Witty @ Work Contest !

With the last working day of this financial year just hours away, what better way than to end the year with a ' Witty @ Work' contest .  Before you think of what we are going to ask you to do, remember, winners take home some awesome goodies as prizes. Here's what you need to do ... 

Log in to our pages on Facebook or Pinterest and share your wittiest comments about life at work below the post keeping these for images in mind (we have numbered them for you ...duh!). Is that all ? Well no... that's one part... lets just make it easy...Step 1. Like us on Facebook or Pinterest Step 2. Post your comment/s keeping these pictures in mind. Step 3. Get your friends to like it. Needless to say, more likes means more points. Deadline ? Midnight of 05 April 2012 

Log on to our pages on Facebook or Pinterest to submit your entries.

Rules (cause we need  a few) @ Post your comments below the picture on the fan pages @ Judges decision will be final. We take care to ensure that only the coolest entries win. @ Prizes will be sent within a week after the contest ends. Please direct all queries and questions to info@willnevergrowup.com I "Never Grow Up" and the "Never Grow Up Brown box" logo are registered trademarks of Never Grow Up Workshops Pvt. Ltd. The design used in the contest creatives have been procured for Never Grow Up WPL. All rights reserved.© 2012. I

And The Winner Is !

Congratulations to Sonam Kumar [Mumbai] on winning the Mera Workspace Contest ! 

The world needs lawyers like you :) Cheers ! 

The Mera Workspace Contest !

                                 Click on the contest poster to submit your entry ! 
© Never Grow Up. All Rights Reserved. 

Brian is Back !

A few months back, Brian wrote to us creating magic and sharing an ode to Never Grow Up. Read the story : http://bit.ly/BrianStory 

Today,after 6 months, he is back with a brand new mix ' Good Morning Magic ' - a track sure to spruce up your day :) The beat has sort of a live dance feel and a lot of positive energy within the instruments. This is Inspirmentalist's second project with and for Never Grow Up and we are super duper excited and happy to share this new track and video with you :) Check out the Video : http://on.fb.me/MorningMagic

To Brian, a BIG Thank You for sharing this and letting us have the track. You sure made our day ! Cheers ! 

The Instrumental or beat has been composed and produced by Brian Davis Jr. for Never Grow Up who goes under the alias Inspirmentalist and is based out of New Jersey, USA. He has produced this instrumental beat and sampled the song Magical Dreamers from The Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack. The original song was created by video game composer Yasunori Mitsuda. 

Help Employees Balance Home & Office

Stress At Work

Help Employees Balance Home and Office

Win-win situation: Employees who can balance roles are likely to be more productive and less stressed

How many times have we had a colleague at work who is bogged down by stress, not directly linked to workplace? Ira Mohanty was one such colleague. She woke up at 5 am, sent her two children to school and then by 9 am, was at her laptop answering mails and attending to work-related calls. From 1 pm onwards, Ira kept looking at the clock and from 2.30 pm, we could hear raised voices from her cubicle as she called home and shouted at her children who just kept watching television and did not finish their homework. They were home with easy-going grandparents and did their own thing till the parents returned home. And Ira is not alone. At the water cooler or in the cafeteria and even in the lift, one hears snatches of conversation on these lines: Kids these days are so opinionated… only does what she wants to do… eats only chips and noodles… refuses to dress by herself or polish her shoes… hates going to school… spends too much time on the net… has become a virtual stranger… difficult and moody… and so on. 

More and more parents are coping with the challenges of how to manage professional and personal lives — how to be better parents, how to stay abreast of what is happening with their children in schools and their social lives, how to be there for them in their time of need while juggling their careers and job-related challenges. All of us grapple with balancing multiple roles but our biggest responsibility is towards the next generation. Being a parent, I could empathise with them, but the enormity of the issue came to light last month when in a focused group discussion, the members of our Global Work Life (GWL) team broached the subject of having parenting workshops to help colleagues and other employees cope with different issues. These issues stemmed from the fact that most employees have nuclear families where care givers may not be part of the family system. The findings of the 2010 Global Work Life Issues (GWLI) Survey, conducted among IBM employees, indicate that almost half (46%) of IBM India employees have a child under the age of 18. Among parents of children 0-5 years old, 12% have their child cared for at home by a nanny, babysitter or maid. 

