7 Essentials in Staff Motivations

“People are our most important asset,” said the Managing Director of one of our clients. While this mantra has been chanted by many large organizations as one of their principles in human resources management, many still fall short in developing and retaining their staff effectively.

Is staff motivation a difficult subject to tackle? Though it can be a tricky issue, you can achieve significant improvement in staff productivity and attitude towards company by adopting some simple acts as part of your daily habits:

Set clear expectations and communicate them effectively

Your staff will have clearer ideas of what you expect of them and be able to plan their work better. The next time you are telling your staff of what you want from them, quantify your standards. Instead of saying “achieve better sales figures this year”, use clearer phrases like “achieve 20% increase in sales volume by end of November 2004”

Be realistic about individual abilities

There is no point imposing too high a standard beyond your staff’s ability. You are only setting them for failure and cultivate more stress. However, don’t “under-expect” them either. Set your expectation in accordance of what you know your staff can perform. Make it a habit to ask for their feedback on your expectations on them

Be aware of what your staff is doing

And that is not spying on them, or trying to find faults. As you move around in the office, pay attention to what your staff is doing in performing their role. Notice the small initiatives that contributed to their efficiencies or impact business performances

Make them feel appreciated

People like to be praised, recognized and appreciated. Recognize individual and group achievements publicly – your staff will feel good that others know of their success. Personalised your rewards for individual achievements. It shows that you care enough to notice the little things each of your staff do to contribute to your business

Spread the success as stories

“Success stories” are effective way of motivating your staff. They relate better to stories (instead of news), and they remember them better. It gives the celebrated staff a warm feeling that everyone know his or her story, and it tells others what is expected to achieve success

Throw a party

It need not be a luxurious hotel dinner or paid holiday. A simple appreciation lunch or tea party will allow your team members to mix around and improve bonding, while celebrating individual success at the same time

Lead by examples

The word “leader” comes from “lead”. Many leaders in companies do not practice what they preach. When you set expectations on your staff, make sure you follow and align your work to achieve the common goal. Team members feel better motivated when their boss is moving in the same direction as they are.

Integrating these simple tips will do wonders in boasting your staff morale. Try it.


By Razlan, web editor of EnergySkills. This article will be published in EnergySkills' Bulletin, our monthly newsletter.

Jobs of the Day (Singapore)

Some jobs from past week from our career site. All these jobs are based in Singapore.

1) Senior Engineer (Electrical)

2) Section Head(Process)

3) Marketing Engineer

4) Laser Surveyor


View all jobs in Singapore

Get Better Pay in 2005!

Hiring frenzy will be here again – much sooner than you expected.

Recovery in the Singapore job market strengthened in the third quarter 2004, supported by the robust economic growth in the first half of this year. Preliminary estimates show that employment increased by 16,600, the strongest quarterly gain in three and half years. The strong employment creation has led to a significant decline in unemployment. The seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate fell to 3.4% in September 2004 from 4.5% three months back. This improvement has brought the unemployment rate to around the level in 1999 when the economy recovered from the Asian crisis (Source: Ministry of Manpower, Singapore).

According to a recent survey of 106 recruiters conducted by ExecuNet, the demand for executive talent will continue to climb, increasing an additional 20% in the six months ahead. As the regional talent pool is limited in size, these trends point to a promising boom in the employment market with employers racing neck to neck for the cream of the crop of top executives.

If these predictions are proven correct, then top executives will have an opportunity to increase their paycheck. Negotiate your way to better compensation using the following strategic tips:


Knowledge is power

When it comes to successful compensation negotiation, knowledge is most definitely power. First, you’ll need to find out if your pay is at current market rate. Up-to-date information may be available at websites such as Salary.com or JobStreet.com – though they are not necessarily accurate. You should also use your network to obtain accurate information to gauge your market value.

What if you are being paid above market rate? Buck up your work and cut off the slacks. You can bet that your boss will be better informed on employment market trends than before. Make sure your performance is worth every single dollar!

