Future Perfect Blogs

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A Psychologist’s Guide To Self Improved And Growth In 2021

We have seen a rise in the way people are becoming more conscious about self-care not just in terms of physical grooming and hygiene but also emotional and psychological health. Are you all taking good care of your growth and well being?

Talking about Professional growth is very common, but what if you are a student, retired personnel, or a housewife or husband?

Have you thought about things that help you feel — happy, content, and decide on goals?

Knowing yourself — your own likes, dislikes, challenges, and strengths are key to helping with deciding your goals, both short and long term ones.

Personal growth is the process by which a person recognizes himself or herself and continually develops himself or herself to reach his or her full potential, even after completing your formal education. Personal growth is an important part of a person’s growth, maturity, success, and happiness. The beauty of personal growth is that the possibilities are endless — you can learn as much as you want in your field. And as you continue to grow, you will be embarking on an extraordinary and meaningful path in life.

Few things which you can do to work towards Personal growth -

● Learning to control anger

● Learning to overcome procrastination

● Learning to overcome laziness

● Learning to be more polite and considerate

● Becoming a more responsible person

● Learning and developing new skills

● Changing your mindset and becoming more positive

Successful personal growth requires motivation, the desire to improve, and the willingness to strive to make changes. You also need to be willing to get out of your comfort zone, and sometimes, do things that are uncomfortable, but are for your own good. An open mind and the desire to learn and grow are also important. If needed never hesitate to approach for help. A Counselor can be of great help to work and grow in all areas of your life. Working on self-growth can help you at work, it can change your attitude toward work, and therefore, open new opportunities for advancement. It can help in growing emotionally and mentally and becoming a more considerate, loving, and positive person. It can also help you see your mistakes and negative habits, and lead you to correct and changing them.

Personal growth is an ongoing process that starts from an early age but mostly shaped by parents, teachers, and the environment. However, to make the most of it, you need to become aware of the process, know what it is, and take the right steps to grow and improve yourself.

Sometimes, problems and difficulties are the triggers that awaken the desire to grow and lead to making changes in one’s life. At other times, people are inspired to take steps toward personal growth after reading an inspiring book, watching a movie, or reading about people who achieved success.

This often leads people to new paths, to making changes in their lives, expanding their knowledge and self-awareness, improving skills, and developing new ones.

For personal growth, it’s never too late, even if it’s your first time. Now is definitely a good time to be doing this!

Author: Divya Panga

School Counselor and Counselling Psychologist.

Chattisgarh, INDIA.

About Future Perfect:

Future Perfect’s Psychometric Assessments and personalized Counselling gives individuals a holistic image of their personal, professional, and social life, with the aim of identifying their blind spots and fix them to achieve their full potential!

Click here to know more: https://futureperfectinternational.com/

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A Psychologists Guide On Improving Business Communication

Business Communication etiquette is all about how we communicate with our co-workers and business partners and how we make them feel. These etiquettes are also dependent on expectations, and the culture of the company, and may vary from one workplace to another. In this article, we will look at Communication and the importance of response and response time, especially in business communication.

Let’s start by understanding that communication is simply the act of transferring information (ideas, or emotions) from one person to another. A communication, therefore, has three parts: the sender, the message, and the recipient. For effective communication, the sender produces the message in the most appropriate form. The receiver gets the message, decodes it, and gives feedback to the sender that they have received and understood the message in the manner intended and clarifies expectations if any. There are multiple ways in which we communicate, digital communication including email and instant messaging gaining prominence more so even in a business scenario.

When we are talking about response and response time, the first question that arises is why do we need to respond? Let’s look at a personal scenario. It is the year 2021 and you have planned a Diwali Dinner for your friends. You have designed and sent personal invites. Out of 25 invitees, 20 have not responded till a day before the party. How would you feel? Feelings of anxiety, irritation, anger, and frustration might be going through your mind. You might check your inbox, outbox often for updates/errors. The same can happen in business communication when there is no response from recipients.

When you respond, it signifies that you have received the communication, you have read it and you are working on it. How quickly you respond to their emails sets the expectations for your service. It helps you to be seen as a reliable professional and this in turn helps you achieve zero inboxes. Once you respond there are higher chances that you will act on it. Remember how quickly you reply is an impactful nonverbal cue to your customers and co-workers that speed is a vital part of customer service.

