New year new you

Are your clothes letting you down?

Wearing the right clothes sends out a positive message, says corporate image expert Sharon Connolly. A sharp appearance will also boost your self confidence if you know you are looking good.

These days the dress code for most offices is smart casual or, for those who are still suited and booted there is often a “dress down Friday” policy. The problem is, what exactly is meant by smart casual?

If you are going to meetings or presentations try to mirror the dress code of your audience.

It’s all about making your client feel comfortable and giving them confidence that you understand their business. If it’s accountants, that means a suit, if it’s web designers then jeans are ideal.

Smart casual means different things to different people, but here’s the professional view. For men it means trousers, shirt and a jacket. Don’t wear a big baggy Gap shirt tucked into pleated chinos as this is not chic. For women it means co-ordinated separates such as smart trousers or skirt with a sweater or shirt.

Top 10 dress tips

1 Flat-fronted trousers are more modern and flattering (unless you have a huge tummy). They should be dark colours – navy, black or charcoal grey and perhaps stone coloured in summer.

2 Business shirts only. Choose something patterned and colourful, a “power shirt”. If you go for a plain pastel colour you’ll end up looking like a waiter when you take off your jacket. Buy your shirts from specialists such as Thomas Pink, TM Lewin and Charles Thwytt. Avoid short-sleeved shirts: you will look like a British Gas engineer.

3 A jacket is essential as it will immediately elevate your status in a meeting. Quality knitwear such as a cashmere V-neck can work too.

4 Brown shoes such as brogues, or boots, are casual. Black shoes are more formal. Shoes and belt should match.

5 Get a colour consultation. Choosing colours that suit you will make the difference between looking healthy or washed-out. Go to a colour consultant or read Image Matters for Men, published by Colour Me Beautiful. You’ll also learn about how different combinations can work if you want to look more authoritative, approachable or creative.

6 If you buy one good suit, perhaps your “interview suit” then go for a navy flat fronted trousers.

7 To look amazing, good fit is much more important than designer labels. Spend money on the items that you wear the most. A good tailor is essential even if you are buying a cheap suit: they can make it look much more professional. You can get a made-to-measure suit from £250 on London’s Jermyn Street.

8 If you are portly wear colour near your face, to draw the attention upwards.

9 Grooming is important. Cleanse, tone, moisturise, and make sure your hair is in good condition. Trim those unruly eyebrows. The aim is to look like you have made an effort, but not a fuss.

10 Show your personality with a well-chosen pair of cufflinks. Novelty cufflinks, ties and socks are a no-no.

Sharon Connolly is founder of image consultant www.maximisegroup.com

Talk to your other half

Long hours and a stressful job can leave your family feeling they are in second place, and you without a minute to call your own at the weekends. Life coach Lynda Field suggests some strategies to help you stay close to your family and find a little time for yourself.

It is very easy to let work stress spill into your domestic arena and ruin the time when you should be relaxing. The key to maintaining loving relationships with your partner and family is to be able to feel free to discuss your feelings whenever the need arises. The following techniques may help:

• Make sure that you spend some quality time alone with your partner every night. Let this be a time to have a drink together, unwind and share your day.

• It’s very easy to slump in front of the TV every night so get into the habit of planning some regular trips out with each other so that you always have something to look forward to.

• Don’t be afraid to discuss your challenges with your partner, you will both benefit from being able to unburden yourselves in this way. Intimacy increases when we make personal disclosures so sharing your emotions will help to bring you closer together.

We all need regular “time outs” to give our best in the workplace and at home but our lives can easily get out of balance as we rush around trying to do, be and have everything.

Everyone in the family has their needs and this includes you. So if it feels as though you are running on a treadmill with no escape then stop for a few moments (yes you have got time) and consider the following:

• You can’t give to others if you feel lacking yourself. It is quite natural to feel resentful towards others (even your loved ones) if you have no time to call your own.

• Begin to carve out some space for yourself at the weekend even if it’s only an hour or so to read the papers or go for a jog. You’ll be surprised by the positive effect this will have on your mood. Perhaps you can manage this by getting up an hour earlier than the rest of the household.

• And when you are doing things with the kids make sure you are doing something that you all enjoy: having fun at the ice rink or watching a great movie can raise the levels of those feelgood endorphins. Make your child-centred times special and remember that your kids will grow up all too quickly.

• Discuss your own need for a break with your partner. With careful time management you should both be able to have a few hours to call your own.

Lynda Field is author of Fast Track to Happiness – From Fed-up to Fabulous in 10 Days, £8.99, Vermilion. More at www.weekendlifecoach.com

Solve that time management crisis

Having too much on your plate is one of the toughest challenges faced by most managers. How do you fit everything in? It's all about focus, and keeping those energy levels up, says Dave Stitt.

If your biggest problem is that there aren’t enough hours in the day, you need some help.

But if time management training is on offer, refuse it – thinking has moved on, what you need is energy management.

There are four strands of energy: spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. If you develop all four, you will get more of the right stuff done and time management will be less of an issue.

• Spiritual energy
This is about having a sense of purpose. Without it your efforts will lack direction and meaning. The other types of energy depend on you getting to grips with this one.

You have to consider what your purpose and goals are and whether they are the same as those of your company. Is it all about making money? Having a purpose and working towards that purpose is incredibly motivating and energising. The opposite is also true.

If you’re wondering what your purpose is all about, maybe you need to slow down and reflect on it for a while. Try reading one of the three books listed under spiritual energy at the end of this article.

Write down the names of the people you have an issue with and go and sort things out

Dave Stitt

• Mental energy
This is about clarity of thought and focus, so you are working towards your bigger purpose. Many people believe that we are either born thinkers or not. I believe the brain is a muscle that can be exercised and developed.