Compensation is NOT always equals to money

While salary and bonuses are the most common focus of negotiations, calculating the value of all job-related benefits will provide both you and your employer with additional flexibility. Consider all other alternatives before embarking on a negotiation. Benefits such as insurances, trainings, company cars, phones and computers should be taken into account too.


Don't Sell Yourself Short

Most good employers value their high flyers and will concede to their requests for better compensation, provided that the demands are justified. If you are making important contributions to the company, find out what you are worth, how much more you want and how much you are willing to settle for. Do stay within the limits and don’t ask for the sky.

Note: This article will appear in EnergySkills' newsletter for November 2004

Internet Recruitment – Can It Replace Headhunters?

It seems that the Internet has finally begun to affect the executive search industry.

“In the early days those involved in the online recruitment industry faced challenges in convincing recruiters that the internet was a worthwhile medium for advertising jobs and finding candidates. Even today many corporate organizations are still unaware of the benefits of internet recruitment and the need to understand and implement internal processes to deal with recruiting online. Along side these early experiences executives themselves had concerns regarding placing their personal and career details onto an online database.

Today recruiters view advertising "online" as part of their recruitment process and now believe a wider "pool" of candidates can be found through the internet. The use of online job boards in many cases has replaced the role of researchers. Recruitment companies now pay for the service and take up by corporate companies is forecasted to rise substantially in the coming years” (Read more)

However, before you are convinced that Internet recruitment can finally replaces the human touch in filling your jobs, be mindful of some of the characteristics of these mediums. Internet recruitment advertising is another variation of newspaper advertising. Both appeal to the same type of audience – the active job seekers.

Highly qualified candidates happily employed by other companies in the same industry – possibly your competitors – is what we called “passive candidates”. Traditional methods used by the good old corporate recruiters or search firms include networking, cold-calling and headhunting. Candidates unearthed using these methods are often better suited to your needs compared to active job seekers applied to online job ads.

The increasing use of Internet in recruitment also leads to the creation of a new breed of professionals, simply called as “researchers”. These are experts in using various online tools to manipulate the Internet in searching for passive candidates. However, Internet researchers can only dig out leads for promising candidates. They still have to rely on recruiters to cold-call, network and present job opportunities to these candidates and convince them to work for their clients.

Instead of being seen as replacing headhunters, Internet should be seen as an enhancement in the recruitment landscape. It is a powerful tool for recruiters. Move ahead and get to know how to use the Internet to your hiring advantage.

Note: This article will appear in EnergySkills' newsletter for November 2004

Jobs of the Day (Singapore & Thailand)

It had been sometime since I last time updated this blog. I have been overloaded with loads of things - from the IFP Training Course to some web systems development, life has been so full in the office. Very uncharacteristic for this time of the year (with all the Christmas carols dominating the air waves!) but I guess that is what we are in for when your company is expanding!

Here are some updates from our career site.

Quantity Surveyor (Singapore)

Lead Structural Engineer (Thailand)

Technical Clerk (Singapore)

Proposal Coordinator (Singapore)

You can apply to us by clicking direct on those links, or registering for an account with us, or email us your resume.

Okay, now on to preparing my monthly newsletters. Is there any writers around?

Jobs for the Day (Opportunties in China & Singapore)

Some updates from our career site.

Piping Engineer (China)

Process Engineer (China)

Project Manager (China)

Procurement Director (Singapore)

Jobs in the region are surely picking up!

We Got Job!

Oh yeah, imagine my surprise when I returned to office this morning after a bout of sickness, to receive an email notification on this new position within EnergySkills!

Yup, we are looking to expand our team with the inclusion of a new Recruitment Consultant. Read more on the job requirements on our career site. If you think you fit the bill, please send your resume to our Resourcing Manager, Chad Lee.

Make sure you mention you saw this job from ES Blog! (At least we know this blog is working - and for me to gain some credit. Haha)

What's RSS?

A comment on a previous post motivates me to post this up. Yup, blogging is not something new - lots of web-savvy people do keep online journal and share it with their friends. As blogs gain popularity, new technologies were developed to enhance it further, which leads to RSS.

