Being on Right Side of Office Politics While at Work
Politics isn’t only practiced in government buildings and learning how to deal with it in the workplace, whether you are working in an office and at home, can be key to being happy and successful at your job. Unfortunately, you probably don’t have to have the skills of a senator or representative to avoid political problems in the job.
“This is probably the last thing you want to be worried about it,” said Alan Hubbard, NTI Inc. LandAjob’s Chief Operating Officer. “You just want to be doing your job the best you can, but the reality, every business has a degree of politics involved and you want to make sure you aren’t on the wrong side it.”
Being able to avoid office politics comes down to an understanding how the company works and making sure you are standing out at your job and becoming irreplaceable. You want to also make sure you are handling conversations in a professional manner and presenting your ideas in a similar way, and not aligning yourself with the office gossipers or talkers. Not picking sides is a good strategy for not getting caught up on the wrong end of office politics. LandAjob helps Americans with disabilities find jobs with their free database of more than 600,000 jobs in the United States. They can also help you learn how to find out how to get up to $13,000 in job expenses and reimbursement Register at www.landajob.com
“Office politics can be tricky to navigate, but you don’t want to be on one side of the other working against a group,” said Hubbard. “You want to be known as a positive person, not someone who complains and is an office gossip. That will only hurt your position in the company. People quickly identify the people who are the gossipers or don’t work well with others.”
Whether you are working at home or remotely, you are going to run into people that don’t mesh with you. They can be the negative co-worker, the competitive coworker, the office gossiper, the bully, and the non-working coworker. How you deal with the various character types can determine your success and happiness at a company.
“One of way to deal with the negative worker is to be ask them to describe the situation ask them for ideas on solving the problem,” said Hubbard. “You don’t want to shut them out, because you might have the solution to the problem with their answer.
“With the competitive worker, you might run into a problem where they want all praise and to move up in the company. This person is probably insecure and is afraid of you, but you want you to show them you want to work them. A good idea to write down what you are doing on the project to protect yourself against being jumped over by the competitive coworker.
“The gossiper is looking for information, but you don’t have tell them anything and you want to stay out any questions that don’t directly pertain to your work,” added Hubbard. “Bullying shouldn’t be tolerated. You might not be comfortable confronting them but reaching out to human resources can be effective in getting it stopped. If you are being harassed, make sure you are documenting it.”
If you have a job that involves working collaboratively, you could run into the worker who doesn’t pull his or her weight and has a boatload of excuses for why they can’t get their part done.
“The first instinct can be to avoid this and do the work yourself because it is often easier,” said Hubbard. “Of course, this is the worst thing you can do. The best strategy is to explain to them how they are need to be counted on to do their job.”
Whether you are a good politician or not, knowing how dealing with bad politics at work will help you excel in your position.
“By developing your own plan for success and understanding the political landscape at your job, you will be much more effective,” said Hubbard. “You want to be a person the company can’t function without.”
(LandAjob helps Americans with disabilities find jobs with their free database of more than 600,000 jobs in the United States. They can also help you learn how to find out how to get up to $13,000 in job expenses and reimbursement Register at www.landajob.com.)