Another 14% of these parents have their child cared for by a relative (other than their spouse or partner). "In-home" care by a maid or nanny can be quite flexible and affordable, but may also be very unreliable and of poor quality. Caregivers often lack knowledge of child development and have poor social-relationship and literacy skills. Parents using this type of care reported the lowest satisfaction rates in the GWLI survey compared to parents whose child was cared for by a relative or in a child care centre. Employees across the world are sharing similar concerns about managing work and family. Magazines and the Internet provide information and counsel, elders at home advise you differently while friends have a totally contrary opinion. 

So how do you cope? We put together a panel of experts in child care and decided to host parenting workshops for parents to address their queries and discuss issues relating to their children. The workshops stressed that it is equal responsibility, which means both the father and the mother have to be involved in child rearing, as against the misconception that only the mother is responsible. What parents at work learned were different aspects of quality parenting, like laughing with the child, spending time with the child, playing with her/him, listening to what the child has to say and not just existing together in front of the television set. Care givers must also be equipped with basic information to handle difficult situations at home. Employees who can balance roles are likely to be more productive and less stressed, so it is a win-win both for the organisation and the individual. A workplace that encourages an individual to balance different roles is likely to have a happier and more productive workforce. 

The author is Diversity Manager at IBM India, South Asia Source : ET Mumbai 06 September 2011

What your HR will never tell you Directly !

About your Resume!

1. “Once you’re unemployed more than six months, you’re considered pretty much unemployable. We assume that other people have already passed you over, so we don’t want anything to do with you.” –Cynthia Shapiro, Author

2. “When it comes to getting a job, who you know really does matter. No matter how nice your résumé is or how great your experience may be, it’s all about connections.” –HR director at a health-care facility.

3. “If you’re trying to get a job at a specific company, often the best thing to do is to avoid HR entirely. Find someone at the company you know, or go straight to the hiring manager.” –Shauna Moerke, an HR administrator

4. “People assume someone’s reading their cover letter. I haven’t read one in 11 years.” –HR director at a financial services firm

5. “We will judge you based on your e-mail address. Especially if it’s something inappropriate like kinkyboots101@hotmail.com or johnnylikestodrink@gmail.com.” –Rich DeMatteo,

6. “There’s a myth out there that a résumé has to be one page. So people send their résumé in a two-point font. Nobody is going to read that.” –HR director at a financial services firm

7. “I always read résumés from the bottom up. And I have no problem with a two-page résumé, but three pages is pushing it.” –Sharlyn Lauby, HR consultant

8. “Most of us use applicant-tracking systems that scan résumés for key words. The secret to getting your résumé through the system is to pull key words directly from the job description and put them on. The more matches you have, the more likely your résumé will get picked and actually seen by a real person.” –Chris Ferdinandi, HR professional

About the Job Interview!

1. “It’s amazing when people come in for an interview and say, ‘Can you tell me about your business?’ Seriously, people. There’s an Internet. Look it up.” –HR professional

2. “A lot of managers don’t want to hire people with young kids, and they use all sorts of tricks to find that out, illegally. One woman kept a picture of two really cute children on her desk even though she didn’t have children [hoping job candidates would ask about them]. Another guy used to walk people out to their car to see whether they had car seats.” –Cynthia Shapiro,

3. “Is it harder to get the job if you’re fat? Absolutely. Hiring managers make quick judgments based on stereotypes.  They’re just following George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, who said ‘I stereotype. It’s faster.’” –Suzanne Lucas, a former HR executive

4. “I once had a hiring manager who refused to hire someone because the job required her to be on call one weekend a month and she had talked in the interview about how much she goes to church. Another candidate didn’t get hired because the manager was worried that the car he drove wasn’t nice enough.” –HR professional at a midsize firm

5. “Don’t just silence your phone for the interview. Turn it all the way off.” –Sharlyn Lauby, HR consultant

6. “If you’ve got a weak handshake, I make a note of it.” –HR manager 

7. “If you’re a candidate and the hiring manager spends 45 minutes talking about himself, the company or his Harley, let him. He’s going to come out of the interview saying you’re a great candidate.”  –Kris Dunn, chief human resources officer

[Condensed from Reader’s Digest Magazine, April 2011] 

Work Place Festivities !

WORKPLACE FESTIVITIES

Festivals have become a big part of the office culture nowadays. In the first of the two-part series, Mithila Mehta explores how organisations today celebrate festivals, outlining the professional implications. India is a country that loves its festivals and this sentiment extends to the workplace as well. Most organisations celebrate festive occasions with all the rituals and traditions in an extremely enthusiastic manner. "My organisation celebrates all major festivals, right from Holi to Eid, Parsi New Year, Christmas and Diwali. The HR department does an excellent job planning the festivities," says Suruchi Baliga, a journalist. Apart from the traditional celebrations, organisations are organising festivals in innovative ways. "Last year, we had a secret santa game at work. Everyone was assigned a colleague and you had to be his/ her secret santa for a week," shares Seema Koshi, a media research analyst. 

