Ready to work and eager to impress, it can be very easy to do too much when you first start in a new job. Making your employers feel happy with you when you are joining the business is a great way to make friends, of course. But, unless you’re able to keep up the hard work, you won’t hold onto them for very long, and slipping into a normal workload will make it look like you’re doing less than everyone else. This is something which can often feel impossible to balance. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring a two-way mentality, aimed at those who want to give their bosses something which reflects the benefits of the job.
There are several areas which can easily be taken advantage of if you’re not hard enough in a new job. Time, breaks, and a whole bunch of other areas have to be considered if you want to be able to start balancing out your work. Below, you can find a list of some of these, along with information to support you through standing your ground and getting your own way when talking to your bosses. When negotiating your contract amd agreements, most employers will be happy to have some discussions. As part of this, though, you also have to willing to listen to their desires and suggestions.
Time
The first area to think about in a process like this will be time. When you are willing to work late without extra pay, cover other people without warning, or spend your free time in any other way to help your employers, you have to be careful. What starts as the occasional bit of overtime can easily become entire projects which are done for free, and it isn’t fair for you to have to do this. If you are to be expected to put any time into the business without being paid for it, you should be given something else, like equity, to give you a good reason to invest your free time into something.
As one of the most frustrating parts of this, a lot of people miss out on their pre-booked holiday when they have a bad boss. If your employer forgets that you have asked for a couple of weeks off and the time rolls around, you could find yourself with a difficult choice; your break or your job. In most places, the law is fairly strict when it comes to annual leave. If your boss has agreed some time off for you, you will be entitled to it, and they can’t threaten your job if you refuse to work on the days which they’ve told you can take off.
Breaks
When your work space is busy, it can be very easy to find yourself working for an entire day without a single break, and some employers can be pushy when it comes to getting jobs done. Like your annual leave, you have a break entitlement which your bosses can’t take away from you. If you are refused the chance to have the time you need, it will be worth looking into ways to take action, as this area is considered very important in the world of business. Of course, though, you may have to take responsibility for your breaks, as people won’t always be around to tell you to take them.
Targets
Targets are one of the worst parts of working in the modern age, giving people endless goals to reach and no end to the work they have on their plate. In a lot of roles, these numbers will be based on sales projections which you will never get the chance to see. Of course, though, this wouldn’t be an issue if you didn’t have them increase each time you reach them. Overtime, you can find easily find yourself working far faster and harder than your salary reflects, and it will be impossible to get out of the cycle if you let it start up. To solve this issue, it can pay to ask for fairer targets from the very beginning.
Pay
Even if you don’t want them to, the people hiring you have a lot of power over your life. If they fail to pay you or make mistakes with your paychecks, you could find yourself spending months without the right level of pay hitting your account, making life a pain to live. Though they may not be able to give you all of the money they owe you right away, most payroll systems have the power to give out advances. This means that they should be able to give you at least a portion of the outstanding wage. If this continues for a long time, you could have grounds to take legal action, especially if the missing money is significant.
Injuries
Each year, thousands of people get hurt at work and will simply live with issues it causes them. If your employer has provided poor equipment, training, or done something else which lead to the injury, you shouldn’t have to bear the burden alone. Instead, to make things easier for you, they should be required to keep paying you while also keeping your job waiting for you. Getting help and advice for workplace injuries is nice and easy. There are loads of sites around the web with resources to guide you, along with companies with the skills and experience to handle your entire case.
Dismissal
Finally, as the last area to consider, it can be hard to know your rights when you’ve been dismissed from a role. It’s easy to feel as though your boss’ word is absolute, and that you don’t have a chance to appeal this sort of decision. In most places, there are very strict guidelines in place which govern the way that people can be fired. For example, a business can drop you right away if you commit a violent act while at work, but they won’t be able to do the same if they find out you support the wrong football team. In cases of unfair dismissal, employees can often end up getting the chance to spend a couple of years out of work while they get paid by their old bosses.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when they start a job is treating their boss as if they are a friend. While professional relationships can be much like the social ones you choose to have, they often have a lot of self-interest tied to them, and this can make it hard to know whether or not you’re being taken advantage of. For example, it can be easy to get into a habit of covering for someone when they have commitments outside of work. In this situation, you have to consider whether or not they would do the same for you, especially as these requests tend to be last minute. Of course, there will be some people out there who are willing to be a friend at work. It’s important to be careful, though, as it can be far too easy to fall into a trap.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time you put into the way you talk to your bosses. A lot of people find it hard to stand their ground with people like this, finding the idea of sticking up for themselves to be more bothersome than anything else. In reality, though, this could make a huge difference to your job, and a lot of people will relish in that opportunity.
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