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Personal

Twitter Updates for 2008-05-24

  • Golf lesson, cricket match and working on the Garden in that order today. #
  • @jeetblog I love it Delhi blog camp, i wish I could speak indian #
  • @SouthernGrowth he he #
  • @doshdosh Brilliant love it…. that twitter post #
  • Hoping to watch Martin Scorcese shine a light tonight, #
  • @skinner It does make you wonder…. #
  • http://www.whooah.biz is getting Spam attack just deleted a whole load of spam…. #
  • New post: Destroying the English legal system (http://workconnexions.com/node/625) #
  • New post: Design, SEO & Email Marketing: Stay Ahead of the Game (http://workconnexions.com/node/626) #

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work connexions

Disability

We believe at Work Connexions that everyone has something to contribute to society. It just finding what they are good at….

Understanding Disability and How it can Increase your Company Value

Disabled people have abilities, skills and experience that your business can benefit from. If you make a few adjustments in your policies and at your premises, and add flexibility to work arrangements, you could potentially open up jobs to many more recruits – often at little or no cost.

There are much bigger implications. If one follows the theory that a disabled person can understand for example your website. Then you are developing a clear concise infrastructure. I can not count the number of times that it has taken me 3 times as long to find the information on a badly designed website.

The cold statistics say that about 70 percent of the UK population suffers from one form or another of disability. This can included cognitive problems, through to eye sight problems. Understanding what makes a disability is the first step to acknowledging that your employees are all different and hence have to be treated individually to get the best from them.

There are sound business reasons for employing disabled people. You can:

  • Widen your pool of candidates from which to recruit staff.
  • Gain a competitive advantage by having a diverse workforce which can attract a diverse range of customers – there are over ten million disabled people in the UK, most of whom are potential customers and/or employees.
  • Make your business more representative of the community and foster a better public image as a fair and inclusive business.
  • Improve staff morale and loyalty to a business considered inclusive and representative.
  • Avoid claims of unlawful disability discrimination.

The costs of making adjustments are often very small, and there is financial and practical help available to employers from a range of sources to help improve access and facilities for disabled people.

As well as considering adaptations to your workplace, you could consider employing disabled people as homeworkers. In many cases, their homes will already be equipped to meet their needs.

Letting disabled people to work for your business

You can encourage applications from, and avoid discrimination against, disabled people throughout the processes involved in recruiting and employing people.

Before advertising/recruitment

  • Avoid assumptions. Consider how – perhaps by slightly adjusting working environment or hours – the job could be done by various types of disabled people.
  • Is working from home an option?
  • What non-core functions could be reallocated elsewhere?

Advertising and recruitment

Job descriptions and person specifications shouldn’t discourage applications from disabled people. Include the phrase “applications from disabled people are particularly welcome”, or consider guaranteeing an interview for any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. You may need to make adverts and documentation available in other formats, eg large print, and be prepared to accept applications in other ways, eg on tape.

Interviews and selection

Ensure the location and venue are accessible, and that selection procedures like tests don’t disadvantage disabled candidates.

Induction

Consider whether your induction training is accessible for disabled people. Ask the recruit about access needs during the induction.

Training

Consider any needs of disabled people for training – eg your training programme should take into account an individual’s learning disability or condition, such as chronic backache.

Career development

Allow, and make adjustments for, disabled employees to undergo all training on offer and be fully involved in staff meetings. Don’t overlook disabled employees for promotion because they cannot do a certain task – it might be reasonable to assign tasks to other members of staff.

Disciplinary action

When you take disciplinary action against a disabled employee, ensure you’ve considered any reasons related to their disability for them behaving in the way that prompted the disciplinary action.

Assessing performance and capability

Make allowance for the disability when deciding whether their attendance/performance meets the needs of the job and your business. Some employers might offer ‘disability leave’ as a reasonable adjustment, ie where any absence necessitated by a disability is not counted.

Redundancy

Apply the same arrangements and requirements for redundancy for disabled people as for others. Ensure your selection criteria for redundancies don’t discriminate against disabled employees.

Personal

Twitter Updates for 2008-05-23

  • @NickHumphries nope, wish i could. #
  • wish i had not left my phone at home, doh! long weekend here in the uk 🙂 #
  • @sherrilynne I can go with that Context is King…. #
  • @Kimota he he, #
  • Off too lunch at Paparazzi #
  • Back from a great lunch and a new business contact. 🙂 #
  • Weekend folks I’am out of here 🙂 #

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Personal

Twitter Updates for 2008-05-22

  • Late start today due to my son…all I wanted to do was to show him how to do his tie moan moan.. #
  • New post: Microsoft heading towards Paid Search (http://workconnexions.com/node/622) #
  • New post: Make Money Helping Someone Else Make Money (http://workconnexions.com/node/623) #
  • Some days are much harder than others, why did I not plan this…. #
  • New post: How to Grow your Business Online (http://workconnexions.com/node/624) #
  • @dankarran The food of Dreams happy eating 🙂 #
  • Wow Oil looks like it is going to go through the roof #

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business, development, E-Commerce

How to Grow Your Online Business

1 Comment

To grow an internet business it is much like any business in the physical world. The more contacts you have the more business you can do. So attending networking events, Keeping in touch with related bodies, companies, and individuals is going to keep your name fresh in their mind. In the online world this is done by the same method. I recommend spending an hour a day, subscribing to sites, posting adverts, having a blog, leaving comments on other peoples blogs. It is also important to build up a relationship with any likeminded people. If you like what they do then send them an email, or leave a comment. As the relationship develops you will be able to do reciprocal links. The name of the game is linking. The more links you have pointing to your website the higher your page rank will be, the more traffic you will get, the more business you will do. This is the most ethical way to increase web presence and fundamentally is what the Work Connexions site does.

