Flexible work arrangements can provide a work-life balance but also has its own unique set of challenges.

A lot of forward thinking companies are offering a work-life balance, embracing flexible work arrangements and recognise the benefits of employees working from home. However, before you speak to your manager about flexible work arrangements, find out all the ins and outs of working from home to put you in a stronger negotiating position.

Is flexible work arrangements really for you?

Working from home isn’t for everyone. While some people enjoy the freedom of working in their pyjamas and not having to suffer a long commute to work, others will feel socially isolated and prefer to come to a physical office and enjoy the day-to-day interaction with colleagues.

Before you make the big move, you may want to experiment and test the waters by spending a few days a week working from home to see whether if it is really for you. After the novelty wears out and the boredom or social isolation hits, you may find yourself longing for a traditional work environment.

Have you done your research?

There are many benefits for employees working from home and you need to include these advantages in your proposal to your boss. Some of these benefits include:

• increased motivation and productivity
• improved retention rate, lower absenteeism levels and increased loyalty
• cost savings for the company in terms of office space, stationary and other costs
• lower work-related expenses for the employee
• improved work-life balance and employee morale.

Is your job suited to flexible work arrangements?

Your role may be a client-facing role or require liaison with different team members or departments or working with technology or machinery and thus may not translate well to a work at home environment. Jobs that are ideal for flexible work arrangements have the following characteristics:

• a role that requires little face to face interaction
• a role that can work independently of a team such as a copywriter, designer or accountant
• a role that requires minimal software and equipment
• a role that requires minimal supervision.

Are you suited to working from home?

It’s important to get the runs on the board before trying to negotiate flexible workplace arrangements. While the nature of your role will be a huge factor in the decision making process, other key factors will include your work performance, work habits and personal characteristics. Here are some of the things your manager is likely to consider:

• Are you a person who is self-motivated and disciplined?
• Are you organised and able to manage your time efficiently?
• Are you able to work self-sufficiently and with minimal supervision?
• Do you meet or exceed job expectations?

Employees who constantly hit deadlines, can work with minimal supervision and can work independently of their colleagues are good candidates for working from home.

You may find that in order to achieve a work-life balance, you may enjoy a blend of working from home and working in an office. Flexible work arrangements and working from home bring their own unique challenges and isn’t for the faint-hearted so do your research before you transition into working from home.

Here are ways to change your outlook not your job description and improve your work satisfaction…

Can’t get no satisfaction at work? Lack of work satisfaction is one of the major causes for workplace stress, a high rate of absenteeism and a high company turnover. But is it you or the workplace that is making you feel this way and holding you back from achieving workplace happiness? Before handing in your notice, read these seven tips on you can increase your job satisfaction.

Identifying triggers for your personal work satisfaction

Psychologists have distinguished there is a link between your attitude to work and work satisfaction. They have identified three basic approaches to work and what motivates people to come to work. This could be a job, a career and a calling and each brings certain motivators and triggers for job satisfaction.

• Job: You do a job for nothing other than the pay cheque at the end of the week. This will have the greatest impact on whether you stay or go and achieve work satisfaction.
• Career: This involves a deeper personal investment in work. You mark your achievements through money, but also through advancement. Each promotion brings you higher prestige and more power, as well as a raise.
• Calling: A calling or vocation, on the other hand, is a passionate commitment to work for its own sake. The work is fulfilling in its own right, without regard for money or advancement.

Identifying the triggers for your job satisfaction, will help you to identify and adjust your expectations at work accordingly and find a job, career or calling that will bring you the most work satisfaction in line with those goals and aspirations.

Nature of the work vs nature of the job

The secret to job satisfaction? It’s not just about the work you do, but the people you do it with, according to a study published on March 2010 in the online Journal of Applied Psychology. The authors expected to find that the nature of the work affected job satisfaction, but they were surprised that social factors were even more important to job satisfaction.

