#4 Shopping

Write a list to whom you want to send a card, gift or both. Take your list with you. Break your shopping into smaller excursions. Dedicate one lunchtime or evening looking for specific groups of people, i.e. friends, family, colleagues.

If you really want to make life easier, shop in one department store rather than spend endless hours searching city for those elusive “perfect” gifts. Gift vouchers are also a great idea. In fact they make absolute commonsense. The recipient will be able to use voucher in post Xmas sales and probably purchase twice as much!

Alternatively, don’t leave office...shop on-line.

#5 The Inevitable Invitations

Use a diary and enter all festivities you intend to go to. If you receive an invitation for two parties on same day, make an executive decision and decide which one is most important for you to attend.

# 6 Watch Waistline

Avoid blimp syndrome. If you’re one of millions who get depressed about extra kilos you carry at this time of year, then be more selective at functions. Instead of stuffing yourself with fattiest food ever known to mankind, choose healthier options. Keep booze count down as well. Many careers have been damaged at Xmas functions. Make sure it’s not yours.

The Final Word

Implement these simple, yet very effective ideas and you’ll breeze through silly season. You’ll be able to have a few days/weeks off knowing that you know where you’re heading in New Year and in full control of your life.

Your body will be kept in fairly reasonable shape so you can have a head start when you embark on that inevitable fitness regime, one you’ve kept putting off until Xmas has blown over.

Have a great week

Lorraine Pirihi

The Office Organiser TM

Specialises In...

Personal productivity and life coaching

Dynamic workshops and presentations

Terrific Timesaving products

Accredited Speaking Professional of the National Speakers Association of Australia

Highly Commended Australian Achievers Award 2000.

An open, sensitive work environment, where people understand each other and work together is another key to keeping valued employees. Learn how to recognize different behavioral styles and you’ll be on your way to understanding your boss’s behavior, your team’s behavior and your own way of getting things done. Build rapport with fellow workers, employees and customers to insure your customer service message is getting through to everyone. Do you tend to focus on details while your boss can’t seem to follow through on his promises? Do members of your team want to just keep status quo while others are constantly demanding change? Understand, that people like people who are like themselves. Your customer service and sales departments can build rapport quickly by practicing good rapport skills and understanding that people they work with are not “good” or “bad” because they behave in a certain way. That’s just their “style.”

Management’s role in creating a customer-focused culture must be consistent, planned and clarified. They must make sure that way they measure and reward employee success is consistent with their customer service goals. You can’t expect customer service reps to get off phone quickly and at same time begin to build healthy relationships.

Clarify purpose of becoming customer focused. Each employee should know what role they play in developing and implementing this new customer focused strategy. Internal research must determine what loyalty implementation methods are working and which are not.

Encouraging employees to be open and honest about their expectations, researching what they are truly feeling, establishing consistent guidelines and training employees in understanding diverse behavioral styles in building rapport, reduce risk of losing key employees in today’s volatile work environment.