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Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the workplace was mostly about doing things on a face-to-face basis. Although there were cases where professionals were being hired on a remote basis for remote roles. But, due to the pandemic, more remote roles are being created and maintained. The rules of the workplace are changing and it seems that this change is here to stay.

COVID-19 has made more companies and organizations to consider having their staff work remotely, as a way of reducing person to person contact. Even the rules of the workplace have changed as regards the hiring and selection process, as more candidates are being interviewed and evaluated using tools like Skype and Zoom.

“It came as a surprise when I was contacted by an organization I had applied at for a job, that they wanted to conduct a virtual interview with me, I had never experienced anything like that before”, says Ngozi, a client of ours.

Ngozi went ahead and aced her interview and she was hired remotely at an international organization.

So, you see, the rules of the workplace are changing and all job candidates need to change their mindsets to reflect this change which is capable of becoming a permanent feature in the world of work.

According to Dan Schawbel of Workplace Intelligence, COVID-19 has not only transformed the employee experience, but also the candidate and hiring experience. Schawbel also writes that some of the trends currently ongoing in the workplace, include permanent remote work, an emphasis on virtual learning, a focus on diversity and inclusion, and the changing face of the office space.

As a job candidate, your job is to ensure that you are educating yourself more on the changing trends and adjust your expectations. For instance, if you were expecting to relocate for the job of your dreams, you should also be open to the idea that relocation might not happen, and you should be willing to work remotely.

What if you are used to attending face-to-face interviews? Now is the time to learn techniques of virtual interviews. There are set rules for virtual interviews and if you are actively applying for jobs now, it will be in your best interest to learn all about them.

Also, if you are currently interested in learning more and getting certified in various skills, you should be open to online learning. We have always advised our readers at Lingo Africa, to take advantage of online courses from Coursera, edX, Khan Academy and others.

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/rules-of-the-workplace-are-changing-and-professionals-should-take-note/

Lingo Africa.

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It is a good thing to see someone who you think qualifies as a mentor, someone you can easily learn from when it comes to breaking new grounds in your career. At Lingo Africa, we always advice people to take on mentors, so they can learn more and have access to more people and grow their professional network.

A lot of young professionals have found mentors and reached out to them and they have connected with them and started making visible improvements in their various careers. However, what happens when as a professional, you reach out to a potential mentor and you are ignored or you are accepted, but after sometime, the mentor or mentors start stonewalling you?

We have consulted with people who were stonewalled by their mentors, for no good reason. In fact, we spoke to a young man who felt bad because he thought he had gained a mentor but at some point, he started experiencing some kind of evasiveness from his mentors. If he sends emails, they go unanswered, his whatsapp messages go unanswered as well, even though they had been read.

After asking him some important questions and verifying that he had done nothing to cause his potential mentors to ignore and evade him, we told him that a lot of potential mentors always try to avoid those who do not want to take action but expect to be spoon-fed. But, this young man had proved himself to be a mentee who takes action and has also spent a considerable part of his career, proffering solutions to problems in his industry.

So, why was he experiencing this? Why do some mentors deliberately stonewall potential mentees?

They are the sort of mentors that have overextended themselves to the extent where they do not have the time to follow a mentee up and they may not say so. In the end, they give all sort of promises and they end up not following up their words with actions.

Or they are so absorbed in themselves and they do not yet have the mindset to include mentoring others and create visible impact in the lives of others, so they do not really invest their time in the lives of potential mentees.

Or they do not necessarily see the mentee as someone worth investing their time on. Sorry, but this is how some potential mentors think, because they are so interested in social status and if a mentee does not fit into that class they are comfortable in dealing with, they will not be willing to go further with that mentee.

As a potential mentee, your job is to look out for signs and when you see that your potential mentor is not interested in you, move on. As long as you are serious and you are willing to do your homework, you will find worthwhile mentors.

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/mentors-can-stonewall-potential-mentees-for-some-reasons/

Lingo Africa.