This is how I focus my mental energy: at the start of every day I step back and write down my thoughts – three pages worth. Then I brainstorm my opportunities and decide how I am going to proceed for the day. This takes about 15 minutes. At the end of my work day I list and appreciate the progress I have made. Quite often I am surprised at my achievements.

• Emotional energy
This is the tough one, especially for men. It’s this energy which sees you bouncing along one day and down in the dumps another. Feeling hacked off with people (and yourself) drags you down and the effect over the years is cumulative. Emotional baggage is like carrying a sack of rocks on your back, it weighs you down, distracts you from your purpose and messes with your thinking. You end up working ‘on’ people rather than with them.

If you want to lighten your load and rid your emotional baggage I recommend this exercise: write down the names of all the people you have an issue with and then go and sort things with them. This takes courage, good listening, time – It took me two years – and the will to keep doing it.

Anyone who makes any kind of difference will occasionally cause spills leading to upset, mopping them up as you go is great for sustaining emotional energy and travelling light.

• Physical energy
Finally, physical energy is about being fit for purpose, whatever that purpose is. I want to be fit for myself, for my family and for my customers because what I do is demanding and needs all of my personal energies.

Somehow or other you need to get in shape, eat healthily and spend a little time and effort maintaining yourself.

I do lots of exercise, always have breakfast, drink two litres of water a day, eat lots of fruit and get at least seven hours sleep each night. Also, I see a chiropractor every six months and a reflexologist every three weeks – this is part of my planned preventative maintenance.

Then there are the obvious things to avoid – smoking, too much beer, chocolate, fatty foods, and nightclubbing until 4am.

Finally, I try to take a holiday every quarter or more to replenish all four levels of my energy.

If you have read this far you may be thinking “is this bloke mad?”. Well, I’m not suggesting you attempt all the things I’ve suggested all at once. Chances are lack of time, or more likely lack of energy, is an issue for you so consider dedicating some time to trying a few of these suggestions. If you haven’t got time to now, you never will have.

Recommended reading

For spiritual energy

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Drained by Johann Christoph Arnold
All will Be Well by Michael Meegan

For mental energy

The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey
Anything by Tony Buzan, Edward de Bono or Timothy Gallwey

For emotional energy

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel P Goleman
The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

This article is an abstract from Time Versus Energy by Dave Stitt. For a free download go to www.dsabuilding.co.uk

Destress your team

Long hours and inefficient working practices can demotivate people and make their lives unnecessarily stressful. Work/life balance specialist Jacqueline Gascoyne outlines three practical ways for managers to reduce stress within their teams.

• Increase your awareness of individual needs
It is important that managers try to understand the personal and professional needs of their individual team members. It is only by understanding the causes of stress and its impact that managers can then start to introduce measures to help. By taking the time to speak with employees about their needs, managers can help create an atmosphere of openness and trust, which is a crucial step in reducing stress.

• Flexible working
When we were called in to offer advice to ISG InteriorExterior, we discovered that while the company had been voted one of the top 100 ‘best companies to work for’ several years in a row, its long work hours culture made it difficult for employees to balance the needs of their personal and work lives.

To help reduce the stress of long hours ISG introduced flexible working options, such as staggered shifts, flexible breaks, and compressed hours. By working an extra hour a day, the team can work five days rather than six and still be working the hours necessary to complete the work.

These moves significantly helped reduce tiredness and increase employee morale. The result was less accidents on site and reduced absenteeism and staff turnover.

• Forward planning
Inefficient working practices are also a common cause of stress. At ISG we sought to improve practices through a greater emphasis on forward planning.

Meetings offered a big area for improvement. The first step was to establish clear meeting objectives, agendas and time limits. The team worked to ensure that all meetings occurred on one day and only those that needed to be there attended. They also used telephone and web conferencing facilities to reduce travel times and the need for consultants to be present.

Though simple changes in themselves, these steps had a significant impact: they freed up time, reduced the amount of travel and improved organisational effectiveness.

Jacqueline Gascoyne is a principal consultant and work life balance specialist at Berkshire Consultancy Ltd

Get them moving

Spend a little time and effort improving the health of your team and you can reap the rewards of having happier people who feel like you care. Amec’s Derek Langfield shares some ideas which have worked for his division.

Amec’s logistics and support services division is taking part in a Well at Work pilot in Darlington, organised by Sport England, the British Heart Foundation and the local Primary Care Trust. One year into a two-year programme, devised following a staff questionnaire to work out what people wanted, we have found that the following were well received by staff:

1 Health checks were surprisingly popular. Nurses came into the office and checked body mass index (weight/height), waist measurement, blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and did a coronary risk assessments. People liked the immediate feedback. After the 20-minute test session, the nurses were able to advise people whether they had blood pressure or diabetes problems. Much quicker and simpler than a visit to the GP. Some people with problems were identified and referred to their GPs. The pilot paid for this service which cost around £500 a day.

2 Staff took up all available places on a subsidised gym membership scheme. Companies can negotiate 10 to 20% off the usual rate.

3 Challenging another company on the Well at Work pilot got people walking. The PCT provided pedometers and then the race was on to see which team of 10 managed to walk 1,184 miles – the distance between Lands End and John O’Groats – first. We are sorry to report that Amec was beaten by Supreme Care Homes on this occasion, but hopes to fight back during the current challenge: a triathlon round a section of Australia.

4 Lunch time walks are perhaps a more sociable option. Trained leaders take out a group twice a week. It’s proved to be a good way to meet new people as well as keeping fit.

5 The PCT has provided specialists for a stop smoking programme, and Amec allows people who joined the group to use an hour’s work time for the session each week for seven weeks. Numbers of takers have been small, but the success rate is high.

Derek Langfield is MD of Amec’s logistics and support services division