Hey, guys.
It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet.
And this week's video is brought to you by Wealthsimple.
And coming to you live from this incredibly gloomy day--
it must look like midnight outside,
but it's actually 11:00 AM--
I wanted to talk about something that we haven't touched on
in a while but is so important.
And that is how to carry yourself at work.
Particularly, we wanted to talk about all of the things
you shouldn't do at your first year on the job.
And of course, I'm talking mostly
about sort of white-collar professional jobs that
maybe for some of you require you for the first time
to be part of an office ecosystem
and to think more in terms of a long-term career.
But these things can apply to many, many jobs.
And we have a lot of them to cover,
so let's get right into them with eight things
you should never do in your first year on the job.
Number one is forget to write things down.
It can be really easy after a meeting or conversation
to feel like you will automatically
remember what your next steps are
because it feels so fresh in your mind
when you're mid conversation.
But not writing things down will cost you big time, because even
in a fairly simple conversation, there
can be five things that are important to remember.
And it's been demonstrated that actually taking the time
to write things down on a piece of paper
with your hand as opposed to just typing them
can actually be super impactful on helping you remember.
"In 2014, the Association of Psychological Science
reported that students who physically
took notes received a memory boost, particularly when
compared to those who took notes via a laptop."
And aside from being good when it comes to just remembering
what you're supposed to do after a meeting,
writing things down has a huge impact
on helping you reach specific goals.
"Neuropsychologists have identified
the 'generation effect,' which basically says that individuals
demonstrate better memory for material that they've generated
themselves than for material that they've just read.
It's a nice edge to have.
And when you write down your goals,
you get to access the generation effect twice,
first when you generate the goal, creating
a picture in your mind, and second
when you write it down because you're essentially reprocessing
or regenerating that image."
My colleague Annie is the person most notorious
on our team for being super effective at taking great notes
and following through on them.
And she's always getting on me about needing
to be better with doing it for my own personal goals,
as well as remembering what my responsibilities are.
And this video is just to say, Annie, you're extremely right.
But if you still need another good reason
to be really diligent about writing things down,
remember that being the person who
sends a really succinct, easy-to-follow recap
after group meetings can make you
one of the most key people in any team.
You make yourself indispensable, you set a really great example,
and even if you're fairly new on the job,
this is something that anyone can do.
Annie happens to be our team recapper,
and I cannot overstate how much that makes her crucial
for our team.
Number two is eat lunch at your desk.
So there are many reasons why you
should avoid eating at your desk whenever possible and should
especially never slip into it as a routine.
First of all, staying physically inactive throughout your entire
workday is super bad for your health
and can lead you to unwittingly increase your calorie intake
while burning basically nothing.
And while it is true that we do tend to eat more
in social settings, not having a clearly defined lunch period
can lead to constant grazing and snacking.
"According to The New York Times,
'In a study of 122 employees, people on average cached 476
calories worth of food in their desks.'
And additionally, as of 2016, there
are 5.1 million vending machines in the United States,
a number that has grown 96% since 1995."
But beyond the impact that constantly
eating at your desk can have on your health,
both in terms of how much activity you're getting
and how much you're unwittingly eating,
you're also missing out on valuable social time
with your colleagues.
Of course, having time to just bond with colleagues and talk
to them in more abstract ways about things
you might be thinking about have great impacts
on your mental health.
But it also makes you a better employee all around.
According to a Gallup poll, "women
who strongly agree that they have a best friend at work
are more than twice as likely to be engaged as the women who
say otherwise."
So if you can commit to at least a couple days
a week where you get up from your desk
and have a nice meal with your co-worker,
even if it's just moving across the room
and eating homemade lunches, you stand to benefit enormously.
Number three is ignoring your boss's goals.
So one of the things we've mentioned most from The
Financial Diet book-- which if you don't have your copy,
you can grab one at the link in the description--
is an excerpt from our Career chapter from career expert
Joanne Cleaver.
And one of her key pieces of advice
is strengthening your own career by understanding
how your boss is judged.
In the book, Joanne says, "Your goal
is to be known by the right people
and to be known for the right things.
So how do you do that?
Not with your boss--
she has her hands full with getting you and your teammates
to achieve the team's official goals.
Never forget that one of the most important ways
you can build your reputation is to make your boss look good.
This means understanding what incentives
are built into her bonus and how can make
her look good to her boss."
Not only does focusing on helping her look good
allow her to really view you as someone she wants to mentor,
look out for, and really advocate for,
it also shows a much deeper understanding
of how professional careers really work.