The following article is adapted from Mark Daoust (see resource box below)

What is RSS?

To understand RSS (Rich Site Summary), you must be in the correct mindset. Think about the types of websites that offer RSS feeds. First, there are the news and article related websites. These make up the majority of the websites who use RSS. There are also forums, web portals, search engines, and news aggregators, to name a few. The one thing all these types of websites have in common is that they are all filled with a lot of information.

Organizing this information is the difficult part, and organizing it in a way that others can syndicate and customize the format is even more difficult. Enter RSS.

RSS organizes information within ‘tags’ or ‘labels’ and places this information into what could be considered an outline format. If you think about it, all information can be organized into separate parts. As an example, an article website is made up of articles. Each article can be considered its own part of the site. Within each article there are parts as well, such as the title of the article, a description of the article, the date the article was published, who wrote the article, and so on. What RSS does is to present these ‘parts’ in a uniform, organized format.

RSS organizes information the same way every time. An RSS feed can be broken down into a few parts. First RSS presents the header information such as the XML version and various comments. This is more for the computers than it is for the readers. Next RSS presents information about the website. The information presented here can vary, but typically there will be the name of the site, a link to the site, the webmaster’s e-mail address, and maybe the last time the feed was updated. The next part to an RSS feed is the actual content of the feed.

You can read the full article here, but it contains more technical details for webmasters on how to set up a RSS feed etc. Definitely not for non-techies like yours truly :-)

About the Author: Mark Daoust is the owner of Site Reference (http://www.site-reference.com) Marketing Articles. Thousands of marketing articles along with marketing resources and marketing forums are available.

They call it slavery. What say you?

This is a late night post.

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately, using news aggregator by FeedDemon and subscribing to RSS feeds. That is awesome, but a posting on that has to come another time.

Reason for this late night post is because of this shocking piece of news I read from (yet) another blog. You would think working until 10 p.m. every night for your boss is tough. Yes it is, and these guys had it worst than you.

Check out this sharing from the spouse of a games programmer of EA. Yes, the company who produces games after games for computers.

I was squirming uncomfortably after I read those. You form your own opinion.

Blogging Power

For the third time, I am trying out yet another RSS feed reader (this time round it is Feed Demon) and I began my third round collecting recuring website URLs on the net (should have kept a list). Everytime I do this, I will return to this blog to begin my search. And the postings by their marketing recruiter never failed to amaze me - how did she find the time to write such stuff?

Anyway, dropped her a mail and I thought it will be nice to share it here, too.

<--- Start of Email --->

Hello there!

Great blog. Though I return infrequently, I always find your writings a joy to read, not to mention very informative.

I come from a recruiting organization in Singapore. The competition is very stiff - however, I find that there are little differentiating factors from one agency to the next. The power is always in the hands of the employer, sometimes of the candidates, and very, very rarely in the control of recruiter.

And I am surprised at how remarkably laid back on Singapore's recruiters on viewing their marketing function as strategic! Perhaps it was their mentality that business = money. More marketing = less money = bad business.

Coming from an engineering background, I guess I have little pre-conditioning on what recruiting is like, and I gained much knowledge from wide reading and surfing (such as reading blogs like yours). And I think it will take a LONG time before recruitment marketing in Singapore will ever reach the maturity in the west. Though we do have agencies like TMP and Marketing magazine here, the "recruitment marketing" function is virtually not existent.

And so here's my chance to make a mark. Been playing around with lots of idea, and with limited resources, I was able to come up with a few "first" that resonated quite well with clients and candidates.

And now I hopped on to the blogging bandwagon. Amateurish as it seems to be, I guess it is a start.

Just want you to know that, hey, your blog is a great inspiration to newbies like me. Thanks for sharing so much!

<--- End of Email --->

Now you know the reason for this blog.

Errors and Stylistic Weaknesses in Cover Letters

Was reading mu usual dose of career newletters, and I certainly like this one!

