Are you a giver or a grabber?

Most people spend more time in the workplace than they do with their families, so making a good first impression when you start a new job is essential. If you don't, no matter how much of a team player you become later on, you may forever find yourself stuck with the faux pas you made during your first week.

When it comes to benefiting from the company's reward scheme, the first rule to remember is that it pays to be generous. Explains Chris Hartley, Business Development Director at Park Retail: "A lot of companies offer rewards based on both individual performance and reaching team targets. Those people who focus purely on their individual goals without ensuring that chasing their own rewards will also help the team may soon win themselves a reputation that they later find it hard to shake off.

"If your company does structure its reward scheme in this way, it's always advisable to find out exactly how the scheme works and talk to your colleagues about how you can contribute to make sure everyone in the team benefits."

In companies where rewards are given purely for individual performance, teams may already have adopted a reward sharing policy, pooling their vouchers at the end of each month or each quarter and sharing them out equally. Chris continues: "In the hospitality industry this kind of team spirit has been around for years, with waiters sharing out tips at the end of the night.

"The philosophy is that individual gains can sometimes be down to good fortune rather than good performance, and that it will all even out in the end. If your team operates this system and you are doing really well as an individual it might be hard to take at first. But remember, how ever good you are at your job, it's likely you'll have peaks and troughs in performance. By joining in the rewards share scheme not only will you earn yourself a reputation as a giver rather than a grabber, you'll also make sure you never have a month where everyone's winning apart from you."

Rewards are not the only benefit to which the giver / grabber profile applies. Staff motivational days or 'jollies' are another area where it's often easy to spot the giver / grabber divide.

"First there's the business of selecting the activity," continues Chris. "If the boss chooses for you, all well and good, but there's usually a degree of asking around and discussing the options before the final decision is made. While white water rafting might be your idea of an exciting day out, it might be a total nightmare for some of your colleagues. And if you push for the decision to go your way, they might never forgive you, even if they do survive the experience."

If you do find an activity you can all agree on, you still have to be careful that your grabber tendencies don't creep in. It can be very easy to hog the best go-kart all day ? but not so easy to live it down afterwards.

"It can be a difficult balance to strike," Chris adds. "No-one wants to be seen as a pushover, but a little bit of compromise can go a long way, and when you're dealing with people that you'll have to get along with day in, day out, perhaps for years to come, it's surely worth developing your generous streak."