While ‘praise’ should be given as close as possible to the actual event or accomplishment to have the greatest impact, ‘criticism’ involves timing.

Specifically, the best time to give criticism might be:

1. Immediately following the action or behavior.

2. A short time after the action or behavior.

3. A long time after the action or behavior.

4. Prior to the next situation when you believe the action or behavior might occur again.

Below are six factors that can help you decide on the best ‘time’ to criticize:

The seriousness of the action or behavior:  Some general examples include if the employee broke the law, violated a regulation, jeopardized the safety of others, caused financial harm to others, or used profanity when talking to a client. 

Of course, serious to you and your company could be something totally different than for another manager or company.

Bottom line, your goal is make sure the person does not continue performing in the same manner.

The number of times the action or behavior has occurred:  If what the person did involves a one-time occurrence, you might want to wait to see if he or she repeats the performance.

However, if the performance is something that has occurred before, you will want to discuss it more quickly than if it never happened before. 

Whether you will have future opportunities to give the negative feedback prior to the next situation when you believe the action or behavior might occur again: 

This might be the case if the person works in a location that is different from yours or works independently. 

Whether the action or behavior will affect other areas of the person’s job:  If the person’s performance would prevent him or her from successfully being able to complete some other task, discuss the performance more quickly than if there is no impact on other areas of the job. 

Whether the action or behavior will affect other areas of someone else’s job:  If the person’s performance would prevent another coworker, team member, or colleague from successfully being able to complete some other task, discuss the performance more quickly than if there is no impact on the jobs of other people. 

Your ability to discuss the action or behavior in an environment that would allow the person to receive the criticism without becoming hostile or overly reactionary:  Sometimes people react differently when in a crowd or when in an environment where they feel their actions will be supported (even if those actions are wrong). 

Additionally, consider that people do not want to be embarrassed and may not want other employees to know that they did something wrong. 

Also, consider that the location itself might cause the person to react negatively.
For example, criticizing a person about a safety violation in a location where another employee was seriously harmed. 

Be sensitive to these facts and make sure that the location where you criticize does not make it any more difficult for the employee to hear the negative feedback. 

Remember The Importance Of TIMING

In the workplace, there will be situations when employees perform poorly and make mistakes.  In those instances, you will need to criticize performance by giving negative feedback.  Just remember that ‘when’ you criticize is just as important as ‘what you say’ when criticizing.  Use the six examples in this article as a reminder of the importance of TIMING.

Dr. Barbara Brown trains, writes, and consults on strategies to enhance and improve workplace performance.

Get the iPhone and iPad APP Ways To Praise And Criticize Employee Performance:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ways-to-praise-and-criticize/id421136132?mt=8

Take back control and put an end to your hostile workplace this very moment, grab Work Laws Exposed right now. You can’t alter a situation you don’t like and don’t warrant without having an open mind, believing in yourself, and taking action.

Are they called Post-It notes because Stick-It notes sounded just a bit too hostile for the workplace?

Answer
Sure couldn’t use them in banks!

Bullying in the workplace is a very common occurrence and highly difficult to tackle with also.  Groups of people or in certain cases just individuals alone make use of aggressive and unreasonable behavior with their subordinates or co-workers.  Very frequently bullying in the workplace can take different forms and it could be physical abuse, verbal or non-verbal, psychological, or just humiliation.

Childhood bullies could be tackled with easily with adult intervention and counseling given to the person involved in bullying. However, bullying in the workplace and finding a solution to the same is a daunting task. This habit has been perpetrated by the management and is found to be either covert or overt bullying.  
There are in fact different kinds of definitions in place of a single formal definition to explain bullying in the workplace. While a few opine that it is the behavior and actions of a harmful boss, a few others are of the opinion that it just is restricted to the immediate supervisor, boss or manager.  While bullying is going on, there is a strong combination of different malicious tactics and hostile communication that is used with the employee.
 
In some cases workplace bullying and mistreatment mar the health of the employee as the person that is bullying will use different styles like humiliating, intimidating, threatening or sabotaging the work that the subordinate is doing.

There is a constant flow of aggressive communication that disturbs the person who is being bullied to no end. And there is also manipulation of work and actions that will degrade or humiliate the individual to no end. This will create a totally unhealthy working atmosphere for the target and as a result there is a crumbling down of the moral strength of the target.

Bullying in the workplace can occur in different forms and in different contexts too. you may identify this kind of an unruly behavior as bullying when there is a frequent repetition of this kind of humiliating behavior, is enduring, is constantly increasing in aggression and the target lacks the power to defend himself. As a result there is a great amount of job stress and dissatisfaction that overwhelms the person.  This in turn leads to lower levels of morale and a feeling of helplessness that at times might end up in dire consequences.

As presumed, it is more women when compared to men that fall victims to bullying targets in the workplace.  Cyber bullying is the latest type of bullying that is doing rounds on the internet circuits.