Frequent interaction with others, office friendships and emotional support were strong predictors of job satisfaction. So the next time you want to skip out on office work drinks or miss out on a birthday lunch, take the time to bond with your colleagues and this may increase your workplace happiness and work satisfaction.

Pinpoint the exact problem of your work dissatisfaction

It’s important to find out why you are unsatisfied at work and the cause of your unhappiness. What exactly are you struggling with? This may be one central problem or a combination of problems.

Is it due to difficult co-workers, a long commute to work, poor working conditions, working excessive hours or your job role? Once you work out the exact nature of your unhappiness, you will be able to work out a course of action and tackle the problem head on.

Accept that workplaces are not perfect

It’s inevitable that you will be working with people where there may be a personality clash or you may not have any common ground or interests. The beauty of being human is we all have different communication styles, personality traits, and ways of thinking and doing things.

You don’t have to necessarily want to party with your colleagues on Friday night although that does help but you do have to maintain a level of professional courtesy, accept the inevitable personality differences and be respectful of your different working styles.

Revaluate your work goals

Perhaps your unhappiness at work is due to unfulfilled personal and professional goals. Remember this may only be a stepping stone to your dream job. Find ways to ease the boredom of your role and create new challenges for yourself within the scope of your role. This may include the following:

• taking on a new and exciting project;
• volunteering for new tasks;
• furthering your education and training;
• mentoring a new employee.

Working with a different team or department, focusing on your career development and improving your skills development may give you a fresh perspective and increase your work satisfaction.

Maintain a work-life balance

Those unhappy in life are unlikely to find satisfaction at work, a new study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology in March 2010 says.

Keeping a balance in your lifestyle is important; if it’s all work and no play, you may find your enthusiasm starting to wane. In order to maintain balance in your lifestyle, the first step is to take an overview of your current lifestyle and see which areas are out of balance.

You should make for other important priorities in your life such as family, friends and other hobbies and interests such as the gym. Overtime is a necessary evil but if you find that it is the exception and not the rule, you need to take stock of your work situation and bring your life back into balance.

Think positive

Before a lack of job satisfaction turns you to drinking, take a ‘glass half full’ mentality and look at the positives of your workplace. Walking in with an optimistic attitude and see if changing detrimental and negative talk patterns can help you see your situation more clearly – it may not be as bad as you think.

Assess your current state of mind, and make some changes in yourself so that you see things in a more positive light, and you may just find you’re much happier where you are in life!

There are just a few of the things that may change your outlook and increase your work satisfaction. If you’re hopping from workplace to workplace and you find the same problems cropping up, you may just find the common denominator is you! So find out what motiviates you to come to work, what makes you happy or unhappy and face the real cause of your problems.

So what does your online presence say about you? A study commissioned by Microsoft surveying 1,200 HR professionals and 1,200 consumers showed 70% of hiring managers have rejected candidates based on what they found online. Find out more about the role  social media websites and online reputation management plays in job searching today.

Why is online reputation management so essential?

Online searches have become such a standard practice that only 2% of recruiters surveyed did not research their applicants online. Search Engines were the biggest research tool with a huge 78% of recruitment agents googling their applicants, 63% looking at social media sites, 59% looking at photo and video sharing sites and 48% found their way to professional and business working sites.

Some of the reasons why potential candidates were rejected were: concerns about their lifestyle (58%), inappropriate comments and text written by candidates (56%), unsuitable photos, videos and information (55%), inappropriate comments or text written by friends and families (43%) and comments criticising previous employers, co-workers or clients (40%).

What can you do to manage your online reputation?