The next question that arises is how quickly do you expect a response? Several surveys were conducted on how quickly one expects a response. Here is a gist of those surveys. When writing to your friends/family, 53% expect a response within 4 hours, and 81% expect within 24 hours.

When communicating with a client/customer, 44% of participants expected a response within 4 hours and 87% within 24 hours.

The expected response time when emailing a coworker- 77% feel that they expect a response within 4 hours and 98% within 24 hours.

One must be wondering how successful people manage their inbox with at least 700 -800 emails landing in their inbox every day. Let’s look at the Email habits of highly successful people and see if we can imbibe some of these habits.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, follows O.H.I.O — Only Hold It Once. In his book, How Google Works, Schmidt explains that if you see an email that takes less than two minutes to respond to, respond immediately. L.I.F.O. stands for “Last In First Out.” Which means handling newer emails first. He says this works for him because the older stuff usually gets taken care of by someone else”.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple wakes up at 3:45 AM, goes through his mail, responds, and plans his day accordingly. He will still have to respond to emails throughout the day but he ensures that it is from a lighter inbox.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, says that if you email him, you’ll get an answer either within 10 minutes or never. Bezos sometimes forwards customer emails to his managers within Amazon with a single question mark. A Bloomberg Businessweek article revealed, “When Amazon employees get a Bezos question mark email, they react as though they’ve discovered a ticking bomb. They’ve typically got a few hours to solve whatever issue the CEO has flagged and prepare a thorough explanation for how it occurred. The response is then reviewed by a succession of managers before the answer is presented to Bezos himself.” This practice ensures that Amazon is not only customer-oriented but can also be called a customer-obsessed firm.

Try to find out if you are an Out of control — a person whose mailbox is always open, with loads of mails yet to respond, or an in-control person who checks his/her mails at specific intervals, responds, and moves on to complete his/her work.

More time spent checking emails means less time to do your core work — the things you were hired to do. This means more temptation to work longer hours, ignoring your own well-being and health, and getting stressed overwork.

So, if you want to be known as a Professional, Proactive individual who wants to create a Positive Impact and ensure Progress, start by responding to emails.

AUTHOR: Arundhati Tornekar- Trainer, Counsellor

Ms. Arundhati holds a Masters in Psychology, MBA-HR, and is a Certified Counsellor with a focus on Children and Parent — teen relationship improvement. She has over 10 years of experience.

Future Perfect Psychometric Assessments and Counselling gives individuals a holistic image of their personal, professional, and social life, with the aim of identifying the blind spot so that they can achieve their full potential!

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A Psychologists Guide to Improving your Work from Home Lifestyle

With the ability to work from anywhere, the ‘new normal’ has become hassle-free; no traveling and no dressing up. Professionals and students are able to take advantage of this by working from home and creating a flexible schedule to take care of work and personal responsibilities yet, when you exclusively work from home, physical boundaries between work and your personal life can feel virtually non-existent. Even if you’re organized, it can still be difficult to propitiously manage your career and home in the same space, especially if you’re raising a family, too.

Additionally, it’s easy to get distracted when you’re working from home, and you may not be as productive as you’d be in a traditional work setting. This brings in added stress and can make you work odd hours.

This is why it becomes essential to move towards improving this new lifestyle for our well-being. The work-from-home lifestyle requires proper planning and scheduling, time management, and production techniques to help you manage your workday so you can complete the tasks on your to-do list quicker.

Below are some ideas that can help in improving the work from the home lifestyle:

Your workspace at home

Working from home can be a lot more distracting than working from the office. For one thing, you’re alone, without any co-workers nearby to motivate you to stay productive and busy. For another, your home offers more things to do than the office. If you are working from your couch or bed where you normally are enjoying your leisure time, you might get distracted halfway through the day. If you work from your dining room table that’s covered in clutter that needs to be put away, you might end up doing that instead of working.

Instead, choose a spot where you can work productively, and keep that space distinct from other parts of your home so you can unplug from work when you’re done.

