Challenge:

In the business environment, everybody in a company or a corporate strive to get tasks

completed on expedited basis. This calls for experienced professionals that are familiar with their roles  and responsibilities to meet the increasing business demands in the workplace. This is the case in our  workplace as well. Sometimes, our office receives newly hired fresh graduates who have not been in  such a workplace of ours prior to their graduation. The new hires are expected to work with us and learn  the business we do during the same time we are striving to meet daily business targets.

The above scenario is always challenging as the new hires are shifting from college mindset to

career mindset, working to learn our company procedures and expectations, getting used to work to  meeting daily targets and deadlines. Moreover, we, professionals, need to train and mentor the newly  hired in addition to meeting our business responsibilities, as in recent and current occasion. This  becoming challenging, time consuming, and efforts demanding to perform our duties and train the  newly hired that will be future colleagues and leaders.

Selection:

When I am working with new hires and perform my regular duties, I chose to utilize storytelling.

I found this tool useful because I was one day in their situation and I can relate to being new to business  work environment. Also, it helped connect with them by sharing similarities to our starts as professional.  Telling them stories of my own experience on shifting from college to career, the difficulties I had  through, and how overcome them helped a lot in bonding with new hires and made them feel welcome  and heard. This significantly helps in working together and collaborating with one another.

Application:

One day, I was in the middle of doing my daily work tasks. I noticed that one of the new hired

employees was struggling with a team task that was due the day after. I sat with him and asked if he  needed help. He seemed to be stressed about meeting the mentioned deadline. This reminded me of a  similar situation that I was in a few weeks before and I decided to tell him my story of this situation. Me  and him went for a short break and got coffee. During this break, I told him my story of deadline for a  technical paper I was supposed to submit was approaching and I was already busy with all work  activities. When my paper deadline was approaching, I became more focused and more effective to  meet my paper deadline and my business needs. I told I was able to complete these deadlines because  us human work more effectively under certain amount of stress.

Insight:

I found the storytelling tool a very useful tool to communicate with people especially in the

work environment. Employees are used to data, instructions and facts and these information become  more comprehensible when formed in a story. I also found out the storytelling tools helped to connect

to employees both newly hired and professionals. It also gave me a broader outlook on how to tackle  situations of challenges and difficult times by sharing my stories during similar circumstances.

Approach:

I would utilize the same selected tool of storytelling because it helps to connect with people and

effectively exchange ideas and experiences. Therefore, storytelling support building healthy team inside  and outside the workplace. It is actually a tool I will be using in in business and in my personal life after  realizing how effective it can be.