Question: What's the best reason for not putting a comma where you pause?
Answer: Your letter will have more commas if you have asthma or emphysema.

Check out some of these basic grammar rules when you write your cover letter and resume. Remember, you have only 5 seconds to make a first impression, so make it counts, and make it a bloody good one!

Jobs for the day

Didn't managed to update this blog on time. It was some crazy days in office. The intensive promotion and marketing for the economics course EnergySkills is organizing. For someone who did not really have any idea on how to do proper marketing, it was such a roller coster experience. One moment I am looking at colour proofing copy with my printer, an hour later I am looking at the email tracking statistics. Yet later on I am talking to my sales person on the best strategy approaching the warm/hot leads that I have....

Alright, here are some jobs for today. Only a few updates since two days ago - I think more new jobs are available at our alliance partner website.

Submarine Pipeline Engineer

Senior Structural Engineer

Senior Electrical Engineer

Subsea Pipeline Engineer

Senior Instrument Engineer

As usual, more jobs on my career site.

Today got a reply from fellow recruiting blogger over at Microsoft. Yes, those people who made your Windows OS has a blog, too. They have linked to me on their blogroll! Man.. I am delighted!

Will set up my own blogroll soon. At the meantime, I am setting up some sub-blog for other purpose. Once done will update here too.

Jobs of the Day (WinPCS Operators, Weight Control Engineer, Operations Manager)

It was almost one year ago since my company, EnergySkills, invested and implemented a web-based recruitment system called SiVA (have no idea why the name). Provided by JobStreet.com, the system automates job postings to both JobStreet sites and our own career site (which was named IMPACT).

As the administrator of the system, I receive email notifications from the systems every time new jobs posted by my resourcing team appear live on JobStreet sites. Usually I don't pay much attention to them - but now I actually click on each ad to have a look.

Hmmm.... I think it is time for a refresher course on effective job ad. But then again, for technical positions, a short and direct ad might be more effective, I think.

Anyway, here are some more new jobs just came in today. More at our career center so do drop by have a look.

#1 Mechanical Engineer - WinPCS Operator (Singapore)

• Duties include manipulating and populating databases and update records
  
• Minimum of 5 years experience in the Oil and Gas Industry
  
• Familiar with Oil and Gas equipments, fittings, cables and piping designation
  
• Familiar with Precom/Com activities
  
• This is a 10 months contract
  
• To apply, please email your updated resume to Eugene, stating your expected date of availability and your expected salary package

#2 Weight Control Engineer (Singapore)

• Equipment list maintenance, support to the weight manager on issuing, and management of tag no. system
  
• Follow up of systems commissioned / fluids contents
  
• Ensure installation of material in strip 1 to 4 incorporates all elements of carry over work
  
• English speaking / good communication skills
  
• Experience in weight control engineering on offshore installations
  
• High proficiency in MS Excel
  
• Click here to read more on this job. To apply, please email your updated resume to Eugene, stating your expected date of availability and your expected salary package

#3 Operations Manager - Electronics/Manufacturing (Singapore)
Our client is a reputable manufacturer in the energy sector in Singapore for lithium polymer battery packs. This cutting edge technology encompasses industries covering consumer electronic products, robotics, radio control hobby, electric vehicles and renewable energies.

• Experience in QA/QC is highly advantageous
  
• At least 2 – 3 years of working experience, preferably in an electronic environment
  
• Must possess knowledge in import and export work
  
• Locals and foreigners welcomed – however, priority will be given to applicants residing in Singapore
  
• Click here to read more on this job. To apply, please email your updated resume to Eugene, stating your expected date of availability and your expected salary package

The first thing that comes to my mind when I read "Weight Control Engineer" is someone who actually design diet plans. Haha... job titles are surely getting more and more interesting nowadays.

Online job advertisements bounce back

Got this from the PRWRA egroup emails:

"Internet job ads hit a four-year peak last month, underscoring the strength of the economy and promising further employment growth.

According to the Olivier Internet Job Index, online advertisements for hospitality and tourism jobs were up 12 per cent in the month, and for building and construction, 11 per cent.

