal battle once it begins.
• Keep records of specific incidents to back up your claims.  How are you being discriminated against?  Keeping records of specifics incidents of discrimination will help you when the case goes to court.  Notes, threats, or specific actions against you because of your age are all examples of proof that can back up your claim of age discrimination.  You may also have witnesses that may help back up your claims of age discrimination.  You will need to have some sort of proof if you want to win your case.
• Know federal and state laws that can help you.  There were laws created to protect people in the workforce against many types of discrimination.  Age discrimination is included. What do the federal laws and the state that you live in say is right and wrong when it comes to age discrimination.  Knowing the laws before you make the claim will be very beneficial in helping you make your case against your employer.
• Does your company have an anti-discrimination policy? Many companies claim that they do not discriminate in any way – this includes age. Does the company you work for make this claim? If so, this is a good point to bring up if and when you decide to contact human resources about the problem.  Before you go into a meeting with human resources, know what you are going to say.  Planning out what to say will help you better make your case.

Dealing with age discrimination can be a difficult task. Use the tips above to help you better deal with the situation.  Whether you choose to take matters into your own hands and contact human resources, or seek legal action immediately, something has to be done about it.  Do not let your age be the determining factor for how you are treated in the workplace.  What will you do about age discrimination where you work?

Marina is freelance writer and writes on lot of topics related to business, career opportunities and education. She also runs a Russian matryoshka doll store located at MatryoshkaNestingDolls.com

Obviously some kinds of work carry greater risk of accidents or injuries than others, with people working on building sites or oil rigs much more likely to be injured at work than those in offices or classrooms. Nonetheless, it is far more possible to be injured in the workplace – no matter where you might be employed – than many people think it is. There are several types of injury common to any working environment.

Neck and/or back injuries

These types of injuries can actually be sustained more frequently by those working in office or classroom environments, because these types of job require long hours spent sitting down and/or leaning over. If these injuries are caused by deficiencies in the workplace environment or equipment – such as inadequate seating – then employers can be liable for the results.

Falls

These are probably the single most common type of workplace accidents – after all, who hasn’t fallen over as the result of a trip or slip at some point? However, they are more likely to happen to people who work in jobs that require a great deal of moving about. Again, if such an accident is the result of employer negligence – such as poorly labelled wet and slippery floors or holes and/or obstructions in walking areas – then this is when accident at work claims come in.

Head injuries

Health and safety regulations regarding the safe storage and stacking of objects in the workplace are very strict, but this remains a common type of workplace accident. Often too much is piled onto shelves which are not intended to support such a degree of weight, but employers have the responsibility to ensure that their employees are not injured as a result of this kind of negligence – particularly as head injuries can prove serious.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what to do in your career – or if you’ve discovered you’re in the wrong job – perhaps you need some help learning about yourself before you take a step to find a new job.

Sometimes we get so involved in our jobs and career that we don’t realize that we’ve changed or that any unhappiness we’re feeling about work might be due to the fact that we’re in the wrong job or career.

Here are some free career tools that I’ve checked out that I found useful and just might be ones that help you learn more about yourself and more specifically, your interests, your personality and the type(s) of jobs/career path that might suit you best:

Jobsite questionnaire: Take this 8 minute test (multiple choice) to learn more about you as a person and the type of work environment that best suits you. You get a 4 part result that describes you as a person and also how you deal with people who have other personalities.

What career would suit you? This test requires you to choose between two options and to pick the one that you’d prefer to do. The test assembles a profile based on your responses to help you learn more about yourself and your preferences.

What career will suit your personality? This test requires you to choose between two options to help determine your decision-making process and to get you to think about how you analyze things and react to various situations. The results will return actual jobs that you might consider for yourself based on your responses.

Personality Test: Here’s another free personality test I recommended a few weeks back. It’s quick to complete and gives you a profile based on your answers which you can use to learn more about yourself and others around you.

It's either 6am or 6pm...I'm working shifts so I can't quite remember!

When I ask “when do you like to work” I mean that quite literally.

Are you a morning person?

Are you a night owl?

Have you ever really considered what time of day you are most productive?

It’s not really something most people tend to think about. It’s not really something we tend to think we have a lot of control over since offices generally open during the day – office hours – and if your work week goes from Monday to Friday, well that’s what it is.

When I was younger and still in school, I worked in a factory where shift work was normal and the plant ran 6 days per week. Back then I understood that this was part of the deal and I was ok with it but figured by the time I got a fulltime job I’d be working regular office hours.

For the fulltime guys who worked there, there were essentially only a handful of factory jobs that provided them with the two things that they all wanted:

-straight day shifts
-weekends off

Everyone else had to work alternating day and night shifts and since Tuesday was a standard day off in the factory, they also worked on Saturdays. If you’ve ever worked alternating shifts you probably know about how tiring it can be and how worn down you get after awhile of trying to get your body to go to bed at night one week and then work at night the next.

