This series featured on this column before. I am repeating it because the subject remains ever pertinent and a major issue in the marketplace. Are you currentlyin employment'Do you desire to get to the top in your working career or you simply want to mark time and join the multitudes who only work to pay the bills' Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing with you certain things that every employee that desires to get to the top in his/her career should know.1. Time is the Number 1 asset you bring into the establishment. You must therefore invest it fruitfully. When he offered you employment, your employer simply bargained for a portion of your time. So, technically speaking, your employer didn't really employ your person, he was actually buying your time. By accepting the offer of a job, you were actually accepting the employer's offer for and assessment of the value of your time. Your salary is a reward for your time. So if you want to earn the reward, spend the time! In many developed countries of the world, people are paid based on the number of hours spent on the job as well as for quantifiable productivity.In this part of the world, it is not unusual to see people report at 9 am to an office that opened at 7.30am, take a break to go for breakfast at 10am, return at 11am and take excuse by 12 noon to go to the bank, mosque or fellowship. He returns at 1.30 pm only to go for school run to pick his children from school at 2pm. He returns at 3.15pm (if at all he does) and closes at 3.30pm! Did you think this sounds ridiculous' Then you have had much to do with the civil service.This is what gave rise to the aphorism, 'Nobody sweats while doing government job'. Another way this nonchalance is manifested is seen in the statement, 'Whether the master makes profit or not, the servant (employee) must get his pay.'To be a top-performing employee, have value for time. If you treat time well, time will in turn do you goodAccording to Ephesians 5:16, we should be 'redeeming the time, because the days are evil.' The easiest way to attract your boss' attention and earn his respect and trust is to be the first to arrive the office and the last to leave.2. The employer is not Santa Claus Many people work with the misguided notion that the employer is Father Christmas who gives jobs out of deliberate benevolence. Wake up! Christmas comes only once a year! Your employer does not run a charity. He is in business for a definite reason and he is only committed to you as long as you are relevant to that cause.Unfortunately, government has been largely responsible for this complacent mindset by making the citizenry believe that the government owes everyone a living. So, people are employed to fill tribal quotas or as their compensation for political loyalty or some other reason that suits the whims and caprices of the government n power.In most cases, they know nothing about the job, and no expectations are set anyway since it is government money they will be getting. To your employer, your salary is an investment. It must yield dividends. When it stops doing so, you become an expendable part of the equation. Simply put, your employer does not owe you a living if you do not oblige him with value. Great employees earn their salary. They don't just collect it.In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, three servants received seed money from their master for a definite purpose. Each one of them was endowed according to the level of the master's assessment of his competence. When it was time to render accounts, two of them had justified the master's confidence in them while the third, who got one talent only proved that he was not worthy of even the one he received! The master promptly rewarded the two productive servants to the degree of the value added to his enterprise and he didn't hesitate to sack the one who had not added value to what he received.3. The team player is the best playerIf you want to make it to the top in your career, you must recognise that there is no 'I' in TEAM. Trying to run a one-man show on the job by trying to be the superstar of the team only reveals a morbid character deficiency that smirks of a stultified self-esteem.No man succeeds all by himself. Listen to others. But even more than that, learn from them. Offer a helping hand to other members of the team. Never try to sabotage the efforts of any colleague because you want to prove a point. It portrays you as petty, unreliable and inordinately and vindictively ambitious'continuedRemember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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