There was also a big recovery in information technology job ads, which rose 5.5 per cent last month to be up 84.6 per cent on the year before.

However, the banking and financial services bucked the trend, falling 8.3 per cent last month.

Robert Olivier, director of recruitment services firm the Olivier Group, said internet job advertising had been growing strongly since January.

"We're back to the euphoria of mid-2000 when the pre-Olympic optimism was at its height and the IT boom was in full flow," Mr Olivier said. "But this time the growth is based on broad business confidence and it's more sustainable."

Graduate job ads rose 15 per cent in October and have almost doubled in the past year. There was also strong demand for those with trades.

"There's a real lack of qualified people. The trades are a phenomenal opportunity at the moment," Mr Olivier said.

There was also strong demand for casual and part-time jobs, especially in hospitality and sales.

The Internet Job Index rose 6.9 per cent in October, bringing 12-month growth to almost 40 per cent. There were 146,742 jobs on surveyed job sites in October compared with the record 150,222 set in August 2000."

Perhaps it is time to update your accounts with online job boards? Heh...

Jobs of the Week (Fancy working at UAE? Dubai? Yanbu?)

Alright, here are some jobs for this week. Be sure to check the full listing:

Senior Project Manager (Construction)

• located at Dubai, U.A.E. At least a 2-year contract
  
• Minimum a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering (Civil) or equivalent
  
• 10 years working experience
  
• Read more, or apply online now

Check out for more positions for this multi-million project in Dubai.


Test Pack Coordinator

• Based in Singapore
  
• At least 3 years of relevant working experience including on-site testing
  
• Good knowledge in PDS software
  
• Good knowledge in technical aspects of high pressure pipe hydro-testing
  
• Safety procedures expertise will be advantageous
  
• Read more, or apply online now

Here's a list of jobs available in Singapore.


Construction Supervisor-Civil (Oil & Gas)

• Supervision of Oil and Gas construction and expansion projects
  
• Depending on your experience, it will either be an onshore or offshore location
  
• Applicants must be willing to work in Yanbu
  
• At least a diploma in Civil Engineering, and minimum 5 years of experience
  
• Read more, or apply online now

All these information are easily available at our career centre, but I have no idea - where in the world is Yanbu?

Oh yeah, if you can't find any suitable jobs, you can just post a resume with us, so that you are always in our pool of candidates. But do so only if you are an engineering or technical candidate. We always deal with the construction and oil & gas industries.

Time to hit the gym :)

World's cleverest woman can't find a job

Spotted something very interesting on this website...

"A Bulgarian woman rated the world's cleverest wants a British firm to give her a job after spending two years on the dole.

Bulgarian Daniela Simidchieva, a mother of three, has five Masters Degrees and an IQ of almost 200.

She's listed by the country's Mensa office as the world's cleverest but despite sending off hundreds of applications she still hasn't found a job.

Her IQ is the same as that of chemist Marie Curie who was the first person to win the Noble Prize twice but cannot even get a cleaning job.

Daniela said: "I love learning, but I also want to work. In the last 44 years I have studied economics, education and sociology at universities in Bulgaria and Britain.

"I am qualified as an industrial engineer, as an English teacher and as an electrical engineer as well as having my five Masters degrees.

"But in Bulgaria I have found that employers do not want clever employees. Even when I had a job, the largest salary I ever managed was just £90 a month." "

Can you believe it?

Top 100 Companies for Working Mothers

Check out this site on the top 100 companies for working mums! Truly, it will be "working parents" redefined with employers like these!

Turning down Google

Here's an interesting post from an engineer who turned down an opportunity to interview with Google. Especially interesting are the issues related to working with newly-rich co-workers. (Read: IPO Fever)

I'm not sure it would make much sense (financial or otherwise) to join now right after their IPO even if they did offer me a job. I mean, what's it gotta be like working there now with a third of the company paper-millionaires? There's got to be a [Darn] You I'm Vested feeling flowing through the halls.

Make sure to check out the comments, too.