by Saiyyidah Zaidi-Stone (MC2011)

Its just over one month to the start of Ramadhan, the 9^th month in the Islamic calendar, where Muslims fast for about 30 days. This year Ramadhan is due to start on 20/21 July 2012 and will require fasting Muslims not to eat or drink anything from dawn to dusk. This can have an impact on individuals ranging from boosts of activity during irregular parts of the day through to irregular working patterns. The question is how can you accommodate your Muslim employees and not disrupt ‘business as usual’? This article introduces you to the Working Muslim Guide to Ramadhan and provides a brief summary for how you can support your Muslim employees at work, and respond to requests in a pragmatic way.

Fasting is the third pillar of Islam (the others being declaration of faith, prayer, charity and pilgrimage) and is an important tenet for Muslims. Fasting is not just limited to avoiding food and drink, perhaps the greatest practical benefit is the yearly lesson in self-restraint and discipline that can carry forward to other aspects of a Muslim’s life such as work and education. In addition, many Muslims see Ramadhan as an opportunity to ‘reset’ the system- to think about how they will change their diet, re-charge their spirituality, increase community activity and charitable donations.

Given the diverse nature of the practice of Islam, you will find some Muslims are very strict and protective of their fasting and others will not fast at all- my advice is do not generalise, but assist all your Muslim staff by supporting  their choice.

A typical day

The typical day of a fasting Muslim in the summer starts at about 2.30am when they wake for the shuoor (pre dawn meal). After this meal and morning prayers many Muslims will go back to bed at about 4am and then wake for the usual routine of getting to work;  others will continue to spend time in worship and then take a ‘powernap’ before leaving for work. The day is then a typical working day except without the coffee! Lunchtime might be spent going for a walk, praying or reading. The afternoon will consist of usual activities. After work people tend to go home and have a short nap and then get ready for the meal to break the fast, get ready to go and pray taraweeh in the mosque and then get home at about 11.30pm. Some will stay up til the pre dawn meal, others will take another few hours of sleep. If at all possible a short nap in the afternoon will help to regulate the body (recent neuroscience research shows that a 60-90 minute nap with REM sleep improves both physical and mental regulation for all humans)- appreciating that this is not always practical, but does have very positive impact on our productivity over a 24 hour period.

There are many special activities that take place in Ramadhan- with the daily taraweeh prayer being one. These prayers include long recitations from the Quran and this year they will start at about 10.30pm and finish around 1 hour later. They are not compulsory but are highly recommended and the majority of Muslims will partake in them usually at the mosque so they might not get home until late, then having to wake early in the morning for the meal before dusk means that the usual sleeping pattern is out the window. It is good for employers to be mindful of this when arranging early morning meetings or dealing with requests to work half days.

Productivity

Recently there has been a lot of research about the impact of fasting on performance- this is no surprise given the Olympics are just around the corner with the dates for Ramadhan overlapping the Olympics. I believe the majority of 3500 Muslim athletes will observe the fast; however a couple will fast after the Olympic having been given personal special exemptions. Some athletes will not participate at all, similar to the decision by Michael Edwards, a devout Christian, in the 1991 Olympics where he did not participate in a Sunday race.

Generally research shows fasting will have an impact on performance, however it depends on the individual and the results are conflicting. For athletes who have events in the morning their performance is unlikely to be affected as they will have had a meal a few hours earlier and the energy will still be in their systems, for those with events in the afternoon or evening it might be an issue. If we take this and relate it to the typical working day it pretty much matches performance for many people regardless of whether they are fasting or not- most people work better in the morning, then the mid afternoon slump hits in (especially if you have a large lunch!), and evening working can be unproductive. The point in all of this is that it is individual and really does depend on your physical and mental make up. Awareness is key, and knowing how fasting makes employees feel will enable you to manage levels of productivity so output is hardly affected. As a manager I suggest you look at service needs and see how you can support any requests for temporary changes in work patterns or leave.

What can I do?

Employers can let their workforce know that you are aware of Ramadhan- this itself is a huge help and takes away the stress for employees wondering how to raise requests for annual leave or a change in working pattern. Most importantly for you it removes late or unusual requests.

