Article
One: The Challenge of Working Remotely by Gary Keay of Recruitment Counsellors
From our experience we have found that one of the biggest challenges facing recruitment
home workers is adjusting to working remotely, it can be a true test of your self discipline. Here are a few tips that may help you along the way.
Get organised and energised
Convert your working environment as much as possible into an effective working office. Have a comfortable chair and put up a white board displaying your pipeline activities and priorities, this will help you keep your focus and motivation. Put inspirational messages, targets or images up that will mentally “switch you on”.
When you walk through the door of your office you should feel inspired, ready to work hard. It should be a place where you could not possibly be average. Be comfortable, but be careful about what you choose to wear - you can potentially start to behave casually if you dress casually. Think of it as being like an actor where you need a stage and costume to get into character and to perform to your best ability.
Get organised, build your infrastructure, decide and practice your sales pitch, define your USP (Unique Selling Point). Assemble information gathering sheets, advert templates, standard letters, all your passwords, so that you are ready with all your procedures and follow-up documents.
During the day you can reduce fatigue by having a15 minutes break, take some exercise, re energise and refocus, make the time to do this.
Attitude and confidence
Who do you talk to the most? Who do you listen to the most? – The answer is you. You can control your attitude because you control your thinking. Be positive every day, (what’s the point in being negative?)
By the way if you think something is bad, you are probably right, but someone else is already jumping in and doing something about it while you are busy worrying. Life is only 10% fact; the other 90% is the attitude you choose. Be aware therefore that one event in the day can change the course of your attitude. if it’s positive great - do as much work as you can that day; if negative - first recognise it, see how you can influence or make the best from the situation, find something positive to take from it and move on. If you dwell on the event, it can drag you down for the day. If need be, you can wallow (just for a short period of time) but then you must move on.
Don’t let the fact that you are remote make you stale – take steps to improve your personal development, take time to read inspiring and business books to keep yourself updated. Make sure you get out, don’t stay caged in or cocooned, get out and about, meet as many clients and candidates as possible, keep yourself in touch with what’s going on out there.
Having a “daily structure” is the secret to success
Working remotely will seriously test your self discipline. Being remote, coupled with developing opportunities all day long, is potentially the ideal environment to find new sales leads, have fun, but potentially lose your focus and go completely off track. When you’re remote there are many distractions that can really test your focus, so constantly ask yourself “is what I’m doing right now moving me towards achieving my objectives” - be aware that procrastination may become your enemy.
What is really good to know is that we are creatures of habit, so why not take advantage of this as the business of recruitment is a process, so all we need to do is define it and stick to it daily. Here are some useful techniques:
Start your day (every day) with 10 minutes to consider your priorities for the day and write out your “to do list”. Define your priorities, don’t allow your inbox to manage you, break down your tasks, and finish your day with tomorrows “to do list”.
Challenge yourself, watch out for falling into your comfort zone
Recognise it - if you’re not careful you can fall into your comfort zone. We have a saying “Ride the tiger” – which basically means don’t take the easy option, keep driving and pushing yourself, step back and review, make yourself do the difficult tasks and not take the easy option.
Set yourself little daily challenges, to push yourself on and away from your comfort zone. Many top performers do this to seek perfection and maintain their peak performance levels.
And finally, just DO IT, “fortune favours the brave” simply go for it, your drive, enthusiasm, attitude and total self belief will help you develop an effective structure and positive results. Build the systems around you and you’ll stay in control of your destiny.
Gary Keay is the general Manager of Recruitment Counsellors a specialist homeworking organisation who provide a franchise opportunity for experience recruitment consultants offering autonomy and a genuine opportunity to retain between 70 – 90% of fee income
www.recruitmenthomeworking.com
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