Top 5 Practical Workplace Tips for Freshers Part 2

So here is Part 2 to the “Top 5 Practical Workplace Tips for Freshers” series.

I hope you are here after referring to Part 1. If you haven’t gone through Part 1 of this series, then click here to read the same.

Here are the set of next tips to ponder about…

Tip #4: Crack the #PeopleCode

Leadership requires influencing people in a big way. Whether you are a software engineer or a product manager, if you have the ability to communicate and influence people at work, then Congratulations! You have cracked the most important codes of all, not just as a corporate worker but also as a life enthusiast.

But how to crack it? This is the most important question. Here are a few practical ways…

1. Ask them about what they do at work and how they do it. Be genuinely inquisitive and open to everyone’s views. (Even if it is something irrelevant to your domain for eg. engineers need to know about marketing as well.)
2. Share some information about yourself pertaining to work and what you do.
3. Evaluate each one’s pace and enthusiasm of work and core attitude towards work and the company.
4. Always start with a “Please” or “Do you mind if…” if you want to get things done from someone else. Being polite is essential to a certain extent.
5. At times, being assertive without being aggressive or disrespectful is the way to go depending on the situation. Confront the other person assertively when certain boundaries are being crossed.

Alongwith talking to each one, recognizing when to say what is essential at the workplace and can even determine your future at a company. As freshers, we tend to naturally count everyone at the workplace as college friends and use the same tone around everyone. Be mindful of how you talk to each one after observing people’s interaction with others. Avoid getting into gossip or speaking ill of a fellow colleague to another.

If you would ask any experienced corporate person to give you one most important advice that could work for a fresher to achieve success then anyone would say “Accountability/Ownership”. The innate sense of responsibility and enthusiasm and passion that every fresher has upon entering a new world, is the most demanded trait that should never be given up on.

A few practical day-to-day hacks to work on the above tips, would be,

1. Voluntarily go to the person’s desk when they are free to ask a genuine doubt about how things work around in their domain. While this is prominently helpful in Work-From-Office (WFO) scenario, for Work-From-Home(WFH) scenario, you can get the information around people who you would be working with on a daily basis(probably from your manager) and try scheduling an exclusive one-to-one with each one to know more. WFH needs a little extra effort but it is all worth it in the end.
2. Join your team members for a chai break if you are done with the work assigned to you or can manage the workload appropriately.
3. Help the other person and be accessible. If you can manage your workload after a point of time, don’t avoid answering questions or helping other folks when they ask you for the same. Being accessible and helpful works well in the long run, unless it hurts your own work completion and performance.

All this while, you will probably realize the essence of corporate politics and how competition is prevalent all across the corporate world. But that is a topic for another blog altogether.

Tip #5: Evaluate the #ManagerCode

How to work with your manager is supposedly another tip altogether since that is what determines your growth and your achievements in the organization after all.

The most practical hacks to crack here are:

1. Own the work that is assigned to you. To build your credibility and trust with your manager, it is very important to accept and work with full ownership on whatever is assigned to you, even if that is supposedly “Out of your domain”, especially at start-ups.
2. Given point (1), be honest with your manager about how you truly feel about the work and your willingness to work on the same beforehand itself.
3. Your manager could be your cheerleader or your worst opposer, depending on how willing you are to learn and how you implement the feedback that he gives. If you don’t receive feedback from your manager on a timely basis, feel free to reach out to him. He would be more than happy to help you out.
4. Ask for help. Nothing like this hack when you want to genuinely learn and grow. Your manager would be the most accessible person and if you need guidance and feel stuck around a problem, don’t hesitate to reach out to him via all the channels of communication.
5. Sometimes our managers are not accessible due to their limited availability of time. But feel free to express this concern to him directly and do not give up by falling into the trap of imposter syndrome for the problems and hurdles that you are facing.

Let me give you a practical example on one of the most commonly heard scenarios with #ManagerCode.

In a work situation, you would realize that you had done everything from your side or you had every nickel of accountability and ownership to correctly finish a task assigned to you but then after a month or so, your manager or any senior manager comes and tells you “In last month, I didn’t see any work from your side. What have you done?”

Besides being surprised, you are in shock as to what exactly is happening here?

I am sure you would have recognized the problem here is about how much you communicate about your work with your manager. It is definitely a skill to be mastered.

And finally here we are, with our final BONUS(and a fun) TIP!

BONUS Tip #6: Learn #EmailCode

Emails are the most important part of a corporate life. As students, most freshers don’t realize the importance of this. But when you enter the corporate world, it is really an email world out there. So be very careful what and how you communicate via email.

If you ask even a 1-2 years old software engineer, this tip would still be one of the top ones in the list.

P.S. If you get an email with your manager CCed on the same, avoid replying to the same at the same moment you read it.

Why? That you will probably figure out after you have realized the importance of this tip :)

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Did you find this blog interesting or do you have any further questions/comments? Feel free to reach out to me on ditimodi15@gmail.com/ DITI MODI