I suggest that you look at the Working Muslim Guide to Ramadhan for Employers and provide copies of the Employee guide to your Muslim employees so that they are able to plan ahead. Based on past experience, it is reasonable to allow a temporary change in working hours, subject to business continuity; consider requests for annual leave reasonably; and be mindful of breakfast or lunch meetings. Last year these guides were downloaded by over 3000 people in a single day! This year, the guides are available in English, French and Spanish. To get your own free copy of the guides go to www.workingmuslim.com. If you would like assistance with developing your own guide or a presentation on Ramadhan in the workplace please email info@workingmuslim.com

Saiyyidah Zaidi-Stone

Bringing together professional practice and academic research to create innovative, efficient solutions is Saiyyidah’s strength. Having spent over 15 years in local government she now works with the public and private sector negotiating PPP contracts, implement change and enable individuals and organisations to flourish.  To contact Saiyyidah please email saiyyidah@mcleanstone.com

by Stephen Newton (MC2003)

You Tube is the second most widely used search medium on the Internet after Google.  Placing short videos on You Tube allows you to be visible to potential coaching clients.  It also allows those clients to “get to know you” in advance of an initial meeting.  Many coaches feel that making videos for You Tube is simply “too difficult”.  This article outlines how to make such videos relatively easily.

Three factors largely determine the success of your You Tube video:

• Content
• Sound quality and
• Lighting

The content can of course be pre-prepared.  In terms of length it should be between three and five minutes.  Anything longer than that will tend to lose the attention of viewers who will tend to come to You Tube for short, sharp, relevant bites of information.  The content will need to be of immediate relevance to your chosen audience and it should allow you to make an interesting, memorable and perhaps controversial comment or offer an insight.  The aim is to provide information and at the same time give potential clients a sense of what it will feel like to be in a session with you.  A friend of mine describes this as “seriousness of purpose but levity of approach”.

Whilst you will need to have a clear idea of what you want to say, it is in my view a mistake to script it too heavily.  A conversational delivery style tends to be more authentic and allows you to be seen to “be yourself”.

Sound quality is improved hugely by using an external microphone with your video camera rather than the in-built mic.  This means that the camera will need to offer a microphone socket.  Look for a “lavaliere” or “tie-clip” microphone.  One that is wired – i.e. has a wire connecting it to the camera – is simpler to set up and will be cheaper to buy.  A perfectly satisfactory wired lavaliere mic can be bought on Amazon or from Maplin for around £20 or less.  However, the sound quality produced by mics from well-known firms such as Sennheiser will be better although the cost will be well in excess of £100.

There is no need for a complex, professional camera to capture video in this type of situation.  A Kodak PlayTouch costing around £90 on Amazon will do a perfectly adequate job.  It has an external mic socket and is able to capture video in HD format.  It also allows editing on camera and instant uploading to You Tube via an in-built USB connector that plugs straight into your computer.

You will need to mount the camera on a tripod in order to ensure wobble-free video.  Any basic camera tripod will work.

Effective lighting is reasonably easy to achieve.  If you sit with a window to one side of you, it will tend to throw the other side of your face into shadow.  It will be better to sit facing a window or beneath a Velux-type roof light.  Avoid direct sunlight as this casts shadows and tends to cause you to squint into the strong light.

If you want to use electric light, you can get good results with a pair of ordinary Anglepoise-type lamps, one positioned to each side of your table and pointing towards you at about a 45 degree angle.  Tape a sheet of paper in front of each lamp so that the light shines through it, acting as a diffuser.

Use “daylight” bulbs in the lamps.  This means that the colour of the light is akin to daylight rather than the “warm white” of an ordinary incandescent bulb.  Avoid ordinary fluorescent bulbs; they cast a green tint on your face.  However daylight fluorescent bulbs are fine.   If possible place a further light above you (known as a “hair light” in the film industry) which will create natural shadows on your face and avoid a two-dimensional look.

Rather than simply sitting in front of a blank wall, you can stretch a black sheet behind you.  Position two lamps on the floor or on a low table behind you, shining upwards onto the cloth in such a way that the beams form an “X”.  In one, use a red “reflector” type bulb and in the other a blue one.  This creates an interesting background that looks highly professional.  It avoids the need for complex editing techniques such as “green screen”.

This type of “studio” takes less than ten minutes to set up and allows you to produce very good results.  Rehearse your content once or twice so that you minimise the likelihood of fumbling but can remain conversational.  Set the camera going, sit down at the table and talk through the content in a conversational manner.  Stop the camera and edit out the sections at the start and finish that you don’t want, using the in-built software.  Connect the camera to your computer and upload the video to You Tube.

Since 2001, Stephen has worked as a coach and consultant focusing on the implementation of corporate strategy (or its adaptation so that it can be implemented).  His work often entails leadership and operational management development.  Stephen also has expertise in business development and marketing and has written two books on the subject.  Find out more at www.dloassociates.com.  

by Stephen Newton (MC 2003)

Following the Bootcamp on Tuesday it occurred to me that many in the MC community would like to know about some of the free or low cost software available to run their business.  During the Bootcamp, I made the point that whatever Office-type software you choose should be compatible with MS Office (because that is the default choice for most organisations that are likely to be clients…).  However, that does not necessarily mean that you need to use Microsoft stuff.