It never dawned on me that I might ever get a job – like working online or maybe a job where you have to work weekends or evenings – where I’d be working outside of normal office hours.

The funny part is that I also remember reading studies even years ago that suggested that kids might perform better at school if school started later in the day, say at 10am rather than the standard 8:00am or 8:30am.

I recently read a report that in fact one school has switched their start time to 10am and according to their results, the later start time seems to show that the students are on average performing better.

It got me to thinking about the same issue of work hours that I used to think about years ago when I was a kid. What exactly is the ideal work day for the average person and how can we take more control over it?

Certainly working from home is more popular than it used to be.

Also, the Internet has created many jobs that enable people to either work from home fulltime for themselves or perhaps part time for their employer. These things have enabled people to change their work schedule to fit their lives – within reason – and perhaps they are better for it.

Companies tend to be more flexible than in the past with work hours. I know that many IBM staff often work from home for example and in that case, I suspect unless people have time-sensitive work to do, perhaps their schedules are a bit more flexible than if they were in an office working 9-5.

Personally I’ve found that I’m a morning person and I’m usually online by 8am or so every day – sometimes earlier – but that the end of the day around 8pm-11pm is when I also like to do work-related stuff, especially online. I just find that this time seems to be when I can get things done and find that I’m still alert and can accomplish more and seem more focused than earlier in the day.

I’m not sure why this is, but that’s exactly how I feel.

When people consider their career, I wonder how much time and thought they put into the actual work hours that the position will require? I wonder if people who get into the news business consciously think that their job will be one that will most likely see them working “odd” hours, evenings and perhaps weekends, times when the average office worker is at home and done work for the day.

Same goes for someone in the hospitality business or restaurant business which tends to serve more people at night and on weekends. No weekends off for those people!

These days many jobs do offer up more flexibility in terms of work hours than in the past. Many jobs didn’t even exist in the past (think anything Internet-related) so there are certainly more opportunities to think outside the “regular” office hours that people tended to work in the past when such flexibility didn’t exist.

Working flexible hours might also be something that you consider asking for in a new job during the job offer negotiation stage too, especially if it will help with your family life and/or possibly help you avoid a busy commute during rush hour.

Card courtesy of Bluntcard.com

Honestly, this whole equal pay for equal work notion is often taken too literally in my opinion where people believe that they will earn the exact same amount as their colleagues. It ignores the fact that there are so many other factors at play that can contribute to how much someone earns.

It’s rare to find two people who have identical backgrounds where you combine the same number of years of experience, same personality, same education, etc.

Plus at the end of the day some people are better negotiators and might do a better job of selling themselves and making themselves indispendable in the eyes of the employer.

I’m assuming of course that we’re not talking about blatant favoritism or discrimination where someone is either favored or discriminated against unfairly.

When it comes to pay and compensation, it’s obviously a personal issue and often one that people don’t discuss with others but sometimes rumors start floating around as to what a person is earning and often it quickly gets accepted as fact even if people don’t know 100% if it’s true or not.

People often overestimate their own worth and perhaps underestimate the worth of others, too. I read a funny article last week where a poll was held and asked respondents whether or not they felt they could do a better job than their boss and over 30% of respondents felt they could in fact do their boss’s job better than their boss does.

Hey, maybe they could but a number of respondents probably don’t even know exactly what their boss does 100% of the time which makes it difficult to believe they could actually do the job better.

If you feel like you are underpaid compared to your peers and have a good case, you really have a few options:

1. Show your employer why you deserve more and ask for a raise.

2. Get into a position in the company where you have more of a say in how much you earn i.e. a commission-based role, performance-based role.

3. Get a new job in a different company where you feel you’ll be more fairly paid.

If you like the card graphic at the top of the post, you should check out Bluntcard.com for a good laugh or two.

Your boss can directly determine your success or failure...

Do you ever get the impression you’re working for the wrong boss?

In my experience, I find that a person’s opinion of their employer is often largely or completely determined by their opinion of their immediate manager. It’s their experience(s) with their boss that determines how they feel about the company. I think this is especially true when you work in a large company where perhaps the day to day decisions that are made by people above you are not as noticeable as the decisions that are made by your boss since they probably affect you more directly and in a more personal way.

Plus you get a lot more exposure to your boss so you tend to be around the more and get to learn more about them, in a good and bad way.

I’ve had the fortune of having predominantly good bosses during my career but having worked in recruitment – along with anecdotal stuff I’ve learned about through friends, acquaintances, etc who’ve told me about their experiences at work – you start to learn about what other people have to put up with in terms of their manager and what obstacles are put in their way by that person.

