Author name: FirstWeb

Who Is Cynthia B. Okonkwo? I am a wife and a mom who is a people person by heart. I live in metro-Atlanta and work as a Human Resources professional and have over twenty-four years experience in the field. My experience includes Compensation, Training, Recruiting, Employee Relations, Benefits, and Selection Procedure Development; however, Employee Relations is my passion because I enjoy interacting with others and helping them to solve problems. I became interested in Human Resources while on a work-study assignment during my sophomore year in undergraduate school. I chose management as my major because I was not quite certain what I wanted to do after college and I knew that an off-shoot of Business Administration was a safe, general choice that could help me get into a number of career fields. My work-study assignment was as an assistant to the campus Director of Career Services. There, I learned to make cold calls to area businesses to seek out employment opportunities for students and alumni. I also learned how to format vacancy announcements and resumes. Since writing had always been one of my strengths, I enjoyed my assignment so much that I requested to be reassigned to that department for most of the remainder of my undergraduate career. My Director also provided resources on job interview preparation and she allowed me to type resumes for students who did not have one and charge $1 per page to make a few extra bucks. I got a full-time job immediately after graduation, but it wasn’t in Human Resources; however, I had a Vice President who took me under his wings and allowed me to review employment applications for job openings at the Distribution Center where I worked, so this helped to strengthen my resume. It took me about two and a half years to secure my first full-time job in the field of human resources where I became a trained test developer for the State’s Government Merit System. From there my career has continued to grow. My blog was born out of my desire to write a book that provides practical job search tips and advice, from a spiritual, holistic perspective. After having drafted about three chapters, I got busy with grad school and obtained my MBA; got married and started a family. In 2013, I became SPHR (Sr. Professional in Human Resources) certified. I started seeing other people’s blogs, became interested and thought that blogging might be a great alternative, or spring board to completing my book, so here we are today. My sincere hope is that what I write will help someone. Enjoy!

Performance Improvement

Manager’s 11-Step Guide to Objectively Addressing Employees’ Substandard Performance

Nnamtique / By

Introduction: Welcome to part four of our successful performance review meetings series. This week’s focus returns to providing guidance to managers in this space. An employee’s substandard performance impacts the workplace in many ways. These might include their work quality; colleagues’ work quality; and the employer’s reputation. Personally, and employee’s substandard performance can result in …

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Performance Review Meeting

Steps 5-9 of the Employee’s Guide to Performance Review Success

Nnamtique / By

Introduction: Hello Everybody and welcome to the third installment of the performance review meeting success series. Today, we’ll close out the Nine-Step Guide to Employee Performance Review Success by sharing steps 5 – 9. Let me remind you of the nine steps. They are 1) Job Description; 2) Duties you no longer perform; 3) Take …

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Employee Performance Review

Steps 1-4 of the Employee’s Nine-Step Guide to Performance Review Success

Nnamtique / By

Introduction: Hi everyone and welcome to the second installment of our performance review meeting success series. You remember that last week, we focused on the manager’s success. Well, this week, we’re focusing on the employee’s success. That’s right, starting with today’s post, we are sharing the first four our nine-step guide for employees’ performance review …

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Performance Evaluation

The Manager’s 7-Step Guide to Performance Evaluation Meeting Success

Nnamtique / By

INTRODUCTION: Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mom’s who are reading this. If you’re not a mom, wish your mom, or someone who has been like a mom to you, Happy Mother’s Day. So, today’s post is the first of a multi-part series geared at conducting and participating in successful performance evaluation meetings. We’re …

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