The problem: Every night, your workaholic boss is still glued to the computer when you need to leave. How to go home without looking like a slacker?
slacker:懒鬼
Should you
sneak out, hoping to avoid a six o‘clock showdown in the hall? Guiltily
apologize, promising to be on email all night? Or just walk straight toward the
door in the most professional way you can?
sneak out:偷偷溜走
Many hard-working employees have an even
harder-working boss who toils late into the night. Career coaches and employees
who have been there say the first priority should be conveying that you are
still working hard -- and good at your job. That requires communicating clearly
and frequently about your progress and results. Ideally, you want to figure out
what the boss really needs and deliver it consistently enough that your hours
become a non-issue.
toil:过度劳累,辛苦工作
Many employees assume managers value people
for working day and night, and workplace trends support that belief: Two-thirds
of workers are putting in much longer hours on the job than five years ago,
according to a poll of 325 employees last fall by Right Management, Milwaukee, a
talent and career-management company.
But before you
get too hung up on work hours, check your assumptions about what the boss wants,
says Cali Williams Yost, chief executive officer of Flex + Strategy Group, a
Madison, N.J., training and consulting firm. Managers work long hours for a
variety of reasons: It may be a personal habit or preference, or perhaps they
just don‘t want to go home. ‘People make way too many guesses about managers‘
expectations that are just wrong,‘ Ms. Yost
says.
Bosses are often taken aback by employees‘ focus
on their schedules. Betty Enyonam Kumahor often works 14-hour days, emailing and
calling contacts around the world. ‘My teams started tracking how many hours
they thought I slept each night, based on my email ‘send‘ times,‘ says Ms.
Kumahor, a regional managing director in Atlanta for ThoughtWorks, a
software-development company. ‘They asked me jokingly, ‘Do you ever sleep?‘‘ She
assured employees she would stop sending so many late-night and early-morning
emails so they didn‘t have to extend their hours to
respond.
When managers focus on employees‘ work hours,
they are often looking for reassurance on other fronts: that their subordinates
are meeting deadlines; that they can be reached when needed, and that they
aren‘t creating extra work for colleagues, Ms. Yost says.
reassurance:使安心,再保证
Rich Gee‘s boss on a former job
took him aside and criticized him for leaving the office at 5 p.m., says Mr.
Gee, a Stamford, Conn., executive coach. The manager acknowledged that Mr. Gee
was meeting deadlines and delivering good work; he arrived at the office at 6:30
a.m., two hours before his co-workers. The boss seemed nervous, however, that
Mr. Gee wouldn‘t be available when needed. Mr. Gee said he could be reached 24/7
by cellphone, and pointed out that he always responded quickly to emergency
requests.
He continued to leave the office at 5 p.m.,
but updated his boss often on his progress and results and checked in every
evening before he left. In time, he says, his boss ‘saw that it wasn‘t hours
that mattered -- it was how hard I worked.‘
One key to
Mr. Gee‘s solution: healthy communication. Employees should sit down with their
bosses and ask them to define job objectives and time lines for reaching them,
says Pat Katepoo, the Kaneohe, Hawaii-based owner of WorkOptions, a consulting
firm. Then ‘look for natural times to communicate about your progress, when you
have a staff meeting or you‘re walking by or writing an email,‘ says Ms.
Katepoo.
There are many ways to project a hard-working
image. If a manager speaks about a project in an intense, focused way, answer
with similar intensity, acknowledging its importance and repeating the deadline,
says Anne Brown, an advertising executive who has written about how young
employees can deal with workaholic bosses in a book, ‘Grad to Great,‘ and on a
website she co-founded, GradtoGreat. Manage time well in one-on-one meetings,
moving quickly through your agenda, adds Ms. Brown, of Kansas City, Mo. And, of
course, be prepared to work long hours during a crisis or busy season, or when a
major project deadline is looming.
In some cases,
shifting your work hours can help. At companies where managers focus on face
time, employees who work 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. -- when more people are present --
are more likely to get noticed than those who work 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Executive
coach Michael Melcher was told in a previous job at an investment bank that ‘I
wasn‘t working long enough hours,‘ he says. ‘I started coming in later and
staying later,‘ he says. ‘A couple of months later, my boss said, ‘It hasn‘t
gone unnoticed that you‘re putting in additional hours.‘
‘
Faking a presence at the office, however, doesn‘t
work. Throwing your coat over your chair as if you just stepped away, then
leaving for the day, is likely to backfire, Ms. Yost says. Colleagues will
‘think you‘re there and run around like crazy people trying to find
you.‘
Another nonstarter, says Mr. Melcher, an
executive coach with Next Step Partners, New York, is ‘being a whiny complainer,
with a lot of exasperated sighs, saying you‘re working your fingers to the bone.
Nobody wants to hear that.‘
In some professions,
working long hours is unavoidable. Certain firms‘ cultures breed intense
competition and long hours among new hires, says Julie Cohen, a Philadelphia
career and personal coach. Others have unwritten cultural rules, such as,
‘Nobody leaves the office before the boss leaves,‘ she says. It is wise to prove
yourself on the job for at least six months and ask a mentor for advice before
exploring shorter hours, Ms. Cohen says. ‘You might be stepping into a minefield
if you don‘t understand the ins and outs of the
organization.‘
To get the most out of a negotiation
about hours, Mr. Melcher says, think in advance about the boss‘s needs, and
bring specifics documenting your own performance. Start on a positive note,
talking about what‘s going well. Ask what the boss expects of employees when it
comes to work hours and responding to email. To propose solutions, Mr. Melcher
recommends the ‘yes . . . and‘ technique: Affirm the boss‘s point, and then
state your own. For example: ‘Yes, I want you to be able to rely on me after
hours. And since I have young twins, it is important to me to be home between
5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. and spend that time with family. I could respond to you
between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. How does that sound?‘
Such
conversations can open a dialogue -- or expose a brick wall. When project
manager Ashanti Stanford raised the issue with a boss at a previous job, the
manager rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘The expectation was, ‘I have to work these
hours, so why are you complaining?‘‘ Ms. Stanford says. She has since moved on
to a job with better hours.
brick wall:砖墙
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原文:http://www.cnblogs.com/yingying0907/p/3582935.html