First assignment as a Management Trainee

The Management Trainees selected by the People's Bank followed a training program at the Staff Training Institute of the People's Bank at Maradana recently.

CEO CENLEAD Dr. K. Kuhathasan, addressed the participants recently on "Psychological aspects in managements."

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 responsibility and chance for personal growth your job offers, is related to future job performance and career success. If you have a job that seems unchallenging, you should try to acquire additional responsibilities in the organization.

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 care 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 progress 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 organization, 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 organization 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 organization 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 organization.

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 about 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 our 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 perception do corporate constituents have about your firm?

* What organizational unit will be responsible for managing various activities?

* How will issues be monitored and analyzed?

* What strategies will be used to measure the performances?

The following skills and characteristics can help you to shine and excel in your field:

* Leadership.

* Oral communication and presentation skills.

* Written communication.

* Planning and organizing.

* Information gathering and problem analysis.

* Decision-making.

* Delegation and control.

* Self-objectivity (being aware of one's strengths and limitations).

* Disposition to lead (a willingness and desire to read others in new directions).

The Secretary in Management

The National Saving Bank (NSB) recently organised a one-day seminar on "The Secretary in Management". The program was held at the NSB Training Centre at Kollupitiya.

Dr. Kuhathasan said the Secretaries of today are called upon to handle managerial roles, carry out administrative functions and implement management decisions. They are also called upon to take an active part in management teams. They are part of the management team today. The advent of the Micro-Computer, has completely transformed the role of secretarial staff. Electronic typewriters, which have many micro-computing functions, and word processors are now common-place.

Thus the Secretaries of today must set goals, understand and appreciate the vision, mission and goals of their organisation, become a team leader, present ideas professionally to management, communicate more effectively as a presenter, display fact and skill in handling customers and win the confidence and trust of subordinates, colleagues and superiors.

They must also understand and appreciate the concept of good governance, accountability and transparency.

Secretaries of today should therefore, sharpen their skills to work more effectively with the management team. They should understand and appreciate the problems of the management and support the management in several administrative functions.

A one-day induction program for the newly promoted Assistant Managers on the theme "How to be a successful leader", of the Bank of Ceylon was held recently at the Central Training Institute of Bank of Ceylon, Maharagama.

Customer is King

Dr. Kuhathasan said that a customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He does not depend on us. We depend on him. He does not interrupt our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is a part of it.

We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.