ALT-1 How to Handle Office Politics
There is no easy way to manage office politics. Office politics is part of any permanent job. There will be areas where this topic is unavoidable, and affects everyone. There will always be politics in any work situation, and it does not sit good with the majority of the employees. Many employees will become the brunt of office politics, and office politics can affect areas such as promotion, training, and being liked by your boss in the office.
Here are some ways to handle office politics:
1. Always try to maintain some distance between co-workers and important people. You may be very smart and know who to trust in the office set up, but the truth is that no co-worker or boss can be completely trusted. Try to keep a safe distance away from office politics as it may have very little to do with you at times.
2. When being confronted by a superior about office politics or asked for a suggestion; try to be amicable and honest, even though you want to shout out all kinds of rude remarks to your boss. This will never go down well, and people at the top often resent the ones at the bottom when they are spoken badly to.
3. Co-workers are clever. They try to side line themselves when it comes to politics, and never really want to present their cases to upper management for fear of being targeted. Some co-workers are very smart and manage to get other employees to speak on their behalf. When there is someone that is not liked by the staff that person will usually be talked about by everyone else, and this can make it easy to get someone else to do the talking on their behalf. Never became the person who will talk on behalf of other people. If there is a grievance the whole group of employees should get together and take action.
4. All organizations have rules and regulations. Some organizations are constantly changing, and this puts pressure on upper and middle management to implement new and stricter practises. Employees need to learn to not take certain matters too seriously, as there will always be aspects of work and control that will have to be regulated by upper and middle management.
Office politics can be scary. They often come more into play for the small time employee when his job is threatened or he is in line for promotion.
