Plan Your Career by Julie Desmond

Julie Desmond is Talent Manager for Express Employment Professionals. Write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Let me get back to you on that

Monday, 13 June 2011 14:37 Julie Desmond

Abbe’s co-worker is so laid-back. “He waits on everything,” she says. “He doesn’t return calls or respond to emails. He loses orders all the time. I wish he’d show some interest in his job!” The guy Abbe works with probably doesn’t lack interest. What he lacks is urgency. Urgency: the instinct to move rapidly to impact an outcome. Urgency can’t be taught. Or can it?

First a person needs to know what urgency is. The same guy who is slow to respond to customers likely would recognize urgency in other settings. Imagine walking into a sandwich shop, placing an order and hearing, “Oh, let me get back to you on that.” Instead, a good server moves rapidly to make the sandwich happen, because they know what’s on the line: customer satisfaction, money, their job.

Ten ways to feel good at work this summer

Thursday, 02 June 2011 15:57 Julie Desmond

“I should call in sick,” you say. It’s a spectacular summer day, one of the few we’ll see before the snow flies again. You go outside over lunch and find returning indoors is heartbreaking. But work is a good thing; getting paid is good. Read on for ten ways to make the most of your summer days even if they’re all spent working.

1. Mentor someone. Research shows that helping releases feel-good hormones, and it’s easy to start. Becoming a mentor can be a formal process through an organization. Or it can be casual. Aim to be the go-to person at work. When you become an expert in an area, you are regarded as a resource. Your rewards are the knowledge you gain plus all those feel-good warm fuzzies.

A New Decision

Thursday, 26 May 2011 14:47 Julie Desmond

Negotiations rule number one is, “Never change your mind, and never ask anyone else to change his mind.” The only way to reach an agreement with an opponent is to make a new decision based on new information. If you are choosing not to agree to my terms, it might be that we need to explore different data. This approach works well in tough business conversations. However, this article is not about business. This one is about something entirely different: life.

Work Smart: Taming the meeting monster

Thursday, 19 May 2011 15:02 Julie Desmond

If you follow Gram around for a day, you’ll spend most of that day in meetings. Gram manages six teams in a high profile department. Gram is responsible for a fat budget, so his teams have to be effective.

Many employees dread meetings. The very word, Meeting, in the subject line of an email can make people cringe and hide their calendars. Gram spends most of every day involved in meetings, and yet no one complains when a meeting is called. Gram’s meetings are effective because, some of the time, his teams may not realize there’s a meeting being held. How does he do that? Gram says the keys are consistency and a conservative guest list.

Co-worker clutter? It’s time to come clean

Friday, 13 May 2011 14:25 Julie Desmond

Working alongside other people is still a way of life for most people. During those forty hours they are together each week, co-workers stand in for roommates, existing in close proximity, dining at adjacent desks and sometimes sharing a stapler. If a workspace is a reflection of what’s inside a brain, what does that say about the guy in the cube next door?

If his space is a mess, he might be disorganized… or highly creative. Can he easily find what he needs, even if nobody else can? Some people are visually oriented, but that need to keep everything in plain sight can translate into fire hazard: piles of paper, folders, books and office supplies scattered across the desk and spilling onto the nearby chairs, onto the floor and into the hallway.

More Articles...