Career advices from elderly carry the weight of experience and are often reliable. However, some timeless tips are becoming as ancient as horse-drawn wagons and are becoming a hindrance in promoting employee relations in the current modern place. Here are a few career advices an employee should keep in mind.
Outdated Career Advice: No Sharing Of Personal Life! What's In? Open Up A Little: Share Your Personal Life With Co-Workers & Managers, But Draw the Line!
Your Co-workers are human. Your managers are humans (well, sometimes they are not!). According to The Muse, small talks would give co-workers a hint on what's happening in your personal life. But if you let them in, they may actually get to know you better.
So if you messed up at work or arrived late, they wouldn't be quick to label you as incompetent and irresponsible. They might actually reach out and try to help out, thus promoting healthy employee relations. However, you must draw the line! Never give out personal passwords or, God-forbid, provide details on what happens in the privacy of your bedroom.
Outdated Career Advice: Never Ask For Help. What's In? When In Doubt, Call For Help!
Humans are proud beings. In a workplace, however, people automatically think that an employee is incompetent if they need assistance doing a task. So most people refrain from asking for help and try to go all "Rambo" or "Chuck Norris" and do everything themselves. Often, this leads to unsatisfactory performance in the very least, a disaster if things go wrong.
In today's fast-paced workplace, every moment counts. So if you don't know how to accomplish a certain task, call for help. Admitting to co-workers or manager that you are having a bit of difficulty in certain projects is not a sign of ignorance.
Explain what you are doing, expound on what you have already done, and ask for opinions on how to proceed next. Managers are there to guide you anyway, so seeking advice is within the territory. When in doubt or afraid of being branded incompetent, always remember Count Dooku from "Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith" gleefully saying "twice the pride, double the fall."
Outdated Career Advice: Avoid Social Media Interaction! What's In? Post, Comment, Share, & Like!
This one goes back to our first career advice. By all means, follow your managers and co-workers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just remember to draw the line. You don't want your boss to find out that you filed a sick leave only to have a day at the beach, right?
From the moment we can walk and talk, we have been conditioned to heed the advice of a person in authority. However, some of those timeless career advice are now antiquated, out of place in the modern workplace, and even prove detrimental to promoting healthy employee relations.
