Top 10 Tips for Employees in 2024 Pt2

6. Signing a Contract

Congratulations - you have been offered the role and you are provided with a contract for you to review and sign - READ IT! A job contract is a contractual agreement between yourself and the company you are going to work for. The contract should clearly stipulate what your job role is and in return of you doing your job, the company agrees to pay you a certain amount of money.

You HAVE to read and understand the contract to know exactly what you are signing up for so there are no surprises later and/or you not understanding how the company works.

Whilst you are reading the contract make note of anything that you do not understand and send a follow up email to the recruiter for clarity. Only when you are fully comfortable with the terms, should you then sign the contract. Keep a copy of it for you to refer to in the future if required.

7. The first 2 weeks

Within my companies we have a two week period which we communicate to new employees that can allow them to know whether they are happy with the role, the culture of the company, the people etc. This two weeks is also time for our company to know whether they want to continue working with the selected candidate. During this time, you can gauge if there are any concerns or maybe staff have mentioned somethings that you would like clarity on, the first two weeks are very important when you start a job. Make sure you ask questions within this time, get to understand the role and what is required of you and make an informed decision on whether you can continue. It is better to decide early than to waste everybody's time with training and getting you accustomed to a role you are not interested in.

Also, this is a time to see whether your transportation into work is ok and that all around everything is good for you! Nobody wants to hear any excuses later on down the line on why you could not do your job well.

8. When the going gets tough

Disabuse your mind that working is going to be a fairy tale :-) How your employment started will be very different from when it ends. Depending on how long it will take before it ends, you would have hopefully grown as a person. Your growth will require hard times to be encountered. At the start things can be lovely, happy and positive, but when life happens in the work place - it happens, you have deadlines, you may have restricted budgets, failing team mates, challenges at home, personal sickness, you might have to move home - so many hurdles will come your way.

What is important is that you embrace the challenges and grow forward. Every time you encounter a challenge, a hard time, something which makes you feel uncomfortable, something which is not easy - I challenge you to embrace and overcome it. All too often people underestimate the power and the blessings which comes with being able to positively overcome a 'mountain'. The truth is, being able to overcome means that you move the needle in your life, you take one step closer to becoming a better version of yourself who then has the capacity to do more and have more responsibility.

Each time you give up and refuse to deal with a challenge, you go back to the start and commence your journey until you reach the same challenge again but in a different setting. And this becomes a repetitive loop forever and ever until you break it. I always like to tie this to your spiritual growth and answered prayers - we pray for things and wonder why it has not manifested into our lives - it is because we are not ready to receive it, and when God is presenting opportunities for you to get the yes you want, you keep showing up and walking away. Help God help you!

This is why I believe Colossians 3:23 -25 states

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25 Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favouritism."

9. The Resignation

There is a right way to resign and an ideal way to resign.

The absolute cowardice way to resign is to not show up to work and never send an email to HR or management informing them that you are no longer going to be reporting to work.

Second to this is, the age old 'IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION' - sorry something came up and it has caused me to resign, thank you for all that you have taught me at my time in your company and I wish you well in your future endeavours.

The issue I personally have with the latter is whatever the reason you have had to 'immediately resign' have you had a conversation with HR or management about it? Have you given the company you are working for the opportunity to see if they can assist you? If the answer is no, then we suspect that you got a new job and the sick days and the times you came in late, were just times when you were going to interviews - it is rather disingenuous and you have to understand that most of us employers have been in this game long enough to know when somebody is lying to us.

The ideal way to resign is to have a conversation with HR and/or management where you are able to sit down like two adults and discuss your intentions and the reasons why. A conversation can go a long way, you can never anticipate what will come from it. Once you have communicated verbally and you are still proceeding with the resignation, what follows is a respectful email to HR stipulating your resignation and when your last day is. Followed by working for the remaining days, submitting a handover and ensuring that there are no hard feelings when you leave. If you are lucky, you might get a leaving party.

The right way to resign is to submit a letter to HR informing them of your resignation and based on your contract terms, communicating the last day of work. Within this time period, it is important that you work on a handover for management and your colleagues to ensure there is a smooth transition and no hard feelings when you leave.

Just always try to do the right thing, even if somebody is not doing the right thing by you, we are all called to operate on a higher standard than the next person.

10. The Next Job

What did you learn in your previous job? What did you like and didn't like? What worked for you? What do you hope to achieve in the next job? These are all smart questions you should be asking yourself as you move onto your next job. Are you levelling up, taking a step back or on the same track as you were before? How is the next job going to help your personal growth? Is working for somebody for you or do you think you have what it takes to make it on your own?

Take your time to ask yourself tough questions, it is important that you remove the emotions when making the next decisions. You have to be practical and make smart choices.

Remember your career progression is all about your life! It is not about your boss, your colleague or the next person - it is your life! Your choices determine whether you have money in your pocket or not. Your choices determine your growth in life. Your choices determine what opportunities will get presented to you and ultimately where you will end up in life. It is all on you!

Nothing is easy, nothing good is easy, you have to be willing to do the work, push through and suck up your feelings. We are all going through something - even us as employers are going through something. It is not rosey for us as employers - you see your boss with a nice car, eating out, wearing nice clothes etc. it is because they have grafted continuously for many years to get the things they have, even to have a company to employ you in. There have been many sacrifices that they have made, that you may not even be prepared to make - so it is redundant to look at them with a side eye or envy from where you are sitting.

If anything be inspired, be understanding and grow in your own lane.

Guys this is all that I have for you as part of my top tips for employees in 2024.

You can also purchase my book 'How to Get Ahead in Ghana' which takes a deeper dive into being the best version of you. You can inbox me for purchasing details.

Best of luck for this new year!

Nadia