Many workers who have either been furloughed or have been working from home are gradually starting to return to the work place. It may of been that some of them haven’t been back in to work for over 12 months so returning to a working environment may be a bit daunting.

It could be that although you are going back to the same position you had before, your job role and responsibilities has had to change. You may find that you need to do more of your work online or that you have less face to face interaction with colleges or customers than you had before. As many businesses had to implement different ways of working to be Covid secure, many of these processes may now be here to stay. For example, rather than taking support phone calls, the business may of decided that they were going to offer support via live chat, email or an online ticketing system. It possibly cost a lot of money to pay for the new software and training and could help reduce wastes time by staff members, so it seems and obvious choice that it may be here to stay. If you are unsure of what or how you are supposed to be doing something, do not be afraid to ask for additional help or a training refresh.

Working from home has become the new norm for many of us during the pandemic. It may be that you had never worked from home before and have had to adapt to this totally new way of working. As lockdown and restrictions are lifted, it is likely that more and more of us will gradually start to return to the workplace. This may not be done instantly, instead it may be a slow process in which more and more people are bought back in over a set period of time.

When working from home it is vital that you stay focused and ensure that you can work efficiently without getting distracted. It is often very easy to get distracted when working from home as you have outside factors that may influence you such as other members of the house, noise from TV’s, radios or even your pets. You may also get distracted by the arrival of the post and before long have gone way off track with what you were supposed to be doing. Depending on what your job is, you may then have to make up this time or complete the work in the evening or at the weekends.

If you own a company or are a self-employed business owner, then there may come a time when you need to take on new members of staff. Finding staff that are not only qualified and have the relevant experience you require, but can also be relied upon can be daunting as unless you know them, you have to trust that what they have put on their CV is true. You may worry that you will end up employing someone that is not really suitable if you do not carry out the interview process correctly or do certain checks to get a true picture of the candidate.

Some employers set potential employees a task to complete during their interview process to see if they can manage some of the work that they may be expected to do. Although this is a good way to fish out the people who have lied, you may actually end up not hiring someone that is quite good, purely because their nerves got the better of them on the day.

Ideally you want to obtain references from previous employers to get a true picture of what the person is like as an employee.

If you have been out of work over the last year due to the Covid pandemic and lockdown then you may find it hard to get back in to it. Some people have in fact lost their jobs or their business has not been able to survive, meaning that they may need to go through the whole recruitment process again. Others may have been on furlough so although they still have their job, they may not have had to go in to work or have had to work from home. adapting back to a usual way of working is going to take some time but there are steps you can take to help the transition. If you have been working from home or furloughed and you have been asked to start coming back in to work, try and get yourself ready beforehand. You may need to get back in to a routine of getting up early and you may struggle to remember how long your commute will take. Give yourself at least a week before hand where you can get up early and see how long it takes you to get ready, You may even wish to do a practice drive to work to see how long you need to allow. This will all help give you confidence when you do return to work and not worry about being late on your first day.

If you are having to look for a new job, then don’t lost hope. Although it may seem like there are not many job opportunities at the moment, it is likely that the situation will change when more businesses start to pick up and people can resume normal activity. Use this time to prepare for finding work. Ensure that your CV is up to date and that you have got everything you need to start applying for jobs. Think carefully about what it is you want to do and if you are considering changing careers, be sure that you have all the experience and qualifications needed to apply. If you do not have the qualifications needed then you may decide to go back in to education first.

It is easy to think that you cannot afford not to work and to return to education but there is often financial help and support out there to enable mature students back to education.

So many people have been financially affected by the pandemic since it started 12 months ago. Some people have seen a drop in their sales whilst others have had to stop working altogether. You may have been eligible for financial support from one or more of the government schemes but if you have only very recently gone self employed then you will most likely of missed out. You may decide that you can no longer afford to stay self employed and instead decide to return to an employed position. This does not have to be permanent, you may just choose to do it for the next 12 months or so until life starts to hopefully return to normal. If you want to continue to be self-employed, then you may need to adapt your business. Looking at other ways in which you could offer your products or services can allow you to continue turning over a profit. You could also use this time to improve your business, whether that be your business premises or your processes. You may look to working on your marketing and set up social media profiles or have a website created.  Using this time effectively, will mean you can hit the ground running when you do open up again.