As a recruiter you do sometimes find that the person is looking for a new job because they want to work for someone else and in some cases they hate their boss.

I’ve also found that people often have big complaints about their employer based on perceived favoritism that is exhibited towards certain staff members by their boss and that they are the ones getting the short end of the stick.

I’ve also met people who feel that they are actually smarter and more skilled than their boss and don’t want to work directly for them as a result. Early in my career, I witnessed something like this where a person I worked for seemed to be working for the wrong person and in my opinion probably should have been managing him rather than the other way around.

Apparently I wasn’t the only person thinking this as I recall my boss telling me that someone outside the company had witnessed her and her boss in a work setting and commented that he thought she was stronger than her boss and that she should be managing him. She left the company shortly thereafter for a new job.

How can you tell if you’re working for the wrong boss? Here are some telltale signs that I’ve noticed tend to lead people to believe they’re working for the wrong person:

1. They take credit for your work: Not only is this underhanded but it also shows that the person you’re working for is possibly less skilled relative to you and possibly jealous of you as well. Taking credit for your work is one way that weak people often do to save their own hide to make themselves look better in the eyes of others.

2. They make sure you look bad when they look bad: One way a boss can make themselves look better in front of others – or at least make themselves look less bad – is to make it looks like they’re surrounded by incompetence i.e. they make their employees look bad. I’ve seen cases where a manager receives a poor or average review during their yearly review and as a result, then hands out the same review to their staff. Afterall, how would it look if the manager was rated as average and his/her staff were all rated higher? Who’s the real problem in a case like that?

3. They don’t support you: When you work in a larger company you often find that various cliques exist and that certain people appear to wield power and use it to protect their staff often to the detriment of others. You don’t want to be working for the boss who either doesn’t bother to support their staff or simply doesn’t have the guts to stand up for their staff.

4. They don’t give you information: Part of the job of a boss is to disseminate information to their staff. While you don’t need to necessarily know every single thing that your boss knows, you certainly need to learn about relevant items and to be kept in the loop to ensure you know what’s going on and can do your job. A bad boss is one who deliberately keeps information to themselves either because they don’t trust their staff or because they want to take advantage of the information in a way that only benefits them.

5. You don’t respect them and neither do other people: While it’s possible that you might be the only person with no respect for your boss, when others tend to feel the same way it’s likely that you’re not all wrong. When people actually feel sorry for you for having to work for your boss, well that’s pretty much the icing on the cake, isn’t it?

Ugh, a pay cut...

I read an interesting story about constructive dismissal this week and it concerned an employee who had worked for the same company for 22 years who had his salary cut by almost 50% during a period where his employer was going through a rough patch financially.

The employee had worked for the company since he was 16 so it was essentially the only employer he knew and had worked his way up to a point where he was earning $114,000 which is pretty good by most people’s standards. When the company cut pensions and did an across the board 10% salary decrease for all staff to conserve cash, this employee was one of four staff who the management decided could afford to be cut even more than 10% and as a result this employee saw his pay drop to around $60,000.

What would you do if this happened to you?

In this case, the employee sued his employer…and continued to work there to minimize his losses. That would have to have been an odd situation, showing up every day to work for a company that you were suing but he did just that and ended up winning a judgement against the company for constructive dismissal.

His lawyers argued that the employee had been constructively dismissed by virtue of the fact that he’d been forced to take such a huge pay cut even though he continued to do the same job.

The defense argued that by continuing to work for the employer, the employee had accepted the new terms otherwise he’d have quit and then sued the company if he felt wrongerd.

The judge agree with the employee’s position and he was awarded a judgement that was equal to 1 month for each year he’d worked there – 22 years – minus the salary he’d been paid during the time of the dispute.

In my time in recruitment I ran into a few people who felt they had been constructively dismissed although their cases where different than this one and in each case none of them took their case to court.

I suspect that’s the reason that companies often do things like reduce someone’s salary by almost 50% like they did to this guy: at worst they figure the guy will try to get some sort of buyout and they’ll be rid of him. In an ideal situation for the employer, he’d just quit and find another job which is probably what most people would do.

Depending on where you live and the local labor laws that exist, the definition of constructive dismissal might differ but essentially it’s a situation where the employer acts in a way that the employee considers themselves to have been effectively fired. It would then be up to the employee to prove the accusation in court.

I suspect in many if not most cases, the employee would in fact have quit and then sued for constructive dismissal claiming that the situation was untenable and they could no longer work under the conditions. I would think that the situation described above where the employee continued to work for the employer even while he sued them would be in the minority.

If you want to read the full story concerning this situation, click here.