Chapter 16: Workplace Readiness

What We’ll Cover >>>

• Life/Work Balance
• Workplace Readiness
• In-person Workplace
• Hybridized Workplace
• Mobile Workplace
• At-home Workplace
• Legal Rights with Technology
• Tips and Techniques
• Special Concerns

This chapter will focus on the business technology workplace. The workplace – unlike when the author was a young ‘un slogging barefoot through miles of snow to a one-room office building – is rarely a single ‘workspace’ for people. It has completely blown apart and come back as an assembly of workspaces connected by technology tools and resources. Certainly, many jobs remain tied to a physical workplace, like a mechanic’s workpit, an industrial plant’s assembly floor, a hospital setting, restaurant kitchens, etc. However, more support work and professional data/product/services workplaces have become mobile, only tethered by equipment and access to company resources.

Much high-value support has also been evolving to be primarily cognitive in nature. It requires constant data access, analysis, and manipulation to express and serve complex needs like customer management, financial administration, and education / skills-provision. Inventory, healthcare, manufacturing, travel, entertainment, transportation, energy & utilities, and most other industries have moved into a much more cloud-based and tech-reliant stage. The digital work market demands new ideas, information and business models that continually expand, combine and shift into more new ventures. Employees must consistently upskill so digital dexterity can meet ever-changing business needs.

Life/Work Balance

Before delving more into this chapter, I am going to step out of ‘author’ identity and into ‘colleague.’ I want to share some important things to consider.

We are exposed to unending waves of advice, articles, tips, and training on how to find, get, keep, and live a job. The focus and priorities change from year to year, but they are all the same: you are your work, you are a ‘worker,’ your life is supposed to revolve around all things employment. Okay. . . no.

This chapter will cover information that are based on general career intelligence and experiences of a lot of people. However, our priority in life should be our own sense of life / work balance. Work is hopefully a personal ‘drive’ and contribution, and certainly a way to earn income and tools for personal needs and security. It isn’t and shouldn’t be our full identity, a sole purpose of living, a soul-sucking trap, or something that isolates us from family, life experiences, hopes and goals, etc. We need to keep all that in mind, and focus on balance, flexibility, and continuously growing so we can open more doors for ourselves. AND, think of yourself as “talent,” not ‘employee’ or ‘worker’ or ‘material.’ You’ll be able to thrive and be able to find diverse ways to employ your skills and abilities.

Back to author mode.

Workplace Readiness

Workplace readiness includes personal qualities, people skills, and professional traits that are necessary to maintain employment. These skills are important because they are the most desirable skills employers are searching for in potential talent. They also give the best chance of career mobility.

Work readiness skills include:

• Communication: Communications is a range of verbal, written, body/face expression, and actions. It takes place in person, in video conferences, in chats, in email, in documents, and in forms for customers, payroll, and regulatory needs. Clear language skills are necessary, and when one is working with (for instance) English as a second language, a priority has to be to keep learning ways to be clear, consistent, and easy for others to understand and work with. Communications also requires logic/reasoning, respect for others, and an ability to follow-up to ‘resolve’ a subject. Finally, timing is important: communicating the right things at the right time, early and often in processes, when as soon as possible when there is a challenge to be handled, etc.
• Digital: Includes computing skills like keyboarding, file organization and storage, basic computer care habits, and productivity tools. Digital/Internet skills like connecting, maintaining privacy and security, searching and accessing information, and practice of understanding of computer security fundamentals. Behaviors like ethics in using digital assets and professional communication standards for social connections.
• Interpersonal: People-facing skills like teamwork, conflict resolution, respect for diversity and equity, and inclusive win-win strategies. Be able to read and respond positively to body language; focus on people as individuals like yourself rather than material to get something out of. Avoid judgementalism, prejudice, and discrimination.
• Job-specific: Core academic skills, job industry kills training, and in-the-job environment expertise. You need to bring skills and experience, and be able to learn employer-specific routines, practices, activities, and equipment.
• Life management: Adulting skills like being able to prioritize, manage time, organize yourself, take responsibility, and use sound personal financial practices. Keeping personal stuff personal. A mobile and ever-changing work market also requires flexibility, reliability, and the ability to keep learning new skills.
• Problem-solving: Ability to find and recognize accurate information, perceive and minimize info bias, prioritize steps of action, use critical thinking practices, have creativity in seeking solutions, and focus on win-win results that support everyone involved.
• Work ethic: Focus on adding value to the work and results – especially for those in customer positions (like you in other non-work situations). Sense of responsibility to a safe and positive workplace. Doing work well because it should be. Willingness to keep upskilling. Separating personal things from the workplace. Recognizing a healthful balance between life and work demands.