Only 30 – 35% of respondents (depending on nationality) surveyed felt that their online reputation had little impact or significance when searching for a new job so how do you become part of the savvy majority? To a certain extent, you cannot control what people are saying and posting about you online but there are certain steps you can take to manage your online reputation:

• Ensure your Facebook can only be accessed by your friends online and control what is shown on the search results page. You can also adjust your privacy settings and opt out of public searches altogether.
• Don’t post any discriminating photos or videos online and ask your friends and family not to ‘tag you’ in any photos on Facebook without your authorisation to help manage your online reputation.
• Disable the auto-follow function on Twitter and protect your tweets. Remember when people respond to your tweets, this also appears on your profile. Search engines are also starting to index tweets in their search engine results.
• If you have an online blog, be careful not to write anything that might hurt your future job prospects. Make sure you also monitor comments online as well.
• Exercise caution when writing blog comments, participating in forums or engaging in social media activities. These may be linked back to you or your blog.
• Use a separate email account for work and your online social media activities and keep your public and private life separate.

Online reputation management is made even easier by setting up a Google alert. With this free service, you can search news, blogs, web, video, or groups for mentions of your name and get alerts instantly, once a day, or once a week.

What are the ethical implications of online search?

HR professionals searching online to find out information about applicants brings up some ethical concerns. The dangers of online search are that recruiters can easily and anonymously find out information about you that they would not be permitted to ask in an interview or application form. This may include:

• your marital status and age;
• your religious or cultural background;
• whether you are planning a family;
• medical history and;
• financial background.

Although this is very hard to prove and prosecute, anti-discrimination laws still apply so if you think you have been discriminated against, you should speak to the anti-discrimination body in your region. Of the HR professionals surveyed, 75% said their companies had a formal policy in place to research applicants online and 79% of US recruiters check reputational data.

So how do you exercise damage control?

So what can you do if you have posted a photo, comment or video in cyberspace and the past has come back to haunt you or someone has written something unfairly about you? In the world of job seeking, any publicity is not good publicity, it may just all be bad. And remember, it is very difficult to remove a listing from a search engine once it has been published.

Susan Moskwa, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst says to “reduce its [bad publicity] visibility in the search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself or your business.”

Ways you can proactively manage your online reputation and publish positive information are:

• The easiest way is to remove the negative comment at the source. Email the owner of the blog or website and ask them to remove the offending post or allow you to post a response in return.
• To counter negative comments about your skills and/or business, ask your clients who are happy with your services to post good reviews.
• Ask your previous managers and/or colleagues to post recommendations for you on business social networking websites like LinkedIn.
• Create your own blog where you can write posts about news and views, tips and tricks and other issues relevant to your industry. If you have an uncommon name, it shouldn’t take much effort at all to appear on page one of the search engine listings.
• As well as creating your own blog, write guest posts, comments on blogs or participate in forums that are relevant your industry and establish yourself as an expert in the field.
• Establish a positive social media presence if you haven’t done so already by creating a Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account and again, this should rank well in search engines.

The good news is that all this hard work and online reputation management will not go unnoticed with almost half of human resources professionals in the United States surveyed stating that a positive online reputation influences the candidate’s application to a great extent.

In light of all this research, never post anything online that you would not want to talk about in an interview. The reality of today’s competitive job market is that a 140 character tweet that took you two seconds may have more relevance than your two page resume you spent hours updating. So while social media networks are becoming almost essential for interacting with busy friends and family, online reputation management is even more important for job searching and ongoing career development.

Not everyone has a career development plan; many just go with the natural progression. If you want to fast track your career and you have an end goal in mind for your career development, you might want to consider spending some time looking into some career development tips…

Checking out career development tips is a useful way to move forward in your chosen career and if you are only in the early stages of your employment, planning will help you to create goals to work towards in the future. Career development opportunities should be grabbed with both hands as there is always someone else waiting around the corner to take your place should you stay too static within your job.

Career Development Plan

A career development plan is an ideal way to give yourself a clearer understanding of the ways in which you can move forward within your profession and here are a few useful things you should know:

• Universities often use a career development plan to assist students in making their future career goals clearer
• They allow a better understanding of a chosen career path
• A plan is a good way to give you something to aim towards throughout all the stages of your career
• Career development tips can be found online and are a useful for creating fresh ideas about how to move forward

Education and career development

If you wish to develop your career, try creating a list of all the jobs you have had starting with the most recent and make a side note of all of the skills and responsibilities that you had whilst there. This will allow you to see clearly exactly what you have achieved to help you to set out what you still want to achieve. Also make a similar list of your educational background to help you to get a clear picture of what education you have gained as this will be useful when you write or re-write a resume.