Your Office hours

It is ideal that you work only during your work hours. Set a schedule, and try sticking to it! Having clear guidelines for when to work and when to call it a day, can help in maintaining a healthy balance. Try not to let house chores interfere with the tasks of work at hand and vice-versa.

Done for the day

Although being connected and communicative with your colleagues is important, it’s equally important to shut off when the day is over. If you’re available all hours of the day, it will quickly become an expectation and work-life balance will start becoming non-existent.

No matter what you have going on, establish “closing time” for your workday (like 6 pm), and then make sure you’re wrapping up and getting ready to stop working when the cut-off time rolls around. In addition, listen to some of your favorite songs to get de-stressed whilst unwinding.

Your Post-Work Routine

If you’re used to traveling for work, your commute home might have been enough to separate work from the evening, but without the usual commute, make your own ritual to turn your “work brain” off and get into relaxation mode. Try changing clothes (even if you’re changing from one set of pyjamas into another), working out, or even taking a bath to transition out of work mode and into relaxation mode. In addition, try devoting some ‘No Screen time’ to relax your eyes.

In conclusion, shifting the work environment to home has been challenging, but with a few simple changes to your time and routine, you’ll soon find that you can still have a productive workday. Be patient with yourself, along the way! Author: Ms. Shweta Manghnani

She is a Counselling Psychologist. She is additionally trained in the following areas: Sports Psychology, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Child sexual abuse, Life Skills and is currently pursuing a course on Applied Buddhist Psychology. Her area of expertise lies in working with clients who are experiencing trauma, depression, anxiety-related concerns, and abuse. She additionally creates and facilitates self-exploration sessions for humans who are on a self-awareness journey.

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The Importance of Upskilling and Reskilling In The Pandemic

2020 has been a difficult year for the world in which our lives have changed drastically. Social distancing norms and extensive lockdowns have come into instantaneous existence, which didn’t leave any of us enough time to prepare for what’s coming next or even to say a quick goodbye to our old lives. But, here we are, now slowly accepting, adapting, and living life in the Corona era!

These days have been unparalleled and unpredictable, something that none of our subjects back in school has prepared us for.  The pandemic has brought in significant stress in our day-to-day activities, the way we seek education, handling day to day relationships, the routine of employment, managing a balance between personal and professional life

Since many businesses hit a huge drop due to the pandemic, organizations have been compelled, many with a heavy heart, to lay off their employees. But sharp-witted employers like Nokia, Amazon, Microsoft realized that layoffs are detrimental to their own businesses in the current circumstances. According to research, ‘HR resilience planning pandemic impact and preparedness’ showed that around 70% of the organizations believe that the single biggest concern for continued remote working is a fall in productivity. Instead of laying off, many employers preferred to empower, reskill, and upskill their employees. 

In regards to employees, they are facing various challenges worldwide. With grim employment situations, professionals are preparing themselves for the future by what they can do best, and in this case, the answer lies in, consciously upgrading existing skills and proactively learning new skills to prepare and adapt themselves for the times to come.

What is Upskilling and Reskilling? 

Upskilling is the process of learning and upgrading the existing skills that will assist you and empower you professionally to do a particular role at your best capacity. 

Reskilling is the process of learning a new set of skills to prepare yourself or employees to take up a different role. Many organizations prefer to reskill their employees and prepare them to perform multiple roles more effectively and efficiently. 

 In 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that as many as 375 million workers—or 14 percent of the global workforce would have to switch occupations or acquire new skills by 2030 because of automation and artificial intelligence. As competition grows, employees are required to meet the expectations and they should adapt to the dynamic environment. 

Why is Upskilling and Reskilling Important? 

More than 80% of talent development professionals report a skills gap in their organization, and 78% anticipate a future skills gap. In recent years, upskilling and reskilling has become the top priority of HRs. 

Many organizations focus on training and retaining their employees.

According to the Work Institute, the cost of losing a worker in the US is around $15,000. 

Keeping up with disruptive technological tools is a challenge for organizations. Technology creates opportunities but it also creates skill gaps. With such high competition coupled with a dynamic scenario, employees are expected to adopt technology at an ever-increasing rate. Upskilling and reskilling are a smaller investment compared to hiring and then re-training a new employee. For employers, training their employees is always an added advantage. It improves their retention, boosts their morale, increases team effectiveness, and provides opportunities for their career advancement. 