In order to obtain software free of charge or for low cost, you have two choices:

• Web Apps (where the software and in many cases your data live on a web server hosted by the supplier).  An example would be Google Docs.
• Open Source software, which is developed by a community of developers working pro-bono.  An example would have been Open Office (which essentially does what MS office does but free of charge).  However the backbone of Open Office has been taken over by Oracle and the development group has moved on to create Office Libre; essentially the same thing but truly open source.

There is also a lot of “freemium” software available where a basic version is supplied free of charge but in order to get additional features you must pay a fee.  An example is AVG anti-virus protection.

I have not used most of the following myself but they all come well-recommended.  In many cases you will need a modicum of technical knowledge to make the software work effectively.

 I am not a fan of Cloud-based systems because it is not clear to me either that the security is robust or what recourse you have if the provider were to lose your data.  I suspect you would spend a long time being transferred between call centre staff in a far-away land trying to resolve the issue.

If you are looking for low-cost hardware, and are happy to use stuff that is new but not necessarily a current model, take a look at IJT Direct.  There are a great source of low-cost inkjet and laser printer cartridges and have now branched out into laptops, desktops, screens, flash drives, SD cards etc.

By Liz Gooster (MC12), Meyler Campbell Special Advisor

What exactly is Twitter? According to Twitter’s own website, it’s ‘a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting’. But to the novice, this twittering, chirping, messy online community can seem overwhelming. The only way to really get a sense of what it’s all about is to plunge in, join the conversation and check it out for yourself. So if you do dip a digital toe into the twittersphere, here are my top 10 tips to getting the most out of Twitter.

1)      Think carefully about your Twitter name, or handle. You can use your real name, your company name, a tag that captures your brand or personality, a nickname, whatever you want. It depends on why you’re using Twitter: make sure your purpose is congruent with your username. So, if you’re a CEO looking to build your credentials as a thought leader, maybe @bigteddybear isn’t quite right for you. Plus, it’s already taken: your Twitter name has to be unique, which is why you’ll see things like @bigteddybear41.

2)      Work on your Twitter bio. You only have 160 characters for this, but it’s important because this is your shop window. It’s what people see first and will help them decide whether or not they want to follow you and hear what you have to say. As with your username, use your profile to convey the right image, whether personal or professional. Upload a photo or an image and add a link to your website if you have one.

3)      Find people you want to follow. You’ll see the tweets of everyone you follow in your Twitter feed. You can search for people by their real name, even if that’s not their Twitter username and the beauty of Twitter is you can follow anyone you want to, even if you don’t know each other and regardless of whether they follow you back. Search for keywords that reflect topics you’re interested in to find people tweeting on these subjects. Twitter will also make suggestions for new people for you to follow, based on who you’re already following.

4)      Look at the people who are following you. Check out their profiles and tweets before you follow them back to make sure you want to read their stuff and be associated with them.

5)      Start tweeting! And remember, you only have 140 characters, so keep it pithy! Think about why you’re tweeting and check before you tweet that your message is in tune with the image you want to build.

6)      Tell, spread and interact. Don’t just broadcast news about yourself – that’s the equivalent of being the bore at the party who constantly drones on about themselves and ignores everyone else. Aim for your tweets to be a mix of new content about you; retweets (RTs) of interesting tweets you’ve read and think other people might like to see; and responses or conversation-starting messages to other tweeters. Use hashtags if you’re tweeting about popular topics (eg #wimbledon) to make it easier for people to find your tweets.

7)      Don’t get too personal. Twitter is all about engaging with people, and it’s best to be authentic. But don’t share more than you’re comfortable with, and be mindful of your own boundaries about privacy – once a tweet’s out there, you can’t get it back (see also Tip 9). For private messages, use the direct messaging (DM) facility, which is the Twitter equivalent of an email.

8)      Manage your Twitter feed. As you follow more people, your Twitter feed will start to get very full. You can’t read every tweet, so test out ways of filtering to make sure you see tweets from the people and on the topics you really want to. Create lists of groups of people that reflect your interests (eg business contacts, celebrities, cookery experts). Try out social media dashboards such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Seesmic to help manage your feed.

9)      Never drink and tweet! Your tweets are there for ever, and anyone can see them, so drunk or sober, make sure that you’d be happy for your mum, your boss, your best friend and your worst enemy to see what you’ve written or linked to.

10)  Have fun. Twitter is a fast-paced, energetic, real-time way of communicating about anything you want, with anyone you want, anywhere in the world. So above all, just enjoy it!

Liz Gooster is an Executive Coach with The Alliance and Editor-at-Large for leading business publisher Kogan Page. You can read her blogs at www.lizgooster.com and http://goosterontheloose.wordpress.com/ and follow her on twitter at @bizclasscoach and @publishingcynic