Setting goals

Break your plan up into set goals to ensure that you know what you should be doing and when.

See the following example:

Goal 1: Gain the education needed for your role

Goal 2: Graduate at the level that is required

Goal 3: Get a job in your chosen field field

Goal 4: Move upwards in your job by undertaking further training and courses

Continuously refer back to your goals and add in new targets if and when they are relevant. Career development tips can be used at any time during a career and allow you to refocus if you lose your way as well as provide you with something to aim for.

The benefits of career development

The benefits of using career development tips are endless and creating a way of self assessing oneself allows you to concentrate on the specific goals that you have outlined for your future. Having something to aim at every six months, every year or every other year allows ambition to kick in and self assessments are also a good way to ensure you are keeping on top of where you want to be and when.

Last but not least – work hard

Career development tips and plans can only work to your advantage if you push yourself to excel. Break down all of the barriers that attempt to halt your progress and deal with personal issues in a way that you do not allow them to affect your career goals. Outside assistance and advice for creating your career development plan is always available. Combating career obstacles is part and parcel of enjoying a successful career.

Studies show that Australians work longer hours than all other OECD nations and do not use their full annual leave entitlement. Signs of obvious workplace stress include headaches, increased anxiety, high blood pressure, depression, increased drinking and reduced work performance and productivity. Here are some career tips for reducing stress in the workplace and alleviating that sense of dread when you wake up in the morning.

Develop friendships at work

Cultivate friends and allies at work that you can turn to and exchange jokes and funny stories about your weekend. Try and avoid negative or toxic people in the workplace. This will deflect the focus off your workplace problems and give you a safe haven where you feel more relaxed and in control. If you are going to vent about your workplace problems, make sure that your colleagues are trustworthy. Generally, it’s better to discuss any problems with your partner, friends and family outside of your workplace.

Manage your workload

Learning to manage your time at work is a major factor in decreasing your stress levels. Try employing time management tips such as prioritising your workload and managing your employee’s expectations, learning to say no to work tasks and ask for additional help or resources. Give yourself some breathing room and delegate repetitive tasks that don’t take much supervision and focus on tasks that require your individual expertise to manage your stress levels to try and achieve a work-life balance.

Take short breaks

Taking regular short breaks during the day to stretch out your legs or walk around the office to speak to colleagues can help reduce anxiety levels. Even after a short break, you will return back to your desk rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to tackle the problem, project or day that lies ahead of you. Step away from your desk, computer and telephone at lunch time and eat your lunch at the park, go shopping or have a coffee with a work colleague.

Mentor programs

Finding a mentor can be a great way to reduce workplace stress for junior staff or middle management. Mentors can be assigned within the company or can be found externally through industry associations and networking groups. A mentor can help work through work problems and how to negotiate work conflict, help employees build self confidence and develop interpersonal skills.

De-clutter your office

Even doing something as simple as cleaning your office can clear your mind and increase your focus. It can be very draining and overwhelming to face a messy office every single day. This is only a temporary measure so to keep disorganisation at bay; you need to incorporate a proper filing system and system of managing your documents. Adding plants to your office and changing the layout of your desk so your back doesn’t face the door can be good feng shui as well.

Exercise

Exercising at lunch times or before or after work has a host of psychological as well as physical benefits. Aerobic exercise can help you manage stress in the workplace by producing endorphins that uplift your mood and mental well being. It increases your social networks and decreases your social isolation. Exercise also improves your sleep patterns and gives you time to think and focus on other things.

Go on a holiday

Holidays can be a great way to unwind, de-stress and shake off workplace blues. Make sure you that you have organised someone to take over your work, arrange an adequate handover or hiring a temp or casual to do your work while you are gone. You want to be free of worries and stress when you do go away and relax knowing your work is in good hands and you won’t have any face any problems when you arrive back at work.