Reskilling and Upskilling Employees During the Pandemic

According to McKinsey, to emerge stronger from the pandemic crisis, companies should start reskilling and upskilling their workforces. If your organization implements a hiring freeze to prevent layoffs, how would you manage your workflow and get an edge on your competitors? The best way is to upskill and reskill your employees so that they can maximize their potential, learn new skills, and in turn perform better!

Remote working has certainly disrupted our existing working environment and employees’ productivity as well, but training and providing career advancement opportunities will encourage them to take over work responsibilities and perform successfully.  

By reskilling and upskilling the employees with collaborative learning opportunities like LMS training, cross-training programs, mobile learnings, and courses your organization can still achieve goals with minimum investment. Retaining the talent should be the priority so that when you are back on track, existing talents in the organization can help to build the business, maximize your profit, and serve your customers loyally. 

[yourfutureperfect]

Strengths - A Positive Psychology Perspective

The global pandemic has wreaked unprecedented times in our lives. While we all feel a looming sense of uncertainty, there’s one thing we know for sure. We are all experiencing collective grief - the loss of life as we once knew it. This has magnified mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression in individuals. 

While the pre-covid era was already battling with mental health concerns, these numbers significantly grew due to the virus. Research suggests that the rates of depression symptomatology are three times higher during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic. 

Several aspects of our lives may feel out of control for each of us, but there’s a lot we could do to mitigate the ill effects that come along in these pressing times. 

Understanding Positive Psychology 

A solution can be found in Martin Seligman’s groundbreaking work on positive psychology. Shifting from a psychopathology perspective on mental well-being to his focus on ‘the positive side of mental health’ could help us here. 

Sheldon and King (2001) define positive psychology as “nothing more than the scientific study of ordinary human strengths and virtues”. 

Positive psychology is all about the personal qualities, life circumstances, individual choices, life activities, relationships with others, transcendent purposes, and sociocultural conditions that foster and define a good life. 

The Role of Positivity in the Pandemic 

Seligman’s evidence based PERMA model can help us adapt better to the new normal. He suggests that there are five key areas of life – positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment.

Positive emotion - There are several ways we can feel positive emotions. We must focus on eating a diet that boosts and promotes healthy functioning. It is easy to fall into the trap of eating junk and binge watching Netflix; now that we are home all day. Remember: Moods are built in our gut. 90 percent of serotonin is manufactured in the digestive tract and not the brain! Practising gratitude is another way to increase positive emotions. 

Engagement - Finding an activity that is a reward in itself, shows positive engagement. We all need to find hobbies and activities that put us in a ‘flow’ state. To all the quarantine bakers, this one’s for you. Keep it up! 

Relationships - Maintaining our connection with our closed ones is important, especially during these times. Ensure you engage in positive bonding and communication with your loved ones and witness your stresses melt away. Return the favour by doing a small act of kindness. From an evolutionary perspective, we are social beings because the drive to connect with and serve others promotes our survival. So the next time you plan to ignore a text or call, think of how much better you will feel after connecting! 

Meaning - Cultivating a sense of meaning is deeply personal and yet, it allows you to be a part of something larger than yourself. Exercise: Recollect or write a life summary to review how you’ve contributed to society. 

Accomplishments - We have all set standards for what makes us feel accomplished. These can be different goals and plans. However, this year we recommend that you ditch these ideals! Your smallest win or successes need to be cheered on. It’s important for us to be our own cheerleaders this year. 

P.S. it’s 2020 and we made it out alive, we’ll take that as our biggest accomplishment! 

We would also like to emphasise on building your strengths to help navigate these times. Read on to know more about your own personal strengths. 

Identifying your strengths 

Each of us have our unique strengths that help us standout and aid our efforts in adverse times. Many of us are not aware of these inherent strengths that we possess. Here’s a simple exercise to get your mind running. Think back to a time or incident that truly challenged you. 

Now, reflect on which of your personal characteristics or traits helped you overcome them. 