Brendan runs a website dealing with Bullying in the Workplace and what to do about it if you are the one being bullied. For More details Please visit www.bullyingintheworkplace.net

Grasp back control and put an end to your hostile workplace this very moment, get Work Laws Exposed right now. You can’t change a situation you don’t like and don’t deserve without having an open mind, believing in yourself, and taking action.

Is This List True – AOL’s 10 Workplace Rights You Think You Have… but Don’t?

1. Wrongful Termination

You can be fired for any reason that the boss wants. Most of the time they don’t even have to give a reason.

2. Seeing Your File

No federal law requires private employees to see their own personal files.

Sometimes the only way is through a court order.

3. Break

No federal laws require employees to have breaks for any reason. Sometimes state law covers that.

4. Hostile Work Environment

A hostile workplace is not illegal.

Only harassment due to race, age, sex, religion, national origin, disability, color, taking Family and Medical Leave, whistle blowing, or some other legally-protected status is illegal.

5. First Amendment

Only gov’t employees have the first amendment right.

6. Invasion of Privacy

Your boss can inspect your office/work space, e-mails, and internent access whenever they want.

Workplace phone calls sometimes have restrictions that require a court order.

7. Right-to-Work State

All this means is that your boss can’t require you to join a union to work over there.

8. Retaliation

No laws prohibit employees from retaliating against another; as long as it doesn’t involve a legally protected category.

9. Discrimination

Only discrimination based on age, pregnancy, race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, color and genetic information are illegal.

10. Sueing the Boss

Most laws do not allow the company boss to be sued individually; except for wage and hour violations.

Answer
Yep, pretty much. The bit about age discrimination isn’t even entirely accurate because it only applies to people over 40. If you’re under 40 then your employer is totally allowed to discriminate on that basis too.

ADD: The article is also correct that sexual orientation is NOT a protected class. It might be in various cities or states but it is not true at a national level.

Professionals working within mental health care facilities and dealing with individuals with learning disabilities, autism, challenging behaviour or special needs, will know that bites from humans are relatively common in their work environments.

If you are one of these professionals, then you will also know that bite related injuries can become infected.

Most of these human bites occur on the fingers or hands, and may be contaminated with pathogens, even if there are no clinical signs of infection. However, the transmission of viruses (e.g. hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV) following human bites is much less common.

The Department of Emergency Medicine at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough published a study in 2008.  This study illustrates the fact that a retrospective 4-year review of 3136 case notes was conducted, identifying 421 human bites. This amounts to one every 3 days!

The management of these wounds was found to be poor. 17% of patients did not receive any antibiotic cover; 21% of patients either did not have tetanus prophylaxis administered when required or had a tetanus booster when they were already covered; 34% of patients either did not receive a hepatitis B booster when one was required or received one when they were already covered.

Initial response after a human bite

Should a bite incident occur within your organisation please immediately assess if the bite has broken the skin, and put on record who was bitten, by whom, when and where.

Please note that if the bite is particularly severe, the injured person might be in need of urgent first aid treatment, such as control of bleeding. Medical advice should be sought for all human bites which break the skin.  Full clinical assessment should be carried out to investigate any potential infection, foreign bodies, damage to blood vessels, nerves, tendons, joints or bones.

If the bite has broken the skin you need to encourage the wound to bleed, clean the wound carefully with running water and cover the wound with a waterproof dressing.  Then seek medical attention and ensure a proper clinical assessment.

Bite resistant clothing can make a difference

All activities within mental health care facilities are of course undergoing specific risk assessments in order to reduce the risk of workplace related bite attacks and bite injuries.  So, there is only that much we can do in order to prevent injuries and reduce the risk of bite injures using better procedures, systems or policies. Can bite resistant clothing help?

The use of bite resistant clothing has now become a very effective approach to improve the personal safety of mental health care professionals, reducing the risk of infections.

Especially bite resistant sleeves have recently been issued to a number of mental health care professionals.  Our normal instinctive response when faced by a potential hostile or attacking individual is to lift our arms and hands in order to protect our head and facial area.  This subsequently exposes our forearm and hands to a much higher risk of injuries.  In fact the majority of injuries found on police or security professionals can be found on their forearms or hands.  These injuries are classed as defensive injuries.  Bite resistant sleeves will dramatically reduce the risk of bite injuries on arms and hands.

All bite resistant garments can comfortably be worn under any existing item of clothing or uniform.  However, it is worth pointing out that bite resistant clothing reduces the risk of human teeth penetrating the other person’s skin very effectively, but will not stop the potentially painful effect due to the pressure and force of the human jaw. So the risk of infection will be eliminated, but the risk of bruising remains.

Only a very few specialist manufacturers of protective clothing are capable of creating bite resistant clothing offering an even higher bite protection level, which can be achieved by adding either very thin and flexible layers of leather, rubber, polyethylene (plastic) or other advanced technical materials.  This type of bite resistant clothing would substantially reduce the pain created by the crushing force and subsequent bruising.

