“You have to have a
work ethic, and you have to be educated in what you're doing. You have to take
it seriously. It doesn't mean that everything you do has to be serious. But
you've got to have the tools.” - Jakob Dylan
The ladder to success has many steps. With each step of climbing up
the ladder, you need different things. At some step, it could be a recruitment
agency in germany to help you move
to a better role or at another step it
could be your pure hard work, but all along one thing that remains constant is
being professional and following a work ethic while at work. However, the idea
of what is termed as professional has changed largely over the years. The
augmentation of social media and emails have made the communication more
relaxed and casual but still some habits never look good no matter what time
period you are working in.
As helpful guide from one one of the top Recruitment Agencies in
Germany, here is a list of top 7 habits that you should absolutely
avoid while at workplace:
1)** Mixing personal life into your professional time. Everyone knows
you have a life outside of work which is equally important to you, so the
occasional chat with your family member or friend is tolerable but rambling on
the phone for hours discussing about how life is going in every tiny detail is overdoing
it and needs to be avoided. Still, if it is something completely unavoidable,
you can always go outside and take a call from some place where you are not
bothering your colleagues.
2)** Catching up on social media is something that we all do, but
doing that in the middle of a working day is something you should avoid. This
might be difficult to do but doing something that is not relevant to your
company in your billing hours is against professional ethics.
3)** Not being punctual is another habit that needs to be avoided.
This is the old school work ethic where if you are expected to be in the office
at 9, you should be there. However a bit relaxed now, a few minutes late is
tolerable but that few minutes should not be a pattern and should never
elongate to hours.
4)** Whining. It is not cute and definitely not professional. Everyone
needs to vent their feelings once in a while but that does not mean you can
overdo it. If you are facing issues at the workplace, talk to your manager and
look for genuine ways to resolve them rather than going to every single soul
and cribbing about it.
5)** Playing games/wasting time on your phone. This needs to be a
caution especially in the first few months after joining as the work pressure is
less and it is always tempting to pass your time on the phone. But doing this
sends a really bad message to the people around you about your personality.
Besides, it can get you fired.
6)** Calling in “sick.” Now, what do we mean by this is, if you are sick,
remain sick and make it look real. Many people take impromptu sick leaves but
don’t call in sick and then post an instagram picture with your friends. If you
are sick, either ask a day off or go to work and come back early if you could
not stay for long.
7)** Being invisible. In other words, not responding to emails or
phone calls or texts or any other mode of communication. The most important
rule of being professional is being available. This does not mean you need to
be available 24*7 but atleast set a particular window for you to reply to your
emails. It could be 3 working hours or 2 or 1 depending on the severity and
importance of the email. But always respond quickly in order to avoid stalling
someone else’s work because of you.
