Bringing your Passion to Work – What does it take?

Sanduni Kaushalya from Wadduwa found Scholarships for USA Ltd. through word of mouth and thus became SUSA’s first student from Lakeland International Ratmalana. Having considered numerous offers SUSA was able to attract from its partners across US, Sandun

is very friendly and assisted me throughout my stay in the states. The staff has also shown me the importance of planning ahead. Therefore, I decided to do the OPT program as my next step. The OPT program is a work visa allowing the college graduates to work for a one whole year. I am grateful for my host family, who is currently working on finding me a profession at the John Deere Company. After completing my OPT, I then plan to transfer to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) to complete my bachelors. UNI provides a range of scholarships, especially to the students transferring from IHCC, due to the high quality education of IHCC. The memories I’ve made with those amazing staff, my American family, and friends from all over the world are truly a blessing!

Just like the Indian Hills staff reminds us every day, IHCC is a home away from home. The accomplishments I achieved, the wonderful memories I made, the new experiences I had changed my life in the best way possible. IHCC opened my mind. My message to each and every one out there, who dreams big, is to open your mind to the world. There are opportunities waiting for you. Take that step and work hard to write your success story just like I did!

According to the Business Dictionary, Employee engagement is the ‘Emotional connection an employee feels toward his or her employment organization, which tends to influence his or her behaviours and level of effort in work related activities. The more engagement an employee has with his or her company, the more effort they put forth’.

Engagement is about how passionate a person feels about his/her job, committed to the Organization/ Company he/ she works for. There are many factors that play in employee engagement, if he/she feels ‘emotionally’ stimulated by the role, how trustworthy he/she is perceived by the management, feeling of how one’s work contributes to the overall company performance, opportunities offered for growth within the company etc. An engaged employee always considers being part of the company with a degree of pride.

According to 2011- 2012 Gallup survey study, in South Asia only 10% of employees are ‘engaged’, 61% ‘not engaged’ and 21% ‘ actively disengaged’. In Sri Lanka only 14%(±5) of employees are ‘engaged’, 62%(±6) are ‘not engaged’ and 23%(±4) are ‘actively disengaged’ (source: http://www. gallup. com/ poll/ 165269/ worldwideemployees-engaged-work.aspx). Actively disengaged people are not just unhappy about their work, but also busy acting out their unhappiness, and ‘undermine’ and discourage the work of the engaged employees. How engaged are members in your team? Your company? Your Organization? Are you a victim of such a chronic situation?

Reality is, as an employee, you are allowing someone else to choose ‘you’ for a role of a job in an interview, allowing ‘your’ manager to make the decision of the team’s strategic objectives, allowing responsibility of ‘your’ work to lie with your manager and simply you are disconnected because choice is someone else’s, decision is someone else’s. To turn this around, the power also lies within you.

One of the greatest benefits of coaching is to increase ‘engagement’. Coaching if used by a manager as a skill or used as Executive Coaching for ‘Executives and Senior management’, reaps positive benefits for the Organizations involved.

A landmark study commissioned by Right Management Consultants found that a return- on- investment of dollars

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it’. spent on executive coaching is nearly 600%. Executives engaged in coaching reported increases in productivity, improvement in relationships with direct reports and colleagues, and greater job satisfaction. According to a study by the Manchester Consulting Group, organizational benefits from executive coaching include: Improved Relationships 77%; Improved Teamwork 67%; Improved Job Satisfaction 61%; Improved Productivity 53%. An International Personnel Management Association survey found that productivity increased by 88% when coaching was combined with training (compared to a 22 percent increase with training alone) ( Source: http:// transverseleadership.com/roi.html).

At the International Academy of Mentoring and Coaching (IAMCasia) we offer certificate and diploma courses for sharing the skills of coaching and mentoring with professionals. We undertake Executive coaching, Personal coaching and Career coaching catering to your professional and personal needs.

Contact us to discuss your needs, E- mail charuni@ IAMCasia. com; harshana@ IAMCasia. com or call Hotline - 0773 322 733 Dr Charuni Senanayake Director International Academy of Mentoring and Coaching (IAMCasia) charuni@IAMCasia.com 071-776-9273 Harshana Dassanayake Director International Academy of Mentoring and Coaching (IAMCasia) harshana@IAMCasia.com 077-733-0319