In-person Workplace

An in-person workplace involves going to a work location every day. Considered desk-bound, or workplace bound, in-person workplaces can be in office buildings, industrial factory locations, design and media workshops, restaurants, oil rigs, hotels, retail storefronts, hospitals, law-enforcement, schools, etc. Some transit-related services are in-person workplaces, like work on buses, trains, planes, ships, filming locations, and other places in which colleagues and infrastructure of some kind present in person. It is characterized by:

• Commuting to employer’s workplace.
• Desk/cubicle assignment.
• Dress code and behavior expectations.
• Employer managed on-site computing, data, and tech support.
• Employer-provided work resources, like infrastructure, computers, servers, desks, shared spaces, digital connections, machinery, and company knowledgebase.
• Employer responsibility for workplace safety, security, ergonomics, monitoring, etc.
• Hierarchy of prioritization of work and expectations.
• In-person connections like visiting offices, hallway chats, etc.
• On-site meetings and teamwork.
• Shared spaces like kitchen, cafeteria, restrooms, lobby.
• Work product and services provided from employer-provided location.

The Covid pandemic challenged this traditional work model in a lot of industries and support positions when a significant portion of the workforce needed to stay out of public areas like commuting transit, lobbies, elevators, shared workspaces, etc. There are pros and cons to the in-person workplace:

Benefits

• Assets and work product clearly belongs to employer.
• Clear policies and regulatory expectations.
• Equipment and resources are maintained by the employer.
• Feeling more productive in the work space than at home.
• No home-related interruptions from children or visitors.
• Clear line between work and outside life.
• In-person team building and interactions.
• Face-to-face contact with customers, colleagues, vendors, and supervisors.
• Networking with colleagues, workshops, and conferences.
• Professional appearance standards.
• Sense of being recognized and accessible for promotion.
• Working directly with vendors and providers.
• Worker productivity high with employer-supported resources.

Concerns

• Commuting time, costs, and inconvenience.
• Expenses for dress code and for work time meals.
• Impersonal or ‘canned’ environment.
• Inflexibility of work hours and workflow.
• Lack of privacy from monitoring.
• Limited autonomy.
• Sense of being judged for promotability.
• Work and home life balance driven by the employer.
• Workplace safety and security issues.

Hybridized Workplace

A hybrid model involves employees going to a primary in-person workplace a percentage of the time and spending the rest of their time working from home, such as three days in and two days home. It is a flexible model that can translate to a fixed number of days per week or visiting the office on a required as-needed basis for important meetings and check-ins with the team. It requires employer support, access to employer infrastructure, and reliable from-home access to employer tools, connection, cloud space, etc.

Benefits

• Access to onsite equipment and resources some of the time.
• Assets and work product clearly belongs to employer.
• Balance of work and home life.
• Daily autonomy balanced in favor of worker.
• Limited commuting.
• Maintaining some professional presence and appearance.
• Meetings can be attended in person or remotely.
• Regular work resources connection through cloud resources.
• Semi-regular in-person interactions with colleagues and teams.
• Semi-regular visibility in the workplace.
• Worker productivity high with employer-supported resources.

Concerns

• Day-to-day challenges making hybrid model seamless.
• Difficulty meeting and teamwork schedules.
• Disconnect between in-office and remote employees.
• Employer’s lack of a commitment to the remote model needs.
• Lack of daily/assigned office work space.
• Mismatch of equipment and resources between workplace and home.
• Perception of employees getting away with something.
• Risk of being “on” more worktime – and overworked – because of lack of delineated ‘work-away’ environment and excessive use of online communications.
• Unclear policies, regulatory expectations, and safety support regarding home workplace.

Mobile Workplace

A mobile workforce doesn’t have employees bound by a specific workplace environment, even if they often work in-person. Workers function primarily between different work bases, in ‘the field,’ in vehicles (taxi/freelance drivers) and/or in shared coworking spaces designed for consulting/freelancing. Can include temp/project workers, freelancers and gig workers, traveling sales, inspectors, etc. Employees are connected by various types of mobile technology: computers, smartphones and other mobile devices.

Benefits

• Assets and work product negotiable.
• Balance of work-related and home work space.
• Choices about commuting.
• Control over most of work equipment and resources.
• Flexible scheduling and location.
• Home and work life balance driven by the worker.
• Personalization in professional presence and appearance.
• Work resources connected through cloud resources.
• Regular interactions with colleagues in person and/or remotely.
• Work-for-self autonomy.