As a very last resort, you may have to consider changing jobs if you cannot cope with the workload, demanding boss, toxic colleagues or unrealistic deadlines and you have undue stress in the workplace. You spend an average of 40 hours a week with your colleagues so you need to be happy. Your mental health and relationships with your friends and family are far more important.

There is no doubt that stress starts to play a role when our busy schedules get on top of us. Effective time management can help you keep on top of your workload and keep the stress at bay. Here are seven of our top tips for time management…

To Do Lists – Don’t avoid the ugly tasks

Do the work tasks you are trying to avoid when you’re at your peak and keep procrastination at bay. Work around your internal body clock.

If you find that you’re more of a morning person and your concentrate is lost later in the day, do those mind numbing tasks earlier in the day and the tasks you enjoy later in the afternoon when you’re struggling to get motivated.

Get into a habit of writing Your To Do list just before you leave work so you can return the next day and hit the ground running.

Learn to prioritise – Do the most important things first

Effective time management is all about prioritising your tasks and doing the most important things first. The easiest way of managing your workload effectively is prioritising each task. The Motivation Expert suggests prioritising tasks as follows:

A = Top priority jobs – those which must be completed today

B = Jobs that should be completed today

C = Jobs that you’d prefer to complete today but can put off until tomorrow

D = Jobs where the deadline is some way off and you can complete later

If you are having problems prioritising your tasks or there are two tasks that seem as urgent as each other, speak to your manager who will be able to clarify which task is more important or better still, set priority of tasks in your regular meetings.

Be Proactive Not Reactive – Don’t fight fires

Encourage your employees and colleagues to be proactive and not reactive and pre-empt any possible problems with project management, client management or general day to day work tasks.

There is little point having an ‘ostridge in the sand mentality’ because when the problem does reach the surface and become known to your manager, it will more likely take longer to fix and use more resources. Ways to avoid this are:

• set up regular work in progress meetings and catch up sessions
• put reporting mechanisms in place and
• establish benchmarks or key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure workload.

These are a good way to foresee any problems before the proverbial hits the fan in an office.

Learn to Delegate – You are not an island

Delegation plays a defining role in being able to manage your workload. You need to be able to let go and trust your staff and/or colleagues to take on part of your workload. There are many advantages to delegating work:

• The motivation of employees is increased as you trust them with more responsibilities.
• It increases employee’s self confidence and leads to development of decision making skills.
• It encourages an environment where creative ideas and alternative ways of working are expressed.
• It saves time – we can achieve at least twice as more through delegation than we can by doing all the work by ourselves.

It can be quite difficult granting someone else the authority and responsibility and they may make mistakes along the way and not do everything as you may have liked. However, with patience and guidance, it can alleviate the less crucial parts of your workload leaving you to work on more important tasks.

Managing expectations – Learn to say no

Effective time management can sometimes be more about managing expectations from your manager and/or colleagues. While there may be occasions where you work overtime, this should be an exception rather than the rule. If you find that you are continually working more than a standard 8 hour day through no fault of your own, speak to your manager about:

• assigning extra resources;
• delegating your workload to other employees or;
• hiring a temp or casual staff member

This should all help you bring your workload down to a more manageable level and allow you to skip out the door at a reasonable hour.

Manage your employees and colleagues – Don’t Let Them Manage You

Attending to emails or tasks and answering adhoc questions or the telephone can take up valuable time in your day. It may only be a task that only takes five or ten minutes but that can easily add up during the day but this can be avoided by:

• encourage your employees and colleagues to save non urgent questions for meetings where you can discuss the project;
• asking colleagues to email you when rather than come to your desk or call you directly so you can attend to the email when you have time;
• making your priorities known to your colleagues and ask them if you can do their task later after you have finished your more important tasks.

Take control back of your workload and don’t let your colleagues dictate your work patterns. Attend to urgent or more important tasks first and attend to the tasks further down your list later on.