Today, occasions like Valentine's Day are also being celebrated. "On Valentine's Day, we had a red dress code. There were huge heart-shaped decorations, and the canteen made heart shaped cakes. It was meticulously done," recalls Baliga. Koshi shares how her organisation celebrates Children's Day by asking employees to bring their young ones to work. "Last year, we had about fifty kids at the office. We played games, saw an animated movie and had a party," she says. 

DASH OF COLOUR 

Festive celebrations at workplace are most welcome because they provide a respite from the routine. "Let's face it; office does tend to get monotonous at times. Festivals add a dash of fun and colour. It gives us something to look forward to," says Bharat Ramanujan, senior copywriter at an ad agency. For the organisation, festive celebrations can go a long way in building a happy, positive corporate culture. This is important in today's context, when organisations are more people-focussed than ever before. Says Samay Taneja, HR manager with an IT solutions company, "We get an opportunity to bond with our employees in a more informal setting.” Interestingly, the globalised nature of organisations is also reflected in the festivals and events being celebrated. "A few years ago, the focus was only on Indian festivals and ceremonies. However, now international days like St Patrick's Day, the year of the rabbit and the Chinese new year is celebrated,” informs Ramanujan. 

BREAKING BARRIERS 

Festive celebrations at the workplace help break existing hierarchies and boundaries. "This is one of the few occasions when people let their guard down and are willing to mingle. The entire mood is light and laidback. The usual office rules don't apply, and everyday dynamics are ignored," expresses Upasana Jain, risk analyst at a FMCG company. Agrees Baliga, "The entire organisational hierarchy is suspended. You can simply go up to the CEO and wish him. It is the perfect networking opportunity. Not only is the upper management approachable and 'around', but you have a perfect reason to strike up a conversation." At most workplaces, employees rarely get an opportunity to interact with colleagues from other departments. Festive occasions allow that as well. "We tend to become very comfortable in our own departments, forgetting to consider the organisation as a whole. So when there's a festival, it feels really nice to have everyone together. The same finance guys who I bicker with everyday are singing and dancing with me,” laughs Koshi. 

WE'VE GOT TALENT 

Festive occasions are also a chance to shed the sober and serious office appearance. It is also a platform to showcase some of your talents at the workplace. "I make the most intricately beautiful rangolis. So, during the Diwali celebrations, I offered to make a rangoli for my office. Colleagues, who had never spoken to me before, got to know me," says Jain. If you're an excellent organiser, help plan the event. If you cook well, carry some festive goodies to work. In this manner, festivals needn't just be about the holidays they bring, but also about fun at the work place.

[Mumbai Mirror, August 29,2011]

My Workspace ~ My Style !

It’s a fact that most of us work long hours... sometimes six days a week ~ ten hours straight!  And then we go to sleep! Which means that majority of the time we are awake is spent in our little cubicle (or a corner office if you have one). If most of the time we are awake is spent at office, why should that space be boring? Presenting...

What’s this all about?

If your work involves sitting in front of the computer screen for all your working hours then this is for you. My Workspace is a super cool service where you can get us to design or decorate your cubicle or office space based on your personality and liking. You tell us a bit about yourself and we come back with ideas to design your workspace – your style without making any structural changes to your cubicle. (We do understand that your company already has a fixed layout and that your boss is okay with this).

Sounds interesting... How do we begin?

To us, each cubicle is special :) Click here !  to get started by telling us a bit about yourself. The next step would be to send us a photo of your cubicle or office and we will take it from there! If you are not really sure of what all this entails, feel free to write to us at myworkspace@willnevergrowup.com with your contact details and we will get back :)

How do I make this work for my office and team?

For starters, share this with your boss and the HR Team :)

If you are part of the HR team, of course we can implement this for the entire office. If you have the desire to make your office a cool space to be in (also be spoken about), all you gotta do is  give us a brief (and a budget) or just ask us how we can turn your office around so that your employees look forward to coming to work on a Monday. After all, they do spend most of their time in the week at work!

Turning every staff member into a ‘daughter-in-law’?

Sometime back a Director of multi locational organization posed a question to me… He said, “Can you tell me why an employee doesn’t ever feel that he ‘belongs’ where he/she is working..? What is it that you would suggest we do to make the staff feel that they are the integral part of the company and it is not merely a place where they come to earn their money so that they can go back and relax…?”

