Ceramic Industry

ONLINE EXTRA: Are You Doing All You Can to Keep Your Job? Part 4

June 10, 2009
This multi-part series offers quick tips to help you succeed at work and get ahead.

You can do many things to succeed in your career. Here are some tips to improve your chances of achieving workplace success, in spite of any economic ups and downs.

5. Manage expectations.
From day one, make sure you and your boss are on the same page with what you are expected to deliver. If you don’t know, create your own set of expectations to show your boss, and make changes as needed.

If no six-month or yearly evaluations are set in place within your company, check in with your boss every few months to confirm you are meeting expectations. Document everything, including project feedback from your boss and colleagues, so you can use specific ways to measure your progress.

6. Learn from your mistakes.
We all make mistakes in the workplace. The worst thing to do is try to blame someone else or deny that the mistake was made. The best thing to do is to accept responsibility for your mistakes and learn from them.

Mistakes can help you improve your performance and communication skills with your co-workers and supervisor. Your supervisor will be very impressed if they see you can bounce back from mistakes and keep improving.


Next week, Part 5 in this series will help you communicate with your supervisor.

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Kim Goff is a professional speaker and author who currently serves as communications director for the United Way of York. In addition to being a freelance writer, she also works on Volunteer Now!, a blog for the York Daily Record, and is the Philadelphia Special Needs Kids Examiner for Examiner.com. She speaks on overcoming obstacles, life balance and women in the workplace, and is author of Female Empowerment-A Personal Journey. She can be contacted at kimgoff@excite.com.