Manage yourself – Time management is a myth

It is also important to manage yourself and make sure that you are hitting your deadlines, not working excessive amounts of overtime and also taking regular breaks throughout the day. It is important to set aside regular breaks in the day for the following reasons:

• decreases levels of procrastination and work avoidance;
• maintains the level of quality and productivity across the day;
• increases your concentrate and motivation levels;
• reduces stress and maintains your health.

Remember you can’t manage time – there are only 24 hours in a day. The only thing you can manage is yourself, your colleagues to a certain extent and your workload so incorporate these time management tips into your workday to create more of a work-life balance that will have you leaving the office at a reasonable hour.

Early this week, Channel 7 did an interview with an analyst for Macquarie Private Wealth and David Kiely, was filmed in the background looking at emailed pictures of Victoria Secret model Miranda Kerr. The banker is now in ‘discussions’ with Macquarie executives to discuss his future.

With the help of Youtube, this incident has received even more coverage than the ham sandwich debacle of 2005 and is a timely reminder of the proper use of email at work. Here are six ways to curb your email habits and play nice in the office.

Do not use your work email to discuss personal issues with your colleagues

You may be friends with your work colleagues but only try and limit your work email to  work issues only. If you need to discuss any personal issues, pick up the phone and speak to your colleagues, use your personal email or wait until your break times or after work drinks.

Take a note from the two secretaries at prestigious law firm Allens Arthur Robinson. Their ‘discussion’ over an alleged stolen ham sandwich turned into a tirade of abuse and was quickly forwarded around the world in a matter of seconds.

Be professional in all your dealings with your clients

You may own your own business and be your own boss but that doesn’t mean that a rude email to a client will not be detrimental to your business. Email exchanges are not the forum for angry outbursts. In yet another warning of the power and pitfalls of email, a New Zealand couple’s war with an abusive wedding planner was forwarded around the world. 

If you have been sent a ‘suggestive’ or ‘emotive’ email, don’t respond straight away. Wait until you have calmed down and then reply back in a professional manner. There is no room for emotions at the office.

Don’t use your work email for a private exchanges with your partner

Work email is not meant for indulging in cyber sex and you need to be particularly careful of email ‘sexchanges’ if you’re indulging in an office romance. Claire Swire naively wrote a somewhat amorous email about how much she enjoyed oral sex with her now ex boyfriend who in the most public demonstration of kissing and telling, forwarded her email to his friends.

The email was forwarded onto friends of friends and made international headlines which resulted in him being suspended for breach of contract and no doubt resulted in the break-up.

Double check your email addresses in group emails

With programs like Microsoft Outlook, it is very easy to type in the wrong address for people with common first and last names. Before you send a group email, double check that you are sending it to the right person.

Schoolgirl Claire Mcdonald was the reluctant recipient of emails from high security emails from the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence. Further investigation revealed that a Royal Navy officer based at the Pentagon had inadvertently included Claire on a mailing list and breached security because of a mere typo.

Proceed with caution when using ‘reply all’

The ‘reply all’ button is fraught with disaster and should only be used when necessary. Nielsen in a desperate attempt to declutter inboxes took the extreme step of deleting the ‘reply all’ from Microsoft Outlook. This may have been a response to curb trigger happy Mitchell Habib, Executive Vice President at Nielsen, obviously a huge proponent of the ‘do as I say and not as I do’ management style.

Habib allegedly sent an email to an employee and accidentally copied in all Nielsen employees ending his e-mail with the now famous punch line “Who do you work for, and why do you think copying me on this is appropriate?” showing even high powered executives are not exempt from email blunders.

Do not read or forward inappropriate attachments at work

As much as we would like to, we can’t control the emails that are coming from outside sources like our colleagues, friends and family but we can control our own behaviour and delete the email and not forward the emails onto others.

As a result of the banker’s inappropriate use of email and the resulting public relations disaster, Macquarie’s human resources department apparently has e-mailed all 11,500 staff around the world with its Internet policy, telling them to “familiarise themselves” with it. Most organisations have an Internet policy readily available on their intranet or can be easily accessed from the IT department.

