High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Why So Many Employees Quit Within The First 6 Months

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• Why So Many Employees Quit Within the First 6 Months: "when managers take an active role in onboarding, 'employees are 3.4 times as likely to strongly agree their onboarding experience was exceptional'."

• 9 CEOs Share Their Favorite Interview Question: "This helps me get at what really motivates people and how passionate they are about the work they do."

• How to Know Which Ideas Your Company Should Pursue: "our method might not make it easier to pick great ideas, but it should make it easier to avoid picking bad ones. It helps to prioritize ideas or consider which ones should be more thoroughly evaluated."

• 4 Tips for Prioritizing Your Health: "We make it a team commitment to be healthy. Lunches are catered at work, and we hold each other to picking the healthier options. Every hour on the hour during the work week, we do a short round of exercises."
• 4 Tips to Achieve Work-Life Balance:"In many cases, I would delegate something and then grab it back if I started to see a problem. Thankfully, I eventually learned to simply oversee the process and help freelancers bring their output up to my standards."

5 Ways You Can Make Your Company Better

Some of us spend a lot of time thinking about what our company does wrong or considering the areas it needs to improve. We might even complain about employers, but do we spend any time thinking about how we can make things better?

Perhaps we need to paraphrase John F. Kennedy’s famous quote for the workplace: ask not what your company can do for you, ask what you can do for your company.

Here then are five ways we can make our jobs and the companies we work for a little better.

Join a Committee. Most companies create committees to explore solutions to problems or issues that come up. There might be a committee to explore workplace diversity or to develop a recycling program. Contact your Human Resources department to find out more about these initiatives and how you can get involved. Your enthusiastic engagement with your company’s practices will contribute to making it a better place to work.

Welcome new employees. Become one of those employees that new people can turn to for advice. When a new employee starts at your company be sure to welcome them and offer to be of assistance to them in any way possible. Invite them to lunch or to grab a coffee later in the day. A welcoming company is a better company to work for.

Ask questions. Your bosses don’t want to employ robots. Yes, they might want to automate some task where possible, but they do not want to hire “yes” men and women, nor do they want employees that don’t think for themselves. Contribute to making your company better by asking questions, exploring how you can do something better, or how your product can bring better value to your customers.

Learn new skills and apply them to your job. When you and your colleagues increase and develop your knowledge of your field and industry, and apply it to your work, you are making your company better and more effective at its mission. Strive to be a continuous learner while challenging and encouraging your colleagues to expand their thinking. 

Smile. This is the easiest thing you can do to make your company better and so is one of the first things we neglect to do. Greet those you see and work with when you arrive in the morning with a smile and a spirit of gratitude, rather than approaching your workplace with dread. A kind company that fosters a clear sense of mission and gratitude in its employees makes for a better place to work.