A huge element of being a competent professional
is realizing that you are never alone in things.
Professional life is an intricate web
of shared interests, goals, and needs
that are always interacting.
And there can be a tendency to view your career
as an extremely siloed path, but that's never how it actually
is in real life.
You're not just looking at your individual career path
and how it will go.
You're also looking at yourself in terms
of how you fit into the greater web and the impacts
that you're having on the systems in which you're
working.
And ultimately, it is in your self-interest
to view yourself as part of this greater web
and look at your success in terms of how you can most
impact that greater system.
It makes you infinitely more valuable
than if you're just looking out for yourself.
Understanding that working together and looking
beyond your own immediate goals is good for you
in the long term is the level up from just
looking out for yourself.
Number four is be lax about the dress code.
It can be really hard to get used to the idea of "business
attire," particularly if you work
in a more conservative office.
But projecting a professional, stylish,
and grown-up appearance is one of the most subtly effective
ways to no longer be viewed as the "new kid."
But dressing in a more sloppy or overly casual way
can actually have a serious impact on how you work.
"For many, this sloppy attitude can
result in a downward spiral of unproductive workdays,
messiness, and an overall poor approach toward work.
A dress code is one of the most important steps
to follow, to set yourself up for the basics
of professionalism.
If you're unwilling to present yourself as a professional,
it could bleed into your work and others perceptions of you
as an employee.
While a three-piece suit may not be
necessary to get your job done effectively, being put together
and ready to present the best version of yourself certainly
is."
And allowing your personal style to shine through--
within the confines of your overall company's dress code--
is a great way to feel most confident in yourself
while also creating something of a mini personal brand
amongst the office, which people can remember and associate you
with.
But "dressing for work," it should be noted,
does not always translate to dressing in the most fancy way.
For example, if you're someone who
has a really hard time wearing heels
and doesn't feel particularly comfortable in them,
don't wear them.
Either pick really low heels or wedges or super stylish flats
or loafers to allow you to convey that really
put-together, sharp appearance without wearing something
that you're not super comfortable in.
You want to project that confidence and ease,
and that doesn't always translate to the most
fancy or dressed-up thing.
Start by putting together an awesome mood board from places
like Pinterest or Instagram with looks
that you really identify with and which in some way
really translate your personality.
And once you have your mood board set up,
you can start strategically creating your wardrobe
around that.
Number five is stay at the office
later than everyone else.
So a lot of people think that it's a really good way
to show initiative and dedication to a job
to come in earlier and stay later than your co-workers.
And this is a really bad idea for two reasons.
While, of course, you don't want to be the person who's
coming in later and leaving earlier than everyone,
pushing the boundaries of when employees
are staying at the job sets a precedent
that everyone else will subsequently
feel somewhat obligated to follow,
which will make you the annoying person at the office.
But also, it sets a precedent for yourself.
And if you do start to leave at a more reasonable time,
whether because you feel like you don't need to stay as late
or you have other personal conflicts,
suddenly, leaving at a normal time
is going to be perceived as leaving early for you.
It erodes that sense of boundary around your work-life balance
and allows people to feel more and more comfortable
encroaching on your personal time.
Speaking anecdotally, at my first office job,
everyone hated the guy who came in at 7:00 AM
and left at 7:00 PM.
What the hell?
And not only that, overworking yourself
is a surefire way to find yourself stressed, anxious,
and not doing your best work.
"In a study from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
reported by the Harvard Business Review, one in five highly
engaged employees reported a high level of burnout."
And if you have a boss that actually expects
you to come in super early and leave late,
that might be a sign that they're promoting
a super unhealthy work culture.
"Good bosses don't expect you to put in face time
just for the principle of it.
They expect you to get great results in your work.
If that sometimes means that you need
to stay late to get it done, they'll expect you to do that.
But they won't expect you to do it just to 'show dedication.'
In fact, they actively won't want you to do that,
because that's a bad use of your time
and contributes to a messed up culture
that values the wrong things."
Point being, your work should be about results, not
about how long you spend at the office.
On the flip side, number six is get
into the habit of being late.
Now, this may feel like an obvious point.
But as workplaces overall become more casual environments,
it's easy for workers' attitudes to start
becoming more and more lax.
According to a 2017 CareerBuilder survey,
"nearly 64% of employers and employees
believe the concept of 'working 9:00 to 5:00'
is an antiquated practice.
Yet more than half of employers, 53%,
still expect employees to be on time every day, and four in 10
have fired someone for being late."