Concerns

• Assets and work product can be controlled by work-for-hire agencies.
• Challenges of stable, as needed, and affordable cloud and resource access.
• Disconnect from regular in-office workplace standards.
• Gig and contract work ratings, invoicing, payment, and taxes.
• Home life and work balance can be driven by clients/customers and/or employment agencies.
• Irregular work schedule.
• Juggling other workers’ schedules.
• Lack of daily/assigned work location.
• Lack of stable employment, salary and benefits.
• Lack of policies, regulatory expectations, or safety support regarding mobile workplaces.
• Primary/sole responsibility for work equipment and resources.
• Perceptions that worker isn’t ‘working.’
• Risk of being overworked because of too-flexible client needs and excessive use of online communications.
• Stress of separating work from life.
• Worker productivity depended on clients, agencies, and sometime uneven access to resources and connections.

At-home Workplace

An at-home workplace involves the work location being solely/mostly a worker’s home location. It can be considered desk-bound, or workplace bound, but support and cognitive-level work is be done away from a centralized employer workplace – with the right employer commitment and groundwork. It is characterized by:

Benefits

• Assets and work product clearly belongs to employer if on employer time and resources.
• Access to employer equipment and resources at home.
• Daily autonomy balanced in favor of worker.
• Flexibility (some) in daily schedule.
• Lower employer infrastructure needs and costs.
• No commuting.
• Online meetings, conferences, and teamwork.
• No workplace monitoring other than equipment/cloud hours.
• Small budget needed for professional appearance or workplace lunches.
• Worker productivity high with employer-supported resources.

Concerns

• Can’t monitor employee daily activities other than by computer.
• Challenges of accessing employer resources.
• Complexity of tax preparation for home office status.
• Disconnect between employees.
• Employees may have limited at-home workspace.
• Home interruptions to workflow and in tele-meetings.
• No visibility in the employer’s workplace.
• Risk of being “on” more worktime – and overworked – because of lack of delineated ‘work-away’ environment and excessive use of online communications.
• Routine non-work interruptions.
• Separation of work from home space and time.
• Technical support of hardware.
• Unclear policies, regulatory expectations, and safety support regarding home workplace.
• Unclear ownership of assets and work product on employee resources and time.

In any environment, the biggest worry for employers is productivity, given any limits of oversight of employees and variable access to and responsiveness of work equipment, resources, and connectivity.

Workers may feel as productive in a home workspace, dependent on stable access to equipment/resources and minimal interruptions.

Legal Rights with technology

Rights to work-related activity are in flux, especially with the nature of Internet and digital aspects of work. In-person workplace rights, policies, and regulations tend to be the most clearly delineated and able to be managed with human resources and legal systems. Rights of mobile work-related activity has different but still somewhat delineated rights, policies, and regulations related to self-employment. The lines blur when dealing with hybridized and at-home workplaces, since employees may experience a mix of employer-supported resources/services and responsibility for some of their own tools and environment.

Employers can and do set policies, procedures, and actionable consequences for workplace-related concerns. US labor law favors employers, and employment is usually considered to be ‘at will’ which means that employers can terminate employees at any time, for any reason, with little requirement to prove ‘just cause’.

It has to be up to every employee – of any kind – to find, access, and digest work-related regulatory information about: work product ownership, use of and responsibility for employment assets and connections, what time-keeping of work hours should account for, and what is supposed to be covered by privacy, safety, and security regulations.

TIP: Employee Responsibility. It is also up to every employee to “adult” in the workplace. Whether you like an employer/job or not, you are agreeing to rules and accepting compensation for working on behalf of them, and others (like customers, patients, students, vendors) rely on you. That makes you responsible for your own work-related behavior. If you don’t want to be messed with, don’t mess with work.

If you do mobile work and and/or any kind of self-employment, you also need to look into protections and policies for that, including taxes and deductions. In general, you need to make a point of knowing about:

• Access to legal clinics/assistance
• Employment security
• National labor practices policy
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
• Privacy Rights laws as (discussed in Chapter 12, Special Issues).
• State minimum wage laws
• U.S. Department of Labor
• Worker compensation
• Your state’s worker rights

Each state, and each type of work, has differences which realistically cannot be listed or linked in this textbook. However, here are a few considerations.

Employee rights

Employee privacy rights are rules that limit employer’s access to an employee’s possessions/person; limit monitoring employee actions and communications; and limit intruding on personal lives. The more technology you use in the workplace, the more accurate and detailed a picture of you can build up about your personal life, habits and activities. Keep this in mind about all workplace activities.

Rights to consider:

• Freedom from discrimination.
• Privacy in workplace areas like restrooms, and changing rooms, and some personal space in cubicles and offices.
• Privacy in workspace communications like emails and phone calls; questionable if done on work equipment, connections, environment, and time.
• Privacy of personal equipment and things brought to the workplace; questionable if personal equipment use is part of the workplace hiring agreement.
• Right to fair compensation, including for overtime.
• Privacy to personal communications and accounts handled outside the workplace, regarding personal social media, passwords, and communications.
• Right to use break and lunch time as desired; questionable if workplace resources and location is being used.

