We are all familiar with the term “Dream Big” and most certainly everyone in their lives have thought of having so much money that will let them do anything and everything they want!

People say that money can’t buy happiness, however, in my opinion money in many ways lead you to happiness. When you walked across the streets, did you ever wonder if you could buy that shining Lamborghini looking at you? Yes you definitely did!

Sometimes a safe and secure job is not enough to make it to your dreams. When you are holding a pair of 5’s in a poker game, you might still go all in, with the hope of wining. This hope is risky, but you never think that way, chances of losing with a pair of 5’s is very high.

Relating the idea of taking the risk to dream big, Briana Morgaine, a blogger at Bplans, talks about the “8 Tips for Entrepreneurs Who Are Balancing Their Business with Their Day Job”. In this blog, people who have their day jobs are encouraged to spend time on starting their own business. It also, discusses about many ways and techniques that individuals can use during their day job to work on their start up businesses.

Creating a schedule is very handy when it comes to business. Study has proven that most students who are high achievers also create schedules to study efficiently. During a job, if people make schedules and stick to them for working on their new ventures, it helps to focus on business besides doing a day job. Also, finishing office tasks ahead of time makes extra hours to work on the ventures. Sometimes, even after making schedules people are carried away with alerts from social media and other leisure activities. So experts in this field, block sites which distract them using special software.

In my opinion, the most effective technique is to set a monetary goal during doing a day job. Say, once I earn $10000/ per month from the business, I will stop doing a day job. This is an indicator of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Word Count: 353.

Works cited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker

http://articles.bplans.com/author/briana-morgaine/

http://articles.bplans.com/8-tips-for-entrepreneurs-who-are-balancing-their-business-with-their-day-job/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tips-templates-creating-work-schedule-excel/

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/get-distracted-more-disable-automatic-alerts-from-social-media.html

http://www.goonlinepoker.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/bad-poker-players.jpg

When you get a call from the office and you are asked to come for an interview, it means that the company is interested in “You”. You are pumped up, you share the wonderful news to everyone, your friends, family, mentors, etc., but your job is not quite done. Have you ever thought how would it feel if you got rejected? Everyone would ask afterwards that did you get the job or not? That’s why many people suggest not to inform anyone before the job is confirmed. You might feel that your image might get ruined if you do not get the job, but how many people get their resumes moved to the “Yes pile” and get called for an interview? Not many right? So I believe that whatever makes you feel right to do for an interview is right, whether it is sharing with others or keeping it to yourself. It’s called “positude” in the urban dictionary, where you thrive with positive attitude!

That’s all about staying positive after you receive a call. I had an interview today at ZARA, a fashion retail company owned by Inditex. Oh boy, I feel like that I should start advertising for them for free! I know a lot about them. But how? Do you remember when you got a chunk of homework from school that you did not want to do? But after doing it you felt really good that you were actually prepared for your upcoming test. So, I did my research. I read all about the company, their team, their current activities, their mission statement, from head to toe. I was really prepared, I aced the interview and I felt that I could start the job right away, and perform better than anyone else competing with me. 

Also, after you think that the interview deal is almost set, there comes the salary negotiations. To determine my goals and create a win-win situation for both parties, I had to know “target” and “resistance” points for both parties. For example, I had to spend 10 hours a week for transportation to my job, so I mentioned about my opportunity cost and also their resistance point for the salary, to maximize the benefit for both parties.

On another note, there are issues about prejudice and stereotyping which are a case in point during interviews. Many hiring managers do stereotype and treat applicants unfairly. My colleague Nicholas Chan’s blog post discusses about prejudice and perception if someone’s name was “Mohammad”. I also agree with his idea as many people who do have potential cannot get jobs because of stereotyping.

Word Count: 434.

Works Cited:

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/photo-1-300×225.jpg

http://www.mytotalretail.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2015/06/zara-store-1.jpg

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0097.xml

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-michaels/reinventing-winwinwin-bus_b_6291030.html

https://www.inditex.com/home

https://www.zara.com/ca/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=positude

https://blogs.ubc.ca/nicholaschan/2017/02/05/what-if-my-name-was-mohamed/

In Physics, power is simply work done per unit time. Comparing this idea to a workplace is very similar. In a workplace, the management has to use its power bases, which include coercive power, reward power, expert power, informational power, etc., to make its employees finish their tasks in a desired amount of time.

Sometimes, work done per unit time is not effective. This means that some employees will finish their tasks on time but the quality of work may not be standout. This may create a tension amongst the management of a company as they may lose potential customers, may get rejected from getting a loan or even on severe cases go bankrupt.

Now, anyone would use tactics to save their butts. These tactics may be ethical or unethical, depending on the performance of the workforce or situation the company is now in, for example, is the company going bankrupt or underperforming. Then comes the power of influence, where the boss says, “I know exactly what to do.” In most situations the management uses pressure and legitimizing tactics, which are often using demands, threats and claiming an organizational authority to make a request. These techniques do force the employees to work more sincerely and pay close attention to detail so that they do not make mistakes.

Many organizations think very differently in this modern workplace environment. Previously, I talked about the reward power, where bonuses on performance, promotions, preferred shifts can be earned by employees as they are provided with extrinsic motivation. So, organizations believe that to increase productivity, they can create incentives for employees using some sort of reward. My colleague Gaurav Varshneya’s blog post talks about a workplace is where people level up by completing quests and challenges. Completion of these tasks accurately also provide the employees with rewards. Gaurav mentioned that highly effective reward schedules can help individuals to do difficult task which were not possible previously due to the lack of motivation. I also agree on this idea as many people look for rewards in completing tasks which are difficult to complete.

