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Can Job Sharing Boost your Employee Profile? Job sharing is one of the newer occurring work arrangements on the job market. It means that two or more people share one full time position. Most often it is two people that work part time on the same position. This kind of work sharing is a great invention for all parents that want to spend more time with their children or for people that are just not made for a full time job. Job sharing is a flexible job option that shares one person’s responsibilities between two people. So, can job sharing boost your employee profile? Yes, of course is the answer to that. The reasons why job sharing boosts your employee profile are widely spread. Job sharing can bring benefits not only to employees but also to employers and companies. Start by looking at the aspect of sharing your work. If you are sharing a full time position load with another person, pressure is less on you. You still have the same deadline, but the pressure is shared and you can work more efficiently on your work assignments. Less stress makes for a happier more relaxed employee that can tackle the work given to him or her easily. This makes the employee a more balanced person. The possibility to stay at home while still having a chance to be part of a company can further your career and keep your skills up to date and this makes for a well balanced worker. Another reason why job sharing might boost your employee profile is that two people working part time actually can get more work done as one full time employee. Why is that? Well, that is very easy. While the full time employee is very tired in the mid afternoon from his already long day, the person coming in for the second half of the day has had time to relax all morning long and therefore can start with new end fresh energy and thoughts on the shared work. Should the position not be shared in half days, but in each taking a few full days, then the people sharing the position are still more relaxed and motivated. They are able to be with their family, able to rest and regenerate or have fun with some of their favorite hobbies. Psychologists and researchers have long praised the effect that a fun family filled time and enough time to be you and relax can boost your employees’ work input as well as their efficiency. In countries where employees have fewer hours per week and more vacation days a year, the work output per person is in general higher and employees are happy and motivated and stay with their company for long periods of time, if not all the way up to retirement. Additionally, if you have a good amount of time off from work, you are most likely a very motivated and happy employee and your boss and fellow employees will see you as a positive person to be around at the work place. Being a leader and motivator is all that a boss can hope for and therefore, sharing the position can immensely boost your profile. For employers, there is also the consideration of your benefits. Some companies might not pay benefits to part time employees and two part time positions will save you money. In this case, your profile is simply boosted by the fact that your employer saves money. Although in some companies, there are benefits for part-time employees and those can be based on different facts, such as hours worked, full-time benefits and more. Before considering sharing your job and entering the world of part-time employment, make sure that this is exactly what you are looking for in a job. Once you are sharing your position, there might not be a way back to full time, at least not within your own company.

Yes, Freebies are Real! If you tell someone that something is free, they immediately start looking for the catch. After all, the words of wisdom “there is no such thing as a free lunch” have usually been proven true for people time and again throughout life, and so a healthy cynicism towards free stuff usually springs up with good reason. If you are one of these skeptical types, however, you may be missing out on some really great stuff. The truth is that you CAN get free things that are really and truly free, and yes, actually worth having. You just have to know where to look. OK, here is where the caveat comes in. The definition of “free” often depends on the definition of “cost.” As any economist can tell you, cost really doesn’t only come down to how much money you have to hand over to get something. There are additional costs, like inconvenience and time spent doing something. And true, some freebies have these “non monetary” kinds of costs associated with them. You have to balance all of the costs with the value of the free stuff you are getting and decide if it is worth it to you. The two biggest costs associated with freebies? Time and convenience are at the top of the list. Time is a big factor in many free offers. Companies want a bit of your time in exchange for their free products. Indeed, some companies literally want hours of your time. Have you ever taken advantage of one of those “free weekend vacation” offers in which you received free accommodation in a beach house or condo for a weekend in exchange for suffering through a long presentation and intense sales pitch? For some people, they can handle the presentation and have no qualms about refusing to buy anything and the free vacation more than makes up for it. Other people would rather pay any price to avoid having to listen to one of these spiels. So, while these weekends are freebies, for some people, they cost too much. More often, a company wants your time in a less obvious way – they want you to spend time filling out forms. These forms may simply be your name, address and email address, or they may be very lengthy, quizzing you about buying habits and the like. The reason the companies want you to do these forms is often for market research, and they are more than happy to give you a freebie in exchange for this. Many people find the time spent filling out these forms will worth it to get a great free product. Convenience is the other cost involved with many freebies. Time and convenience go hand in hand in some cases – after all, it may not be especially convenient to fill out form after form simply because it is time consuming, but convenience takes another hit from freebies in the form of spam email. Often, signing up for a freebie can land you on a spam email list, and for some people, getting tons of spam is so inconvenient that they would rather pay full price. The truth about all of these costs of freebies is that the freebie is in the eye of the beholder. You have to decide what you are willing to put up with in order to get a free product. Once you know the limits to your freebie costs, than you can cash in on some really great products that don’t cost you a dime. When you spend five minutes filling out a form and get rewarded with a free DVD player that you have been wanting, you will realize that there are free things out there to be had.

Communication Key to a Better Work Environment Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carole. On Christmas Eve, poor Bob Cratchit, who is working late again, spends his day working up the courage to ask his boss, Mr. Scrooge, if he can have Christmas Day off from work to spend with his family. When he finally does get up the nerve to ask, Mr. Scrooge lets forth a tirade over lazy people using Christmas as an excuse to have a day a off from work. This fictional story unfortunately rings true for a lot of people who have to work up the courage to ask for things from their employers. An employee who has to feel about their employer the way Bob Cratchit felt about Mr. Scrooge is not a very happy and productive employee. To get the most of out of your workers, you have to create a much more hospitable working environment. To create a better working environment, keeping the lines of communication open is absolutely crucial. How does communication work in your office? Do you get the impression that everyone is walking around on eggshells around you? While this kind of fear from your employees may be good for your ego in some senses, it is really bad for your business. When your employees don’t feel like they can talk to you, you will lose control over what is going on with your business. You may be the boss, but your employees are the ones who are actually on the front lines. To know what is really going on out there, you need your employees to communicate honestly with you. If they feel that you are unapproachable, they will hide problems and concerns from you, and you won’t be able to act to fix them. You can’t expect to run your business with half of the information about what is actually going on, and so your business will suffer for your “mean boss” routine. There are still other problems with creating an office environment in which your employees feel like you are unapproachable. In general, there will be a dark cloud over the office when you are around. The stress will keep employee morale low, and employees with low morale are employees with low productivity. Besides, who wants to work hard for someone they cannot approach or who doesn’t show they any respect? Shutting down those lines of communication will definitely affect your bottom line as employees “phone it in” because they don’t feel invested in making your business a success. If you want a better working environment, you have to improve the lines of communication. If there has been a communication breakdown in the past, take the time to address it with your staff. If you staff is small, talk to them each one on one, letting them know that your door is always open and that you want more regular communication with them. If you have a larger staff, schedule a meeting to address the issue. Weekly office meetings are a great way to keep communication channels open and swap ideas in the office environment. If weekly meetings are not feasible, find some way of touching base with your staff on a regular basis, either through weekly emails or a weekly newsletter. Also, you should encourage your staff to communicate with each other. Sharing information among the staff is a great way to generate fresh ideas and fresh approaches to problems. If your office is suffering from a communication problem, make nipping it in the bud a priority. The pay off will be more productive workers and a whole lot less stress. Who knew work could actually be a pleasant place to be?