While email bloopers can be amusing and good watercooler fodder, always remember that emails are owned by the company, they are a written record of your conduct and can be used in a court of law. While David Kiely’s colleagues have launched a campaign to save his job and seem to view the whole saga as a joke, Macquarie Private Wealth cannot be seen to take this so lightly.

What will happen to David Kiely is yet to be determined but think thrice before you press that button and forward an inappropriate attachment, use abusive language in an email or write a personal email to your partner. Your career depends on it.

Your long term dream may have been to work from home but reality has hit, you are suffering from a severe case of cabin fever and you keep refreshing your email every five seconds, desperate to connect with someone.

You are decidedly lonely and miss having lunch with your colleagues, Friday night drinks and even that annoying work colleague who had a crush on you doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

So how do you cope with social isolation when working from home? Here are some tips and career advice to overcome the loneliness and boredom.

Join an industry association

Joining an industry association will not only further your career but it will give you an opportunity to meet other people who are in a similar or related industry. Industry associations will hold networking events such as education seminars, dinners, conferences and so forth which will give you a chance to meet new people and give you a well deserved break from staring at the blank screen on your computer. And remember, all industry association fees are tax deductable.

Enjoy a change of scenery

If you work in a virtual office, there is no hard and fast rule that you need to be surrounded by four walls and a window (if you’re lucky). The wonder of modern wireless internet means that you can conduct your meetings via the library, a coffee shop, at a park or even at the beach. Instead of conducting your meetings via the telephone or the Internet, arrange to catch up with your clients face to face occasionally to break the monotony and arrange to meet friends and family regularly for coffee and lunch to break up the day.

Invest in further education

While it may convenient to do a course online or via correspondence, going to a college or education facility and seeing your classmates face to face may decrease your social isolation. It will give you a legitimate reason to get out of your home office and enjoy a change of pace and environment. Like industry associations, investing in further education is tax deductible if it is directly related to your job.

Join your local gym

Joining a gym is a good way to increase your social networks, decrease your social isolation and get fit and healthy at the same time. Joining a gym gives you the option of exercising by yourself or engaging in group exercise classes like cycling or boxing. Whether you’re doing group classes or flying solo, you will be surrounded by other people that you can speak to and it’s a good way to meet friends who have a common interest with you.

Walk your dog

Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world with over two thirds of households owning pets. While it may simplistic, walking your prized pooch forces you to get out of the house, take a break from work and increases your social interaction. According to the Australian Companion Animal Council, pets help people to build social bridges in communities, acting as social lubricants with neighbours or strangers, or as motivators for walking and use of parks.

Working from home is a luxury but it can soon feel like a prison sentence and very unmotivating if you let boredom to set in, allow yourself become socially isolated and cut yourself off from important social networks. Working from home doesn’t mean you need to be chained to the keyboard. Taking regular breaks during the day will leave you more refreshed and relaxed and in a better psychological frame of mine to start tackling those deadlines.

At first you were excited about your job but the honeymoon period has well and truly ended and disillusionment and resentment has started to settle in. Before you know it, you’re starting to look at career websites and flirting with the idea of moving on and finding another job you think you can love more. Here are five ways to fall back in love with your job and bring back the passion and all those feelings of excitement back.

Give your job a makeover

You may have simply reached a point where your job no longer challenges you and you’re looking further afield for a job that can provide you with the mental stimulation that you need. Break the monotony and have ’the talk’ with your boss and discuss taking on more responsibility, investing in further education or possible career paths available for your role and ask them to map out a career plan for you.

Change your mindset

It’s easy to take the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ road when it comes to breaking up but people rarely mean that. Sometimes you need to change your perspective when it comes to your work environment. If you walk in with a negative attitude, your day is likely to be just as you expected. Alternatively, if you walk in with a spring in your step, acknowledge your colleagues with a smile and start your day on a happy note, people will notice the change in attitude and respond similarly. It’s a cliché but it’s amazing what a simple smile can do.