If you helped a stranger in distress - compassion could be one of your key strengths. Perhaps, you stood undeterred in times of extreme pressure highlighting your resilience. Or, it could be your leadership that helped your teammates successfully land a business deal. All of these are signs of character strengths that we ALL possess. Now, these are essential to identify in order to call upon them in times of need.  Strengths are a combination of abilities, skills, knowledge, talent, and experience. Often, our strengths remain underutilized and unrewarded. To get a better holding in this journey of life, identifying your strengths can be a fruitful experience. 

To definitively know your strengths, take the S.W.O.T assessment on www.futureperfectinternational.com 

The S.W.O.T Assessment - 

Assess your strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats with this S.W.O.T assessment. It is a classic strategic and planning technique used to help an individual or an organization to identify and assess the four aspects of your personality. You can gain valuable insights about yourself, understand the root cause of your problems, get a summary of existing gaps that affect your productivity and success, and transform you to become more productive and set you on a successful path.

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Discovering the Unconscious!

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power."

-Lao Tzu

The unconscious mind consists of vast operations in the mind that take place below conscious awareness. Many psychologists view the unconscious mind as the shadow of the real conscious mind. The content in the unconscious mind involves all those thoughts, imagination, feelings, cognitions, and memories that we are not consciously aware of at any given point. 

History of the Concept.

The term ‘unconscious’ was first coined by the philosopher Friedrich Schelling in the late 18th-century. Willian James and Wilhelm Wundt introduced the notion of unconsciousness in the field of Psychology. Sigmund Freud popularized the concept and made it an essential component in the world of psychology.

According to research, It makes up around 95% of your brainpower and handles everything your body needs to function properly, from eating and breathing to digesting and making memories. The remaining 5% of your brain, the conscious mind, has the sole purpose of interacting with the physical world.

Sigmund Freud’s research on the unconscious mind.

Sigmund Freud, a well-known neurologist, and the founder of psychoanalysis has stated that the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior. It is the unacceptable thoughts, instances, or ideas that can be repressed in the unconscious mind. While some of these ideas have been refuted, they still play a huge role in understanding the mind. 

Your unconscious mind communicates with your conscious through various channels. Dreams being a popular way. Freud referred to them as the “Royal road to the Unconscious”.

The unconscious mind is powerful and complicated.

Many researchers believe that the mind is the most powerful computer in the world. According to research, The human brain possesses about 100 billion neurons with roughly 1 quadrillion 1 million billion connections known as synapses wiring these cells together. The brain has the energy that moves across the synapses of your neurons has the potential to revolutionize your life and world.  

As we know few things in this world do not have two-faced implications, the unconscious mind also has both pros and cons..

The unconscious mind consists of all the details and directions that are inaccessible to our conscious minds and it governs more of actions and emotions than we realize. An unconscious mind has boundless creativity, some important information, and untapped potentials. Accessing an unconscious mind can help you understand your blind spots, abilities to heal yourself, enhance learning abilities, acquire knowledge about your fears, and understanding your strengths. 

How do you access this pool of information? 

This unconscious resides in your personality. It is a part of you that is accessible but not always visible. While most people are unaware of its workings, the thoughts, beliefs and feelings that are buried deep can affect how you interact with the world. 

Your personality throughout life is relatively stable. Learning your inner motivations, aspirations and blind spots will allow you to harness the power of your true personality. 

Why is the ‘Know Yourself Assessment’ helpful?

“The brain doesn’t learn through consumption, it learns through creation.” When you understand how the unconscious mind works then you can harness its power. You can access it in various ways, knowing your blind spots, personality, characteristic and behavior patterns, values, aims, and unconsciousness can be aided with the help of accurate assessments that give you the right information that helps you in your journey of success by understanding yourself better!

Take Future Perfect's exclusive ‘Know Yourself Assessment’ which is a detailed and accurate psychometric test, designed by expert psychologists It provides you with an in depth analysis about your personality, temperament and characteristic patterns along with a 'unique to you’ Personality Code. 

To access your code, take the Know Yourself Assessment, Today! 

“Access your personality, 

Access yourself.” 

[yourfutureperfect]

The Power of Workplace Consulting

What is Future Perfect Workplace Consulting?  