Some mental health care professionals might prefer such high level of bite protection, as it can offer great protection for very specific areas, such as the female breasts, which have often been subject to very violent grabs or nips.

If you have any questions in reference to bit resistant clothing please do not hesitate and contact the author.

Robert Kaiser is the CEO of PPSS and a globally respected expert on lone worker safety and personal protective equipment (PPE).  He is frequently invited to speak in front of large audiences of police, prison, emergency services, security or health care professionals, advising them on the potential use of protective clothing and body armour.

Grasp back control and put an end to your hostile workplace this very moment, get Work Laws Exposed right now. You can’t alter a position you don’t like and don’t warrant without having an open mind, investing in yourself, and taking action.

Do you believe porn is going on in the workplace?

Originally published 04:45 a.m., October 18, 2009, updated 12:55 p.m., October 18, 2009

Workplace Porn Wastes Time, Cash

Cheryl Wetzstein

First of two parts

On Sept. 29, my Washington Times colleague Jim McElhatton led the paper with a story about National Science Foundation (NSF) employees accessing pornography at their work computers.

The porn problem was pervasive enough to trigger a massive internal investigation. One senior NSF executive, for instance, had “spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women, without being detected,” Mr. McElhatton reported, based on records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The NSF executive retired once his pornography use was exposed, but investigators estimated that he alone wasted between $13,800 and $58,000 of taxpayer monies.

No one should imagine that the NSF scandal is isolated or rare. Workplace pornography is a major problem, according to the American Management Association (AMA).

Employers are fighting back with anti-porn filters on computers; as of 2007, about two-thirds of U.S. companies used such software, the AMA said. But there are still ways to evade the filters, and inexplicably, many employees seem determined to access porn at work, even if it costs them their jobs.

Listen to these comments, gathered by Idaho Post-Register reporter Corey Taule in an award-winning 2007 article on pornography.

Mark J. Holubar, a human resources executive, told Mr. Taule that his company is clear about its no-porn-at-work policy, but he still had an employee confess to him: “Yeah, I know I did it. I know it was wrong. I don’t know why, I was just doing it.”

And Gordon Boyle, a pastor at Calvary Chapel Church in Idaho Falls, Idaho, who counsels men for sex addiction, said it was “so bizarre” that employees would look at porn even when they knew they were being monitored. “I don’t think we understand the grip or the pull [of pornography],” Mr. Boyle told Mr. Taule.

That, I think, is the big question: What makes presumably well-educated, well-paid professionals risk everything they worked for just for another look?

The answer is simple — sex addiction, says Michael Leahy, author of the new book “Porn @ Work: Exposing The Office’s #1 Addiction.”

Mr. Leahy, a recovering sex addict, believes he was one of the first people to get involved with workplace porn. As an IBM computer specialist in the early 1980s, he and colleagues used porn at work years before online pornography and personal computers entered American homes. Later, as an executive with a private office and top-of-the-line computers, Mr. Leahy found even more ways to spend hours engrossed in porn.

“I was that person who is every line manager’s and HR professional’s worst nightmare — the sex addict at work who flew under the radar for years and never got caught,” Mr. Leahy wrote.

How does porn interfere with work? Initially, it just consumes countless hours (viewing images, concealing images, plus regular trips to private places to masturbate).

As the compulsive behaviors grow, porn-related rituals detract from work performance, Mr. Leahy wrote. A person preoccupied with porn, for instance, will miss meetings, fail to make calls or leave projects unfinished. They may seem to undergo a personality change, becoming easily irritated, unreasonably defensive or socially withdrawn.

It’s not uncommon for sex addicts to lose their spouses or their jobs, Mr. Leahy wrote. They also are prone to acting out sexually, exposing themselves to sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy, or legal problems “ranging from nuisance offenses to rape,” Mr. Leahy wrote. Business managers, he added, are particularly alarmed by sexual harassment or hostile workplace lawsuits filed over employees’ bad behavior.

Mr. Leahy has some solutions to offer, but first he wants to sound the alarm about college students.

Their college experiences are in a pornography-friendly subculture, he told me. “But the key is, when they have to stop — when they are made to stop — what will they do?”

Next week: Collision course.

• Send e-mail to cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/18/wetzstein-workplace-porn-wastes-time-cash/?feat=home_columns&

Answer
Is this a serious question, or are you an outlet for the washington times?

Taking it as a question, yes. Pron is pervasive and for some reason, women especially, pron is a narrow minded viewpoint of looking at scantiness on a media (screen, paper, magazine) rather than it being a pervasive fact of life. So the front cover of Nuts magazine could be described as pronographic. So could most women in female orientated workplaces. But no, only Nuts gets the shotgun of objectivism.

The situation is wider than most women and the article suggests.

Bob