Now, this doesn't put you, the new employee,
in a very good situation.
It's kind of a lose-lose situation in which you don't
want to push that 9:00 to 5:00 boundary on the whole office
culture.
But you also don't want to be the person who's
constantly showing up late.
The best solution here for you as a new employee
is to err to the side of caution,
coming in at or around 9:00 AM everyday
until you find out if it's the case that your office is more
comfortable with people coming in closer to the 10:00 AM mark.
To be on the safe side, I would not
start coming in on the later side
until it's about a year mark into your working there.
It can be hard to strike the right balance
and not violate the either come in too early or too late rules,
but it's always best to stick to that cautious side
as long as you're new and wait to really fully understand
the office culture before you make any decisions.
Number seven is trust people too easily.
So the truth is while some colleagues may end up
being your friends, not all of them are friend material.
And some may not have your best interest at heart.
It's important to be very cautious when
forming more personal friendships with the people
you work with.
But when you're working your first professional job,
it can be super easy to overestimate how close it's
appropriate to get with the people you work with
or how friendly you really are.
And there can be enormous benefits
to engaging in after-hours socializing
with your colleagues and even drawbacks for not participating
in it.
But it's a fine line to walk.
Simply put, being in daily proximity with people
can make you seem way closer than you actually are.
But just as I mentioned earlier that you are part of that work
ecosystem, it's important to remember
that in that ecosystem, you may not be aligned
with other people's interests.
And beyond that, being overly friendly with co-workers
can put you in serious hot water from an HR perspective.
And this overly friendly, often alcohol-fueled
socializing can be particularly bad for women in the office,
especially when combined with their need
to already overcome certain gender norms and expectations.
"The New York Times recently published a poll
revealing that 2/3 of Americans think that people should take
extra caution among members of the opposite sex at work,
and a third think that one-on-one meetings with them
are always inappropriate.
So it's not just Mike Pence who has
a problem with such encounters.
Traditional patriarchal Christian views
are clearly not to blame for the fact that 44% of American women
actually find it inappropriate to have lunch
alone with someone who is not their spouse."
Point being, between the fact that you may not
be on the same page with co-workers professionally
and the fact that many of these interactions
could border on inappropriate or be perceived as such,
it's always best to approach professional relationships
with polite caution and to only cross that friend line
once you're absolutely sure that it's the right idea.
And usually, that means taking a lot of time
to figure that person out.
Finally, number eight is to quit when it's not perfect.
Now, of course, there will always
be caveats to why it's not a good idea
to quit your first professional job in the first year.
If it's an unhealthy or unsafe work environment or putting you
in a really personally compromised position,
of course, you shouldn't stay there for a full year.
But that said, in the eyes of potential future employers,
repeated short stints at different jobs
is a real red flag.
"Job hopping" is becoming increasingly
popular amongst young workers, but it can also
really hurt your chances of securing a new job.
"According to a survey from global staffing firm Robert
Half, 44% of CFOs reported that they are not at all
likely to hire a candidate with a history of job hopping,
due to the possibility of losing them in the future."
Now, no job is going to be perfect.
But even if you are thinking of quitting,
that decision and the timing of it
should be weighed against your longer-term prospects.
And while sometimes, the answer may be yes, you should quit,
you want to avoid at all costs making a pattern of that
on your resume.
You don't want to become a red flag for future hiring
managers.
But luckily, there are ways to offset this.
"If you decide to leave your position before one year is up,
it is advised to stay at your next job for at least two
to three years.
Leaving the second job early establishes a negative pattern.
It sends the message that you aren't committed to the job
or, worse, that you cause problems within the team."
And even if your first job really doesn't seem ideal,
at least make sure you give it every fair chance
you can before you decide to quit early.
"Before resigning abruptly, new hires
should ask themselves if they're giving the job a fair chance.
New employees' behavior helps determine the amount of support
they receive, according to a 2017 study of 273 new hires
and 203 managers.
Those who seem committed to the job and ask questions
will therefore get more help from managers."
There is a way to be strategic and balance your need
to be in the right work moment with your need
not to be seen as a job hopper.
So make sure to give every decision the full thought
that it deserves, even if it means perhaps staying at a job
a few months longer than you'd like to.
In the end, the professional game you're playing
is a long one.
And making the right decisions early
will help set you up for the career path you deserve.
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As always, guys, thank you for watching.
And don't forget to hit the Subscribe button
and to come back every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday
for new and awesome videos.
Bye.
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