Working in office is bad for your brain..

Source: Today

LONDON - Working in an office is bad for your brain, according to a study that found that the hustle and bustle of modern offices can reduce productivity by 15 per cent and lead to a 32 per cent drop in the worker's well-being.

LoL.. +1 for Officespace. Seriously I was a victim for the so called 'open office/concept plan'. People are people and we can't really remove the noise and other distractions from the open place. I'm not recommending that we all should be confined to small rooms with sound proof doors but what I prefer strongly is 'telecommute' or work from home. My current company strongly pushes for it so its a win-win for me and I can manage my time much better.

Hope the traditional companies try to be more flexible :)

Only 1 in 5 worker look forward to work each day.. (Lowest in the survey)

Source: HeadHunt

The summary says, that the employees here are at the bottom of the list for work place happiness. They won't look forward to go to work. Only 17% think they would stay with the employer forever (compared to global avg of 35%).

In a nutshell, the problem is when we drive for "cheaper, faster, better" instead of quality this is going to happen. There is a limit for us to be cheap, better based on several factors. Unfortunately today most of our bosses still think with a 70's or 60's mindset. They would like to see us every day at the desk by 8.30, doesn't want to see us leave before 6. Must obey the process, etc etc. While I fully agree that we need to follow the established rules for a purpose, what I don't agree is the usage of process without thinking relevancy.

If you see the systems from USA, you'd understand what I am talking about. If you apply for a VISA, you need to enter your spouse name, details and your parents birth dates etc. Why would they need this information from a person who's going there on a biz trip? Compared to our system their system is inefficient. Same way, compared to lots of developing nations like India, China, our systems are inefficient. We need to be more efficient so that productivity levels can take a boost. With higher productivity, companies can afford higher wages as well as flexibility and in the end employees can enjoy higher quality of life (money+flexibility)

Best employers in Singapore 2011

Source: Aon Hewitt 


Here goes the list for Singapore. I think they've either excluded the MNC's or their survey methodology doesnt take 
big wigs like Google, MS or local giants SIA, ST, Singtel. 


Outstanding

1. Ritz-carlton
2. McDonalds

Best employees

1. Hilti Far East Pte Ltd
2. Singapore food industries 
3. TATA consultancy
4. American Express
5. CITI Bank
6. Federal Express
7. ITE
8. Intercontinental
9. Marriot Hotel
10. Bain & Co SEA
11. Singapore prison service

Best employers in India 2011

Source: Aon Hewitt

As per their recent survey, below is the list. Surprisingly the IT firms in the list are just three (Wipro, Mindtree & NIIT). Rest of them are manufacture segment or Telco's. Sounds strange but seems pretty good indication for the future. Management consultancies, Finance firms couldn't get their share as we normally see in developed markets. If we're to take this as a true reflection at ground, then the days of dream job in an IT firm seems to be over and hopefully we'd see more and more conglomerates will found their place in the list.

1. Hindustan Unilever Limited
2. Aditya Birla Group
3. LG Electronics Ltd
4. Godrej 
5. Bharti Airtel
6. NTPC
7. Becton Dickinson India
8. Aircel
9. Wipro
10. Marriott India
11. Kotak Mahindra
12. Scope International
13. Dr Reddy's
14. Whirlpool India
15. Maruti Suzuki
16. Canon India
17. Ford India
18. Tata Teleservices
19. MindTree
20. NIIT

Channel News Asia Poll on new year resolution

Here goes the screenshot from channelnewsasia survey on 2011 goals. You wouldn't be surprised to see the usual goals like "Loose weight or quit smoking or get out of debt". But in Uniquely Singapore, we can see the top goal is "get a good job". It shows that many people are looking for a change. There was a study done by SBR  and the results are quite inline.

I think it's due to the way people are managed here and for the last couple of years the wage increase was minimal (2007=6.2%; 2008=5.4% & 2009= -2.6%). But considering the inflation rates the real income growth is almost close to Zero.

This holiday period seems to be a good time for updating the resume and start searching for jobs. In Singapore the best bet would be go through the company websites for entry/mid level jobs, and consult a professional for senior level jobs. Best of luck and wish you all a wonderful year ahead.

Resume Score

We all know "The first impression is the best impression". So when it comes to job search, application the single most important element would be the Resume or CV.

Two two A4 papers or 100KB word document is the first meeting with your prospective employer and it needs to represent your 16 years of education, years of working experience and your achivements, as well as who you are as a person.

Now how do you prepare the resume? There are few very good sites that tells a lot on what to enter and what not to enter in the document but the question on how good is my resume always there.

So the folks at "rezscore" did a good job trying to provide a simple front end and (consultancy services if you are interested).

It shows how good is the resume overall, provides the scores for Brevity, Impact & Depth; and the strongest words inside the resume.

If you need some help, you can engage their services too.

 I've submitted my resume and here goes the result. By the way their privacy policy states that they will not be sharing the information with third parties. But use at your own risk.. What I've done is change my personal information and contact details before uploading to the website.