Word count: 347.

Works cited

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/power-influence-politics-workplace-19058.html

http://www.skillofstrength.com/putting-power-back-into-power-cleans/

Level-Up!

When you come from a different country, with various expectations to a new country, how do you analyze everything? Do you assume everything to be as expected? Do you plan out your schedule? Or do you fail? Yes you do. Talking about a freshman who just comes to his or her new university life does get personal. Often these personal stories are left untold but these stories are real, genuine and can impact to shape a human mind and a person’s lifestyle.

“I am a failure”

“Failures are the key to success”, we have often heard that but does this statement always apply to us? No. University students have often failed in courses, language requirements, failed to join a friend circle, etc. These events in their life did not lead to any success, however, these students suffered from chronic stress in their first few years. When we talk about personal issues most reported topics are about stress. Some people say stress is a good thing, it keeps you focused, makes you work in a routine order. This is not always the case. Most stress reporters are unable to manage the immense pressure. This leads to the suicide attempts for most university students. Every year the rate of suicidal attempts are going high, which is mostly contributed by the students in universities.

The new generation is one standard deviation ahead of the IQ level of the previous generation. This means that the students in universities are expected to be a better on average from the previous generation. Therefore, the examinations and test basis activities are much difficult than before. Not all students can handle this pressure. I have encountered many students who are facing this problem in their life, who are constantly thinking about their future. Failures in life have caused them to be pessimistic to a great extent.

Luckily, most universities have stress management departments and counselling teams who work with students dealing with stress in their life. However, not all students have the courage to go to counselling offices, therefore, societal awareness should be spread on stress management. Personal issues are crucial for our society and it needs to be tackled everyday.

Note: here is a stress story you might want to know.

Word count: 370.

Works cited:

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm

http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/campus-crisis-why-are-suicide-rates-rising-among-university-students-1.1463654

https://mindcheck.ca/mood-and-stress/stress

Workplaces can sometimes be very dull. Every single day, you are at the same desk, doing the same job. Over and over again! But isn’t that what the company demands from you, to be doing the work you are supposed to do in a productive manner. Yes, for the progress of the company you have to do what you have to do. But workplaces can be ameliorated so that it can extract extra productiveness from the employees.

Recently, I came across an article by John Boitnott who wrote about “6 Effective Ways to Enhance Work Productivity“. There are many points which contributes to the workplace productivity issue but two major issues John discussed which highlights my thought about workplace productivity. “Get rid of motivation killers” which includes removing the abrasive personalities in an office, poor communication systems and the feel of lack of appreciation. If these issues are effectively removed, workplaces can be an improved place to work in. Moreover, employees who feel that they have a sense of home in their office environment tend to perform to a greater degree. Another issue is “Motivation through Gamification” which involves rewards such as badges, points table, rankings, leader boards, etc. These rewards can motivate an employee intrinsically. There are many debates on whether bonuses should be used as motivation for employees, however, in my point of view bonuses make intrinsic motivations turn to extrinsic ones which may cause a downfall to overall job productivity.Some environmental factors also play a major role in workplace productivity. Which includes better lighting, room colour, use of ergonomic chairs, proper room temperature, room scents, etc. These factors makes the employees focus on their work better which is useful to make sure the office has improved in overall efficiency.  I believe that a manager should always be thoughtful about making the employees work efficiently, more importantly keeping them happy.

Word count: 312.

Works Cited:

http://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/6-effective-ways-to-enhance-workplace-productivity.html

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/15-office-design-tricks-that-will-increase-your-productivity-work.html

http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-four-intrinsic-rewards-that-drive-employee-engagement/

https://www.hoopla.net/product/leaderboards

The pictures displayed above shows the same person in two different attires during an interview for a job. The attire on the right gets the person a job.

Personality. It is an individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling. Personality describes a person in his or her actions, beliefs and dressing sense. When it comes to a job, hiring managers and recruiters always look for the person with the right fit for the job. The “right fit” has many requirements, which includes overall understanding about the job, previous working experience, skills, etc. But with recent studies in job environments and workplace culture, many interviewees with better appearance and grooming did manage to get a job while competing other competent job seekers. This is an example of an OB concept, the “Halo Effect” which is drawing an impression of an individual on a single characteristic. Therefore, if you have the right personality, you have the upper hand!

As the right personality gets you a job, the appropriate combination of the “Big 5” personality trait may make you the right one for a company. “Big 5” consists of the personality traits which are Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Emotion Stability and Agreeableness. These 5 factors are often essential for earning a job, also it is crucial in maintaining an anticipated workplace culture.

Personality can sometimes be a vague term, but many personality tests which are often standardized can remove the uncertainty in personality. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a well researched, clinical questionnaire is used to define personalities and psychological problems. Some other projective tests which are Rorschach Inkblot test and Thematic Apperception test (TAT) are also used in measuring personality nowadays. These projective tests can reveal inner aspects of individual personalities as the person describes an ambiguous stimuli. Make sure you use these personality tests so that you know which jobs fits you best.

Word count: 315.

Works cited:

http://career-intelligence.com/appearance-affect-advancement/

https://www.verywell.com/what-is-the-halo-effect-2795906

https://www.123test.com/big-five-personality-theory/

https://psychcentral.com/lib/minnesota-multiphasic-personality-inventory-mmpi/

http://theinkblot.com/

http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Thematic-Apperception-Test.html