Benefits

If your job includes benefits such as a 401k Match up to a certain percentage, Flexable Spending Account, charity gift match or any other good benefits, take advantage of it. It will benefit you.

First if you employer is matching your contribution to your 401K or IRA, put in the percentage they are match (if at all possible). This is found money and will benefit you. If you can put more, I suggest putting more money into your retirement account, after all its tax free.

Flexible spending accounts are great. First review what your plan covers, plans vary a little on what they cover, for example some do cover child care and over the counter medicine, some do not. You can use last years tax return (if you itemize) as a guide to see how much put away. Just remember if you do not use it but the end of the year, you loose it.

If you are active in a charity and will be writing a check for the cause, why not see if your company matches your charitable gift. Many larger companies do. This will help your donation go that much futher.

Look at your company's benefits package. Take advantage of them, they are there for you to use and help you.

Something for employers to think about...

As my grad school advisor reminded us often, always encourage your employees to be inventive and productive, even if they are not always successful. Out of mistakes great products can arise. One product I think we have all used at one time or another and most have on our desks was first considered a product failure, the product the Post It notes. 3M found the product had a use and encouraged the employee to investigate further, and now Post it notes are an office staple.

Let your employees explore their talents a bit, you never know when a great product or idea will come about.

volunteering and the work place

My view is there is always someone in more need than you and if you can help them, you do just that, help that person. I carry that over to the work place. While going to graduate school, I heard what company of various sizes were doing to encourage employees to volunteer on paid company time. I fully support this, I think people would benefit in many ways from volunteering. Due to the political correctness of today, some people go overboard and some wouldn't participate no matter how easy you made it. While I can see a need for parameters, whats wrong with just saying lets just do it for Jack's Kids and just doing it and if the company time so be it. Reasonable parameters should be amount of time donated and when one can volunteer . (you wouldn't want your employee leaving if he/she had a big project ending that afternoon and it wasn't quite done yet)

I think this can be a win win situation for all. Consider lending a hand to a worthwhile charity today.

working in the buff

I hope they don't schedule interviews on Fridays is all I have to say, what would you think walking into an interview and seeing people in the buff.

What an ice breaker! I must admit I was surprised at the amount of workers who participated in team building event. If it works and people willing to do it, I just do not need to see my coworkers in the buff. What do you think?

Naked Friday: British Marketing Co. Works In the Buff - Careers Articles