Stop taking your job for granted

Think back to the first day you found out you got your job and how happy you were. Sometimes, we need to take stock and think about what the benefits of our job and show gratitude. Life is about a compromise and money is often not the biggest incentive when we accept a job. The problems you are facing at your workplace may come up in another office environment after the initial shine has worn off. Start appreciating the little things about your job such as the short commute, your colleagues or flexible work hours and you will become much happier.

Find the passion

If you loved your job once, you can love it again. All you need to do is reignite the passion and figure out why you fell for the job in the first place. Finding out what drives you to come to work will help you become enthusiastic and passionate about your role. Your passion for that job makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and it motivates you to do your best and it motivates the others around you. When you rediscover what truly excites you in your career, you’ll find the passion you once had for your job.

Get yourself out of a rut

When you’re feeling unhappy about your job, it’s easy to let your appearance slip and get into a rut about your appearance. Often changing the way we look and present ourselves to others can make a huge psychological difference to the way that we feel. Update your work wardrobe with clothes that make you feel good about yourself and start making an effort with your appearance. The small things that you do will pay great dividends in the way you feel.

Before you take that big step, revaluate why you fell in love with the job in the first place. It might be a case of better the devil you know and you decide to stay with the one you’re with. Like any relationship, you can fall in and out of love with a job but make sure you don’t quit in haste and do anything you might regret in the cold heart of day.

You may meet the love of your life at work which may end in a happily ever after or it could be your worst nightmare and you may have to transfer to another department or leave the company. Relationships at work are fraught with problems.

Here’s a breakdown of the five possible stages an office relationship could go through and it ain’t pretty.

The good

Starting on a positive note, the workplace can provide a way to meet someone who understands the demands of your career, has similar goals in life to you and can be a valuable means of support if the going gets tough in your job.

You can observe your crush from the safety of your cubicle and get to know them slowly over long lunches or boozy after work drinks without any first date awkwardness.

The bad

With no separation between work and play, you may start to feel that having your office cake and eating it too may be too much of a good thing for your liking. If you feel yourself starting to be smothered, slowly start distancing yourself.

Ways to do this are rotate your lunch schedule with other colleagues, keep the personal emails to a minimum and set a firm rule to stop discussing work when you have clocked off for the day. This will help keep the mystery alive in your relationship and maintain the freshness and excitement.

The ugly

Things can quickly get very ugly in the office if you have a fight or a nasty break-up. The princess or prince at the ball can easily turn into the ugly step sister or brother when the fairytale romance is done and dusted. The true sign of someone’s character is when things go badly not when things are going well.

Remember you will need to face this person every day so you need to be wary of the consequences of dating someone in the office. If the power dynamics are not in your favour and this person is your boss, they could make life very difficult for you. An office relationship could potentially jeopardise or even sabotage your career.

The indifferent

While you may be crying in your spreadsheets or paper files about your break-up, the love of your life may not even seem to care and this may be hard to take when you’re working with the person on a day to day basis. Anger is at least a form of emotion but indifference sometimes can be more hurtful. People handle break-ups differently.

Some people are much better at hiding their emotions and maintaining a professional stance in the workplace. This doesn’t mean that the relationship did not mean anything to them. Follow their lead and avoid talking about any relationship issues you have at work.

The irreconcilable

If you’re upset every day over your break-up, it’s starting to affect your work and you feel that you cannot work with an ex; you may have to think seriously about transferring to another department or looking for another job.

We’ve all been there and there is no shame in throwing in the towel and learning from your mistakes. But remember fall for the wrong person once in the office and it’s shame on them but make the same mistake twice and it’s shame on you.

Work relationships can be tricky at the best of times. It takes professional maturity and an ability to maintain an emotional distance to make an office romance work.

The best advice is that if you think the person is the love of your life then tread carefully but don’t let this opportunity pass you by but don’t risk your long term job prospects on a casual relationship or a short term fling. It’s not worth it.