I feared that we were on a philosophical travel and wanted the discussion to come back to the topic of training modules which we had begun discussing.He gave me an example (in the Indian Context) “The new daughter in law comes to a new set up just because she is married to this man. She, as the tradition goes, changes her name, and wipes out her previous identity in a manner of speaking. But then instead of getting lonely, she begins asserting her role. She begins clearly conveying what changes she is seeking within the household, encouraging new practices and discouraging some existing ones. Why can’t an employee who spends nearly a third of his life in the office? Doesn’t it ever to occur to the staff (generally speaking) that the job is the reason why they can assert themselves in their personal endeavours…as a husband, brother, sister, wife, whatever and then the very well being of their families depend on this ’job’?”

It has been almost over 5 years since the conversation took place. But that had set me off to find out what contributed to the gentleman’s statement. My company conducted independent surveys, did some systematic research, spoke to HR professionals, promoters of a few organizations, and even studied the cultural changes that were happening in the Indian society in general and the Indian professional settings in particular. The first thing that we noticed was that the Indian professional environment had drastically changed as the Indian shores were opening up to globalization and had seen a sudden influx of young professionals who had entered the scenario armed with business specializations

This paradigm shift created a ‘do or die’ philosophy in the erstwhile almost laid back business practices. As the global practices began finding routes, concepts of multi tasking, 24 x 7 availability of working executives via the internet became standard norms. However, we also realized that while the highlight was on performance, somewhere along the line the concept of human element was taking the back seat. As highly professional HR tools were employed almost nobody noticed the phasing out of this most vital element of the Indian Social fabric. The ‘paralysus respectus’ for these imported models was so high that human element was considered to be an outdated Indian idiosyncrasy and was often ridiculed. The earlier failures of organizations, that brought their practices here to India and tried to incorporate them without regard to the ‘Indian-ness’; went unnoticed.

At these thoughts, I always pose myself and others who might be interested in hearing me out, a question… “Why is this ‘today’s professional’ who is apparently so successful, so stressed out? And why does he/she even on the long awaited weekends and during vacations behave as if there is no tomorrow… trying to grab at as much as he/she can?”

I always wonder if someone will give me a really truthful answer rather than the standard lip service about how much more stress & competition exists presently and how a weekend is really needed..? To understand their view point, I went on a family weekend with other young professionals & their families. And let me tell you I felt as if we were on a roller coaster even when we were ‘supposed’ to be having a couple of drinks and dinner! By the time we returned I was exhausted! And I am not saying there were any physically demanding activities…in fact there were none whatsoever! That is when one realized that presently we have become so stressed out in what is supposed to be a joy…our work, our profession; that we have stopped looking for joy in what we do! Has it then remained only a means to earn money so that we can have all the trappings and weekends when we all claw at what is available and ‘purchasable’? Have we ever sat back and tried to ‘understand’ how we really feel on a Monday morning after the so called ‘weekend’?

Only last month a HR manager asked me what can I do in the areas of stress management. She also explained that the organizations’ staff had obviously undergone a few stress management modules that included outdoor activities like rock climbing, and such other adventure sports. Nothing wrong really… For, such extreme physical activities are a great stress buster.

While all these activities are good for the desired result, aren’t these kind of ‘for-the-time-being-solutions’?

Shouldn’t stress management like any other training; begin at the ‘Beginning’ with ever HR Manager asking the question, “How can I turn every staff member into a ‘daughter-in-law’? I know it is a slow process but then, an employee is an asset to be nurtured for a longer race… Till then, here is the write up

Submission and author : Vishwas Vaishampayan ~ Creative Ventures, Pune for Never Grow Up

http://www.willnevergrowup.com

We are a company into fun Workshops, Merchandise and soon to launch - a club but really serious about having fun. For us, Never Grow Up is a mindset that transcends across generations. so go ahead...keep the child within alive, live that dream, pursue that hobby, stop and smell the roses...relive those moments and yes...have a lot of fun in the process!

The real life they say is out of the box...and our logo symbolizes just that ! We live our lives in a box...a routine... a schedule... waiting... waiting for that much needed break... living Friday to Friday :) This is for anyone who does or does not want to grow up. For someone who Still loves secretly loves cartoons, is a fan of Animation Movies, loves to read Comics (old and new) ... is a bit looney...well.. a bit crazy.

www.willnevergrowup.com I www.facebook.com/makeworkfun