Workplace Consulting is a trademark Future Perfect product which is a powerful tool that provides conciliation. Future Perfect’s holistic assessment, reports and counselling programs offer highly personalized 360 degree guidance along with counselling sessions with experts to help employees to succeed in all areas of their life. These programs offer valuable insights by identifying your blind spots and help you develop and inculcate success habits.

Workplace consulting expands the efficiency and the quality of the work of employees and an organisation on the whole. It helps create agility in the working environment. With constant pressure to be the front-runner in the on-going competition, employees usually get stressed out, which in turn affects their productivity, increases absenteeism, changes in behaviours with co-workers and ultimately results in lowered efficiency as well as disturbing an individual’s professional life along with personal and social life.

Future Perfect Consultants have the right expertise, dexterity and ability to understand crucial workplace dynamics and provide the right inputs to help you navigate through them. Consulting will guide employees to achieve organisational and personal objectives by identifying strengths, weaknesses, interests, and skills. It highlights the root cause of the problems, along with the right skill sets that allows them to work accordingly while expert consulting assists employees with strategies.

 How it Helps Employees?  

● Workplace Consulting is the Organisation’s Duty to Care

 1.    Workplace consulting has a devoted mission to build success habits in the employees.   

2.    Employees of the organisation can share their problems with counsellors.

3.    Counsellors interpret the situations, eliminate the root cause of problems, and provide analysis of conflict resolution to employees.

● Workplace Consulting gives a New Perception

 1.    Consulting builds a growth mind-set by helping employees to understand the crux of the problems.

2.    Counsellors become the guardian spirit of the employees by providing insights into their personal, professional, and social life and encouraging them to achieve better.

● Workplace Consulting Increases Employees Productivity

 1.    Counsellors train employees to manage stress and enhance self-development.

2.    Counsellors give a realistic profile of employees and create self-awareness concerning behavioural patterns and critical thinking.

3.    Counsellors motivate them to improve their performance.

● Workplace Consulting Helps to Bounce Back Failures

1.    Overcoming through failures is arduous, not many can face it. Certain employees may not take criticism and failure positively. Workplace consulting helps them to accept and work harder to bounce back from their failures.

● Workplace Consulting Builds Harmony Among Co-worker

 1.    Counsellors solve the discrepancy between co-workers' values and their actions.

2.    Consulting resolves differences among employees as they administer the relationship among the employees keenly.

● Workplace Consulting Provides Potential Analysis

1.    Workplace Consulting elucidates your professional objectives which help in decision-making.

2.    Workplace Consulting gives an accurate view of employees' ability, skill sets, and talent.

3.    Workplace Consulting will discover specific things about yourself you were unaware of.

 Signs to Understand that Your Employees Need Consulting

Though organisations will consistently ensure that their employees work in a productive environment, some situations and complications are unmanageable. In such circumstances, the organisations should consider professional help. By now, you know the importance of consulting but why and when the employees need is still a question. Certain times, employees face challenges with adapting to the workplace and experience a difficult stretch in understanding the work. It is mainly because the employees are facing certain barriers or are unhappy due to one or the other reason. Here are some important signs for an organisation to realise that their employees need consulting.

 ●  Barriers to Effective Communication at the Workplace

 Employee communication can create trust and understanding with co-workers. Communication skills are the prime characteristics of any successful employee. It is veracious that poor communication will not only hamper the work quality but spoil the work environment unanimously. Realising the barriers to communication at the beginning phase and taking constructive measures to conquer it will ensure a healthy workplace environment. To traverse this hurdle, workplace consulting helps to bridge the communication gap.

 ● Tackling Unsatisfactory Work Performance of Employees

Everyone doesn’t consistently perform phenomenally. Every individual in their professional life goes through peaks and valleys. An upstanding manager will understand the root cause of the problems faced by employees, and soon realise that poor work performance is the failure of the management. Motivating and stimulating the respective employees can redeem the complications. With circumstances being carried away, professional help will play a predominant role.

● Cultural Difference

In the medium or large organisation, employees are from diverse cultural backgrounds. Certain employees have their own cultural needs like religious practices, custom needs, attires, social values, and are adamant to follow it. Cultural differences will affect the efficiency of the employees and the organisation.

 What are your views on workplace consulting? Do you believe this can add value to your organisation and help boost your efficiency and productivity thus leading to higher profitability?