Anguilla’s Deputy Governor, the Hon Stanley Reid, who has responsibility for the Public Service, delivered the feature address on Monday, June 23, at a two-day School Leavers’ Workshop. He was invited to address the more than one hundred young people participating in the Summer Placement Programme of the Careers and Guidance Unit of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School. During his address, he outlined various matters, including work ethics and professionalism, to which they should pay keen attention, when entering the job market as follows:
It is of primary importance that you attend work regularly and that you are punctual. This will allow you to create a positive relationship with your employers, managers and customers. It will also ensure that you start each day on a positive note. It sends the clear message that you can be relied on and will in due course lead to you being accorded more responsibility and being looked on favourably when opportunities for promotion or self-improvement present themselves. In addition, since many work days do not go as planned, a punctual start will allow you to make adjustments with minimum stress to yourself and others.
Social media is very popular with young people. Is there a place for social media in the workplace? Trolling through social media sites on company time is not acceptable. While many business, entities now use social media to promote their businesses your engagement in such during the work day must only be in relation to the promotion of the company’s business. Remember that your use of social media leaves a trail. Your employer, manager and customers can track your use of social media, whether deliberately or coincidentally. It is also important to note that you need to be careful when using social media such as Facebook and twitter even on your own personal time. Much of the information posted on social media sites is public information and can be easily viewed by your employer, manager or customers. Your postings on social media can even affect whether you get a job or even the opportunity to be interviewed for a job. Employers or interviewers might very well have formed an opinion of you before an interview by virtue of what they have seen of your postings on social media. It is in your interest to remember that social media is a tool to be used with caution. It can have far reaching and long lasting effects on your lives.
Let’s talk about your appearance. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you will only be judged by your work output. Your appearance in the workplace is very important. Your mode of dress can determine how you are treated. If you want to be treated seriously dress professionally. This is also vital at the interview stage. Persons who show up to an interview dressed professionally immediately create a good impression. Someone who hasn’t taken the time to present themselves professionally will have the opposite effect. If you can’t take the time to create a good first impression what will your appearance and conduct be like if you were successful in securing the job? This is just one of the thoughts likely to be going through the minds of those persons on an interview panel. A word for the ladies among you in particular, although this has relevance for the gentlemen as well – Dress conservatively so that you may be assured that your success at a job interview is solely the result of the aptitude and attitude you demonstrated during the recruitment process. If you find employment or receive a promotion for reasons other than your aptitude or attitude your success is likely to be short-lived, if ever realised, and your relationships with colleagues strained, to say the least. Getting ahead on the basis of merit and respect will reap real rewards including self-appreciation.
Mobile phones are now a regular, if not essential part of our means of communication. Mobile phones must however be used with discretion. Mobile phones should generally not be used at your desk, at meetings with staff or with customers. Leaving your phone behind when at work or attending a meeting may not be an option but your mobile should be placed on silent or vibrate and if there is an absolute need to answer a call or respond to a message, one should ask to be excused before responding. Mobile phones have the capacity to record notes and to be used as calculators or time pieces, just to name a few functions. When using your mobile phones for any of these purposes you should find some way of communicating that to those you are working or meeting with.
Caribbean people are animated people and we generally have an opinion on every subject. In the workplace however conversation should be polite and professional. Topics which can often lead to discord in the workplace include religion, politics and sex. These topics should be avoided. In time when persons get to know their colleagues well they will be better able to navigate these topics but generally they are best avoided. In the Caribbean we tend to speak with our hands and to be rather familiar in our comments when expressing appreciation for a person’s physical appearance. Such levels of familiarity should be avoided. Telling somebody they look good enough to eat or that they’re looking hot are no nos.
While being included in office gossip can make you feel that you are one of the guys, such practices can be harmful to your career. Assuming positions of authority over persons, who you once gossiped with, will put you in a very difficult position, when it comes to gaining their respect or asserting authority over them. Remember familiarity breeds contempt. Do not limit your opportunities for advancement by engaging in gossip in the workplace.
I will make two further points which I consider vital to success in the workplace. You sometimes hear people saying ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. I will tell you – you need to sweat the small stuff. In the workplace details are important and really do matter. Details matter now even while you are still at school. I like to tell persons that they are engaged in the recruitment process every day of their lives. Be conscious that potential employers are regularly observing you. They see you when they attend Speech Night; they see you at Sports Day; they see you during our Summer Festival. They see you and they form opinions about you. Over the next two days you will be privileged to have facilitators assist you in preparing for the workplace. They are potential employers. They will be observing you. They will be forming opinions. Details do matter and they matter every day and everywhere. Present yourselves and conduct yourselves everyday as if you are participating in a recruitment process.
Many of you have probably expressed the view that you can’t wait to get out of school to leave all those rules behind and not to constantly have persons telling you what you can and cannot do. Sorry, but that doesn’t change just because you left school. You will not only encounter rules during your school life. Rules also exist in the workplace. They might be described as policies or work plans but they are nonetheless designed to ensure order in the workplace and in relationships between stakeholders. A healthy respect for rules will serve persons well in the workplace. Of course there is often the need to revisit rules. This too should be done within the framework established by your workplace. The adherence to rules/policies/work plans ensures certainty and equity in the making of decisions and the treatment of stakeholders.
I take this opportunity to share with you the words of Saint Josemaria Escriva who promoted the view that we can all effectively serve God without leaving our place in life. He stated – ‘Will-power. A very important quality. Don’t disregard the little things, which are really never futile or trivial. For by the constant practice of repeated self-denial in little things, with God’s grace you will increase in strength and manliness of character. In that way you’ll first become master of yourself, and then a guide and a leader; to compel, to urge, to draw others with your example and with your word and with your knowledge and with your power.’
What is the value in demonstrating the practices I have outlined this morning? There is value for you on a personal level and for the organisation that employs you. You will experience greater efficiency and effectiveness and therefore greater productivity resulting in greater profitability for the organisation employing you. This should ultimately lead to opportunities for self-development, promotion and opportunities for increased earning power. Not only is professionalism assured by your conduct but you can benefit by virtue of your contribution to that professional atmosphere.
My exhortation to you is that you practice these habits so that you are well placed to be successful when seeking employment; so that you can contribute positively to professionalism in the Anguilla workplace and last but by no means least so that you can best position yourself to succeed in your chosen career area. This will allow you to be a productive member of society with the ability to take care of your needs and those of your immediate and extended family. This success is obtained by taking care of the little details. They really do matter.
I leave you with this final admonition. Do not be deterred from practicing good habits because it appears to you that long time employees seem to be doing just fine without practicing such habits. Remember that the day of reckoning comes for each of us; some sooner than others. Concern yourselves with how you will be judged on that day of reckoning in the workplace.
Best wishes to all of you as you experience life in the workplace.
