My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
- wurinauXcat
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My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
The other day my new boss walked in to have a discussion about my time sheets. He wants me to make an addition to these time sheet entries. He says I should write about how do each of these activities benefit the company.
Any creative ideas how to do this?
- Sy Borg
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Thing is, the benefits of training & development to an organisation have been exhaustively documented. It's obvious that learning can improve awareness of the organisation's functions as a whole, it can refine job performance and enhance promotability. Asking a worker to describe the benefits of their activities makes sense for trainees but, for experienced workers, it would seem to be a faux-accountability game in preparation for rationalisation.
To be fair, having been out of the workplace for some time, I may have become cynical.
- LuckyR
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
There are two correct answers for the two common situations.wurinauXcat wrote: ↑May 14th, 2021, 4:23 pm I've been given some extra hours every day to maintain my skills. So far I've been doing that succesfully and just put "read this and that" or "watched a webinar about something" on the time sheet, and it's been ok like that for years.
The other day my new boss walked in to have a discussion about my time sheets. He wants me to make an addition to these time sheet entries. He says I should write about how do each of these activities benefit the company.
Any creative ideas how to do this?
If you are basically playing video games (using the time for personal reasons) then you need to identify an activity that is reasonable and believable and commonly done by other workers.
OTOH if you are actually improving yourself, then you just need to describe it in such a way that maximizes it's apparant value to the company. You're in the best position to know what that is.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
During my working life, I was lucky enough that one of my employers - sadly, only one, of quite a few - required me to use 5% of my (paid) time on professional self-development. Very farsighted of them, I thought.
"Who cares, wins"
- Sy Borg
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Did you have to document what you did during development time? Some of my old employers provided study time for trainees and those doing work-sanctioned long courses.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 9:22 amDuring my working life, I was lucky enough that one of my employers - sadly, only one, of quite a few - required me to use 5% of my (paid) time on professional self-development. Very farsighted of them, I thought.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Although self-directed study was fine, we were also able to use the facilities of the company training school, to reinforce our existing skills, or to develop new ones (not necessarily skills that our then-current positions would require or use). We didn't have to document anything, although completion of training courses was recorded, as you might expect.Sy Borg wrote: ↑May 18th, 2021, 8:59 pmDid you have to document what you did during development time? Some of my old employers provided study time for trainees and those doing work-sanctioned long courses.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 9:22 amDuring my working life, I was lucky enough that one of my employers - sadly, only one, of quite a few - required me to use 5% of my (paid) time on professional self-development. Very farsighted of them, I thought.
"Who cares, wins"
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
My current employer (a small company) occasionally funds job-specific training and, although it didn't fund it, did allow one of our employees day-release to do his engineering degree.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Ah, I fondly remember the batch-processing language (the equivalent of Windows/MSDOS .bat or .cmd files) on VMS. It was very capable.
"Who cares, wins"
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Yes. DCL (Digital Command Language) I think it was called wasn't it?Pattern-chaser wrote:Ah, I fondly remember the batch-processing language (the equivalent of Windows/MSDOS .bat or .cmd files) on VMS. It was very capable.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
"Who cares, wins"
- Sy Borg
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Generally, they don't ask for documentation to prove that you are doing useful things. Ideally, that should be apparent from work performance metrics.
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
- Sculptor1
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Take care. Beware that you do not write yourself out of a job.wurinauXcat wrote: ↑May 14th, 2021, 4:23 pm I've been given some extra hours every day to maintain my skills. So far I've been doing that succesfully and just put "read this and that" or "watched a webinar about something" on the time sheet, and it's been ok like that for years.
The other day my new boss walked in to have a discussion about my time sheets. He wants me to make an addition to these time sheet entries. He says I should write about how do each of these activities benefit the company.
Any creative ideas how to do this?
In these times jobs are scarce and employers find clever ways of getting rid of people.
Do you think your boss knows what you job entails?
What is it that you do exactly?
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
During my working life, I had quite a few employers. Only two of my supervisors, both from my final employment, actually understood what my job entailed. The rest had no idea what I did or how I did it, and these were the people who controlled how I was (financially) rewarded for what I did. Frightening but true.
"Who cares, wins"
- Sculptor1
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Re: My boss wants me to define my own purpose on the job
Indeed. I had the same experience.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 20th, 2021, 10:02 amDuring my working life, I had quite a few employers. Only two of my supervisors, both from my final employment, actually understood what my job entailed. The rest had no idea what I did or how I did it, and these were the people who controlled how I was (financially) rewarded for what I did. Frightening but true.
This is why I laid down the warning.
My son recently got his first job in accounting. One of his jobs was to source an outside company to deal with their own employment payroll. For some reason the company he found had a 10 employee limit to their system. Guess how many other people worked for the company other than my son?? TEN.
So as soon as he had sourced the new system, they gave my son the sack after he had had the jobn for 6 weeks.
In large firms people can carry on without anyone knowing what they do, often transfered, moved, and given new job desription without ever making a significant contribution.
It's a wonder the world works at all.
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