Introduction to Work Attitude & Value Enhancement

By Kate Bluest, eHow Contributor

In an organization, people with diverse attitudes and values about work are brought together to achieve the organization's mission. Work Attitude and Value Enhancement (WAVE) Workshops are designed to bring together individual and organizational work values. The workshop help to define the core values of service, timeliness, team effort, hard work, and quality and then to clarify how these core values influence productivity.

1. Work Attitude and Value Enhancement

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Attitude is defined as a mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values and dispositions to act in certain ways. Often, when shown the personal benefits of a positive attitude adjustment, people are willing to change their attitudes to achieve an organization's mission. Values are defined as the ethics of an individual. Enhancement is defined as something that raises the value of a thing. An increased work ethic can lead to more productive employees and a better organization overall.

2. What Employees Will Learn in a WAVE Workshop

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After participating in a WAVE workshop, an employee should learn how their individual roles in the organization contribute to the overall transformation of the organization. Individuals should learn to identify and clarify their personal values and goals as they relate to the organization's values and goals. They can then make a commitment to modify their work attitude and behavior to be in alignment with both their personal goals and values and the goals and values of the organization.

3. Disadvantages of WAVE Workshops

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The positive results gained from WAVE workshops can be temporary. Work attitude is primarily influenced by work environment. Many people find it hard to maintain a positive work attitude if they don't like their work environment. Some factors that are included in the work environment are the people they work with, the people they work for, salary, the physical location, training, and adequate supplies. Any of these environmental factors could lead to a disgruntled employee who isn't likely to change their attitude because of a WAVE workshop.

Benefits of a WAVE Workshop for Employees

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Employees can benefit from participating in WAVE workshops by learning to be more productive at work and have better attitudes about their jobs. Internalizing the work attitude and value enhancement principles (WAVE) can be a step toward career success for an employee. When employees have better attitudes about their jobs, they have more interest in

How to Adjust Your Workplace Attitude

By Adele Eliot, eHow Contributor

Your attitude toward your work and colleagues has a lasting impact on your performance and motivation, as well as how other people perceive you. If you're having issues with productivity, conflicts with coworkers or are feeling dissatisfied with your career, changing your attitude towards your work could help. Altering thoughts and behaviors can be difficult, as it requires conscious effort and willpower at first. However, it could make all the difference to your experience at work and help other people experience you in a different way, too.

Instructions
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Watch your colleagues. Every workplace has employees who are more popular than others are, and while this is frequently linked to skill, more often than not this popularity is due to their attitude. You can learn from colleagues who take an upbeat and proactive approach to work by watching them, noting their body language, identifying positive behaviors and trying to emulate these. Their positive behaviors could range from maintaining eye contact during conversations to always handing in work before the deadline. Try introducing one behavior at a time and see if it makes a difference to your attitude.

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Talk to yourself. While it might not be appropriate to do this out loud, developing a positive inner voice to keep your workplace attitude in check

can help you stay constructive through tough times. If you are using positive self-talk to overcome negative ideas or attitudes, your communication with others will also be more positive.
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Take responsibility. While it's important to have boundaries at work and let everyone do his fair share, you will make a more positive impression if you shun the "it's not my job" attitude and go the extra mile to support colleagues and clients. This doesn't mean you should start working weekends or letting coworkers delegate their tasks to you, it's about keeping an eye open for opportunities where you can reasonably help someone with a task.

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Offer solutions. If you are having problems with a particular project or client, it's a good idea to talk to your boss. However, both you and your boss will feel much more positive about the situation if you go with the problem and offer a solution at the same time. Don't just wait for your boss to do all the problem solving, use your own skills to come up with suggestions.

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Watch out for conclusions and assumptions. Negative thoughts can arise from false conclusions, so it's important to catch these and question them to change your workplace attitude. If you are having a conflict with a colleague, try to see the conflict from their point of view and empathize with their situation. You are working with everyone in the company, not against them. Short remarks, snappy comments and harsh words might hurt and shouldn't be ignored. However, don't take it personally.

How do I Teach Values & Attitudes in Business Subjects?

By Mara Pesacreta, eHow Contributor

Business subjects teach about aspects of organizations in which an exchange of goods and services occurs: for example, accounting, entrepreneurship or management. The values of business include the ideals individuals of the organization strive to embody and behaviors they employ to succeed. The attitudes of business relate to the outlook that workers have about the company and themselves. To teach values and attitudes in business subjects, categorize the values, explain the importance of having a positive attitude in difficult situations, and provide examples.

