Keeping Work at Home Employees on Track

For many people work from home, succumbing to household distractions can throw a curve ball in their career path.

To keep your workers on track and help them avoid some of the common “work at home” pitfalls, share these five tips with them:

1. Create a separate work space. Make sure it’s off limits to family members. Use physical barriers, such as a door or a flight of stairs to isolate yourself from your home routine and focus your attention on the task at hand.

2. Keep normal business hours. Stick to the same schedule every day like you had to commute to your job. Make a daily list that will prioritize your work by task and estimate the time you expect it to take to complete. This will help instill urgency in your work and increase your productivity.

3. Dress professionally. You do not have to wear stockings and high heels or a suit and tie, but it will help put you in the working mindset to put on real clothes and get out of your pajamas.

4. You’re paid to work not do laundry. It’s unfortunate, I know, that you don’t get paid to do your household chores, but it’s the truth. If you were at a real office you wouldn’t fold laundry during the work day, so resist the temptation to do it at your home office.

5. Log out of your email account. This will help you increase productivity and more efficiently manage your time. You won’t be able to seek distraction through emails, and you’ll be done with your work more quickly.

Working at home is not for everyone. It takes a lot of effort to stay focused and get the job done, but people who do it, and do it well, are much happier in general than those having to make a long commute five days a week. Try making these tips requirements and see if you can tell the difference in your employee’s usefulness.

Who’s the Boss?

“There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.”
-George Crane

Some hiring managers are also the CEOs and owners of their respective businesses. Others have people they report to, department managers, division heads, regional managers, etc. In either case, you may think that you are the boss because you have ultimate power over which job applicants get hired and which are shown the door.

To a certain extent, that’s true. If you get a bad feeling about someone during an interview, whether it’s because of an ill-timed yawn or other faux pas on his part, you don’t have to bring him on board.

If you’re doing interviews by yourself, though, you should give some thought to whether or not you’re dismissing potential hires too quickly. Are you letting personal biases and preferences stop you from hiring people who could be producing excellent results that benefit the company as a whole just because you find them annoying?

It’s not against the law to reject an applicant that rubs you the wrong way. If you don’t like someone for no reason at all, that’s certainly not against the law. It’s when the reason is based on the points protected by discrimination (sex, religion, age, race, sexual orientation, etc.) that it becomes a problem.

I’m just suggesting that you get a second opinion, especially in cases where you find yourself ready to eliminate an otherwise perfectly qualified candidate but can’t put your finger on exactly why.

In the grand scheme of the way most businesses work, your employees are the real bosses. They make your life easier by doing the work that no manager wants to do. They are the ones interacting with customers, doing the work necessary to keep your company afloat, and if they all quit tomorrow, you would probably have a lot of ‘splaining to do.

Keep that in mind as you’re deciding the fate of applicants vying for your open positions. If these people will add a lot of value to our business, how much does it matter that they have an annoying eye twitch?

Lunch Lady Land

You know you know the song— from SNL a few years back. Adam Sandler and Chris Farley doing it up comic genius style. But it reminds me of a great point related to employment. And, to make the lunch ladies proud, I think I’ll share.

In the song, they are poking fun, lovingly, at all the lunch ladies out there and wondering why they’d want to spend their days with rude kids in the kitchen of a school. But really, why would you? Someone has to do it and aren’t you glad it’s not you?

But for them, it’s the perfect job. And we should all be lucky enough to find the perfect job for ourselves. It’s uncommon but it shouldn’t be. And there are ways to find out what that would be for you. There are aptitude tests you can take to find out which ones are more perfect for you than others. And there are career assessment tests that let you know which industries you are more tailored for.

And then there are personality tests that will tell you what your strengths and weaknesses are for the kind of person you are. Just in case you didn’t already know. It will also illuminate work related skills that you didn’t even know you had.

I’ve listed a few of them here, but take them with a grain of salt. You know yourself best and only you will know what you’re capable of and your likes and dislikes. And also remember that it may not be the most glamorous of jobs, but like the lunch ladies, you might come to love it.

Career Aptitude Test: http://www.projectcareer.com/?code=PF1-


Career Assesment Test: http://mycareercalculator.com/assessment/?SSAID=68a


Personality Test: http://www.lifescript.com/quiz/quiz.asp?bid=47354&trans=1&du=1&gclid=CM_7wK3j9pICFRY3lgodUz95Fw&ef_id=1350:3:c_6e4a460d4dc8e43e319e3f3708c9ca14_609235865_career%20test:NbKzP9B6B3YAAG0m4rsAAAAK:20080425175103