If you have leanings to the dark side of the force, he he J you can try SEO’s (Search engine optimization). They will do all of the above but not usually by ethical methods. They will set up a bogus site for example http://eaby.com/ which will automatically have links to their customers and will open up a number of windows. (quite often used on porn sites) when you try to close the windows you end up clicking the site. Google and Alex registers this click as a visit. What Google sees is the higher traffic to the website and thus decides that the website is important and gives it a higher page ranking. It also adds up all the links in its database to decide the sites relevance.( A method that is closely guarded and regular changes) So when someone types in a word related to your site on Google you will appear on the first page of results. The risk is with such techniques is that Google will eventually catch you out and ban your page to the salt mines in Siberia never to be found again. In till you sincerely apologise to Google and promise not to use such techniques again. That’s it in a Nut shell. I hope it makes sense……..

Guest Bloggers

Challenge Your Brain for Productivity – 5 MITA Steps

3 Comments

Chris Brown asked, “How do you get more productive with your creativity or stay productive and creative?”

My immediate answer’s quite simple… Challenge your brain because the brain leaps to the adventure of unraveling puzzles and problems.

When folks mine rich resources of their brain to solve problems they’ll be more productive! How so? They use more gifts and talents at work. Why then, doesn’t that happen more?

Interestingly, one barrier is bosses or CEO’s who see themselves as boosting productivity, while in reality they stifle job satisfaction. Misplaced efforts to improve worker morale tend to lessen productivity according to research at University of Michigan. The secret is to empower peoples’ gifts and talents.

Amazingly, MITA strategies worked to increase my personal productivity in ways that changed who I am. Here’s a brief overview with links to provide deeper insights for the five MITA steps that jumpstarted my brain and led to productivity in career and more satisfaction in personal life as well…

Question… Ask questions that connect you personally to problems. That process guides your brain to solutions or new opportunities. Such questions might begin “What if I…” “How might I change…” “What would happen if I tried…” You get the picture.

Target… Make a plan that initiates solutions or strategies for the outcome you have in sight. I began to work smarter and not harder by using short term benchmarks and jotting them in my weekly calendar so I kept progressing toward the overall target.

Expect… What do you expect anyway? Your expectations must be clear and not foggy or nothing gets done. I wrote down exact descriptions for best end results. Do you seek excellence as I do?

Move… What personal resources contribute to the target you have in mind? Most people automatically dip into one or two intelligences used on the job. Some leaders compartmentalize gifts and talents used at work. For instance they use verbal and logical intelligences to tackle tasks day in and day out, so they miss seeing a project through bodily-kinesthetic or interpersonal lenses. To look at your job differently is often to draw on new talents. When you tap into new intelligences to tackle old projects, watch for rejuvenated results!

Reflect…Reflection leads to growth and change that steps you back to see what’s working and what isn’t. That leads to adjustment opportunities along the way. Without reflection, each new flight you take traverses the same path and engages the same components. Ellen Weber, who created the MITA model, claims if reflection is left out, stagnation results. How does reflection guide your productivity?

Many folks want research evidence to know that MITA strategies work. Recently, PhD University lecturers in Ireland, began using MITA strategies as they taught and assessed university students in medical settings. Research conducted in 2006 showed that professors using MITA strategies had 5% increase in student motivation and achievement. Similar results hold true in business settings.

Whether blogging, writing articles, having fun with grandchildren, or keynoting to university faculty, I discovered MITA strategies bring productivity in all facets of my life.

Ben Yoskovitz is the originator of The Ultimate Guide to Productivity – What’s your secret? He’s nearing the 100 posts that he hoped to receive and I hope mine makes the list!

As I read productivity posts on Ben’s web site, some of the interesting tips I took note of are:

Best Productivity Tip: Disable Your Inner-Critic by David Wahl

Ultimate guide to productivity: My tip by Julie Fleming-Brown

Choices Are Made Long Before You Decide – Productivity Tips by Jonathan

Ultimate Tip To Reach GTD Nirvana by Andrew Flusche

Productivity Hint? NO! by Annie Boccio

Chris Brown tagged me… I’m tagging

Paintsmh

Appollomemories

Dan316

SNoel

Jsbi in India

Here’s Ben’s guidelines to enter:

Write a post on your best productivity tips.

1. Challenge yourself by picking your single best productivity tip (although this isn’t a requirement; you can give us more if you want!)

2. Include links to other people that have written posts, or include their tips in your post with proper attribution. And be sure to tag me at Brain Based Biz.

Note: Ben’s not asking that you link to everyone in the group writing project meme; pick the ones you want to connect with. You certainly can link to everyone, but it’s not a requirement. Ben likes leaving more decision making power in your hands so this isn’t just a link grab, but you’re thinking about what your audience & community wants to read about.

A link back to Ben’s post is appreciated though, to help spread the word!

3. If you use Technorati Tags then tag your post “ultimate guide to productivity”.

4. Tag others in your post to spread the meme. Tag as many people as you like!

5. If you link back to Instigator Blog Ben’ll make sure to include at least 2 links back to you. But this isn’t a requirement, it just helps him keep track of what’s going on. And be sure to tag me at Brain Based Biz.

The question “What guides my productivity” was a fun challenge, Chris. Thanks! Now it will be interesting to see how the folks I’ve tagged add to Ben’s big pot! And, if you’d like this challenge, too, just jump in!

Posted by Robyn McMaster at http://brainbasedbiz.blogspot.com/