Employer Rights

Federal workplace privacy / employee monitoring regulations come mainly from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Business owners are allowed to monitor all employee verbal and written communication with a legitimate business reason for doing it. More monitoring can happen employee’s give consent.

• It is not supposed to allow monitoring of employees’ personal and business communications, although any use of employer workspace, tools, network connection, and worktime makes employers push against this.

Employers expect discretion to dictate personal computer usage policies in the workplace when they own the computers, and workplace data accessible by and transmitted with them. Security reasons are another employer concern, since systems can become vulnerable to malware when employees use the workplace Internet for personal downloads and connections. Security is also an issue when employees violate company confidentiality rules, even by chatting or complaining about work on social media.

IT departments/employers can and do try to limit problems by:

• Archiving email for later reference and review.
• Blocking access to non-work related websites.
• Installing biometric technology on machines and in the workplace.
• Monitoring hard drives and computer terminals for use and timekeeping.
• Monitoring use and sharing of licensed software packages.
• Tagging inventory for data management and tracking.
• Tracking and reviewing internet usage and email contents.
• Use tracking software to alert about violations.
• Using cameras and recording for security monitoring in common and work spaces.
• Using equipment and vehicle GPS systems for usage and timekeeping.

Employees may have very few electronic privacy rights when working from home, since according to federal law, employers have a right to monitor use of employer-provided equipment and computer networks, including files, visited web pages, and work email. At-home or hybridized work environments are not a situation for employees to relax workplace ethics and standards.

As noted in Chapter 12, no matter what an employer’s policy is about privacy and company security, the employer has a responsibility to be transparent, current, and respectful about the policies and procedures with employees. As an employee, you have a responsibility to learn about what those are, document and keep that information, and be savvy in your workplace dealings. Learn what your employer’s policies are for:

• Access to employee-owned material, equipment, and accounts
• Employee data collection, privacy, and security
• Equipment and network/Internet use
• Privacy
• Time use
• Workplace data protection/security

Tips and Techniques

Back in the day (the Stone Age), when I (the author) was young, I chose to become a professional temp. This was because permajobs seemed to rarely give raises or move you up in the company, and lay-off firings were becoming the norm. As a professional temp, I could control where I went, how long I stayed, travel light, play to my strengths, and keep learning & earning more.

Back then, I got articles published about what I practiced – mobile workplace skills. I bought and brought my own few office supplies. I carried my own zip disk (later USB drive) with my own utilities and key tech needs. I created my own workplace/timesheet form for my own reference. I learned how to take each new temp assignment by the horns from moment one by asking key questions. I was highly organized, communicated fairly well, and always focused on how I added value to the employer I was temping with. I worked to solve, mitigate, and prevent problems. I got asked back by a several employers, and hired longer term by a couple of them.

That was in the 1990s and 2000s. I started teaching in 2009, but never totally lost touch with my temping/gig experiences. However, at the same time, technology has rushed up and bitten us all, and there are additional tips and tricks I would use now – in the spirit of what used to work but with an emphasis on how many more technological changes we face and now live with. I have come to realize that people come first, everyone matters, and we’re all in this digital world together (Digital Citizenship). Even the listed non-techy tips are useful in our techy world. This is that chapter for the “me” who would be in the workplace now if I stopped teaching and re-entered the workforce job search.

• Always be aware of and prepared for a low-privacy-protected environment, including the workplace.
• Always be well stocked up on living basics (and fave items) and tech needs/fees, then set emergency money aside so you have flexibility and freedom in work-lean times.
• Always keep your resume updated and accessible. Focus on skills, projects, and continued learning, and how you add value in situations.
• Be a Positive Digital Citizen (Chapter 13).
• Be a problem solver, minimizer, and preventer.
• Be able to measure/record your own learning and productivity and report it to employers/job agencies.
• Be clear to yourself about your needs, expectations, and personal “red line” of unacceptable conditions.
• Build a few reliable and solid connections rather than multitudes of shallow social media contacts.
• Clarify what is YOUR time and resources, and what is an employer’s. Don’t ever take risks with workplace assets and time.
• Create and maintain an e-profile, e-portfolio, and professional network account, with regular updated accomplishment samples and certificates.
• Create your own workplace reporting worksheet / timesheet and use for your personal records.
• Hybridize your skills for mobility and flexibility, whether working at home, in a workplace, or in a blend.
• Learn constantly: social skills, worldview, and upskilling.
• Learn to separate yourself from your phone/email and an employer’s post-worktime needs.
• Learn to communicate minimalistically – no one needs to know all you are thinking, and less is more. Diplomacy, respect, and kindness will serve you well.
• Secure your own devices with privacy and security tools/protections.
• Time and skills management are yours to handle.
• Win-win workplace and responsible social communication success: be aware of and part of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA); Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (JEDI) is also a valuable approach.