Instructions
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Categorize the values of business according to organizational values, physical values and psychological values. Organizational values relate to the actions that the workers take to maintain the standards of the company. Physical values refer to how the workers perform their tasks. Psychological values refer to how workers think and relate to one another to meet their goals.

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Explain the organizational values of business. Examples are accountability, systemization, communication, standardization, cooperation, integration, coordination and the ability to initiate action and maintain discipline. Accountability means that the workers have to be reliable. Systemization refers to how a format should be created when working to meet a standard. Workers need to communicate, or share their ideas, when arriving at a solution. Standardization helps to structure a business and create a uniform way of carrying out procedures. Workers need to listen to one another and collaborate and cooperate when handling difficult problems. This could mean putting their ideas together or integrating them. In business employees should be coordinated and have the ability to multitask. To achieve success, action needs to be taken immediately. Workers must be able to handle

constructive criticism and cultivate the virtues of perseverance and discipline.

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Describe the physical values of business. Examples include accuracy, speed, cleanliness, safety, maximum use of resources, responsiveness, orderliness, reliability, punctuality, regularity and quality. To be successful workers must perform their tasks correctly and accurately. Many demands must be met, so the tasks must be performed rapidly. Keeping a clean work area will help facilitate speed in task completion. Workers should use every resource at their disposal when working on a project and cultivate the ability to respond to new ideas. Maintaining an organized work space will facilitate creativity and collaboration. Workers should be reliable and dependable in their interactions with one another. They should be punctual. These attributes will help to produce quality results.

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Explain the psychological values of business, which include improvement, the desire to succeed, creativity, service, customer delight, respect, decisiveness, resourcefulness, development, loyalty, harmony, integrity and innovation. Workers must always strive to improve their performance and cultivate their desire to succeed. They should employ new ideas when working on a project and provide service to both society and other workers. This includes good customer service. Workers need to treat themselves and others with respect but be decisive about ideas they believe will be successful. Resourcefulness involves contending well with both difficult and less intimidating situations. Development involves planning and thinking through ideas before their execution. Loyalty entails being honest and genuine with other coworkers and customers and supporting them whenever possible. Harmony refers to getting along in interpersonal relationships and working well with others. Integrity refers to honesty and ethical behavior, and innovation includes utilizing new concepts and practices.

State the importance of having a positive attitude. Within business subjects, teach students to meet deadlines, come up with new ideas and work together in order to achieve a certain goal. When an idea does not work as planned, or the project is not going according to schedule, it's easy to become negative. A poor outlook can discourage others and will prevent the team from achieving the goal. Having a positive attitude means being optimistic and believing that even unfavorable situations can be lead to favorable outcomes. This is the type of attitude to teach in business classes.
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Provide examples of how business values and attitudes are crucial to success. Research and use case studies to make your points. For example, if workers are assigned the project of creating a small robot in a given period of time, they will need the organizational value of cooperation when sharing ideas, the physical value of responsiveness when determining whether or not the idea will be successful, and the psychological value of resourcefulness when developing ways to program the robot. Throughout this project, the workers will need a positive attitude and be ready to solve problems

1. Skills Skills and knowledge are important to complement pride when doing your work as a newbie seeking career success. You can have a lot of pride and take personal responsibility for your work. But if you lacked the skills and knowledge to do your work well, it will not be productive. You will still not be able to achieve the desired results. Be aware of the skills and knowledge your work requires. Sharpen those skills. If you need to learn new ones, make plans to acquire them. You should discuss them with your immediate supervisor. Skills and knowledge must be the backbone of your pride at work in order for you to achieve the success you seek. 2. Direction The second personal work attitude values enhancement principle you should learn is that passion must be led by direction. You cannot have burning passion for your work but lack the direction your passion can be guided towards. Passion is what will pull you through the toughest times at work. It gives you the energy to burn the midnight oil. It pushes you to do that little extra. However, this energy must have a direction. Without direction, your passion goes all over the place. Your efforts are not concentrated. It is not honed in on completing the priorities. 3. Action Last on your personal work attitude values enhancement principle is action. Having a belief is important when seeking career success. As far as your career success is concerned, it is even more important if you could align your professional belief with that of the organization. And this belief must be backed by solid action. When your beliefs are backed by action, career success is at your doorstep. Have a plan of action on how you can help your company achieve its goals and at the same time achieve your career success. 4. Your Personal WAVE If you can internalize these as your personal work attitude values enhancement (WAVE) principles, you will greatly increase the chance of career success. Think about these principles as a wave that pushes you to the shore of career success.