Negotiating a Job Offer

Today I am going to be discussing how to go about negotiating a job offer, in todays' society it can be extremely hard to obtain a job, especially for myself as I am coming to the end of my time at university and will be soon searching for a job to pursue my career in the media sector. Have you ever been offered a job, taken it and then realised you could have negotiated a better salary?
After sending out resumes and attending interviews you have finally received a job offer, is now the time to relax? Most certainly not, as negotiating a job offer is one of the most challenging parts in the experience of finding a new job, this is because you want to earn the maximum amount of money that the employer is willing to pay. 

The first thing you need to think about is what exactly is up for negotiation? Firstly, what is the salary? When offered your salary you do not want to go straight into the negotiation process, but instead reply with "I expect my salary to represent the job role". Asking about your current wage package is one way of them discovering your BATNA, this is your business and if you are currently employed simply reply stating with what it will take to make you move jobs. You also need to ask about a 6 month review, and whether this includes a bonus. You need to ask about your holiday, 22 days? Does it include bank holidays? You will want to find out your allowances, the commuting costs and whether a parking space is included. Another major factor is your personal development, is this company willing to provide you with the needed training or a possible mentor? All these things need to be considered.

The key to this is by not negotiating anything until you have a firm offer. An example I would like to use is from when I accepted a job in the past without any concern over the pay, I was receiving £5.50 hourly and didn't think much of it, but when I asked one of my colleagues how much they were being paid they got £6.50 hourly. I asked how they managed to receive this and they said it was because they negotiated their pay after the interview as they got paid £6.50 at their old job and wouldn't leave unless they matched it.

From this experience and from what I have learnt I know that I should take all the factors previously discussed into consideration before I am next put into a situation whereby I am making a crucial decision on a job offer. Have you ever been in a similar situation to mine? Or do you remember how you handled your last job offer? Join in with the discussion by making comments below.
Josh :)

Dealing With Put-Downs In The Workplace

Hi guys and welcome to my second post and today I will be discussing the topic of put-downs in the workplace. Have you ever had to deal with being put down in the working environment by colleagues or management? Well I'm sure many people have and it can be a very unnerving experience, having someone directly targeting you in a manner that is purposely set out to harm your emotions or to make you feel like your presence in the workplace is ineffective. The key to tackling these put-downs are discovering the underlying meanings from which they have come from. I am now going to use a personal experience from my brother who is a car salesmen at Vauxhall as an example.

"I was talking to a customer, we were discussing about a product I was trying to sell, at this point one of my managers was walking around the area. I could sense he was listening in to our conversation, he then corrected  me in an undermining manner on something he thought I was explaining, however it was a different topic and the customer looked at me with confusion. I however think that my manager was trying to show his level of authority whilst customers were present, I thought this was very unprofessional and embarrassing as it threw me off my trail of thought and heavily lowered my confidence".

After analysing this situation I can understand why my brother didn't do anything about it because at the time it was in front of customer and it would've looked unprofessional for both parties to have a confrontation. But now after addressing these emotions, my brother should have not let this happen by responding immediately to this unwarranted criticism and stood up for himself, being assertive upon the situation and calmly told his manager that he was incorrect.

Being put-down in the workplace by your peers can be very strenuous on your emotions, especially when it involves different levels of authority, it is always recommended that you stand up for yourself and respond to unnecessary conflict, if you deal with the situation in a calm non-aggressive manner you will effectively feel good about it afterwards.

Feel free to get involved in this discussion in the comments below giving your own experiences with put-downs and how you possibly would have dealt with my brother's situation. Josh :)

Is Conflict Necessary in The Workplace?

Hi there and welcome to my first blog post, today I am going to be discussing the subject of conflict in the workplace, and whether it is an unnecessary force or if it is the key to a successful place of work, i hope you feel you can join in with my discussion after reading the post...

Did you know that conflict can not only have a negative affect on a situation but can also arise positive outcomes as well? Arguments and confrontations in the workplace can sometimes seem overwhelming and often try to be avoided, but by approaching these conflicts with positive attitudes can bring positive solutions to a once heated situation. I am going to take a little look into negatives factors of conflict and how it can arise in a workplace.

A question to ask yourself would be why do conflicts in the workplace arise? Well, Edelmann believes that it comes down to these five factors; group characteristics, relationship rules, ages differences, personality clashes and gender difference. So taking this into a work situation you may encounter levels of conflict when working with a newly introduced team, due to a variety of group characteristics and also clashing of different personality types. More over, Edelmann also suggests that there are dynamics to conflict, these being that conflict is static and it eventually changes over time. So if you are experiencing conflict through reasons like the example mentioned above, it can change over time and can develop from negative conflict towards more positive outcomes.

Bringing to light the notion of positive conflict, Taffinder states that conflict needs to be of the appropriate type, either functional,in that it supports the organisational goals or dysfunctional, in that it hinders the works performance. Functional conflict can be vital in the workplace as Taffinder describes, the benefits being that it will make underlying issues explicit, because these issues arise it will stimulate a sense of urgency within the workforce and in turn sharpen your understanding of goals to be reached. Functional conflict really can be included into any work environment, for example in a sales company employees need to experience functional conflict as people may need to close a certain amount deals and targets each month and if people are slacking, managers may make them aware of this by introducing some form of functional conflict.

I hope this first blog has been interesting to read and sparked you to voice your own opinions on conflict at work. So now what do you think, is conflict necessary in the workplace? 
Josh :)