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| Tuesday, 14 September 2004 |
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A management trainee's first assignment Star Garments Katunayake recently selected 27 management trainees. A three-day orientation program for the management trainees was held at the auditorium of Star Garments. The program was conducted by Dr. K. Kuhathasan, CEO, Centre for Leadership Excellence and Personality Development. Here are excerpts from his address. Your first Assignment is indeed an achievement. With a job, however, comes responsibility. People will rely on you to complete tasks, meet deadlines, and generally display willingness. If your job is not challenging, tackle the tasks with willingness and you will find that you will be given more interesting tasks. Having a job is fun. You will make new friends, learn new skills, and have money to spend. The first year The first year of your employment as a Management Trainee is a critical period. Students with limited work experience must cope with (compared to school) longer hours, fewer vacations, more responsibility and pressure to perform, and difficult team members and bosses. Basically, you must learn what is expected of you at work. You must try to display your talents and impress others. You must show who you are! How talented you are! Your first job Your first job can have a strong impact on the rest of your career. Challenge, or how much responsibly and chance for personal growth your job offers, is related to future job performance and career success. When choosing Assignments and placements you should weigh a job's challenge more heavily than more obvious shorter-term considerations like salary and location. If you have a job that seems unchallenging, you should try to acquire additional responsibilities in the organisation. Your Boss The quality of your working relationship with your immediate supervisor will affect the amount of support you get, your job satisfaction and performance, your likelihood of quitting, speed of promotion, size of bonus and annual salary. The nature of the boss-subordinate relationship in the first year establishes a pattern that persists and sets an important trend in the development of the future professional advancement. This relationship also affects your career mobility in the complex game of executive chess. You should avoid taking a position under a boss who is ineffective and commands little respect. Such a boss will provide too little challenge, training or advice. The longer you stay in this relationship, the more difficult it will be for you to be noticed and to move to more prominent positions. And, if you're talented, an ineffective boss might block your promotion and upward mobility. You should seek opportunities to work with an effective and highly respected boss. Such a boss is invaluable. A good supervisor can provide the challenging assignments you need. He will help you learn from his knowledge and experience. And as he progresses in his career, he can "talk you up" to others and even promote you along with him. Support your boss. Since your boss evaluates your performance and is the most important influence on your immediate future with your organisation, find out the criteria your boss will be using to evaluate your performance. Never speak negatively about your boss to others, nor should you undermine your boss. Do everything in your power to support your boss and to make him or her look good. Socialisation Socialisation is the process by which the organisation teaches trainees appropriate attitudes and behaviour. If the company is successful in its socialisation on efforts, its employee will be highly motivated, satisfied, innovative, and cooperative. They will be high performers, and they will be less likely to leave the organisation for another job. Ineffective socialisation results in two types of employees: those who (1) reject the company's values, perform poorly, and eventually quit. (2) Overconform to the point of showing no individuality or creative contributions to the organisation. Work Experience Progress in a career depends on your personal characteristics, credentials, intelligence, motivation, knowledge, career planning, and decision-making strategies. But your career progress will also depend on the experience, or work environment, to which you are exposed. You may learn abotu three aspects of the work environment: (1) the first year, with its early socialisation and training experience (2) various assignments. (3) Your career paths. Vision, mission and Goals By exploring your company in the following areas, try to understand the vision, mission and goals of your company. * What are the overall goals of the Company? * What are the specific goals of the corporation's action program? * What resource does the company currently have at its disposal? * What strategies are currently implemented by the firm? * What investment is the corporation willing to make in managing the future? * What issues are important to the firm? * What is the public's perception of the corporation? * What is the perception do corporate constituents have about your firm? * What organisational unit will be responsible for managing various activities? * How will issues be monitored and analysed? * What strategies will be used to measure the performance? |
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