Good Management for Dummies.

Most of our normal lives are spent at work. Either you work for someone, under someone, or with someone. You could be a manager, boss, supervisor, vice president, workmate or subordinate. No matter what designation you hold, you will always find yourself working alongside other people.

Some of us work around the clock saving precious lives, some of us stay up way past office hours to meet deadlines, some are on the roads risking their lives for the sake of keeping their jobs but there are some who work from 9-5, close their lappie's, pack and go but never really leave. These poor souls are chained to bad people management thus spending their entire lives wading in office trivials without even being physically present.

The key to balance a healthy work-life environment involves the co-operation of every single employee at the workplace. Ive listed some of the very basic practices you can adopt based on my own experiences as a working proffesional and a human being.

1)Respect other peoples time
When someone leaves the office, their lives outside the confines of this paper crunching, printer buzzing, keyboard tapping environment BEGINS. Someone else out there, a family member, a loved one or a friend is waiting for this person to spend whatever little time is left of the day together. The least you can do is to leave this person alone.

2)Refrain from calling or texting
This applies to everything else unless the person paying their salary decides to kick the bucket. There will be juicy gossips to tell because everything always happens after they have left the office. The world will still be round, so these can wait till tomorrow.

3)Do not interupt break time
Everyone deserves a break. For one solid given hour enforced by the employment and labour law/act, imagine these people who are on their well deserved breaks away in Timbuktoo. Since they are not anywhere within "coming back radius", you are not to call or text them back to the office. You can be rest assured to have a good nights sleep knowing that no one is spending their one hour breaks bitching about how their lunches were screwed because of you.

4)Be generous with compliments
No one wants to do a bad job. When something is done right, open your mouth and say "well done". You will not lose anything by doing this. People like to be complimented for their efforts and recognising this brings out the potential in a person. They begin to believe in themselves. This automatically generates efforts to work better and smarter to live not only up to your expectations but theirs too.

5)Be open
The best practices in work-life is an open door concept. Do not shun away anyone that walks through your door who has something to say. Take it as a priviledge to be able to listen to someone who is unhappy or unsatisfied. You may not be able to make things better for them but being someone who people can talk to is an excellent quality. There is a reason why humans have 2 ears and only 1 mouth.

You have probably read this or heard this in a seminar somewhere, but some of you blockheads out there havent learnt anything and still do what you do best..making people's lives a living hell. Be considerate, you could be the reason for someone's bad day.

If you dont have a life outside the office, doesnt mean others dont deserve one.

- Primila GK