If you are looking or work then you may decide to register with a recruitment agency. There are a number of benefits of using a recruitment agency but the main one is that they will often be able to find you a job quicker than you would yourself.

There are a number of different types of recruitment agencies, some of which specialise in certain areas of recruitment. For example, there are recruitment agencies that only advertise teaching jobs and ones that only work within the online marketing sector. If you are looking for a job within one of these sorts of industries you may wonder if it is better to register with an agency like that rather than one that covers a wider selection of jobs.

Registering with an agency that specialises in the types of jobs you are looking for will allow you to focus all your efforts in that area. They will be more likely to know what you are suited to and which jobs to put you up for.

If you are unsure of the type of job you want to go for then you are better to advertise with an agency who is a bit more of an all-rounder.

If you are looking to progress up the ladder in your current job then you need to ensure that you are proving yourself to be a valuable member of staff. Often the people that get promoted quickest are those that go the extra mile to prove their worth. It may be that you stay late and work extra hours as and when we required to ensure that all the work is done, or maybe you have pulled in some great contracts and earned the company a lot of money. There are a number of reason why you may be picked for a promotion.

If you have been in your current position for a feel and would like to be promoted then you may be able to ask if there is the possibility of a vacancy coming up in the near future. If not then it may be that you have to leave that position and move to a different company to get the job you really want. At this moment this may be quite difficult as lots of companies are not hiring anyone due to the situation with the Covid pandemic and the uncertainly that this brings to many.

If you are a business owner or manager who is in charge of recruitment then you will probably already know how time consuming it can be. It may be that you have different staff members in charge of different processes within recruitment and you need to manage these effectively.

There are numerous recruitment software packages out there that help make the whole process much easier to manage. If you are recruiting for a number of posts at the same time, his handy tool can allow you to keep track of the progress on that particular job post. It can also allow you to create posts and upload them to many jobs boards in the click of a button. This massive uploading to the job sites can save you hours of time and you can then keep track of which ones you get the most applications thorough. Often this recruitment software is free for a limited trial and then you will usually pay a monthly or annual subscription fee. Sometimes they create several packages so you can choose one that beat suits you and not have to pay for things you are not going to be using.

Finding work after you have decided to leave the armed forces can be hard. For some people, they may have no idea what they want to do and it could be that they have been in the forces since leaving school.

It may be that you have been in a very active role and need to find something that will keep you busy and allow you to be challenged as a desk job just may not suit it and you may find that you simply cannot stick at it. It is important to listen to what your head is telling you and don’t just go for something that you don’t feel passionate about. Obviously there are times when we simply just need to bring in a wage, but even if you have to take a job in something that you don’t enjoy, don’t stop looking for other work in the meantime.

Depending on what you want to do, you could do some voluntary work in a few different industries to try and establish what you will get fulfilment out of. This way you can try many different job roles before committing to long term employment.

Often you can get the opportunity to do courses or take additional exams to gain qualifications prior to leaving the forces. This can really help you get your foot on the careers ladder.

At present, the whole world is going through unprecedented times and no one quite knows when it is all going to end. It may be that you have lost your job during this time or that you have finished a college or university degree and want to find work. At the moment, unemployment rates are the highest they have been for some time. This means that most jobs are in higher competition so you really need to be top of your game to give yourself the best opportunity to land a job.

Often it is a bit of a numbers game and you will need to apply for as many jobs as possible to give yourself the best opportunity. If you are not working then set yourself at least an hour every day to search for and apply for jobs.

There are a number of places in which you can search for jobs, and you may ant to enlist with an agency or two to help continue search for vacancies for you. Be sure to have an up to date CV handy to send off to any job that becomes available but remember to tailor your CV to the job that you are applying for.